Doug Ford chould check in with school bus drivers re: the effectiveness of flashing lights for traffic control.

I wonder what other areas of law/rule enforcement can be replaced by simple flashing lights? Doug Ford is a genius. No one else thought of this.

I finished a thing today: a 4-door sideboard in white oak with doors clad in reclaimed Parliament copper and white oak latticework. Each door ended up having 50 individual parts to fit together. (There was some self-directed cursing.)

[me, opening Bluesky] well what parade of fresh horrors awaits me now

Age verification. I used to play video games on my home computer...but first I had to type in the game's code from pages of dense hexadecimal machine code printed in a magazine.

If there really was an epidemic of well-meaning drivers getting dinged while going barely over the limit, surely the Premier would be in a position to show some data? And just as surely a problem like that could be fixed with a few clicks on a keyboard? But no, we have to stop all enforcement.

Heads up #ottbike: morning commute derailed by two path closures: QEDr canal path btw. Bank & Bronson, and then Trillium path under 417. Canal path will be out of service for a while, but there is a detour of sorts. Trillium just for today, but choose-your-own-adventure detour.

Me, opening the Photos app on my phone and seeing that all the AI crap features are now front and center and I have to dig past them to basic stuff like adjust brightness. I didn't take this photo so that I could then edit it to include a bunch of stuff that wasn't there! What is the point!

Repeated my google query this morning and now I have three different but confident answers from Google AI Overview™: - not taxable, for reasons - yes taxable, for different reasons - actually she has to pay tax TO the festival (???)

Helping filmmaker daughter with a tax question (does she have to collect HST on screening fees she earns from festivals?). Google it and the AI summary says: no tax on that and here's why etc.. Repeat the very same search moments later: AI now says yes it *is* taxable and here's why... So useful!

Spotify always seemed to know when I had my hands full with something difficult and/or messy (gluing, finishing a piece of furniture) and queue up something truly awful. Standout example was a live Throbbing Gristle track that was over 9 minutes long. "Surely this must end eventually...please..."

I seem to have a distressing number of friends who are completely uncritical of AI, happy to ask it how to do anything and everything. I'm not thrilled to learn the Minister for AI is in the same category. Not thrilled but I guess not surprised, either.

I made a Venn diagram to cover off some recent opinion pieces.

Our mayor's big bold idea is not to fix transit or tackle homelessness or make streets safe for cycling but to once a year visit each ward for a series of feel-good photo-ops. I wish we had a city leader who knew the job wasn't a ceremonial position.

Good morning Ottawa. Bonjour Ottawa.

The official rules-are-rules response to this would be: you're supposed to dismount and walk there anyway since it's a crossWALK not a crossRIDE, and then you can use the walk signal. 🫠

Noticed today there's a new advanced-walk signal at the notorious Preston/PoW intersection. Would be helpful except right-on-red is still allowed, plus the advanced signal excludes most of the people crossing because they're on bikes. This city, this province...

VROOM the daily sound of my neighbour firing up his pickup to drive himself to work. It has a 7.3L engine, or in other words it's like he was driving three of my VW Golf at the same time. All the carbon, baby.

Good morning Ottawa. Bonjour Ottawa.

Starting to think that one day of "No Kings" protests wasn't enough.

The leader just finished yet there's still a steady stream of people on the bike course with a fair bit of distance to cover. And a marathon to run. The mind boggles, really.

OMG the last km or two of tomorrow's Ironman run has a very cruel profile: down the locks hill and then back up to Wellington behind Parliament. Ouch. They do this in reverse at the start of the run also.

Just finished: a set of pendants made from reclaimed Parliament copper. The patina was left as-is on the top sides, and I painstakingly cleaned the undersides back to clean metal. Will be installed as a group of 5. Sizes range from 20" to 27" diameter.

I'm a late-middle-age man who used to be grimly determined to ride on all kinds of terrible roads in this city (Bronson, Carling, Baseline to name a few) but I am all-in on safe bike infrastructure now. Enough of the VC crap!

OK #ottbird: what kind of bird is this? It flew into my workshop this morning and spent the day flying around the ceiling in varying degrees of distress. Finally I guess it was tired out enough that I could scoop it up in a cloth and let it go outside. Dark grey topside, yellow bars under tail.

What's it like to ride the Tour de France? Ottawa's Mike Woods lays it out in stark terms: "you are always riding at a rate intended to inflict failure". michaelwoods.cc/the-tour-the...

This should be on a big digital display inside city council chambers. Whenever a councillor has the mic, AI-powered software analyzes their speech and lights up the appropriate sections of the diagram in real time. If "Does Not Exist" has to light up, the speaker gets an electric shock.

Flashback: I once made a serious but snarky Twitter post about the horrific bike lanes on Innes road and Tiernery *phoned me* to complain.

I would like someone with an appropriate (i.e. large) amount of AI-skepticism to explain to me how it would be a good thing to integrate the technology in to procurement or any other part of the civil service.

Recent work: drum coffee table with walnut exterior, inset glass top, and an interior lined in reclaimed Parliament roofing copper. 36" dia. x 18" h.

I've hacked the system!

Traffic is so bad in Halifax because of a bike lane on a quiet street that hasn't even been built yet, that the mayor needs to be given dictatorial powers. (sighs in Ontario)

Is it just me or is Sutcliffe really shifting into campaign mode for an election that's more than a year away? A little spooked about his meagre accomplishments, maybe?

More excellence from Google's AI Overview. No, brass and aluminum are not "iron based metals".

We are so lucky to live in *the NCC's Ottawa*, because the City tends to do fuck all on this front. (If only the Mayor was in a position to help?)

Just bewildering to me as a Canadian that the drama in NYC is just a party primary, not the actual mayoral vote.

The Schoolhouse Rock "Three Ring Government" lyrics need to be updated to replace Congress with Fox News.

A pair of 'Corolla' floor lamps that made it over the finish line this week. Laminated maple veneer petals fastened together with brass wire, supported on curved brass spokes. Black lacquered maple base and an etched glass diffuser. 29" dia x 66" high.

Here's an #ottbike thing that bugs me every day: why would the City use big jagged rocks as the margin for a very busy path full of pedestrians & cyclists? If a cyclist had to veer off the path for any reason, they're getting thrown over the bars into this stuff. @arieltroster.com what's the deal?

Recently-delivered: a long sideboard with a blackened oak case and a natural white oak facade. The client already had a dining table + chairs that we made last year, all from one white oak log. For this cabinet we turned the last board from that batch into thick veneer for the doors and drawers.

In today's mail: a postcard sent by a friend TEN YEARS ago during a trip through Iceland. The card was some kind of kids' activity on the Icelandair flight. (The postmark is from Iceland, 10 weeks ago.)

Stopped on my ride home because NEW BIRD. I think it's a Brant: size of a Mallard, with short neck, small head, and a faint white patch on the neck. #ottbird

The Monaco GP circuit is so ridiculously small you could fit something of the same length and number of corners into half of my little Ottawa neighbourhood (and right past my house, which might ruffle some feathers).

Imagine how much less electric this would be in the 44% smaller replacement arena being pitched by the mayor & OSEG.

New Strava segment about to drop. (Dow's Lake Dock Crit Lap)

Just dolls and pencils, top to bottom.

I'm just a gigolo, and everywhere I go...

A friend isn't just someone to shoot the shit with, simulated or otherwise, but someone you can rely on to help when something goes wrong. Not a thing I fully appreciated when I was younger (lucky me) but now that I'm in my 50's, absolutely.

With CBC now having called all ridings it's time for the land-vs-people-vote animation.