Eric Vellend knows his chips. So if he says these are the best chips:
I believe him. Take this list with you for your next visit to the grocer. You’ll be glad you did.
The colorful can be found here, IKEA Nytillverkad Collection Delves Into the Archives in Colorful Fashion at the site Design Milk, while the cool can be found here: top ten minimal furniture design at Yanko.
If you want to jazz up your place, then that collection from IKEA will do it. On the other hand, if you yearn from simple pieces like this below, then head over to that link on Yanko.
Two very different sets of home furnishings, but both being well done.
Would you watch a youtube video that is 24 hours of a blank screen? Can you guess how many do? Would you guess over 40 million people? If that intrigues you, then I recommend you read this. It’s about the makers of extra long YouTube videos and it’s quite good.
3 thoughts:
There are generally four time frames used when business people are making predictions:
If you see a business person making such a prediction, this is what they mean:
For any business prediction, the time frame determines the probability. If they say in a year, they either are doing it themselves or someone they know is. If it is 1-2 years, it won’t happen this year, but someone is working on it. If they say 3-5 years, then it’s likely not in progress, but there is talk of working on it.
The only prediction that is useless is 5-10 years. If someone says 5-10 years, they are saying something like “I don’t want to say it will NEVER happen, but it is not even close to coming to fruition, so I will predict 5-10 because who is even going to come back and ask me about it in a decade from now?” 🙂
Something to bear in mind the next time you hear a business prediction.
Many times I find things I would like to write about but never do. I think people should check out these links though. So I am including them all in this Sunday post to read at your leisure.
Start with this one on mapping data visualisations from Victorian London to today. Or this, on the film Unforgiven and the line, “deserves got nothing to do with it”. I am fascinating by ex-Royals haunting Europe, like Ferdinand Habsburg, who occupies his time racecar driving, so I recommend that. I also loved the story of Jenny Nguyen and the sports bar she opened just for women’s sports, The Sports Bra.
This is good: how to help your kids find happiness.
Are these the best movies ever made? Possibly. Do I know why old man Robert de Niro is having a 7th kid? Nope.
I wanted to say something/something more about Ted Lasso, The_Blues_Brothers, bad artists, David_Shrigley, or ska, but I could not. I don’t even have anything clever to say about the Wakefield amazonian love god statue, other than you should check it out. (Seen above.)
I recommend you also check out this amazing Maine home, this Manual Coffeemaker (seen below) and this piece on the Amazon Halo Rise. Even this desk lamp, which is the visual motivation youll need to start your day. Or this cool utility shelf , or this Concept TV, or even these linen sheets.
If you need some advice, read about the move out method of organizing or read this for anxiety reduction. I do believe writing make you healthier. This can tell you how to retire when you have basically nothing saved. Consider this more radical and practical than stoicism (shugendo).
When it comes to health and fitness, here’s a good piece on Kipchoge’s boston marathon pace. It’s VERY Fast. This guy is not fast but he is a cheat: Joasia Zakrzewski at the ultramarathon. A different form of cheating: how one man ate cheat meals which helped him lose weight. I was going to write about the mediterranean diet and Kettlebell exercises and how kettlebell workouts burn 20 calories / minute, but didn’t. I didn’t know what to say about this article that was a grim reflection on a life of drinking. Nor did I know what to write on how depression rates are reaching new highs.
This is an interesting story about Carmelite nuns abandoning their nest in Brooklyn. A good piece on riding the New York subway in the 70s. Speaking of the craziness of the 70s, here’s a story on cocaine and cooking at Chez Panisse. All worthy of a post some day.
I once wanted to write about the red shoes of Pope Benedict XVI and their many hidden meanings but I passed. Related in a fashion sense, here’s something on GQ’s outfit of the week. And from a religious POV, I’ve always been fascinated by the story of France’s eminence grise. Not to mention forgotten masses like Childermas!
Here’s some LISS links I never could make anything of: What Makes Fascism Fascist? – by John Ganz, how Nazis are not socialists, and Why Paul Ehrlich got everything wrong. Then this is this piece on who will sell the books. Plus Horizontal History on Wait But Why this? A cautionary tale: The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession. Quasi-historical: on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Strangely historical: It’s not a darning tool it’s a very naughty toy – Roman dildo found.
Some clippings from out east where I come from: on the East Coast Kitchen. Here’s 2 things on the international student housing crisis in Cape Breton, including how medical residents moving to cape breton are struggling to find housing. The famous nscad university is moving to the Halifax seaport. Also worthy of fame, Kate Beaton’s affecting ducks dives into the lonely life of labour in Alberta’s oil sands. Lastly, Food truck diner experience helped relaunch Zellers brand.
I didn’t know what to do about Linda McCartney’s photos, or why art installations make people angry, or this piece on Vermont and the law and art and slavery, but they are all interesting. Go check them out.
For some time I was going to write a defence on consultants after reading this and this and this and this and this. Even this and this. Most of them insinuating that consultants are all powerful and manipulative and evil, like this: Opinion: The Trudeau government seems awfully cozy with McKinsey. In the end I didn’t have the energy or the interest.
I thought this piece, you can’t say that in the 1930s which relates to this, Agatha Christie novels reworked to remove potentially offensive language was worthwhile. Likewise, this, on Black Panther 2’s Namor casting and how it opens up a Latino colorism debate.
I found these social media leaks disturbing and a caution as to what to share and not share: alcohol counseling patient data leak and discord document leak tiktok.
Here’s two things on Samuel Alito, whom I find especially terrible: here and here. Also terrible, those doing child labor lobbying in the USA.
Last, I was going to write something on the bystander effect, on some blogging myths, on happy warriors, on Maiden Lane Transactions, on the CBC Massey lectures archives, on driving a Lyft, and on college and students and success. Someday, perhaps.
As always, thanks for reading this blog. I deeply appreciate it. I hope you found a link or two above worthwhile.
I knew, of course, that Sylvia Plath was a great writer. But she is also a strong visual artist. This substack post delves into her talent in that regard. (That’s her work, above.)
Not an artist, but their enemy: here’s the obit for the Gray Ghost, famous for painting over graffiti in New Orleans, including Banksy! A fascinating man. Also fascinating is museum met guard Greg Kwiatek and how working there for 25 years helped him make his own art. A third person who is fascinating is architect Yasmeen Lari.
Check out these Qualeasha Wood tapestries (above) at that link. They are amazing. I didn’t know of her work, but I am impressed.
Of course I know of the work of these two, David Hockney and Anselm Kiefer, both of whom have new work out.
I’ve been thinking a lot about libraries recently. This started when I read about The Empty Library, shown above. As Wikipedia explains:
The Empty Library (1995), also known as Bibliothek or simply Library, is a public memorial by Israeli sculptor Micha Ullman dedicated to the remembrance of the Nazi book burnings that took place in the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany on May 10, 1933. The memorial is set into the cobblestones of the plaza and contains a collection of empty subterranean bookcases.
Just one of the many evil acts by the Nazis repudiated by others.
One way to defeat those who would commit such evil acts is to read more. One way to read more is by doing what Austin Kleon is pushing us to do here and take on a summer reading assignment. Do what he says: go to the library, get a card, check out some books. Read anything and everything the library can provide. Read recklessly. Read at whim. Read however you prefer. Read for pleasure. Read knowing that you stand against those who would prevent it if they could.
