Marilyn's Photos - June 28 2025 - Portage and Main sees the light of day

 

I've somehow thought that Portage and Main might be the centre point of Canada.  In fact, it is called the crossroads of Canada and it is close to the longitudinal centre of Canada.  So forcing pedestrians to cross the heart of Canada in complicated underground tunnels is a nasty metaphor.  It isn't the one AI says - "can be viewed as a metaphor for prioritizing vehicle traffic and economic development over pedestrian accessibility and the vibrancy of urban spaces."  That's actually what happened in 1979 and the impacts can be measured over the decades.    How did it come about?  "Trizec promised to build two office towers and a hotel on the southwest corner of Portage and Main, along with an underground retail space that would double as a heated, sheltered crossing for pedestrians, saving them from Winnipeg's winter winds." So aren't we back to one of my themes - "Money is the root"  - everything can be traced as coming from money and going to money.   How do I conclude this?  It is the explanation of the reopening of Portage and Main.  The report was that it would cost a whopping $73 million to bring it up to current safety standards and maintain it.  Add to that four to five years of traffic delays.  Removing barricades and redesigning crossings and curbings, and then install lights - that was in the $20 to $50 million range.  So we who use our feet have a $ value in Winnipeg.   I return to the metaphor of Portage and Main as the centre, or heart, of Canada.  The intersection became the centre of plebiscites,  mayoral platforms and continuing political debate. So much activity seems to indicate there is "Canadian identity" at stake here.  And so the battle has been won -  the heart of Canada will again see the light officially on July 1st 2025 at 10:30am when the pedestrian signals start. There have to be jokes about this most famous intersection:  I tried to make a joke about Portage and Main, but it was too congested. Why was the map of Winnipeg always getting lost? It never had a proper *Portage* through the city. Why did the pigeon get a job at Portage and Main? He heard it was the crossroads of opportunity. I tried to make a joke about Portage and Main, but it was too *crossing*.

This is Martagon lily time -lots of little fairy flowers on a long stem - so a pretty show in the garden.  I remember a grower showing me pictures of his Martagons in his Winnipeg garden - they were 3 to 4 times the height of my lilies - probably more than 30 flowers on a stem six feet high.  I wonder if that makes Winnipeg a destination town.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 27 2025 - Fake News - What Didn't Happen this week?

 

It was one of those "fake news" stories - Grandmother Eaten by Crocodiles - it got me thinking on whether there is a tracking of fake news every week, not just Snoops checking on fake news stories. Newsweek has a Fake News page.  Its latest story is April 29 2025 on Trump releasing a list of debunked "hoaxes" created by news and media outlets.  That wasn't what I was getting at, was it?    I did find a site that provides fact checking.  It is Media Bias Fact Check. "Media Bias Fact Check selects and publishes fact checks from around the world. We only utilize fact-checkers who are either a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) or have been verified as credible by MBFC. Further, we review each fact check for accuracy before publishing. We fact-check the fact-checkers and let you know their bias.When appropriate, we explain the rating and/or offer our own rating if we disagree with the fact-checker. (D. Van Zandt)" Claim Codes: Red = Fact Check on a Right Claim, Blue = Fact Check on a Left Claim, Black = Not Political/Conspiracy/Pseudoscience/Other Fact Checker bias rating Codes: Red = Right-Leaning, Green = Least Biased, Blue = Left-Leaning, Black = Unrated by MBFC This isn't the fake news headline content that got me thinking.  "Grandmother eaten by crocodile."   And being a Canadian checking facts based on right-leaning, left-leaning seems problematic - wouldn't one need a factual way of deciding left vs right. What is clear is that this would be tedious work checking the headlines and news stories.  It brings home how much misleading information is published all the time.  And that is in addition to all those grandmother eaten by crocodile stories that have a shelf life of a decade or more so far. So instead we can detour to those headlines that have gone sideways with wrong meanings.  Here are a few: Iraqi Head Seeks Arms Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax Farmer Bill Dies in House British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands Teacher Strikes Idle Kids Miners Refuse to Work after Death Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant War Dims Hope for Peace If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft Kids Make Nutritious Snacks Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead Isn't that so much more satisfying?

This pretty view is at Biltmore Estate - America's largest house.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 26 2025 - Harvard North Arrives

 

At the breakfast table a few weeks ago, I proposed that Harvard could move north to Canada and set up in conjunction with the University of Toronto - the most likely ally.  There doesn't seem to be a requirement that an educational institution be one nationality or another.   There would be various things to work out - there are jurisdictional differences in what constitutes various degrees.  Take the sticky situation of qualifying as a doctor in one country and trying to practice in another.  Engineers and architects have this dilemma as well.  One jurisdiction hcan have more stringent qualifications for graduation than another.  Particularly where the degree translates into a professional career that can impact lives in various ways.  Today's Globe and Mail has the front page headline of Harvard and the University of Toronto coming to an agreement for students to be able to finish their degrees at the University of Toronto.  This is for the Kennedy School of Government Affairs. It is the international student community that is at risk.   The Munk School has published a welcome to second year students to continue their program should they be unable to remain or re-enter the U.S. due to visa restrictions.  The announcement is HERE.  Isn't it ironic that it is the school educating people in Global Affairs & Public Policy that wants to make sure students can complete their education to graduate and make contributions in the field of government and public policy.

