[PHOTO] Abandoned tub, Dupont Street

I know that my neighbourhood has been gentrifying over the years I lived here, but I'm glad there is still room for a certain amount of quirk and oddity.

[OBSCURA] The Milky Way's 19 black holes

Eric Betz's D-Brief blog post "Prepare for an Explosion of Gravitational Wave Detections", examining the exciting possibility of imminent gravitational wave observations giving us unprecedented insight into black holes, included this map of the Milky Way Galaxy's known 19 black holes. This graphic, by Astronomy's Roen Kelly, originally featured in Richard Talcott's February 2016 article "A guide to the black holes in our backyard". There are surely many more than 19, but these are all we know for now. Perhaps LIGO will let us track down some more?

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Antipope Charlie Stross speculates about really good sexbots.


• blogTO notes the opening of Toronto's first Uniqlo in October.


• Centauri Dreams looks at the proposal for a laser-launched flyby probe to Alpha Centauri.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes evidence for the collision of planetesimals around HD 61005.


• The Dragon's Tales links to a study suggesting deer on the outer islands of Scotland were purposefully transplanted there in the Neolithic.


• Joe. My. God. reports on Paul Ryan's categorical exclusion of any interest in the Republican nomination.


• Language Hat reports on the discovery of ancient Chinese manuscripts written in bamboo dating back 2500 years.


• The Planetary Society Blog notes stunning comet photos taken by Rosetta.


• Towleroad notes that the governor of Mississippi has a gay son who left the state after being gay-bashed.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the background of leaders of frozen conflict situations like the Donbas.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg reports on how the weakening yen is hurting some Hong Kong retailers, notes how Chinese are visiting Hong Kong in the search for approved vaccines, and observes Brexit may not change British immigration much.


• MacLean's notes a court ruling which states the Confederate flag is inherently anti-American, and reports on the Swedish Tourist Association's new campaign which offers people around the world the chance to talk to a random Swede.


• Juan Cole at The Nation reports the exceptional unpopularity of Egypt's transfer of two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia.


• National Geographic considers the concept of dam removal in parts of the United States.


• Open Democracy examines the awkward position of Russian culture in the Ukrainian city of L'viv.


• Science Daily notes findings suggesting that the genes which influence homosexuality are found in most people in the world, explaining why homosexuality is common.


• The Toronto Star reports on a thankfully foiled, but still horrifying, suicide pact involving 13 young people in Attawapiskat, and notes Denmark's turn against even people who help refugees.


• Wired describes Yuri Milner's proposal to use powerful lasers to launch very small probes to Alpha Centauri.

[ISL] Two CBC links on the fish plants of Prince Edward Island

Angela Walker's CBC article "Displaced Bay de Verde workers offered support and jobs by P.E.I. Seafood Processors" caught a certain amount of attention on the web.

The P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association has reached out to the community of Bay de Verde, N.L., offering support and jobs for displaced fish plant workers.

A fire destroyed the fish plant in that community on Monday. It employed about 700 people.

Dennis King, executive director of the P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association, calls it a devastating loss to the community and to the people who relied on the fish plant for employment.

He said his heart goes out to them all and so he called the community council office, expressing his sadness about the news.

King said he also told them that there would be work for the upcoming season if some of the displaced plant employees were interested.

"Really I just let them know that we were thinking of them over here," said King. "I mean the fishing community is a pretty closely knit community throughout Atlantic Canada and I just wanted to convey the message that there would be some immediate opportunities for plant workers here in our processing facilities, if some of them were interested to go that route."

The noteworthy thing is that there is actually a labour shortages, with relatively few people willing to apply for physically demanding seasonal jobs which, as revealed by the Canadian government job bank, do not necessarily pay well. Angela Walker also described ("Campaign offers cash bonus to P.E.I. students to work in fish plants") how students are being targeted.

The P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association and Skills P.E.I. have launched a new marketing campaign — and a cash bonus — to encourage more high school and university students to work in Island seafood plants.

Students are invited to join Team Seafood.

If they take a seasonal job at a seafood plant, they will get a cash bonus at the end of the summer before they return to class.

P.E.I. Seafood Processors Association executive director Dennis King said high school students will receive a $500 bursary for their tuition and university students will receive $1,000.

"It's a payment to the student for looking toward the seafood processing facility for work," said King. "And it just really reflects the aggressive nature of the industry to try to do a better job of recruiting local workers to come to work in our seafood processing facilities.

"We feel Island-wide that this is a bit of an untapped market in terms of employees."

More on this theme later.

[URBAN NOTE] "City considers requiring more space between tall buildings"

Yonge Street Media's Paul Gallant describes something that makes perfect sense. Many of the new towers in the downtown are simply far too close to each other. Planning is clearly needed.

As part of TOcore, a three-year study by City Planning into how to positively manage growth in Toronto’s downtown, the city held a meeting to talk about tower separation. That is, how far tall buildings should be set back from property lines and how much space there should be between two towers on a single site to avoid excessive shadowing, pedestrian-level wind and blocked views.

Recommendations that came into effect in 2013 suggests that there should be a setback of 12.5 metres or greater for all tall building towers from the side and rear property lines or centre line of an abutting lane, and for more than one tower on the same site, the setback should be 25 metres or greater. But the current zoning, which requires a setback of only 5.5 metres, is considered outdated amidst Toronto’s current avalanche of 40-plus-storey towers.

Proposed changes to the official plan would require base building height for tall building development to be consistent with the existing streetwall of the block. The new plan might also restrict tall buildings from being built on small sites. The City Planning department would also like more widespread use of “block planning” where numerous tall buildings are proposed, or where the individual lots are too small to accommodate the required setbacks. “These plans take into consideration where towers could possibly be located on any given block to ensure appropriate tower placement, massing, scale and setbacks,” states the slides presented at the consultation.

[URBAN NOTE] "Ontario announces $27-million for rebuild of Toronto’s OCAD University"

I am all for the adventuresome architecture implied by Alex Bozikovic's article in The Globe and Mail.

The province will direct $27-million toward a rebuilding of OCAD University’s downtown Toronto campus that would give the institution long-awaited upgrades to its facilities and a new and improved public face.

The new funding was announced Tuesday by Reza Moridi, Ontario’s Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. It will go toward the cost of what the university calls its Creative City Campus project. This is a series of additions, renovations and expansions to the complex of buildings along McCaul Street, next to the Art Gallery of Ontario, that houses most of the university.

The initiative, with a budget of roughly $60-million in total, will add 55,000 square feet of new area and make improvements to 94,700 square feet of existing space, with a focus on studios and social spaces for students.

It is the biggest set of changes to the campus since the school’s Sharp Centre for Design – the dramatic box-on-stilts by British architect Will Alsop – transformed the campus in 2004.

In interviews Monday, both the minister and the university’s president, Sara Diamond, stressed the civic character of the project. “This is going to be quite something for not only the university, but quite significant for the city of Toronto,” Mr. Moridi said. “The area is going to be transformed by this.”

[URBAN NOTE] "How High Park became Toronto’s “country” sanctuary"

The Toronto Star's Valerie Hauch has a lovely long-form article looking at the origins and development of High Park. (I'll be going there later this month, as the cherry blossoms bloom and the world warms.)

It was a Toronto winter carnival unlike any other – if only because it featured a “Wolf Man.” On Saturday Jan. 31, 1925, tens of thousands of Torontonians cheered in High Park while they watched “Wolf Man Joe LaFlamme” drive a sled team of timber wolves and huskies across Grenadier Pond and up onto the snowy slopes of the park, dashing around on a circuit.

The Toronto Daily Star had brought LaFlamme – a trapper, dogsledder and hotelier – and his team in from the northern Ontario town of Gogama (near Sudbury) as the highlight of the High Park winter carnival, organized by the newspaper. Various winter sports, such as skiing, snowshoeing, tobogganing, were demonstrated and competitive events held.

Although LaFlamme was apt at wrangling the wolves (aside from one wee mishap in which a wolf escaped for a day before being recaptured), a Star article warned people: “don’t let your children or dogs near them.”

The carnival was, well, a howling success, with the city forced to add more streetcars to ferry people to High Park, where the Star estimated 50,000 had gathered for the event.

In an editorial the Star opined that if the event made people “visit High Park and Grenadier Pond” and discover the “great winter playground” that was on their doorstop, it would be worthwhile.

[URBAN NOTE] "Mark Fenton, G20 officer who ordered mass arrests, should be fired, complainants say"

Fire him. From the CBC:

A senior police officer deserves to be fired for the wanton trampling of civil liberties during the tumultuous G20 summit in Toronto six years ago, his sentencing hearing heard Wednesday.

Supt. David (Mark) Fenton has shown no real remorse and attempted to blame everyone other than himself for the indiscriminate mass arrests that stained the weekend gathering, lawyers for the complainants argued.

"Fenton was militant and uncompromising. He effected martial law," lawyer Adrienne Lei said. "His conduct at the time was alarmist. He continues to be alarmist."

Lei, who speaks for scores of people detained for hours by police in full riot gear in pouring rain and plunging temperatures at a downtown intersection, said what the experienced officer has done is "dodge and duck" responsibility for his actions.

Another complainant lawyer, Adrienne Telford, said the incident commander was responsible for the wrongful detention of almost 600 civilians who have been deeply affected by his actions.