Book banning is not just something that happened in the past in Germany. It’s happening now in America and elsewhere. Push back when and where you can. One book at the time.
P.S. The story of the artwork, The Empty Library, is fascinating. I highly recommend it.
How to rate Pablo-Matic? Badly, if you are New York Times critic Jason Farago. Ohoh. Meanwhile this piece in hyperallergic argues the show is not great but not terrible. Ok so so-so. Then there is this other piece in hyperallergic that urges you to go because they think the show is good. Hmmm….
I’ve read lots on the show, including how the museum feels (they dismiss the negative reviews). My two takeaways from all that I read are:
I wish more shows were controversial like this. Not controversial in a gimmicky way, but in a thoughtful way. It got me thinking about art and artists in a deeper way than I might have if I went to a non-controversial show.
Finally, I also admire the courage of the curators. It’s like night vs day when I think of other controversial shows like the recent Philip Guston exhibit. We need more courage from people in the world of visual arts. I am glad the folks at the Brooklyn Museum have that.
I am glad that Apple released a new device last week. It was a refreshing change from what most IT discussions are about recently. And what’s topic is most discussed? AI, of course.
And for good reason! There’s lots and lots happening in this space. New AI technology is coming out. New uses for AI are developed. It’s an exciting space. Like many, I am having a hard time keeping it with it all. But try and keep up I must. And as I do, I have found some interesting links for me (and you) to read:
Clive Thompson has a grim take on the boring apocalypse of today’s AI
Also grim is this story in WiReD about tessa, the eating disorder chatbot, and why it had to be suspended. Don’t leave your AI unattended!
Grimly funny: what happens when a lawyer misuses ChatGPT? Hijinx insue!
Not grim, but clever: A Vienna museum turned to AI and cats — yes AI and cats — to lure visitors.
Also in WiReD is this thoughtful piece on how non english languages are being left out of the AI revolution, at least for now. I see this changing really fast.
A good New York Times piece on how training chatbots on smaller language datasets could make them better.
Fascinating to see how much AI is listed in Zapier’s app tips here.
Also fascinating: Google didn’t talk about any of their old AI while discussing their new AI during their I/O 2023 event recently. I wonder why. I wonder if they’re missing an opportunity.
AI junk: Spotify has reportedly removed tens of thousands of ai generated songs. Also junk, in a way: AI interior design. Still more garbage AI uses, this time in the form of spam books written using ChatGPT.
This seems like an interesting technology: liquid neural networks.
What is falcon 40b? Only “the best open-source model currently available. Falcon-40B outperforms LLaMA, StableLM, RedPajama, MPT, etc. ” Worth a visit.
Here’s a how-to on using AI for photo editing. Also, here’s some advice on writing better ChatGPT prompts.
This is a good use of AI: accurately diagnosing tomato leaf diseases.
For those that care: deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton quit Google.
Meanwhile Sam Altman is urging the US congress to regulate AI. In the same time period, he threatens to withdraw from Europe if there is too much regulation, only to back down. It seems like he is playing people here. Writers like Naomi Klein are rightly critical. Related is this piece: Inside the fight to reclaim AI from Big Tech’s control | MIT Technology Review.
Here’s another breathless piece on the AI start up scence in San Francisco. Yawn. Here’s a piece on a new startup with a new AI called Character.ai that lets you talk to famous people. I guess….
Here’s some things my company is doing with AI: Watsonx. But also: IBM to pause hiring for back office jobs that ai could kill. Let’s see about that.
Finally, this story from BlogTO on how “Josh Shiaman, a senior feature producer at TSN, set out to create a Jays ad using text-to-video AI generation, admitting that the results “did not go well.”” Not go well is an understatement! It’s the stuff of nightmares! 🙂 Go here and see.
In some ways, maybe that video is a good metaphor for AI: starts off dreamy and then turns horrific.
Or maybe not.
How is the Apple Watch doing, you might wonder? Well according to this piece, pretty pretty pretty good. Check out these stats:
Pretty much on every measure it is a big success, especially on the annual sales side.
Looking at those numbers, you might find it hard to believe that when the Apple Watch first came out, it was…a dud. As the same piece shows:
(The) First Apple Watch, announced on September 9th, 2014, and released on April 24th, 2015, was initially a flop, with an 85.7% drop in sales from April 2015 to July 2015. The reason was that the Apple Watch Series 0 simply wasn’t good enough. It was neither fashionable nor performed well as a fitness watch. Apple, later on, shifted to focus on fitness features instead of simply making their watch look good. By the time Apple released Watch Series 3, people were already hooked.
Yep. I was hopeful for the Watch back then, but many people were dismissive. It was too complicated, too big, too expensive, etc.
I was reminded of all this as I was reading some “nervous nellie” reaction from Yanko Design and the New York Times about the Vision Pro. They hedge their bets (and they should), but the focus is on how it could fail.
And it could fail! Or more likely, it could be a dud. It could be like the Homepod or Apple TV. Remember TVOS? I thought people would jump on that and start developing apps for it. Well other than Apple, I don’t see too much happening with that device. Both those devices are…fine, but not game changers.
That said, I think the Apple Vision devices will be game changers. I suspect Apple will play the long game, just like they did with the Apple Watch. Watch this blog as we track it’s progress. 🙂
P.S. More on the Apple Watch written by me, here. More on the history of the Apple Watch from others here and here.
While people talked a lot about the hardware of Apple’s new Vision Pro device launched last week, I’ve thought a lot about Apple’s emphasis on spatial computing. What’s that all about, you might ask? I am going to turn to this piece at Yanko Design to explain:
“Vision Pro is a new kind of Computer,” says Tim Cook as he reveals the mixed reality headset for the very first time. “It’s the first Apple product you look through, and not at,” he adds, marking Apple’s shift to Spatial Computing. What’s Spatial Computing, you ask? Well, the desktop was touted as the world’s first Personal Computer, or PC as we so ubiquitously call it today. The laptop shrank the desktop to a portable format, and the phone shrank it further… all the way down to the watch, that put your personal computer on your wrist. Spatial Computing marks Apple’s first shift away from Personal Computing, in the sense that you’re now no longer limited by a display – big or small. “Instead, your surroundings become a canvas,” Tim summarizes, as he hands the stage to VP of Design, Alan Dye. Spatial Computing marks a new era of computing where the four corners of a traditional display don’t pose any constraints to your working environment. Instead, your real environment becomes your working environment, and just like you’ve got folders, windows, and widgets on a screen, the Vision Pro lets you create folders, windows, and widgets in your 3D space. Dye explains that in Spatial Computing, you don’t have to minimize a window to open a new one. Just simply drag one window to the side and open another one. Apple’s VisionOS turns your room and your visual periphery into an OS, letting you create multiple screens/windows wherever you want, move them around, and resize them. Think Minority Report or Tony Stark’s holographic computer… but with a better, classier interface.
Spatial computing is something bigger than the new hardware from Apple. It’s talking about changing the way we do computing.
You see, since the 1980s we’ve been stuck with the WIMP paradigm in computing: windows, icon, menus, pointer. We have it for so long we don’t even think about it anymore. Even when we went from desktop computing to smartphones and tablets, we more or less kept this paradigm.
With spatial computing, we can think out of the box. Get away from the desktop. You are no longer looking AT a computer: you are IN a computer.
