Marilyn's Photos - Dec 5 2025 - Peace Prize Today

 

Cathal Kelly writes in today’s Globe and Mail about FIFA’s latest plays and ploys - these usually entail corruption, cheating and low life behaviour.  What kind today?  FIFA has announced it will award a Peace Prize and the headline early this morning says “Trump to speak at World Cup draw upon receiving FIFA Peace Prize.”  The Prize’s full name is “FIFA Peace Prize - Football Unites the World.” “Football stands for peace, and on behalf of the entire global football community, the FIFA Peace Prize - Football Unites the World will recognise the enormous efforts of those individuals who unite people, bringing hope for future generations.” No person is attributed to this quote. The article goes on to say that Trump has been allotted three minutes out of the hours-long event.  Let’s get a timer out to see what happens.  The article goes through all the events that have dogged the FIFA draws. In 1994, they had Robin Williams (yes, Robin Williams the comedian) participate as one of the “assistants” making the draw.  Chaos reigned. At least it was funny stuff. While looking at the headlines, I keep seeing the kitchen counter “BakeBot” spitting out chocolate chip cookies.  There isn’t such a kitchen machine.  It is an AI app for figuring out what to make for dinner by scanning your fridge and the BakeBot comes up with what to do with the stuff in there.  I really liked the tiny baking machine.   Here’s the Fantasy of Trees Chocolate tree that I did this year.  The original inspiration of the bronze and chocolate coloured theme came from beautifully crafted bronze glass ornaments donated last year by a Rotary member.  Along with chocolate looking ornaments and real chocolates from Monk’s Chocolates, a Chocolate Tree came about.

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Marilyn's Photos - Dec 4 2025 - Enter a New Era

 

What new era would I be referring to?  It is the era of a degree in Artificial Intelligence.  It used to be Computer Science way back in the 1970s.  Then we introduced Information Management in the 1980s.  Then it was Management Information Systems. Business Intelligence followed.  So doesn’t it make sense that we can now get a degree in Artificial Intelligence.   We had a hierarchy for this - data management, the lowest level, then information management, then knowledge management and finally wisdom.  Ha ha!  To think we can actually figure out wisdom. What would we learn in the Artificial Intelligence education program?  wrote course outlines when I worked at Ryerson (renamed the Metropolitan University of Toronto) and I doubt if I could not have written the program key points for the Rotman program.  I don’t think I made up that much crap for the entire program of courses let alone a six-week virtual e-learning experience.  The overview is HERE.  What about the last “key takeaway” - like something from 1984: Create a structured road map to drive AI adoption and apply gen AI to foster innovation, cultivate a data-driven culture, and mitigate resistance to change Can we find amusing things in all this?  I really wanted to find an “AI walks into a bar joke “ that is funny.  I hardly found one joke. Here it is: “An AI walks into a bar and orders a byte to drink, but is told the bar only serves bits.” Just below it was this overview of  a youtube video titled “A guy walks into a bar” and the subheading is this: “Hilarious jokes about a sandwich, panda, cowboy, cat, time traveler, priest, rabbi, monk, amnesiac, $5 bill, tennis ball, ghost, conspiracy theorists, cornstalk, and weasel. That’s a joke right there. Our picture today is tree bark - this was in Pasadena, and with a bit of colourizing, it looks like sand banks at the seashore.  I am so impressed with all the kinds of surfaces and textures that trees have.

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Marilyn's Photos - Dec 3 2025 - Faberge Egg Sale

 

The pictures of the rare Faberge egg are amazing.  It is the Winter Egg and considered one of the most beautiful of the Faberge eggs.  It has 4,500 diamonds in a snowflake pattern on the outside all sparkling in the light.  Inside is a basket of white quartz flowers. The record price was $30.2 million U.S. at the much-anticipated auction.  It went to a private buyer. Doing an image search, there are a lot of pictures with hands touching this egg.  I hope it is the same person in a single sitting - looks like it.  There is even one picture with the egg lifted up in the person’s hands. All makes me nervous. To see all the details go to the CNN site HERE.   It shows the outside with the thousands of tiny diamonds sparkling on the snowflakes and the icicles.  Inside, look at the basket and the flowers with the tiny stamens and pistils. So intricate. We love tiny things. Below that article is another Faberge egg headline: Man charged with theft after allegedly swallowing Faberge egg. Other articles say that he ate the egg. It is a Faberge James Bond Octopussy Egg locket worth $19,300. The octopus has been set with two black diamond eyes.  I wonder what they are seeing now.  He is being monitored by New Zealand police after the incident in a store. Are you interested in the rest of the eggs?  They are HERE well sort of, some of them, and others for sale.   I found this Lotus picture from my trip to Lotusland, the famous botanic garden in Santa Barbara.  With a bit of Lightroom and Photoshop wizardry, the Lotus bloom shines.

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Marilyn's Photos - Dec 2 2025 - It's Giving Tuesday

 

The New York Times says this about the day after American Thanksgiving: “OK.  You’re back to work.  The tryptophan has worn off.  And the political world - unlike you, perhaps, or me - did nothing to unplug for the holiday. “ Tryptophan turns out to be “an essential amino acid that the body cannot produce, so must be obtained through food.”  Do you think the sweet potato marshmallow casserole was the key factor in the meal delivering all that tryptophan?   It made me wonder if Giving Tuesday started because of the Thanksgiving holiday madness.  It started as a project of the 92nd Street Y in New York in 2012.   It is now its own organization that promotes giving in communities, along with doing research on giving. In 2024, Giving Tuesday reached $3.6 billion - it doesn’t say what the scope is - perhaps worldwide.  It is always 5 days after the Thanksgiving holiday. So I guess the sweet potato marshmallow casserole has a place in history, after all. In the world giving index, the top country for generosity is Indonesia.  The second is Ukraine.  Kenya is third. Liberia is ranked fourth. Then U.S., Myanmar, Kuwait, Canada, Nigeria and New Zealand.  The country that gives the least to charity is Japan. Also in the bottom rank are France and Germany. And the overall finding of the CAF’s World Giving Report is that Countries with more money are less generous. Doesn’t it lead to so many more questions?  The CAF World Giving Report is HERE.   Daffodils have become iconic symbols of cancer fund-raising in Canada. Aren’t the little lit-up tips of the leaves so interesting.

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Marilyn's Photos - Nov 30 2025 - This is it

 

This is it - the holiday month.  That’s how I think of December.  It isn’t just the days around Christmas.  It seems to go on and on.  It turns out that there are 11 “religious” sorts of holidays in December.  There are four major religions celebrating something in the month.  The AI summary lists Yule as a Pagan and Wiccan festival and includes it in the four. It is named Yule. There are a few historical events celebrated in December. The first patent was granted for the toilet paper roll.  According to the inventor Joseph Gayetty, the toilet roll paper should go up and over.  He also invented toilet paper in 1857, naming it medicated paper for the water-closet. That’s in the western world.  In the East, there was toilet paper from the 600s AD. Moving on to more lofty events, it is Nobel Peace Prize month.  And didn’t Charles Dickens publish the Christmas Carol on December 19th, 1843 What excellent timing. By the 24th, the first edition of 6,000 copies was sold out and by January 2nd, a second edition of 3,000 was sold.    This morning’s light reveals a snow fall in the night.  It makes me think of this snow storm at the Niagara Falls Butterfly Conservatory garden quite a few years ago.

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