Just back from a meeting of War Resisters Support Campaign, where Jeremy Hinzman was speaking. He comes across as quietly brave, and somewhat fazed by all the attention he’s getting. It didn’t stop him answering a couple of rather pointed questions very well, though.
Tag: toronto
Not like you could tell
Today’s World Carfree Day, but in Toronto and Burlington, you’d never know it.
The Bert Richard Connection
We were over at Cinders and Jules’s place last night. Jules said he used to hang out with Bert, a scary sculptor, while at Aberdeen art school.
Turns out that this Bert is the very same Bert Richard, Dalmallyfest impresario and sweary words enthusiast, who was a frequent visitor to 165 Nithsdale Rd back when we lived there with Neil Martin.
From Toronto to Dalmally; it’s a wee world.
Kennedy Road, from shore to shore
(yes, there was an enormous storm coming in …)
If you live in Scarborough, Kennedy Road is yet another line of stripmalls and furniture shops. But if you look at its route on a map, you’ll see that it runs from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe, through some beautiful countryside.
Since we don’t have a car, and I only recently got a licence, we haven’t been out of the city much. We need to drive somewhere west of Hamilton today, so for practice yesterday, I drove all of Kennedy Road.
Since I know quite how horrible the road is south of Steeles (the Toronto boundary), we kept on Birchmount until we hit the city limit, then headed north on Kennedy through Markham. Things remained fairly unimpressive until we got out of Markham, and passed through Whitchurch-Stouffville and up through the Oak Ridges Moraine. This bit’s beautiful.
Kennedy Road ends as an unpaved road at the edge of Lake Simcoe. Its northern section is so green that you can almost forget the horrors that run through Scarborough. We came back down Warden — another road with similar urban delights to Kennedy — and found it to be just as attractive.
The Cyborg’s Windmill
We spent the day helping wearable computing guru Steve Mann put a wind turbine on top of his Existential Technologies Research Lab (a.k.a. 330 Dundas St. West), smack-dab downtown in Toronto.
We installed a True North Power Lakota turbine. We had David Cooke and Doug of TNP guiding us, and the installation went without a hitch.
The picture above links to more pictures of the day’s activities. There are also Steve Mann’s Urbine pictures (and, if you really want bigger versions of my pictures, they are on scruss at eyetap).
Temporary hearing impairment for pleasure
(or, life without midrange)
The Apples in Stereo rocked The Horseshoe last night; Robert, Hilarie, John and Eric always give a great show, and they gave everything they had last night. It was especially cool, as Hilarie had just played a set as guitarist for her other band, High Water Marks.
Is it me, but on HWM’s song “Good I Feel Bad” do they really sing “She always keeps me open source”?
we’re going; are you?
Happy Earth Day
Even though you couldn’t tell by what was(n’t) going on in Toronto, Happy Earth Day, folks!
first groundhog
We saw the first groundhog of the year at Warden Station this morning.
Sustainable Energy Fair
I survived the University of Toronto First Sustainable Energy Fair. The weather was pretty grim, despite the cold and the rain. Maybe some of the solar cooking events didn’t happen, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of all involved.
There was a good crowd, and I talked myself hoarse on the WindShare stand. There were some interesting people there, including the irrepressible Tom Karmo, and UofT‘s own cyborg, Steve Mann. And yes, I am really responsible for getting Winton Dahlström into wind energy; mea maxima culpa.
I have pictures of the sustainable energy fair here.
Another Man’s Poison
There are a few bookshops that I cannot help but buy something when I go in. Another Man’s Poison, at 29 McCaul St (tel: 416 593 6451) is one. I didn’t need to buy another typography book, but they’re such nice people, they have very neat junk all over the place, and have books that no-one else would carry, I just kind of had to.
Goodbye, Cecilia
I really wish this weren’t true: Police confirmed Sunday that the human remains found in a wooded ravine west of Toronto are those of nine-year-old Cecilia Zhang, who went missing last October.
Anyone who has been in Toronto since last October can’t have missed the news about Cecilia’s abduction. And until today, I think everyone had a wee bit of hope left.
Sustainable Energy Fair at University of Toronto on April 1st!