Apple is still kinda stuck with the WIMP in some of the demos they have for Vision Pro. I get that: it’s going to take some time for all of us to make the shift. Even Apple. But the shift will come.
The shift may not even come primarily from Apple the software company. I believe one of the reasons Apple launched the device the way it did — limited and at WWCD — is to get developers excited about it. Already some big name software companies have signed on. And if I read this piece correctly, then there could be a rush of developers from everywhere to come out with software for the device. Perhaps much of that could be non-WIMP software.
Much of this will depend on Vision OS and what it is capable of supporting. But from everything I read, it sound like it provides spatial computing flawlessly with the Vision Pro.
And perhaps spatial computing is not just for the Vision Pro. Currently Apple allows you to do handoffs from one device to another. I could see that happening with the Vision Pro, your Mac, and your phone. You might be working on something on your Mac that you want to take a break from, so you put on your Vision Pro to play a game. Then you get an idea, so you work on it in the Vision Pro, rather than taking off your goggles. Likewise, you may need to take a break from the Vision Pro, so you do a handoff to your Mac or your Apple TV to watch the rest of a movie from that device.
I can also see bits of VisionOS creeping into MacOS and iOS and even WatchOS. If VisionOS breaks the WIMP paradigm virtually, perhaps it could do the same thing physically. All of Apple’s devices could be spatial computing devices.
Spatial computing promises to be a new big thing in computing. I’m excited for this. I hope Apple and others can bring it to fruition. (Pun intended.)
P.S. For more on how impressive the Vision Pro is, I recommend this: Every Single Sensor inside the Apple Vision Pro and What It’s Individually Designed To Do – Yanko Design
Beige has a bad reputation. That’s why you get advice like this: 9 Non-Boring Ways to Wear Beige Now. If you think poorly of beige too, then I’m here to convince you it is a great, non-boring color.
Let me backup a bit by dealing with the question: what even IS beige? According to Wikipedia, “Beige is variously described as a pale sandy fawn color, a grayish tan, a light-grayish yellowish brown, or a pale to grayish yellow.” Geez, when you put it that way, no wonder people think poorly of it. But also: “It takes its name from French, where the word originally meant natural wool that has been neither bleached or dyed, hence also the color of natural wool. It has come to be used to describe a variety of light tints chosen for their neutral or pale warm appearance.” That’s better. But still, you can see why people think lowly of it.
To use it and get around it’s bad rep, stylists will use synonyms for it. Instead of saying something is Beige, they’ll use: Cream, Buff, Sand, Ecru, even Khaki. Khaki pants or a ecru colored dress sounds better than a beige dress or beige slacks.
Part of the beige’s problem also is due to the overuse of it. It seemed there was a lot of it in the 80s especially, from Armani clothing to office space. That was partially a reaction to the explosion of color that came from the 70s. People moved away from it and were reluctant to return to it.
I would ask you to consider returning to it, at least in terms of clothing. Beige is something you should wear more often, especially with the warmer weather coming. To look sharp in beige — i.e. not be boring — use it as your main color but add some contrast, the way the man in the photo above does. The light blue shirt and dark red tie go wonderfully with beige.
Give it a go this summer. You won’t be sorry.
(Image from: Where To Shop For a Suit — Die, Workwear!)
If you want to study that poem and think about poetry in general, I recommend you check this out. It really breaks down the poem, almost like you’re getting a lecture on it.
I recommend that whole site. There’s lot of study guides on things you may have studied in high school, or may not have. It’s never too late to read Yeats, or Shakespeare, or Eliot. If anything, it is better to study it later in life.
Last year I wrote a post: Beef and chicken and pork, oh my. (My cooking interests for December to May, 2022). And now I am back with another post featuring that trio of meats. Hence the funny post title. Unlike that post, this should be briefer, but just as good.
Beef: I made this recently and loved it: mississippi pot roast. I’d love to make this: corned beef and cabbage. Some day. I am due to make this: braciole (update: made it!) And this: crock pot short ribs with potatoes. I could make this, but I’d rather go to England and have someone else do it: Classic London Broil with Rosemary and Thyme.
Some other things I want to try is this nice slow cooker recipe for cuban skirt steak. I want to get some rice and put this over it: mongolian beef.
Of all the beef we eat at my place, most of it comes in the form of steak. If you love steak too, why not try a balsamic marinated steak? Or a classic steak au poivre ? We know skirt steak is good. And steak cooked in cast iron is great. Speaking of advice, here’s some steak advice for you: Reverse Sear Steak .
Meatloaf fans, I have not forgotten you: meatloaf wellington. For sundried tomato fans, of which I am: Chatelaine Bistro beef with sun dried tomatoes
And here’s two more beefy meals: beef and tomato rice bowl and beef and broccoli.
Chicken: I’ve made this chicken in vinegar from Laura Calder a number of times and its always come out delicious. Likewise Martha’s braised chicken potatoes olives and lemon.
Speaking of Martha, I highly recommend this to anyone looking to cut up a whole chicken over at her Martha Stewart web site. Relatedly: How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken. Unleash your inner butcher. As for other advice, here’s: The Best Way to Cook Chicken Thighs.
I was going through websites pulling out good poultry recipes lately. Here’s a bunch I found at Saveur Tavuk Kebabi (Mint & Aleppo Pepper Marinated Chicken Kebab, their Best Chicken Cacciatore Recipe, and the classic chicken cordon bleu. Saveur also had the recipe for Raos famous lemon chicken, and great duck leg and andouille sausage gumbo recipe, and a hearty vegetable stew duck confit cabbage recipe. And while not Saveur, if you love duck, I recommend this: pan seared duck breast.
Of course the New York Times has lots of great chicken recipes. Here’s their chile butter chicken with vinegared potatoes recipe. Something I want to try really soon: skillet chicken with mushrooms and caramelized onions. Something basic but good: chicken and potatoes. Something fancy and good: roast tarragon cognac chicken. And well, here’s a whole list of one pot chicken dinners.
I would be remiss without including these gems from Food and Wine. Here’s a classic: Chicken Diane. For people who have time: lazy-chicken-and-sausage-cassoulet. For rosemary lovers (me): Rosemary-Roasted Chicken with Artichokes and Potatoes Recipe. For marjoram lovers (also me): Wine-Baked Chicken Legs with Marjoram Recipe – Marcia Kiesel. And finally this is for fans of chicken legs (an underrated cut).
Slow cooker chicken is always great. If you agree, make this: slow cooker rotisserie dinner. I do…often. Pair it with some Swiss Chalet dipping sauce. If you want something a bit spicer, go with slow cooker harissa chicken. Also spicy, but not in a slow cooker: Buffalo Chicken Calzones.
Let’s close off with some oldies but goodies: chicken milanese. Another classic is zuni roast chicken. Or this: Chicken Breasts with White Wine Pan Sauce. Finally, from Cup of Jo, this: chicken and white beans.
Pork: I love the other white meat. And so do the dairy farmers of Canada. Over on their web site they have a TON of pork recipes. You can find out how to make braised pork chops cabbage and dried apricots and chorizo two berry compote stuffed pork tenderloin parsley cream sauce and pork chop green bell pepper and tomato sauce, too. For fans of pork and fruit, there’s this pork tenderloin feta dried fruit dish and this pork tenderloin medallions mango curry cream. Mint lovers, try prosciutto and mint pork tenderloin wraps. If you want it spicy, make this spicy pork tenderloin in a coffee cream sauce. Or this tuscan herb and tomato pork tenderloin.
