Margaret Visser once defined “professional” as someone you trusted because they had knowledge that you didn’t. There were three: The doctor, who you trusted with your life, the lawyer, with your freedom, and the clergy, with your soul. I wonder what she would say about “professional” toilet paper.

I am on a field trip looking at sustainable forestry and staying in a hotel in Petawawa with really ugly carpet in the corridor. Why do hotel designers do this? open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

A reminder of what we are losing to get this cheap shit metal and glass thing open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

I had to get up at 5 AM to catch a train to Ottawa for a 2:30 meeting and now we are parked I Scarborough and I am wondering if I will make it, no wonder people fly.

My take on today’s wonderful New Yorker cover, with hat tips to Robert Bean Allison A. Bailes III, Susan Roaf and Lisa Heschong I have learned so much from all of you. open.substack.com/pub/lloydalt...

I love this week's New Yorker cover. I have been working on a lecture about comfort for my sustainable design course at @torontomet.bsky.social and just found my first slide; it has it all.

Many readers tell me that self-driving cars will be the solution for older adults in the suburbs who can no longer drive. I think it is a fantasy and won't happen in my lifetime. lloydalter.substack.com/p/will-self-...

The demographic reality is unrelenting. What happens when you have 70 million baby boomers pushing 80 and still driving big SUVs on North American roads? A whole lot of accidents waiting to happen. lloydalter.substack.com/p/we-may-soo...

Every year I look at The New American Home built for the NAHB International Builders Show, and every year it is a bit bigger, and I am a bit more appalled. This year, the 17-car underground garage tips the scale of ridiculousness. lloydalter.substack.com/p/is-the-new...

Vaclav Smil called cement, steel, fertilizer and plastic "the four pillars of civilization." They are all made with fossil fuels, and some climate doomers suggest that our dependence on them means we are cooked. I am not usually a sunny optimist, but in this case, I think the doomers are wrong.

In 2009 I wrote an article claiming that it took 37 gallons of water to make a roll of toilet paper. A student recently called me out on it, and it's embarrassing how this has become the conventional wisdom. It has been repeated so often that even AI believes it now. My confession:

This was true when I was deciding what to do with my life half a century ago.

Who writes these headlines? Collide implies two things hitting each other.

This line is copy-pasted every time “Police said the driver remained on scene and was cooperating with their investigation. They said impairment and speed aren't being considered as factors for the incident.” So what was a factor?

Owners of Ring doorbells are being advised to smash them to splinters after a commercial showed how they could be used to surveil and identify humans with AI. Super Bowl LX may be remembered as the start of a counter-revolution against the technology. lloydalter.substack.com/p/the-smart-...

My daughter, just back from Cuba, reports:

There is a worldwide shift from PET to aluminum packaging because people think it's more recyclable and reduces microplastic pollution. However, it is not without its own problems and tradeoffs. lloydalter.substack.com/p/is-the-alu...

The Eddie Bauer chain is bankrupt again. Good! It was built on the premise that Bauer invented the puffer jacket, ignoring the role of Australian climber George Finch, who invented it in 1922. lloydalter.substack.com/p/eddie-baue...

I was not alone, complaining about the police coming to a press conference all dressed up in vests.

This. is. fantastic.

The mass-market paperback is almost extinct, and sales of nonfiction books have shrunk. David Weinberger once wrote, "To think that knowledge itself is shaped like books is to marvel that a rock fits so well in its hole in the ground.” But what is knowledge shaped like now?

This is all very sad. I grew up on paperbacks; I still have all my dad's John D. MacDonald paperbacks and my Arthur C. Clarke's, but then who is going to read them? My kids didn't.

A new book, “It’s on you” challenges just about everything I ever wrote about personal responsibility vs the need for systemic change. I begrudgingly admit that it makes a very strong case. lloydalter.substack.com/p/its-on-you...

Much of the @thewaroncars.bsky.social evening was a discussion of the legal intricacies of the battle of the bike lanes, which I suspect we will lose, but wow, they have put up a brave fight. Kudos to @shawnmicallef.bsky.social for a few laughs.

