Side bar: am I the only one who winces at "let's take back [city/country/whatever]" as a slogan? It's just highlighting the stupid partisan tug of war that plays out in our politics. Both sides use it interchangeably. You take it, I take it back, you take it back from me, etc.. Us, them, us, them.

A "smart home" is one where your ability to turn on the lights depends on the status of a Google server somewhere. share.google/67gmX4KD2k22...

Looking at a floorplan for a client's bathroom just now and the helpful AI summary from Adobe immediately brought to mind this @eleanormorton.bsky.social bit.

open browser, see endless posts with the same video of sleepy-eyed head-cocked Trump giving a speech, close browser

I keep seeing "Yellow warning - snow" pop up on my phone and did the people behind this not realize that it reads as "Yellow snow warning".

Why haven't I seen the op-eds about how great it will be for the Democrats to pick up two more senators for Greenland?

Good arguments but I would quibble against the comparison to Times Square which was, after all, still in the public realm. X is more akin to putting the "vice, sin, and abuse" of 1970's Times Square inside the food court of a decrepit privately-owned shopping mall.

"Our facility also boasts several mysterious bathroom puddles." I once had to take my daughter to a birthday party at Cosmic Adventures, whose policy was that everyone had to leave their shoes at the entrance. Walking into the men's/boys bathroom in sock feet is an experience I will never forget.

Ottawa South #ottbike: one northbound car lane plus the bike lane out of service on the Bank St. bridge. Replaced with "cars/bikes single file" signage. Really hope this is not a 5-year-long L2.0 thing!

The Lansdowne 2.0 shitshow has begun! Half-baked un-plowed pedestrian detour? Check. Idling pickup blocking what's left of the QE Dr. crossing? Check. Construction workers yelling at people just trying to get to the canal path? Check. "You better get used to it it's going to be 5 years."

We've been fed a steady diet of shows where the action is coordinated by hyper-competent people in high-tech command centers. The reality is these dweebs in basically a couch-cushion fort. Hegseth is trying to remember his Facebook login and Trump is struggling to stay awake.

Realizing that every GOP US president in my 57y lifetime has launched a military invasion somewhere. Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, ... That's not even counting the coups & covert stuff. Maybe Ford gets a pass?

The pedestrian was hit while on the sidewalk. Driver didn't have a license... Also, isn't it unusual for police to announce they've arrested/charged someone but not identify who?

Noticed that the Disney app on the tv has this new (unambiguous!) tentacle animation in the intro, so when I googled to see what it was about the AI summary told me I was imagining things, it's just northern lights. Always better to make shit up instead of saying "I don't know," I guess.

If you're doing holiday baking that leaves you with excess egg whites, make these cookies. You will not regret it. www.shelovesbiscotti.com/soft-amarett...

In Japan last fall you could buy a 4L jug of the stuff in a grocery store for about $60 CAD so maybe that's a sign things were not going well.

Councillor Tim Tierney is wrong about ‘Chronic No-Voters’ in his Ottawa Citizen Op/Ed on Saturday. His opinion would be easier to take seriously if the comments weren’t coming from someone with a 15-year track record of being a reliable yes-man for every budget. 1/21

Got this today from one of my suppliers, a leather manufacturer in the US, explaining why their prices are about to go up: tariffs on a key ingredient in the tanning process. Have resisted the urge to reply to suggest them that the tariffs were never actually meant to help anybody.

Sutcliffe could put that $1M in a barrel and set it on fire; at least it would provide some temporary warmth.

Too bad the US military doesn't have the necessary resources to seize even one of these boats and show us all the drugs. PS @thestar.com the word is "alleged" not "suspected".

For sale: one skate, slightly worn.

Short story writing prompt. Go! (from this morning at Dow's Lake)

can the redblacks play there

My winter cycling enthusiasm has a lot to do with being unenthusiastic about taking an hour to get home on the bus or crawling along in gridlock in the car. The bike is just better for me even when -- especially when -- the weather is shitty.

Continuing adventures in Artificial Intelligence...

"a cyclist braved the snow on the bike path..." JFC @ottawacitizen.com it's just a person calmly riding their bike on bare pavement.

the mayor is a big supporter of local sports franchises (when they are owned by an OSEG guy)

It's actually insane that the feds are promising to put more than double the amount of money they're putting into childcare, into AI. Why not just set it on fire and dance around it hoping to sway the gods to our favour?

Our @mayormarksutcliffe.bsky.social styles himself as a savvy businessman and at one time seemed to view everything through that lens ("is there a business case for this bike lane?"). Now he's head cheerleader for a project that only works if you accept best-case-possible projections 50 years out.

Speaking of inappropriate use of Gorillaz, honest to god this was Meta's suggestion for putting music over my photo of the Atomic Bomb memorial in Hiroshima:

Japan travel note: they have this turbocharged Presto card called suica, and here is the 'welcome' version that tourists can buy in the airport. Used it for all manner of public transit and train travel all over the country, plus some use in stores and at vending machines. Tap in, tap out.

I would _hope_ that when we spend half a billion dollars we at least get some construction jobs. Then again we could just hire people to dig a big hole and fill it in over and over. That would create jobs too. The question is: is this the best use of public funds and land? He knows the answer is no.

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.