They certainly have a lot of pork tenderloin recipes. It’s a great cut, but easy to overcook. You want to read this: How to how to cook pork tenderloin in oven 3 marinades.
Martha also loves pork. So on her site you can learn how to make pork pears and parsnip mash plus a pork and soba noodle salad and chili lime pork corn salad. You can also start making your own homemade sausage patties.
Food and Wine is another site that likes tenderloin: Pesto Pork Tenderloin Recipe and stuffed pork tenderloins bacon and apple riesling sauce. It also has something fancy: Pork Chop au Poivre with Red Wine Shallot Sauce. And some oldies but goodies, like this Pork Schnitzel with Warm Potato Salad Recipe from Wolfgang Puck, or this Italian Sausage with Onions and Peppers, or even this: blackened skillet pork chops beans and spinach. Finally, here’s all their pork chop recipes in one place.
Fans of spicy (and Alison Roman) will want to make harissa rubbed pork with white beans. Fans of non spicy, try this Pork bulgogi.
Pork chop fans, try these Orange Molasses Pork Chops from Budget Bytes. Or these boursin pork chops (trust me it’s good). Here’s how to make breaded fried pork chops.
For fans of pork stew, Saveur has a wonderfully looking spanish pork rib stew. It’s an acquired taste, but here’s the recipe for Jacques Pepin’s pork neck stew.
Last but not least, here’s a guide to making a baked ham with brown sugar glaze here. Love that. Here’s how to make slow cooker Carolina pulled pork sliders.
Ribs! They can be pork, they can be beef, they are always delicious. I’ve blogged about ribs before (those, from Mark Bittman, are great). I want to try these soon: Grilled Korean Style Short Ribs.
I make these often: slow cooker cheater barbecue ribs. For fans of tasty,com: Slow Cooker Ribs.
Not a recipe, but rib related: The McRib is back but possibly for the last time McDonald’s hints.
Thanks for reading. Happy cooking!
(Top image: New York Times; Middle image: Cup of Jo)
Looks like Elmo (Elon Musk) and team have finally gotten around to making big changes to the twitter API, which you can read about here.
There is a free tier if you just want to tweet. But if you want to do what I do, which is read tweets via the API, the price starts at $100/month. Yeah, no to that.
I’ve been using the Twitter API for years. At first you could programmatically interface with Twitter simply using the cURL command. That was easy to use and likely easy to abuse. Eventually Twitter did a proper set of APIs and I’ve written several programs over the years — first using Perl and then using Python — to post tweets and to read them.
My last project was tracking a group of users to see if Twitter usage was declining and twitter was dying. As of sometime in May, I did not see any decline in use. But who knows going forward. I am not going to pay $100 a month to find out.
It’s too bad: the new API code looks good and the tech people at twitter — not Elmo — have done a good job with the documentation, sample code at github, etc. Perhaps they will surprise me and they will get lots of people to use it and throw money at them. Or maybe it will be as unsuccessful as the Twitter blue checkmark program.
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Other than rich people, who doesn’t need advice on how to better run your kitchen? Right? So here’s a piece containing some really good tips for those of you that have a small kitchen. Or a big kitchen! Regardless of the size of your kitchen, it’s worth applying them.
Once your have your kitchen organized, read this ingenious piece on 7 Ways to Use Grease Pencils in the Kitchen that will keep that room running optimally. Smart!
The map above looks much better if you go to the site that has it fullscale: night train map.
I love the design of the map. I love the idea of taking night trains around Europe. I even love that you can get a poster of it. I love it.
Go check it out.
I’ve so many good pieces on IT, I’ve got to break them down into subcategories. Last month I’ve shared things on cloud tech. This month the focus is on mainframes and CI/CD (things I’ve been working on over the last year or more).
Mainframes: I’ve been doing work on mainframe modernization, which has me focusing on tools around that, among other things.
z/D&T is one of those tools. Here’s a good overview of it. Here’s a piece on deploying IBM mainframe z/OS application on AWS with IBM z/D&T. This is a good IBM zDT Guide and Reference. More on zD&T there. I like it.
DBB is another tool in use. Here’s an intro. Here’s something on using it to migrate data sets.
Not all these tools are IBM related. Endevor is another tool to study. Here’s something on how Endevor software ‘s change manager bridges enterprise git. Here’s something on mapping strategies using endevor bridge for git. How to create a package in Endevor and how to review and approve a package in Endevor review approve package. Also something on on Endevor pricing and setup.
Linux is kinda a tool (I guess?) on mainframes. This is a good explainer on Linux on IBM Z. More on IBM z linux here.
Finally, here’s a good article on mainframe modernization patterns. More on mainframe application modernization beyond banking from IBM. Still more on mainframe modernation. Also: using collaboration not migration to modernize your mainframe applications with the cloud.
CI/CD: I’ve also been focusing on work around CI/CD. So there’s been lots of work using Jenkins. Here’s a piece on how to create a ci/cd pipeline with kubernetes and jenkins. Also a tutorial for installing jenkins on IBM Cloud. Check out this tutorial on setting up a ci/cd pipeline with jenkins to deploy multi arch image on ocp on linuxone and x86. That was especially good. Here’s something on blue/green deployment with docker github and jenkins.
Here’s a side by side of github actions vs jenkins which should you consider. This helps if you want to know if you should use a jenkinsfile or not. Check out this good jenkins ci/cd review. More on Configuring a jenkins agent on openshift. Here’s how to add z/OS to your jenkins build farm. This was a good jenkins groovy tutorial.
Related to the Jenkins work is work around IBM’s Urbancode Deploy (UCD). Here’s A tutorial on ibm urbancode deploy. Another tutorial on how to build a pipeline with jenkins dependency based build on UCD. Something on how to integrate UCD with jenkins for continuous integration is here.
Lastly, here’s some things to consider re installing UCD. More on how integrate UCD and jenkins for ci/cd. Here’s what’s needed in terms of system requirements for UCD.
Finally, here’s some more on continuous testing in devops. More on ci/cd pipelines. And last, another mainframe tool for CI/CD: Workflow.
I loved the series, Ted Lasso, and I was sad to see it end. The last season, it’s third, was a bit of a head scratcher though.
The first season was the one people really loved. But I felt that Jason Sudeikis wanted to make the Ted character more than the 3D Ned Flanders we saw in that season. That explained what happened with Ted in season 2 and to some degree in season 3. However I think people became frustrated with that: they wanted the Ted of season 1, even though the character became less of that as time went on.
Indeed in season 3 I just saw Ted fade away. He was barely in the last of the show. All the other character become the focal point and many of them had their own series within the series.
Of course this made sense in the end. Ted Lasso the series became like Ted Lasso the character. Just like the character, who believed the coach took a backseat to the players and the fans, the show became more about the other actors and less about Ted.
Will there be a season 4? I’m not sure. Like the character, Sudeikis doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. Maybe there could be a new season about the football club AFC Richmond. They certainly set it up that way. Let’s see.
For more on Ted Lasso, here’s a good write up in the Atlantic.
Here’s an absolutely cranky write up in The Guardian about how Ted Lasso, the nice comedy, became utterly dreadful television. As Ted might say, “Ouch”.
