Lowest of the Low

Ya know, I've mentioned before that the Kingston music scene is actually pretty good, as most of the bands that travel between Toronto and Montreal/Ottawa inevitably make a stop up here in Kingston. But, I'm starting to think that it's really on par with Toronto's scene. Well, almost. My logic stems on the fact that yeah, you will see most of these bands, and the ones you do see play in tiny venues with no line-ups and very little hype surrounding the show. Like, this Friday Jenn Grant plays to 100 people at the Grad Club, where I have already seen Cuff the Duke and the Braids, and unfortunately missed Doiron and Bryson w the Weakerthans. Never mind shows at the Mansion (NCR, Sheezer) and the Sydenham Church (Plaskett). Now, to perhaps to build this Jan-Mar music extravaganza to a climax, Tori pointed out that Lowest of the Low are playing The Toucan at the end of the month.

The Toucan is incredible to see live shows.. insane.. it fits maybe 20 people. I remember seeing Thrush Hermit, the Flashing Lights, and the Inbreds there my first time around. Incredible venue in the way that it's not supposed to be a venue. I'm not kidding when I say the venue holds maybe 20 people around the stage. This is going to be a special night. Tickets? nah.. no tickets. First come first serve. Amazing. Basically eat dinner there by the stage tables and make a night of it.

Lowest of the Low, the return of one of The Toucan’s ULTIMATE FAV bands from the early 1990’
Shakespeare 20th Anniversary Show
Celebrating the 20th(!) anniversary of Shakespeare My Butt…,
the Lowest of the Low machine will once again crank up for a series of shows this spring.These shows will  be featuring Shakespeare in its entirety,  the rest of the LOTL catalog,  favourites from Ron and Stephen’s records… and more. On top of that, the great Mick Thomas will be opening many of these dates.

I frowned when I saw their Massey Hall show in early May, knowing I couldn't go, but now this is going to blow that Massey Hall show out of the water.



I want to take a streetcar downtown
Read Henry Miller and wander around
And drink some Guinness from a tin
'Cause my U.I. cheque has just come in
Ah, where you been, because

Everything is coming up rosy and grey
Ah, the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today
And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away, 'cause
Everything is rosy and grey

You've been under my skin for more than eight years
It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears
And I don't know what the future can hold, or will do, for me and you
But I'm a much better man for having known you
Yeah, you know that's true, because

Well, I've been told that there's a sucker born every day
Well, I wonder who, yeah, I wonder who
Maybe the one who doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of grey
'Cause I know that's true, yes I do, I know that's true
How about you?

Well, they're picking up trash and they're putting down roads
And they're brokering stocks, the class-struggle explodes
And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can
Well, maybe I'm not and maybe I am
Who gives a damn?
Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain
And I've kissed you in places I'd better not name
And I've seen the sun go down on Sacre Coeur
But I like it much better going down on you
Ah, you know that's true

--

If you can't catch them in Toronto, they are playing around the region over the next couple of months.

West end Toronto

http://bikeunion.to/news/2011/02/28/open-house-three-infrastructure-improvements-parkdaleliberty-village

• Replacement of Dufferin Street Bridges
• New King-Liberty Pedestrian/Cyclist Link
• Liberty Village New Street

Seems like the final southern extension of the railpath, and a great, safe way to access the downtown core/vice versa.

Whereas this just seems like they're making room for more condos. 

Alright, that's it for now. Two lazy updates... but, I really do have a few "good" ones coming up. I've been in Toronto (with nights in Ottawa and Montreal) for almost a week (Reading week was the shit), and now the final 8 weeks of first year law are already here. Time flies by so fast... you might as well not waste it. 

Tyger Tyger

From Angela's feed, I saw this video:



The video is pretty wonderful. And the song is gorgeous as well.

The band is from Toronto, but that's all I know so far...

Brew up some tea, pull out your crafts, and here's their album fed for you over the internet.

http://tygertygerburnsbright.tumblr.com/

Download the album (5 songs) for free here.

M(art)h

Combining math and art. Or something like that.

Prepared for our semi-formal this year.

Just a heads up...

Brian Greene is scheduled to be on CBC Radio 1 in about 30 minutes discussing the mathematical inescapability of parallel universes.



Brian Greene is an American theoretical physicist and one of the best-known string theorists. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996. Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi-Yau manifolds (concretely, relating the conifold to one of its orbitals.) He has become known to a wider audience through his books for the general public, The Elegant Universe, Icarus at the Edge of Time and The Fabric of the Cosmos, and a related PBS television special.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Watson vs. the Humanoids, third and final day

Watson vs. the Humanoids, Day 2

I won't tell you what happens, but I will tell you that Watson got the final Jeopardy question wrong, with an incorrect tip of his (its?) hat to Toronto.

The clue was: "Its largest airport was named for a World War II hero; its second for a World War II battle." Jennings and Rutter answered correctly, but the machine said "Toronto?????" rather than "Chicago."

Flying Aces:

O'Hare International Aitport:
Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry "Butch" O'Hare (March 13, 1914 – November 26, 1943) was a naval aviator of the United States Navy who on February 20, 1942 became the U.S. Navy's first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. Butch O'Hare's final action took place on the night of November 26, 1943, while he was leading the U.S. Navy's first-ever nighttime fighter attack launched from an aircraft carrier. During this encounter with a group of Japanese torpedo bombers, O'Hare's F6F Hellcat was shot down; his aircraft was never found. In 1945, the U.S. Navy destroyer USS O'Hare (DD-889) was named in his honor.

O'Hare was honored when Colonel Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, suggested a name change of Chicago's Orchard Depot Airport as tribute to Butch O'Hare. On September 19, 1949, the Chicago, Illinois airport was renamed O'Hare International Airport. 

Chicago Midway Airport:
The airport was officially renamed on July 8, 1949^[3] by a unanimous vote in the City Council to "Chicago Midway Airport" in honor of the World War II Battle of Midway^[3] 

Toronto Pearson International Airport:
The airport was renamed to Lester B. Pearson International Airport in 1984, in honour of Lester B. Pearson, the 14th Prime Minister of Canada and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Toronto Island Airport:
The Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, commonly known as the Toronto Island Airport. At its annual meeting on September 3, 2009, the TPA announced that it would rename the airport after William Avery "Billy" Bishop, a Canadian First World War flying ace. The name would become the "Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport". The proposal drew criticism from TPA critics such as Adam Vaughan, charging "the port authority is putting together a "feel-good story" to prevent people from asking tough questions about how the island airport is governed."^[62]

Watson vs. the Humanoids, Day 1

AHHHHH!!!! FREAKING OUT!!!!

If you're within shooting distance of Waterloo...

I highly recommend this lecture:

MARCUS CHOWN, author
My Top 10 Bonkers Things About the Universe
March 2, 2011 at 7:00 pm

Did you know you could fit the entire human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or that, if the Sun were made of bananas, it wouldn't make much difference? Or that 98 per cent of the universe is invisible? Award-winning science writer Marcus Chown invites you to come along and discover how the universe we live in is far stranger than anything we could possibly have invented.

 http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Outreach/Public_Lectures/Public_Lectures/

Tickets are available for free tomorrow morning at 9am. 

Of course, if you miss this, all past lecutres are available online here, but more on that later...

MAN VS. MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week on Jeopardy, Watson the Supercomputer takes on Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter!

Ken Jennings, who became a household name when he won 74 games in a row, and the all-time biggest Jeopardy money winner, undefeated Brad Rutter, who has won more than US$3.2 million over several tournaments, will take on IBM's Watson on Feb 14th-16th. Jeopardy executive producer Harry Friedman says most of Watson won't even fit on a stage. Its size is "the equivalent of ten refrigerators," he says. It has, for one, 15 TB of RAM!

So, what do I think is going to happen? I'd have to agree with the BoingBoing analysis.

The difference between winning and losing isn't mental agility, but the ability to time the milliseconds between the moment Alex finishes the clue and one of the producers activates the buzzers, slamming your thumb down with either (a) near-perfect reflexes at the off-camera lights telling you the buzzers are go, or (b) a near-perfect guess at the off-stage producer's timing.

Since a computer can obviously react to the "go" lights more rapidly and consistently than any human, it will probably win.

This seemed to be pretty much confirmed if you watched the practice round, which Watson won.



More: A former software engineer, Jennings remembers thinking, when he was first told of the idea behind Watson a couple of years ago, that a computer capable of playing Jeopardy! was decades away. "I was very skeptical," he says.

But then he watched Watson play its pre-game sparring matches, and he felt a growing nervousness in his stomach. "It's really amazing," Jennings says. "Watson gives you only the tiniest window. It never forgets. And its buzzer reflexes will make me look like... What's an example of someone with really bad reflexes?"

More info on the "parallel probabilistic events based architecture" machine:


--

Big picture Jeopardy analysis.

Most popular Jeopardy categories>:

An ENORMOUS Jeopardy archive with past questions: http://j-archive.com

Oh, and this:





Soooo......   hey there. Does anyone have cable tv (or an antenna) they would like to share for an evening or two? I won't be able to make the 14th, but can bring dinner and drinks (plus whatever else--boardgames? It's the week before reading week!) to your place on the 15th and 16th around 7-7:30! This is going to be GREAT.

More ice bike race info

National Post article on the race.

For its first five years, Icycle took place on a figure-eight course, on a lagoon in Lake Ontario, off Toronto Island. "We would go out there with chainsaws and cut 800-lb pieces of ice out of the lake to build a track," recalls Derek Chadbourne, owner of Harbord's The Bike Joint, and Icycle organizer. "But the weather became too unpredictable." This year marks Icycle's 10th at Dufferin Grove rink.

Here is Mr. Chadbourne's advice about cycling in winter: "The thinner the tires, the better. Keep your ass on the saddle--it's like putting sandbags in the trunk of your car. If you do hit ice, stop pedalling and pray."

I brought my dslr last night, but forgot the sd card in the laptop. The iphone filled in admirably, but wasn't capable of the zooms, obviously. However, got to try out the Pro HDR functions.

More pics here.