Froz’n Motion / Cameron MacMaster has added a photo to the pool:
The Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at the University of Toronto is reflected in the curved windows of the OPG Building. Corner of University and College Streets, Toronto, Ontario.
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According to Bill McKibben, the environment has it in for us. All of us. Like, real bad.
I got the opportunity to hear him and Margaret Atwood chew the cud on the problem at the UofT Bookstore‘s Reading Series. After all, the environment lurks mercilessly outside all of our homes, constantly waiting to pounce; needs a brainstormer, no doubt.
What I liked about Atwood was her willingness to delve into the causes of why the environment is being such a dick; let’s not be ignorant of the enemy. That and she brought up coffee and hemp as possible solutions. I like her. :)
So what did McKibben have to say? Basically that, at this point, the environment is already over the edge. Forget trying to slow it down — blast that motherfucker with everything we have!!
He goes into greater detail in his new book “Eaarth”, but wants to emphasize that it’s still, “all a long shot”.
Bill’s message isn’t terribly upbeat, even though he somehow is. Diplomacy, recycling, full-on frontal attack, we’ll need to do whatever it takes if we stand a chance against the environment.
From my regular viewing of public television, I know that small island nations like the Maldives are already under attack. They’re seriously looking into evacuation plans for whole countries, that’s how bad it’s getting. And unfortunately, publicity stunts don’t really seem to be getting the word out.
Bill had a big hand in 350.org, a site dedicated to disseminating information about the struggle. And a struggle it’ll be. According to what I’ve read there, it’s not a matter of if we’ll be attacked, but how severely. The best we can do now is to mitigate the damages. I’m definitely not getting that mortgage now.
No doubt about it, I’m going to copyright hell. Yes, I’ve once again raided the Toronto Archives (I highly recommend a search or two; lotsa fun stuff), and emerged with some gleaming gems. Should the Archives ever decide to sue my blatancy, I’ll no doubt be forced to hand over much of TCL’s total monetary earnings to date: $3.67. If I made them cry, emotional damages too. But I just can’t help it; they have way too much great stuff to hide behind a stuffy web interface.
This time around I went back to the mid-sixties in search of the very beginnings of computing in Toronto. Okay, yeah, I’ve been spending a lot of time online making sweet sweet love to the blogosphere. And programming. But the digital miracles I’m pulling out of my ass (and many of us are), these days would’ve been unimaginable forty-five years ago. In fact, even though I’m more closely familiar with most of the gizmos in these photos than the average person, even I’m at a loss to put name or function to everything there. But I’ll try.
Okay, so from my understanding, this is what computing looked like at the University of Toronto circa 1965ish:
Can you imagine what it would’ve taken to slap together a basic web page at that time? Like, look at the fellow in the photo above; picking out a frozen pizza because he knows he’s going to be a while. It’s nice that they provided slushie machines for the programmers:
I guess he’s picking his flavour.
Oh, yeah, of course I’d be hideously remiss if I didn’t mention the sideburns. That was the requisite look in those days, from my understanding. For when you’d fall asleep on your desk on account of the speed of the computers. Sop up your drool ‘n all. (I know, gross, but hey, practical.)
So here’s Mr. Burns actually earning a living:
…continued from previous part.
I would like to thank you for hanging in there, dear reader. I know that you’ve sat through quite enough self-indulgent tripe in this series and, thankfully, we’ve come to the end of it. There’s not much more left to achieving Ultimate Success® except this last bit:
As we finally leave the University of Toronto (I’m sure I mentioned it’s a big place), I’m reminded of my first impression of Canada. A little immigrant kid, no English, fresh off the plane at Pearson, stepping out into Toronto daylight for the first time. I’m not sure if I vocalized it, and I’m not certain if I used the word “shit”, but I recall gasping, “Holy shit! Look at the size of those cars! How big are these people?”
I won’t hesitate to call that wonder. Toronto was huge. And you know, I think it still is. If I recall correctly, by doing the speed limit on the 401 from the eastern border (“Welcome to the City of Toronto!”) to the western border (“Same to You, Jerkwad!”), you could drive across the city in about forty minutes. That’s about sixty-seven kilometers (forty-two miles). On the night of my high school graduation, drunk off my tits, I decided to walk home to Scarborough from Yonge and Bloor. I could be wrong, but I think it took me just a little over six hours. Possibly less if I hadn’t been wearing formal footwear.
I would probably add another two to three hours of walking to get to the eastern city limit, where it touches cootie-ridden Durham county. And I believe the city extends just as far west of Yonge too.
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