Happy New Year, pocket pals!

Hey Canadians, if you followed storm chaser Mark Robinson from the Weather Network on the bad place, he's here too. He doesn't post much, but maybe we can get him to if we flood him with follows! @stormhunter.bsky.social

Whenever I see a surgical mask in use, I engage in conversation. Even if its a doctor at a hospital. Many honestly are not educated in airborne pathogen prevention....yet. A hindrance to switching from surgical to N95/respirator is cost unfortunately😔 Thanks to @donatemask.bsky.social there is a way

Anyway we had a relaxing off-grid family getaway this long weekend. Introduced kid #2 to the board games of checkers and Pictionary and got some great sledding in.

While smartphones do a great job of basic image processing that used to take a lot of time with digital photography, they are increasingly altering reality for an algorithmic preference. Example shown: Extracting too much detail from shadows and over-correcting white balance.

Solstice Drive to St. Anthony Christopher Pratt 2008

This EXACTLY why it's crucial to have the proposed revisions to CSA Standard Z94.4 (Selection, use, and care of respirators) accepted and adopted. It covers ALL industries. Healthcare workers must NOT continue to be exempt from the same protections offered in other sectors!

For comparison, this is Christopher Anderson's photography when he's NOT trolling for everything he's worth. Every choice made in the photos of this administration is a choice. It's fucking art, is what it is.

We have the technologies we need to cut pollution from the industrial sector. In our new report, we take a deep dive into an immediate, practical opportunity: electrifying low- and medium-temperature process heat in manufacturing food, beverage, paper and chemicals. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The open-source infinitely repairable air cleaner. An exceptional choice for indoor air quality. I can personally vouch for the Standard model. Extremely quiet, highly energy efficient performance with high clean air delivery rate.

If you work in a Canadian healthcare setting (or other workplace) where COVID-19 or other pathogens *might* be present, and want to determine what the proper standards-compliant PPE is for your workplace, the CSA provides an interactive tool that will identify that and generate a printable report.

When public health advises 40%-60% relative humidity to prevent viral transmission it runs smack up against the domain of building science and engineering. Water is the enemy of buildings. Condensation at 19°C & 43% RH, and -7°C outdoors. That's why Health Canada recommends 30%-50%. /1

This is amazing! It makes complete sense (not going to spoil it, read the article)

L.A. redesigned a road to slow traffic. People fought to reverse the safety improvements and won. Then one of the advocates hit and killed a woman walking her dog (the dog died too). This should be a lawsuit. The city is liable along with the driver. www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...

CAVI launched a new initiative today to expand our impact beyond public libraries. Please share!

Tetra Pak just launched a heat-pump-based pasteurization system that can cut energy use by up to 77%. Electrification + heat recovery = massive efficiency gains. This is the kind of behind-the-scenes innovation that quietly transforms entire sectors. www.foodtechbiz.com/business-upd...

As the story goes, when I was a wee lad at the end of a family dinner gathering I got frustrated, screaming "CLOCK FINGS!" over and over. My grandmother was the one to realize I meant the clock face on the After Eight's box. They let me pass the box around, as I had once done months before.

This phenomenon, where red states use far more electricity per capita than blue states, has been know for 40 y, as shown by Evan Mills and Art Rosenfeld in 1987: escholarship.org/content/qt59... It is due to the lack of efficiency standards and conservation programs in red versus blue states

If LLM data centres that serve generative AI platforms were erased from the Earth… …we’d be fine. They prop up nothing of essential value we can’t do ourselves. If we let them proliferate for a generation, we may lose institutional expertise.

Happy fun speeds on the commute with a steady 24 km/h tailwind #BikeTO

Two dangerously close passes by a driver this morning on College Street in Toronto (warning: language). It looks like the driver decided to make an escape after the second one, rather than have me catch up at the next light.

Forlorn gated entrance to the pedestrian bridge leading to Ontario Place from the exhibition grounds in Toronto. Signage in French and English describes the project ... /1

HORSES Art Deco entrance to the Horse Palace at Toronto's exhibition grounds, at twilight. Lit in yellow-blue complementary colours.

We went from “you can’t trust anything on Wikipedia” to it being one of the only places on the web that’s likely to be correct and unbiased more often than wrong or driven by private interests.

A pime example of #motonormativity. The expectation that automobiles are different and need accommodation that we don't accept for any other private property.

New incentives announced today in Ontario for ENERGY STAR appliances, including induction stoves and heat pump dryers.

just learned we won an award for our blog post about Tom Holland and stormwater management. remember, when you see an article about stormwater management, you repost it. i don’t make the rules.

“The US is the only major country absent from Belém.”

Cycling is easily twice as fast as riding a streetcar through downtown Toronto.

If a worker is killed using manufacturing equipment, they don't just clean it up and get back to using it immediately. But that's what happens at road intersections. Motonormativity is a dangerous disease.

Researchers find that Germicidal Ultraviolet (GUV) airborne disinfection efficiency crashes above 50% RH for selected pathogens (both 222 nm and 254 nm). Could be important for the effectiveness of GUV systems in humid climates/season. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

An excellent made-in-Canada choice for clean air. Highly recommended! Quiet, 283 CFM CADR and drawing only 8 Watts of power.

Please enjoy my cartoon in today's Toronto Star

This is literally the method they used for aerosol droplet sample collection.

The deets in the ALT text 🥇

Gas stoves emit methane, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates at levels known to contribute to asthma and cardiovascular disease. 🧪 NEW STUDY: The annual indoor health cost of a single gas stove = $5,258 A big part this is from childhood asthma. www.zmescience.com/medicine/gas...

Five years ago, November 10 2020 #Toronto was a balmy 21.6 C. Today? High of 1 C and snowing all day.

Here is the flight track for the aircraft in question. Note the ~250 knot speed because of its low altitude, about 6075 ft most of the flight, with 20 minutes at 10000 ft.

"Great cycling cities do not use sharrows. The end." “We never suggest using sharrows to create a bikeway,” Snyder concludes. “We’ve learned our lessons. Now that we know better, it’s time to do more.”

@pipedreaming.bsky.social is one of the most esoterically interesting accounts I follow on here. If you are a nerd about buildings, you should follow

That feeling when the wind direction is perfectly aligned with your #bikeTO commute.

Scare those viruses away - now proven by EPA! (Costume photo: Neil Comparetto)

We have ****ed the climate. Dressing this up as temporary overshoot is indefensible. But this does not mean we are doomed, & it certainly doesn't mean there is no point in trying to turn off the fossil fuel spigot. It's time to get real with climate risks. www.technosphere.earth/derailment-w...

Highly livable family apartment layouts that we need but unfortunately can't build in Canada or the U.S.

Building Science FTW! Why interzonal air flow matters in Multi-Unit Residential Buildings - presentation by Marianne Touchie of Cara Lozinsky's work. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C-H...

This dapper gentleman #caturday

When I was a child we had to separate LEGO flats from base plates using fingernails, teeth and brute force. Not all pieces survived.

Happy 10th anniversary to the best political tweet, ever.

21 years ago I saw the Canadian indie documentary documentary The End of Suburbia and it had a profound impact on my career. This new article by Richard Heinberg serves an introduction and update to the issue of peak oil and what comes after.

New from Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care: Displacement Ventilation: Rethinking Indoor Air for Health and Climate