“Succession” also ended its series. So many people loved it and I can see why: it sounds really well done. As for me, I can’t watch shows featuring despicable characters. Succession was filled with them. Here two pieces, one in the Washington Post and one in the New York Times that align with my view of the show. But hey, to each their own.
Besides Ted Lasso, the other show the ended this month was “Somebody, Somewhere”. Unlike Ted, it has been renewed for a third season. Yay! Here is a piece on how it is the warmest comedy on TV. More praise for the show from the New Yorker. I can’t wait to see what the show does next.
I love me some Yanko Design. But I have looked at these five different chairs for unwinding after a long day at work and I have to say, I dunno. I mean, these chairs are cool:
But I would have to sit in them before deciding it was comfy.
As for this:
Well, it looks great. But comfy? I can’t imagine.
Let’s check out Design Milk and this easy chair that can turn into a bed or a sofa:
Yep, it looks more comfy. Good colors too.
I am not sure what caused this, but for whatever reason bartenders have decided to go nuts on one of the best drinks of all time: the negroni. I am fine with a boulevardier if you must mess about somewhat. But now we have Saveur and others with the negroni sbagliato (broken negroni). Not content with that, we now have negroni sbagliato sangria! I mean, no.
Joking aside, a sbagliato is a fine drink (I can’t speak for the sangria version). But I suspect both cocktails are better suited for warmer weather.
You know what else is good in all kinds of weather? That’s right: a negroni. 🙂
Ok, robots aren’t as good as dogs — even if they sometimes resemble them — but here are some good ones I’d like to highlight.
First up: almost everyone likes trash robot who helps with the trash. And pretty much everyone likes a good robot vacuum. There’s even a piece on which is the best robot vacuum. And robots aren’t just good due to cleaning. In Italy robots are helping take care of older people. Likewise, this spherical robot is your smart home guard and your family companion. Robots can do alot. Elsewhere around the home we have robots installing roof shingles and we even have robotic furniture.
Cars now are kinda robots, what with all the AI built into them. But take note: future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments. Yikes!
What else are robots up to? Well, we’ve got artistic robots. Like this robot band. And these robot dogs that were among 100 artists to be unleashed on melbourne for 2023 ngv triennial. Ok sure fine.
Of course, not all robots are harmless. Here’s a story on how war in ukraine becomes latest chapter in the rise of the killer robots.
Happy end of May! We are in the back stretch of Spring and heading towards Summer. Sunshine and nice weather and flowers are everywhere. I used to say that June is the best month in Toronto — and it is — but May is a close contender with September as being the second best month. If you are coming to Toronto, any of those months are good ones for a visit.
It’s interesting to look back on last May’s not a newsletter / ramblings and see what’s the same and what’s new. A year ago Canadian Mattea Roach was piling up the wins on Jeopardy. This year she is back and came so close to winning it all in Jeopardy’s Masters Tournament. Congrats to her!
Also last year, then Prince Charles opened Parliament on behalf of the Queen. Now with the passing of the Queen, he is Prince Charles no more. This month kicked off with his Coronation. Needless to say, there was some Royal family drama. And not everyone was keen on it. But overall it went without a hitch. The rich and famous and other royals were all in attendance. Naturally there was lots of coverage in places like the New York Times and the Guardian.
All and all, pretty posh. All that poshness had some journalists writing pieces on the worth of King Charles III, here and here. For all the talk about a slimmed down Monarchy, it seems like the King has money to spare.
The pandemic is going out with a whimper, rather than a bang. The WHO ended its designation of COVID as an emergency. Even Nova Scotia, that has been more vigilant than most, has ended weekly reporting. As for Ontario, I am still monitoring the weekly stats from the province, but the number of people in the hospital due to the disease is steadily decreasing. It’s both good and weird.
COVID-19 is still a threat. People are still dying of it and getting sick. People are suffering from long COVID. And people are still wearing masks somewhat. (Note: yes, this is a good thing, because, duh, updated evidence suggests that masks may be associated with a reduction in risk for SARS CoV 2 infection. Also water is wet.)
If you still want to keep on top of the disease, the New York Times and the Toronto Star are still tracking things. And me! I post numbers weekly on twitter, for now.
This week I wrote about remote work, which has been a big thing that resulted from the pandemic, as we all now. As a result of this shift from offices to homes, there are now so many pieces fretting about “what is going to happen to all that commercial real estate?”, no doubt generated by people with an interest in said real estate. It’s funny, no one seemed too concerned about mall real estate when it was crashing. I suspect people with office buildings should look to that as to their future. And that future is not all that bad. Case in point, here’s a story of how this toronto mall is transforming a former sears into an east asian food destination.
Commercial real estate is not the only thing that took a hit because of the pandemic. So did companies banking on people staying at home. Shopify is one such company.
But you know who did benefit from this shift? Workers. As this piece shows, working from home gave canadians a big pay raise. If anything, that has helped most people deal with inflation, which is like a bad house guest who just can’t take the hint and go away.
One thing that has changed for the worse these days is social media. Elon Musk continues to generate case study after case study on how NOT to run a media company. So we have his less than brilliant idea on how to monitize twitter blue checkmarks. His failure in making twitter a place of free speech (elon musk tech bosses are letting dictators censor what americans see). And, well honestly it’s just tiring to relate what a colossal failure he’s been. If you are still interested, here’s a good run down.
Now Musk has cratored Twitter. But other social media is doing poorly too. It seems like Meta is doing massive layoffs every month now (see here and meta here). Remember Clubhouse? Probably don’t. Which is why they are also doing massive layoffs. Substack? Not great. People are already Over Being Real. As for Mastodon, I suspect people are still trying to determine how make mastodon account and join fediverse.
What about BlueSky, you plead. I mean sure, I guess, if you want to do “skeets” or whatever they are called. If you must know more, you can read this or this. Remember, it’s run by Jack Dorsey, so that may be all you need to know.
I was chatting with someone on Twitter about this and I thought that maybe the “golden age” of social media is over. Clearly the IT crowd and the VCs have moved on to making AI companies. Remember, Twitter itself was always a niche: it has less users than Pinterest for gawd sake! 🙂 Young people today are too busy making TikToks to care about some old fashioned global texting service. Friendster and MySpace all withered away: perhaps Twitter and Facebook will do the same. Might be for the best.
As for me I will still be here at my blog, blogging away, recording the times and my thoughts on it. No matter how many or how few read it. Because this has become my mantra:
I recommend you consider doing the same. Plant that garden, paint that painting, knit that scarf. None of it really matters, and yet it can matter a great deal.
For those of you still reading, thank you! I appreciate you doing so. Now go outside and enjoy those lilacs that come every spring.
Sometimes you can get so hung up about making art you don’t make anything at all. This could be due to several reasons. For example, if you are worried about your style, read this. If you are frozen because you wonder if you are you good enough to be an artist, go here. You can also read this: how to boldly pursue your artistic calling even if youre riddled with self doubt. If you wonder if your art is good enough to sell, click this. For an example, see how this artist sells art on etsy.
If you think you are no good, get over yourself and read: 7 sins of beginner artists what keeps you from being good and 21 days to be a better artist. If you think you have no skill, head over to this: create art without skill and this: you can draw and probably better than i can. If you think you need to go to art school, read: don’t go to art school. If you think you are too old: why it’s never too late to become an artist. If you need some prompts, go here: Some good prompts from Inktober.
If nothing else, make yourself a zine. Here’s advice on making a zine, on how to fold a zine, and how to make a one page zine. Here’s some zine advice and more zine goodness is there.
Remote work that started in the pandemic continues to have an effect on the overall economy of cities. Toronto is no exception. This piece argues that workers are never going back to the office full time and Toronto will never be same. Relatedly, here’s a piece on how hybrid work is affecting downtown Toronto businesses based around downtown workers.
It’s not just cities that are affected. Here’s how this is going to affect Canada’s major banks. And here’s more on how remote work affects commercial real estate.
Elon Musk has thoughts on remote work. But honestly, who really cares what he thinks any more?
Don’t forget: companies like remote work when it suits them. For example, if they want to layoff tons of employees, like Mcdonald’s, then they think remote work is just fine.
Some companies will argue workers need to go to work to be more productive, although this piece in VOX argues that no one had a good handle on what being productive means to begin with. I’d add that good management is more than looking around and seeing who is in the office. It requires taking the time to know your employees and making sure they are doing work that benefits them and the company.
If you don’t do that, you could get unproductive workers. Case in point, here’s a study on tech workers who say they were hired to do nothing. Here’s a similar story on bullshit jobs where no work is done. And this isn’t new thing due to remote work: it’s a story as old as work itself.
We need to rethink work in light of the pandemic. Some are calling for work weeks with three day weekends. If you want productive employees, remote or not, that could be one way to get them.
Well, like everything, it depends. But to get a sense of what they do make financially, you could read Kara Goucher’s recent book, “The Longest Race”. Or you could read this piece in Runner’s World that gives a excerpt of that part of her book. She writes about everything she made, from salaries to appearance fees to other bonuses. It’s nowhere near what professional athletes in football or basketball make, but it’s still substantial.
It was weird seeing “Air” just after seeing “Blackberry”. In some ways, they have much in common. Ultimately, they are very different.
In terms of commonality, they are both business stories set in the end of the 20th century about two two revolutionary products made by a bunch of white guys. They are both films that have likely have a hard time getting made in this era of superhero movies and blockbusters. (“Blackberry” benefits from being associated with the CBC, just like “Air” had a better change being on Amazon Prime.) As much as anything, they are nostalgic films, at least for viewers like me.
Despite those common traits, they are fundamentally very different films. “Air” is very American: the main characters take risks, but nothing is insurmountable and they succeed. “Blackberry” is more Canadian: the main characters take more and more risks until they’re struck down by their limitations. “Air” is a safe middle of road film: “Blackberry” has more of an edge. In “Blackberry”, the main characters undergo a dramatic arc: in “Air”, the characters are hardly changed at the end of the film.
I liked “Air” for lots of reasons and I’d recommend it to people. But I loved “Blackberry”. “Blackberry” I could easily watch again: “Air”…once was enough.
P.S. Here’s a good piece in Time on Ben Affleck, the director and star of “Air”. Worth reading.
I loved this film, just like I use to love my Blackberrys. If you loved yours, or the era of the Blackberry, or just want to see a great film, I recommend you see “Blackberry”.
There’s a number of ways you can watch this film. You can watch it just as a story of that weird era from the 90s until the early 2000s. Or as a story about the tech industry in general. Or a story about Canada. It’s all those stories, and more.
To see what I mean, here’s a piece in the CBC with a Canadian angle: New film BlackBerry to explore rise and fall of Canadian smartphone. While this one talks about the tech industry as well as the cultural elements of it: ‘BlackBerry’ Is a Movie That Portrays Tech Dreams Honestly—Finally | WIRED
But besides all that, it’s a great character study of the three main characters: Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel ), Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) and Doug Fregin (Matt Johnson). The arc of Lazaridis in the movie was especially good, as he moves from the influence of Fregin to Balsillie in his quest to make a great device. It’s perhaps appropriate that Balsillie has devil horns in the poster above, because he does tempt Lazaridis with the idea of greatness. And Lazaridis slowly succumbs and physically transforms in the film from a Geek to a Suit.
That’s not to say Balsillie is a caricature. Under all his rage and manipulation, you can see a human also struggling with ambition and is who is aware of the great risks he is taking. His arc might not be as dramatic as Lazaridis in the movie, but it is a rise and fall of significance.
As for Fregin, his character is important but he doesn’t change the way Lazaridis and Balsillie do. But if Balsillie is the devil on the shoulder of Lazaridis, then Fregin is the angel. He provides a reminder throughout the film of what Lazaridis lost in his transformation. (And the description of his life at the end of the film is *chef’s kiss* good.)
The film is a dramatization, but it gets so much right. Lazaridis and Balsillie were crushed in the end, just like in the film. Balsillie lost his dream of NHL ownership, and Lazaridis lost his claim of making the best smartphone in the world. There’s a part of the film when Balsillie asks: I thought you said these were the best engineers in the world?? and Lazaridis replies: I said they were the best engineers in Canada. That part is a transition in the film, but also sums up the film and the device in many ways. Their ambition and hubris allowed them to soar, but eventually they met their own nemeses whether they came in the form of Apple or the NHL Board of Directors or the SEC.
As an aside to all that, it’s fascinating to see the depiction of Blackberry defeating Palm/US Robotics. In the early 90s Palm and US Robotics (who later merged) were dominant tech players. Blackberry surpassed them and left them in the dust. Just like Apple left RIM/Blackberry in the dust when they launched the iPhone. (Google also contributed to that with Android.)
Speaking of Apple, it was interesting to see how backdating stock options helped sink Balsillie. He was not alone in such financial maneuvering. Apple and Jobs also got into trouble for backdating options. I assume this practice might have been more common and less black and white than it comes across in the film.
In the film, there is a certain prejudice Lazaridis has about cheap devices, especially those from China. It’s just that, though: a prejudice. That prejudice was once held against Japan and Korea too, because those countries made cheap devices for Western markets at first. But Japan and Korea went on to produce high end technology and China has too. The Blackberry Storm from China might have been substandard, but Apple has done quite fine sourcing their products from that country. Something to keep in mind.
I suspect I will watch the film many times in my lifetime. Heck, a good part of my life IS in the film as someone involved with the tech industry at the time. That business is my business. That culture is my culture. That country is my country.
None of that has to apply to you, though. If you want to watch a superb film, grab “Blackberry”.
Three of my favorite artists were in the news recently. Andy Warhol made the front page as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him and his estate in the Prince Photo Copyright Case. I found that concerning, but less so after I read this good analysis by Blake Gopnik: Supreme Court Warhol Ruling Shouldn’t Hurt Artists. But It Might. I feel it will be ok.
Speaking of Warhol, here’s a good piece in artsy talking about how the once dismissed colloboration between him and Basquiat is gaining greater appreciation as time goes by. A recent showing at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris of 70 joint works should help with that.
A long running story has been these so called discovered Basquiats that were on display at a museum in Florida. It turns out that one of the people involved confessed to a forgery scheme regarding these paintings. No surprise there. Glad it’s over.
And why would anyone do that? Well his work now’s the time (shown above) was expected to fetch $30,000,000 at least by the good people at Sotheby’s.