This must have been a black and white assignment at Ryerson when I took photography courses.  These are two pictures from the U of T campus.

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Marilyn's photos - June 25 2025 - Is this heart attack season?

 

That's my question from the numerous headlines offering heart attack symptom advice.  Myheart.net says "No" - heart attack season is winter. They are least likely to occur in summer. And the most likely time of winter is over the Christmas and new years period.   And the day of the week?  Monday.  That's the case for various heart diseases and problems.  In the Middle East, it is Fridays and in Japan it is the weekend.  And the most likely time of day?  It is the mornings, and within the first few hours of waking.   So the worst scenario would be "a winter Monday morning in the setting of a natural disaster acting as a trigger" So we're home-free, aren't we?  It seems not so - the heat dome is dissipating slowly.  While the temperatures are going into the high 20s today, they will feel like the mid-30s.   And heat is a contributor to heart attacks. One article says that "experiments have discovered that for every increase in temperature of 1°C (1.8°F), the chances of a heart attack raise by about 2-4%. Every day, throughout lengthy heat waves, this danger adds up..."   There aren't that many terms related to heat in the weather dictionary - heat index, humid, heat wave, heat stress, and heat dome. There is a wet-bulb temperature - the combination of heat, humidity, wind strength, sunlight angle and cloudiness. To quantify this, scientists turn to the “wet-bulb temperature,” which is based on a reading taken using a thermometer wrapped in a damp cloth. So much for summer heart attacks.  What was the winning bid for the piano on which Freddie Mercury composed Bohemian Rhapsody?  Sotheby's auction says it was £1.74m.  That was in 2023.

Here's my summertime heat dome abstract.

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Marilyn's Photos - June 24 2025 - Pictures of the Universe

 

The world's largest digital camera - what does that mean?  "In just a few hours of test runs, the observatory recorded millions of galaxies, thousands of asteroids, and cosmic phenomena we’ve never seen before. Perched in the Chilean Andes, Rubin will scan the entire Southern sky every few nights, helping scientists unlock the mysteries of dark matter, dark energy, and planetary defense. It’s a breathtaking scientific leap—and the camera at its heart is a true marvel." Here's the video from SciTechDaily.  I don't have a grasp of 10 million galaxies or of the 20 billion galaxies the Rubin Observatory will capture during its 10--year survey of space and time.  And this is the picture in the article - it combines 678 images.  So you can imagine how excited astronomers are.  The NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined.   The telescope is finding never-before-seen asteroids.  There's a demonstration in a short video of how much brighter the results are.  This is their demonstration photo below. How big is the data avalanche to come?  They will generate 20 terabytes of data per night.  The catalog database is 15 petabytes, and in 10 years, there will be around 500 petabytes.  There will be billions of objects and trillions of measurements.  Were you asking the question I was?  What is a petabyte?  It is 1,024 terabytes.   And you knew that a terabyte was 1 trillion bytes.   Given this exciting adventure, it is time we learned the "Byte Chart" Let's start at the story of storage:  "640 kilobytes ought to be enough for anyone" said Bill Gates in the mid-80s.  That was the general consensus of mathematicians.  As an information retrieval professional with library training, I thought that was a strange thing to say then.  I even thought it was dumb.  These were mathematicians and not librarians saying these things.  Maybe they never went into their libraries, storing up to hundreds of thousands of books.   So here we are now with computer technology storage units of measurement based on the byte:   Name Equal To Size (In Bytes) 1 Bit 1/8 Byte 1 Nibble 4 Bits 1/2 Byte (rare) Byte 8 Bits 1 Kilobyte 1,024 Bytes 1,024 Megabyte 1,024 Kilobytes 1,048,576 Gigabyte 1,024 Megabytes 1,073,741,824 Terabyte 1,024 Gigabytes 1,099,511,627,776 Petabyte 1,024 Terabytes 1,125,899,906,842,624 Exabyte 1,024 Petabytes 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 Zettabyte 1,024 Exabytes 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 Yottabyte 1,024 Zettabytes 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 Isn't that such a lovely chart!  And where can the pictures of the universe take us?

I go to an information watercolour class each Monday.  Yesterday were were to make a floral design.

Then I did some "splots" in pastel colours, put them through the Flaming Pear Flexifly filter to get the abstract below.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca