Marilyn's Photos - Oct 28 2026 - Data Centre Paint

 

n the 1960s, 70s and 80s, we thought of data centres as vast centralized facilities full of machines that were rectangles and squares. Everything gray and bland,  like the picture below.  Very neat and tidy with the raised white floor, freezing temperatures.  We thought they were astonishing then.   So what about data centres now in the AI era?  Don't the headlines tell us they are larger, much larger?  Hundreds of thousands of square feet, housing thousands of server racks and hundreds of thousands to millions of compute units.   You can get a 3D sort of tour into one at this Financial Times article HERE.  The article uses animation so it is fascinating to read.  I guess I realized these facilities make our twentieth century factories like Stelco and the Oakville Ford Plant look miniature.  Just like the data centres of the 70s and 80s, they will be neat and tidy and devoid of people.  Just a few computer operators.  But my interest is the gray interior of these facilities. There is a lot of paint that will be needed.  I guess it is going to be gray, black, and white.  The paint is specialized industrial coating. It protects steel from fire.  Floor coatings prevent static electricity from jumping around to machines.  Why is it gray?   It looks like it is because the major paint suppliers - PPG and Sherwin-WIlliams - provide standardized, bulk industrial packages of this specialized paint.  The cost of painting a single AI data centre ranges from $3 to $8 million.  Subtle colour variations across warm or cool spectrums with subtle undertones - blue, green, violet, taupe or beige -  not so important.  Even the outside of this TOR1X0 Data Centre at SteelesTech Campus in Toronto is gray.   It is at 3125 Steeles Avenue East at Victoria Park Avenue.  How many people might work there?  It will have 32 vehicular parking spaces, and bicycle parking spots. So that doesn't look like very many staff.  The number usually given is between 50 and 400 long-term personnel.  You can read about the site plans at urbantoronto.ca HERE.  I found this Florida sunrise picture in Lightroom yesterday and marvelled at the amazing colours. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Oct 27 2026 - Suitcases...Abandoned

 

What do you think of this dilemma?  Abandoned suitcases in Tokyo.  It is a spate of illegal dumping of suitcases on streets or in parks in Tokyo's Toshima Ward, reported in the Japan News today.  They are believed to have been left by foreign tourists after they buy new ones.  Last year there were 28.65 million foreign tourists visiting Tokyo.  There were 290 suitcases found on ward roads, in parks at garbage collection points last year - they mostly get abandoned around Ikebukuro Station.  The theory goes that foreign tourists are taking advantage of the weak yen to replace their suitcases with newly bought, better quality Japanese versions.  Oone article says that 400 suitcases were sent to the warehouse in 5 months. It is complicated there.  Unwanted suitcases are oversized garbage and need a disposal ticket to get them removed. And what to do with them when they are heavy?  They have to be opened at a police station. There are programs to buy old suitcases so they aren't abandoned. They pile up as they have to be kept as lost property for three months in case an owner comes forward. Storage space is a critical concern, and disposal is considered expensive.  Other airports have more serious luggage problems of their own - the lost and missing bag problem.  London Heathrow ranks the highest globally for lost or missing bags.  Paris Charles de Gaulle comes next.  Then it is Miami for mishandled and lost baggage, and in fourth place is Dubai's International Airport.   In comparison, Kansai's claim to fame is in the statistics of lost baggage. It claims it has never lost a single piece of luggage in 30 years.  Somehow it is the only airport reporting intentionally dumped or abandoned suitcases.  Who would guess. Isn't this picture so cute?  It is one of the floral designs at the Lily Show.  The purse body is covered in Croton leaves and the handle in moss.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Oct 26 2026 - Dog Time

 

Grimsby had a Halloween party on Saturday with the downtown  filled with children in costumes.  I was at the Dog Spot yesterday and she had over 400 children in for candy.  Dogs came in too as there is a dog costume contest that will announce the winner on Wednesday.   So far the most popular dog costume ofo all time is Keki, the dog dressed as a mop. This was back in 2017.  Here's how it worked: I guess with social media dog costumes have come into their own.  My thinking is that you can dress them up take the shot and then watch the costume get demolished. No worries about having to take the dog out for a showing. I am fond of the hot dogs, loaves of bread and pumpkins.  Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Marilyn's Photos - Oct 25 2026 - Best Jobs Worst Jobs

 

The best jobs of 1925 were supposely in finance, banking and corporate management.  That was followed by automobile and electrical engineering.  Medicine and Law have always been prestigious positions, and then the civil service.  At the bottom of the heap were unskilled agricultural and migrant labour, textile and factory, and coal mining.  Of course radium dial painting must be the all-time worst - they all got radium poisoning and jawbone decay.  That's just 100 years ago.  Think long ago and there were "gong farmers" who manually shovelled human excrement and waste out of cesspits, privies and sewers at night.  Too many excrement-related activities way back then.  There's one that picked up dog excrement from the streets by hand to be used in the tanning industry.  What do we think today's best and worst jobs are?  One site says that telemarketers are the worst, followed by cleaners, truckers, construction workers, soldiers, social workers, customer service advisors, slaughterhouse workers.  Some of these seem tame, don't you think?  OK here's a few:  pet food taster. crime scene cleaner, and...wait for it:  Pain dry watcher.  Checking how the colour of matt and emulsion changes over time...this one is a novelty job that is thrown in to entertain us. It seems to me these don't rate like the worst jobs of 100 years ago.  And what do they claim the best jobs are?  There's no list.  It's all about what's in demand and what's stable.  We can know that medicine is still in the top ranks, and today includes speech-language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists and so on.  Of course corporate executives and lawyers are still tops. I expect information security is a great area now.  And there are lots of engineering specialties now.   So many neat and clean jobs now.  Think and be paid. Oops I missed the Hamilton Chrysanthemum Show - it closed yesterday.  Here's a picture from a previous year.  So many beautiful shapes, colours, and textures in Chrysanthemums. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com

Mairlyn's Photos - Oct 24 2026 - Egg Cooking Robots

Don't think that it is only the interior that can benefit from silly trompe l'oeil effects.  These are chalk drawings and there are lots of them. Make your front sidewalk a little more fun. I am back to the strange egg cooker.  Here's the picture, but the article does not include this product.  So I asked Google.  It says it is a smart kitchen gadget like the Cheffy Egor smart egg cooker.  You can see it in action HERE.  It is considered a breakfast robot, or egg cooking robot.  You can also get the synchronized toaster robot - I guess that makes it a breakfast robot.  I don't think you can buy it, you have to pre-order it as they get their funding in place.  Early-bird and VIP pre-orders start around $199 to $299 US.  Combine that with the T.O.A.S.T.R. and it is $349.   This truly is a gimmick Christmas present.  It reminds me of the pre-orders for Teslas. Look at them now.  Blasting off into space with the Roadster 'flying car' that can perform 'kick flips'. I haven't found out if that egg machine s real or just an AI idea. Maybe Cheffy Egor saw the picture and decided to make a dream come true. And what would make me think of Christmas gadgets and gimmicks anyway?  It is wreath time for the Fantasy of Trees.  It is only a month away. Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.com