We should give brooklynspoke.bsky.social and sgoodyear.bsky.social Canadian citizenship for their promotion of Canadian icons like Rob Ford and Superman. Great evening with the @thewaroncars.bsky.social Thanks @cycletoronto.bsky.social !

Why do the police wear bulletproof vests to a press conference? Are they afraid of the media? Towtruck drivers? The public?

After writing my last post that was critical of quartz countertops and the designers who specify them, I was asked about alternatives. Here's a list of the good, the bad, and the ugly: lloydalter.substack.com/p/whats-the-...

I hope there are some politicians going to @thewaroncars.bsky.social talk tomorrow night in Toronto, a city where two die on the same day and it gets buried on page 9- that is how common it has become.

@thestar.com always on top of the science!

Did Doug Ford move to Washington, where they are looking at ripping out bike lanes or speed cameras? Or was he always just Trump in a blue suit?

Bring back streetcars on Oakwood and Davenport!

78% of interior designers say quartz (engineered stone) counters are hot this year. Meanwhile, they are banned in Australia because workers are dying of silicosis, and in the US, republicans are passing laws to protect the manufacturers from lawsuits. So why do IDs even think of specifying it?

I am going to frame this. Thank you.

I recently wrote about how we should be building with Canadian materials, and I neglected to include stone because concrete is a local material. I have reconsidered; Ontario cement is made with US coal and petcoke, and rebuilding Canada's stone industry could create a lot of jobs.

"Heating systems alone do not deliver warm, healthy or affordable homes." As I keep hearing, we need to be very careful that installing low carbon heating doesn't end up making people's living conditions worse. @passivhaustrust.bsky.social passivhaustrust.org.uk/news/detail/...

@oliver-moore.bsky.social it's not just the Parking Authority, it is a higher authority like the Catholic Church, cleaning their own stairs with a vacuum, they are so perfect, but the minute you are out the gate? Everyone (including their parishioners) can pray they don't fall on the ice.

In Ontario they relocate hospitals out of towns and cities so that the only way you can get there is by car.

The US government is once again trying to make coal cute. It's a month late for Christmas, but 17 years ago during the Bush admin, cute coal sang Christmas carols. Through the wonder of youtube that never forgets (Unlike Treehugger), here is "deck the halls with clean coal"

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently announced a “buy Canadian” campaign, specifically calling out the construction industry and building materials. Here are some of the options, from hemp to straw to mass timber. Time to look at Euro standards for elevators, heat pumps and stairs too.

Better version than my photo of the editorial page this morning.

The editorial page of @theglobeandmail.com this morning is quite something: 1) a complete list of all the Canadians who died in Afghanistan while not “stepping back;” 2) The Board of Peace editorial cartoon.

Norman Mailer wrote, “Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.” On the third anniversary of working for me, I wonder which direction I am going and if I still matter. lloydalter.substack.com/p/happy-thir...

Yay Canada! exporting Roshel armoured vehicles to ICE and Doug Ford loves it! Time to cancel Dough Ford (typo, but I am leaving it!) globalnews.ca/news/1155832...

@mark-carney.bsky.social says we should build with Canadian materials. I wrote a post earlier about this, calling for mass timber, missing middle housing, straw and wood fibre and more lloydalter.substack.com/p/how-canada...

My granddaughter asks why pay to get two newspapers every day (she loves the comics) but today, the @theglobeandmail.com and the @thestar.com were both brilliant. Interesting times make for interesting papers…

David McGuinty, Canada's Minister of National Defence, has responded to Donald Trump's claim that America has "never really asked anything" of NATO, that the alliance sent only "some troops" to Afghanistan and that "they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines." It's pretty blunt.

He's retweeting from 2018. @billmckibben.bsky.social answered then.

The new Carbon Majors report is out, and I have my usual problem with it: Instead of blaming others, we have to look in the mirror, take personal responsibility, and do everything in our power to stop buying what they are selling.

What did Groucho say?” I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member”

great stuff from @katewagner.wehwalt.net