Finally, I was glad to see that Keith Haring is getting a new show at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. I was less glad to read about how the curator diminished Haring as she spoke about him. Haring was always a serious artist taken seriously. His work is joyful and playful and sexy at times, but it was and is never second rate. That said, see the show. Get more Haring in your life.
Is this interview of Dan Wang by Noam Smith for his newsletter, noahpinion. It’s in depth and detailed in a way I have not seen in other places. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to understand China.
I have now become one of those people who tries to close their rings every day! I tease myself, but I am also happy to try and do it. I find my fitness has definitely improved from the low point it was during the pandemic.
Here’s some tips and things I’ve learned along the way that might help you too if you decide to get fitter this way.
Start of with the default goals when it comes to your rings. You want goals that are achievable but not too easy. To determine that, I recommend you use the watch for a week or so to get some measure of how you are doing. Now it is time to determine your goals.
When it comes to determining your goals, I suggest you go into the Fitness app on your phone. Go to the Summary tab, click on the box labelled Activity. Scroll down to Trends. You can click on Move or Exercise or Stand to see how well you are doing. I found I could meet the default Stand and Exercise goals, but I was having problems with the 900 cal/day goal for Move. I was achieving about 750 cal/day. To stretch and encourage myself, I wanted to change my move goal to 800 cal/day.
To changing goals, you can go into the Fitness app on your phone. Go to the Summary tab, click on the green avatar on the top right and then click on Change Goals. It’s pretty straightforward to do that.
Now all you have to do is get off the couch or step away from the deck and close those rings!
I found the Stand goal is helpful for me because it was the first one I could achieve. Whenever I don’t achieve it I now I am sitting down or lying down too much.
Once I had the Stand goal in hand, I went to tackle the Exercise goal. While typical workouts are a good way to achieve that, so to is a brisk walk. I found I was able to get my heart rate up to 70% of my maximum heart rate just by walking. You likely will too. If I do nothing else in terms of exercise, walking alone can get me to meet my exercise goal.
I hate to say it, but it is easy to cheat on your Exercise goal. I found this out when I decided to include housework as exercise. To do that, I picked “Other” as a workout on my watch. After 15 minutes or so of housework, I stopped the workout and checked the data, only to find my heart rate was much lower than a brisk walk (not to mention other workouts). I think housework is good for helping me achieve my Move goals and Stand goals, but I will not include it off my Exercise goals. But that’s just me, though. Housework can be hard work and for some it definitely counts as exercise. (For more on other workouts, read this.)
Speaking of heart rates, I found them too high and reset mine. These should be the correct target heart rates. You can learn how to change them, as well as display them, here: use heart rate zone tracking with the Apple Watch.
I found the Move goal hardest to reach. Stand and Exercise are easy to measure. If you find that too and you need help with meeting it, read this. I learned a lot from that piece.
Finally, I was disappointed to find all this exercise was not doing much for my VO2 Max numbers. Then I read how smartwatches aren’t very good at measuring this. At best, you want to see the number trend up. But don’t put too much value in a given number.
Today the Ethernet is 50! It’s the dominant networking standard in the world and important enough to merit a Turing Award for it’s creator, Bob Metcalfe (well deserved).
If you had asked me what I thought of it back in the 80s when it first came out, I would have told you it was dumb in so many ways. As Network World explains:
Basically, the (Ethernet) protocol makes sure that the line (bus) is not in use before sending any frames out. Today, that is far less important than it was in the early days of networking because devices generally have their own private connection to a network through a switch or node. And because Ethernet now operates using full duplex, the sending and receiving channels are also completely separate, so collisions can’t actually occur over that leg of their journey. Other than when encountering a collision situation, there is no error correction in Ethernet, so communications need to rely on advanced protocols to ensure that everything is being transmitted perfectly.
And that was the problem. Early networks could be half duplex, so device A on an Ethernet network would try to send information to device B on the network, but if device C tried to do this at the same time, a collision would occur and A and C would have to retransmit. If you only had a few devices on the network, it was ok. If you had many devices, collisions would happen frequently and communications was a mess.
Other / better technologies like Token Ring were designed to get around that. I was sure that they would beat Ethernet and become the standard. I was wrong.
Ethernet may have been not as good as the other technologies, but it was more open, cheaper and easier to use. And it was good enough. Anything open, cheap, easy and good enough wins. C beat other languages by being that way. DOS+Windows 3.1 won over OS/2 for similar reasons.
The next time you see a new technology that has those features, you can bet wisely that it will end up being a dominant technology. People will adopt that technology over others that lack those four features. Once adoption occurs, that tech will get better, become more than simply good enough.
Happy birthday, Ethernet. You weren’t very good in the beginning, but you were enough. Stay easy, stay cheap, stay open.
The English have been eating eel for a long time. Not only was it common to eat, in medieval times it was not unheard of to pay the rent in eels. A preference for the snaky fish eventually led to the creation of a special type of restaurant in Victorian England: the eel pie and mash house.
I fell down a rabbit hole reading about these places and had the urge to get to one of them before they are all gone. Indeed, Sauveur has this piece on london eel pie shops and how they are on the decline. Here’s a story of one such place closing, L Manze in walthamstow.
For anyone who feels the same, here is a list of the top 10 places to eat eel in London (L Manze still exists in other parts). Plenty of places to dine yet. And I saw a food influencer posting about stopping in F. Cooke’s and how special it was. Perhaps there is hope for eel dining in England after all.
I was watching Downton Abbey recently, and some of the aristocrats were griping about running out of money and what they should do. On the surface they were well off and established, but beneath the white ties and silk they were on the road to a financial decline and fall.
A real life aristocrat following a similar path was Winston Churchill. This is a story well told in this book: “No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money” by David Lough. It’s a quirky history, in that it approaches a well known figure from a special angle. Fans of finance or Churchill or England find much to enjoy in the book. I was sad to finally finish it.
Lists are a tricky thing to blog about. A good list is addictive: you want to go through every thing in the list and you are satisfied afterwards. A bad list is tiresome and you want to abandon it halfway through.
I hope you find these lists to be of the good kind. In a way, these lists are also a list! I hope you don’t abandon it. 🙂
It’s an easy thing to make yourself feel you are insufficient. You simply have to pick a task that you believe you can do but that is beyond your reach. It can be a nearly impossible physical task, like running a long distance. Or a mental task, like memorizing a long work of fiction. Or it can be a social task, like having plenty of fans and friends. Regardless, it can be something you can be guaranteed to fall short of achieving in the attempt.
The hard thing is to make yourself feel sufficient. To look past your failings and limits and judge yourself worthy. It requires knowing yourself. Knowing what is required of you. Knowing that even if you can’t do everything or even many things, you still can do some things, and that those things are enough. Those things are sufficient. Just like you are sufficient.
I love the Chrsyler building in New York City. While there are many great buildings in the World — never mind Manhattan — it’s always been my favorite. So I was happy to come across this on the site, Open Culture: An Architect Demystifies the Art Deco Design of the Iconic Chrysler Building. That site highlights a video from AD and explains:
In the Architectural Digest (AD) video… architect Michael Wyetzner takes us on a tour of that design, explaining how each of its features works with the others to make an enduring visual impact. Some, like the gleaming oversized radiator-cap gargoyles, impress with sheer brazenness; others, like the Native American-derived patterns that repeat in various locations at various scales, take a more practiced eye to identify.