I will be there, on a rather small WindShare stand. Here’s the full blurb:
Where you can you eat a free veggie burger, meet the student,
academic and industrial leaders of the sustainable energy
revolution, and win cool prizes for guessing your environmental
footprint?Only at U of T’s First Annual Sustainable Energy Fair, which is
happening on April 1st, from 10am to 4pm, just south of front
campus at the intersection of King’s College Circle and King’s
College Road!Companies representing every major sustainable energy related
industry – wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel, and hydrogen – as well
as representatives of community power co-ops, will have booths at
the fair. U of T research projects related to sustainable energy
will be on display, and student groups concerned with these issues
such as Engineers without Borders, the Energy Sustainability
Community, Science for Peace, the Blue Sky Solar Racing Team, and
the Hydrogen Fueling Station Design Team will host exhibits.In addition to this, there will be free food cooked on a solar
powered barbeque, informative contests, construction activities
(building mini-turbines and assembling a hydrogen fuel cell model
car), and prizes (CFL bulbs, low, flow showerheads, fair trade
coffee and chocolate).Come on out, join the fun and learn more about the future of
energy!For more information, please visit us at:
http://www.ele.utoronto.ca/gradunion/sefair/
Toronto, the MFP enquiry, and Linux
At a Green Economics meeting last night, we heard from councillors Paula Fletcher and Glenn De Baeremaeker about the Toronto Computer Leasing Inquiry. It seems that the city is stuck with approximately 14000 Windows-NT class machines that it can no longer use, as Microsoft will not support its operating system.
I need to find out more on the specs of these machines, but I think it would be fair to say that they would be functional for most office applications with Linux. This has only been hinted at by other writers, but at least it could provide working, virus-proof computers to city staff at very little extra expense.
This could be something that the Toronto Linux User Group could look at.
Toronto International Bicycle Show
Was at the Toronto International Bicycle Show yesterday at the Ricoh Coliseum. There was the usual tedious display of thousands of yet-more-suspended mountain bikes (zz!), but a few (mostly Canadian) things caught my eye:
- Giatex “stretching” bike, which looks pretty much like a folder until you realise the frame extends rather than folds. Surprisingly light, and remarkably cheap. I’d like to review this for a magazine at some point.
- Aerolite titanium bike frames. Very reasonably priced, and well finished. What caught my eye was a splittable tandem frame with S and S-like couplings.
- Go Bike folder. This bike is both lighter and more solid than any picture can do justice to. Richard Diver of City Bikes was on the stand, with the most recent Brompton.
- CCM Evox upgrades, at least since I reviewed it for Velo Vision:
- chain guide
- braze-ons for what looks like a 20″ rack
- Shimano Altus gearing, with less of a gap between the smallest sprocket and the frame.
I’d say these are very useful upgrades, and it looks like the price is the same, or possibly even less. No sign of a lighter frame, though.
- Rotor System crank set. Not Canadian, but another attempt to get past the perceived top-dead-centre problems of rotary cranks.
I was pleasantly surprised by the skill and grace of the flatland freestyle BMX riders. I spent most of the time being amazed at quite how they managed to keep balance on bits of bikes that aren’t usually balanced upon.
Stewart gets another chance to make a fool of himself in public
(click on the above for a larger image)
Yes, I’ll be speaking at UofT on 20th February.
bogla bogla bogla
Something odd has started to happen on the CN freight link behind our house. Trains have started stopping on it for up to a day at a time, right next to the level crossing.
They stop with their engine running, so we have to deal with fumes and noise. I know it’s cold and all, and it would be hard to restart a big engine, but do they really need to keep this thing going for 24 hours in a residential area?
If you’re wondering about the title, that’s the sound that trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles make in British political cartoonist Steve Bell’s strip, If.
dexit, or something
I just signed up for Dexit, a direct payment smartcard thing that’s just starting up in downtown Toronto. It looks useful, if only to cut down the huge amount of small change I have.
The ergonomics of the card could be better. It’s about the width of a quarter, but twice as thick, so doesn’t fit well into your credit-card wallet. I think it’s supposed to go on your keyring, but I don’t often carry one. We’ll see how it goes.
Snow
Yes, they use graders as snowploughs here. Then they have a JCB that follows behind to clear out driveways. You still have to clear out the wall o’ snow that’s left before it freezes, something I learnt the hard way last year.
WindShare has been grid-connected for a year!
Today last year, the WindShare wind turbine was grid-connected, and exported its first kWh. We broke the 1,000,000 kWh barrier late last year, with hopes of many millions to come!