[PHOTO] Former Dominion Bank, Davenport and Dovercourt Roads

This solid building on the southwestern corner of Davenport Road and Dovercourt Road now houses an eye doctor, but as illustrated by this photo at Spacing Toronto's Flickr it once housed a branch of the Dominion Bank, one of the two banks that in 1955 merged to form the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

This building features both in a September 2011 blogTO retrospective of bank interiors and exteriors and in Jamie Bradburn's July 2011 history of Davenport Road.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• 80 Beats reports how the study of ice cores by climate scientists suggests that in their peak, the Roman Empire and Han China both engaged in enough large-scale activity to contribute to some measure of climate change.


• Centauri Dreams takes note of astronomical research that is now determining the sort of debris to be found in the disk of the emerrgent planetary system of Beta Pictoris.


• Eastern Approaches writes about the protests in Poland led by that country's conservative Law and Justice Party, aimed at unseating the current government.


• The Global Sociology Blog links to a Guardian commentary arguing that an Earth with an older, declining population would be a good thing.


• Language Hat has an amusing post and nioe comments thread regarding the presence of Britishisms in American English.


• Language Log's Victor Mair blogs about the use of seals as opposed to signatures in Sinic cultures, commenters pointing out that seals are actually common in many other areas of the world.


• Marginal Revolution blogs about how, after the imposition of strict sanctions on Iran two years ago, the Iranian rial first collapsed and is now starting to undergo hyperinflation.


• Maximos blogs about Aboriginal culture in Australia, first noting a recent study pointing out that Aborigines altered the landscape of their continent significantly contra received opinion.


• Torontoist examines the plight of the chimney swift in Toronto, undergoing population collapse as the shift from brick to metal smokestacks destroys their preferred urban habitat.

[LINK] "Two Stars Do a Short-Orbit Tango Around the Milky Way’s Black Hole"

I'd heard of the star S2 or SO-2, orbiting the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy from less than a light-day's distance and travelling at 2% of the speed of light in its orbit, before. Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson shares the news that astronomers have found a star in an even closer orbit. The implications for what is effectively our galaxy's biggest open-air physics laboratory is noteworthy.

Astronomers have known for some time there was one star orbiting fairly close to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. But now another star has been found dipping close and orbiting even faster around the Milky Way’s central black hole. Astronomer Andrea Ghez from UCLA says the ability to watch these two stars in a short-period ‘tango’ around the black hole will help scientist measure the effects of space-time curvature, and they should be able to determine whether Albert Einstein was right in his prediction of how black holes could warp space and time.

“I’m extremely pleased to find two stars that orbit our galaxy’s supermassive black hole in much less than a human lifetime,” said Ghez. “It is the tango of [these stars] that will reveal the true geometry of space and time near a black hole for the first time. This measurement cannot be done with one star alone.”

The previously known close-in star, S0-2, orbits the black hole every 15.5 years. And now, the newly found star, called S0-102, orbits the black hole in a blazing 11.5 years, the shortest known orbit of any star near this black hole.

In the same way that planets orbit around the sun, S0-102 and S0-2 are each in an elliptical orbit around the central black hole. Ghez said that the planetary motion in our solar system was the ultimate test for Newton’s gravitational theory 300 years ago, and now the motion of S0-102 and S0-2 will be the ultimate test for Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes gravity as a consequence of the curvature of space and time.

“The exciting thing about seeing stars go through their complete orbit is not only that you can prove that a black hole exists but you have the first opportunity to test fundamental physics using the motions of these stars,” Ghez said. “Showing that it goes around in an ellipse provides the mass of the supermassive black hole, but if we can improve the precision of the measurements, we can see deviations from a perfect ellipse — which is the signature of general relativity.”

[MUSIC] Adele, "Skyfall"

I found Adele's new song "Skyfall", theme song to the upcoming James Bond movie of the same name, on YouTube on the singer's channel last night. "Like," "+1"--I find it a satisfying song.

[LINK] “How To Write A Thriller” by Ian Fleming

Diane Duane's blog Out of Ambit today hosts Ian Fleming's 1962 essay "How To Write A Thriller". I find Fleming's insights into the writing process rather interesting, if perhaps a bit dated. You?

The craft of writing sophisticated thrillers is almost dead. Writers seem to be ashamed of inventing heroes who are white, villains who are black, and heroines who are a delicate shade of pink.

I am not an angry young, or even middle-aged, man. My books are not “engaged”. I have no message for suffering humanity and, though I was bullied at school and lost my virginity like so many of us used to do in the old days, I have never been tempted to foist these and other harrowing personal experiences on the public. My opuscula do not aim at changing people or making them go out and do something. They are written for warm-blooded heterosexuals in railway trains, aeroplanes or beds.

I have a charming relative who is an angry young litterateur of renown. He is maddened by the fact that more people read my books than his. Not long ago we had semi-friendly words on the subject and I tried to cool his boiling ego by saying that his artistic purpose was far, far higher than mine. The target of his books was the head and, to some extent at least, the heart. The target of my books, I said, lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh. These self-deprecatory remarks did nothing to mollify him and finally, with some impatience, and perhaps with something of an ironical glint in my eye, I asked him how he described himself of his passport.

“I bet you call yourself an Author,” I said. He agreed, with a shade of reluctance, perhaps because he scented sarcasm on the way. “Just so,” I said. “Well, I describe myself as a Writer. There are authors and artists and then again there are writers and painters.”

This rather spiteful joint, which forced him, most unwillingly, into the ranks of the Establishment, whilst dealing for myself the halo of a simple craftsmen from the people, made the angry young man angrier than ever and I don’t now see him as often as I used to. But the point I wish to make is that if you decide to become a professional writer, you must, broadly speaking, decide whether you wish to write for fame, for pleasure or for money. I write, unashamedly, for pleasure and money.