Fans of this building, like I am, take note.
P.S. I think Ridley Scott is also a fan. In the opening minute of his film, Someone to Watch Over Me, he takes an entire minute to lovingly film the skyscraper just as night falls. Here’s a clip of it:
Beautiful.
In February I wrote of Mayor Tory’s resignation and a brouhaha around Premier Ford’s involvement with developers and the Greenbelt. That’s the old news. The new news is we have a race on to see who will be next mayor, and it seems like 8000 people are running. (Not quite, but it’s a lot.) The Toronto Star has a rundown on them, here. Election date? June 26th. If you want to vote early or find out more information, go to toronto.ca.
As for the Premier, he continues to muck about in municipal issues. Nothing new there. First he offered up Ontario Place to private developers. Now he wants to move the Science Center there. I am sure other cities and towns in Ontario wonder if he wants to be their Premier or just the Premier of Toronto.
Premier of Toronto aside, the city has received some accolades as of late. That’s good news. Toronto General Hospital was just ranked 5th best in the entire world. And Billy Bishop Airport was named one of best in world too. Even the TTC managed to win an award, as one of the world’s most efficient transit systems in North America.
Lord knows the TTC could use some praise. It’s suffering lately. There was a fire erupting on TTC subway tracks at Bloor and Yonge station. There continues to be problems with violence. I suspect ridership is still down as Torontonians continue to work from home. And while it is good that it is being upgraded on places like Queen Street, that doesn’t make it easier for us to love it.
The TTC is still great, though. Not only it relatively efficient, it also has some great architecture, as this slideshow illustrates. (One of my favs is Rosedale, below.)
Other good news about Toronto: the Taste of the Danforth is set to return this summer for first time since 2019. There’s also this to look forward to: a major Keith Haring exhibition is coming to the AGO in Toronto. Awesome.
Not so awesome: Indigo was hit with a ransomware attack that not only affected their business, but employees’ personal information was leaked. Also not good: the recent Toronto Marathon sounds like it was a shambles. And of course no one seems to know when the Eglinton Crosstown line will be done. This did not stop Marcus Gee from praising the Ford government for all his is “doing right” in tearing up the area of midtown Toronto. Good grief.
If you can make it to midtown Toronto despite our woes, try and get some coffee from DeMello. It’s great! Turns out they are expanding downtown. That’s great too.
Foodwise, a new place in Bloordale has opened and looks really good: 1211. It joins a list of restaurants best categorized as eclectic. Here’s to more new eclectic places.
While new restaurants are good, so too are the olds. You can find many of those old school restaurants listed here. One that is both eclectic and old school is Gale’s Snack Bar. When it opened in Leslieville more than 50 years ago nothing cost more than $10 today that remains true. Amazing. Speaking of old restaurants, Country Style hungarian restaurant turns 60 this year and plans on serving schnitzel for years to come. That something I am happy to hear about, since so many of my favorite Hungarian places are gone. (You can read about them here and here.)
Finally, here’s a blast from the Toronto past: the rise and fall of MuchMusic. And I discovered that the Health Center that I pass almost daily on Yonge used to be a police station (no 53). I always thought it was a hospital. Instead it was the home of the police, right next door to the fire department. (The fire fighters haven’t moved but the police have a newer and bigger place on Eglinton and Duplex.).
When we talk about the Poor in 2023, we speak of the Homeless. In some but not all ways, this makes sense. Anyone without a home is by default poor (unless you are very rich). And it makes sense that tackling homelessness is the best way to tackle the problems that poor people have. But it’s not enough to stop at homes: we need to treat poverty as a concurrent disorder.
If someone has addiction problems and mental health problems, professionals like those at CAMH in Toronto will treat the addiction first while taking into account the mental health problems. I think the same has to be done with poverty.
Indeed, this piece at newscientist.com says that “decades of research have shown that focusing on housing, without making sobriety or mental health treatment a prerequisite, is the most effective way to reduce homelessness”. People need shelter first if they are to improve their lives.
But shelter is just a start. As this shows, “110 unhoused people died last year in Toronto homeless shelters”. Poor people need more. Otherwise they will have a bed (if they are lucky), but die if they are not cared for.
Part of the challenge is the homeless poor can be difficult to care for due to many reasons. It takes a special set of skills to do so, as this piece shows: “You Have to Learn to Listen” How a Doctor Cares for Boston’s Homeless. It’s not enough to just provide facilities and insist they should go to there.
Another part of the challenge is that people don’t care, either because they are indifferent or they have a peculiar moral code that stops them from providing for those suffering from being poor. So you have politicians providing ridiculous restrictions on what poor people can get with SNAP in the US: No more sliced cheese under Iowa Republicans SNAP proposal. Or you have a councillor voting No when Toronto’s council declares homelessness an emergency and asks for more aid to deal with the growing problem.
So the Poor need homes. They need better care. They need food. All basic needs. Some of them need more, like help with addiction problems. From there they need to develop skills. Otherwise they run into the problem of what to do with themselves when they no longer need to scramble to find money to buy booze, as this piece showed.
There are others besides those who are Poor who need those things: those of us who are not Poor. Shelter, food, healthcare, occupation…we all have those needs. We need to find a way that all of us can get access to that, not just for the betterment of individuals, but for the betterment of our society as a whole. Right now our society has a concurrent disorder. Dealing with homelessness may be a good way to start to tackle it, but we need to take into account more than that as we move forward. It’s the only way out society can get better.
P.S. For more on the SNAP cutbacks, read this: No SNAP for you – by Pamela Herd and Don Moynihan. Thing you could live on what SNAP provides? Read this: Snap Challenge | Budget Bytes.
Food insecurity is often tied to other problems, like whether to get food or heat and other utilities. This is a striking story that illustrates that cruel fact.
It doesn’t help if we don’t know how many homeless people they are. According to this, there are over half a million homeless people in the US. And they may not be where you think. For example, the state with the second-highest per capita homeless rate in the US is…. Vermont. That surprised me.
This also surprised me: the story on how the mayor of Bend, Oregon who helped the homeless ended up becoming homeless himself.
Finally, this piece about how in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., the problem of chronic homelessness is being addressed by a community of tiny homes called A Better Tent City had me thinking continually about homelessness and poverty since I came across it.
Fashion is for the rich, and those who aspire to look the part. For the rich, the challenge is coming up with ways of using fashion to designate that you are in fact rich. The new way to do this is with quiet luxury, as the actors in the TV series Succession illustrate.
Of course not everyone is into rich normcore. Some of the well off dress in the high end line Thierry Mugler. For those with less means who aspire to wear Mugler, H&M has once again stepped in by offering up a low cost version of the high end line. I especially liked that piece on H&M: it details the history of the low end store offering high end fashion lines, and it’s as much a sociological study as it is a fashion one.
On a serious note, I thought this was a good initiative by Saint Laurent: saint laurent launches production company to develop films by david cronenberg abel ferrara wong kar wai jim jarmusch and more.
Otherwise…one fashion guy who was in the news due to twitter was @dieworkwear, Derek Guy. There’s a profile of him here in GQ. Why he became twitter famous and newsworthy, no one but Elon Musk knows. He does know his stuff.
P.S. Image of Karl Lagerfeld from the Times. He was the first to experiment with his clothes and H&M, a risky initiative at the times. It paid off for him and H&M.
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