Nick Cave’s song Hollywood is quite potent, particularly given the recent death of his teenage son 😢🎧
Microposts
Thanks to Run the Jewels 3 for providing a much-needed boost on today’s run 🏃♂️
Fall has arrived
Thanksgiving weekend begins with the traditional excessively long and slow drive on the 401
With Category Theory, Mathematics Escapes From Equality - Quanta Magazine
Ultimately, you will build an infinite tower of equivalences between equivalences. By considering the entire edifice, you generate a full perspective on whatever objects you’ve chosen to represent as points on that sphere.
Thanks to a recommendation from @verybadwizards I read and very much enjoyed Ted Chiang’s short story “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”. Plenty of deep implications for free will and morality in a fascinating story.
After 20 years and four cars, the Darwin Fish on the back of our car has disappeared. Hopefully it wasn’t ripped off by a zealot!
Replacements are surprisingly expensive (~$50). But the car looks wrong without one.
An unexpected and welcome surprise in the latest Byword update #rstats
I enjoyed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Very inventive, though definitely some grim parts, as you might expect for the second book in a trilogy. The dialogue can be a bit clunky, so the emphasis is on the science. 📚
As Canada’s federal election campaign gets increasingly ridiculous, I’d like the political parties to know that I’ll vote for whoever has the most credible and ambitious climate change plan. This includes a carbon price, otherwise it isn’t credible 🇨🇦 🗳
Two great Mindscape episodes in a row about climate change overcast.fm/+S_7kXRI8…
I enjoyed Borderline by Mishell Baker. A good mix of fantasy and realism with compelling characters 📚
All Armed on Nils Frahms’ Encores 3 EP revived my (barely) dormant obsession with his music. His work rewards focused and patient listening. Hard to do these days, but worth the effort music.apple.com/ca/album/…
Our family data plan was close to the limit, so I called Rogers to temporarily add some data. They ended up offering unlimited data for $15 less per month! A nice surprise and good reminder to call every year or so to check on better deals.
The past, present and future of climate change from The Economist is a good overview of GHG emissions and what we should do about them. Some excellent graphics too.
One of my great hopes for Apple Arcade is that it will end the seemingly endless requests from my children to buy virtual gems
The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History is well worth a read. Really puts the dangers of cyber attacks in context.
Of Monsters and Men put on a great show in Toronto.
I declined an offer to provide a lecture on Transport Economics. I’m dissapointed, since I’ve enjoyed these opportunities before. However, it is a for-profit series and they’re looking for volunteer lecturers. This didn’t seem right to me. Hopefully, I’m not being short sighted.
Grandma’s 95th Birthday. Her vitality is inspiring.
I really enjoyed this Strong Song episode on one of my favourite songs: Paranoid Android 🎵
Grades 9 and 6
The Fall by Neal Stephenson is well worth a read. The concepts about consciousness, computer simulations, and death were fascinating, along with the usual hyper detail from Stephenson. Definitely a marathon of a read with multiple, overlapping stories within the book 📚
Owen conquered his first #spartantoronto race
Very fun and very muddy #spartantoronto race
We often think of fungi or other microbes as not particularly intelligent. This study goes to show that across these networks, one of the reasons they can be so successful is that they can make what seem to be fairly sophisticated decisions about where to allocate resources to optimize the return they get.
My vacation transition in Screen Time:
- Reading on the dock Thursday and Friday
- Starting to pack on Saturday and traveling on Sunday
- Then Monday catching up at home on lots of email, upcoming meetings, and tasks
- Followed by Tuesday and Wednesday going to meetings in the office
Go Karts!
Waiting for the thunderstorms to pass ⛈
