A few years ago I posted some commentary about the use of blurry photos by the Toronto Police when producing missing persons reports. At the time I pointed out that the cops were probably “simply working with that they have” but, while the photo accompanying the post was blurry, there were at least some identifying facial features to go by.
When it comes to the category of vague photos, however, the TPS recently released a new contender … meet Jimmy, 59:
According to the Missing Person report, “Jimmy, 59, was last seen on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 at 9:12 p.m., in the The Queensway and Glendale Avenue area. Jimmy is described as 6’0″ with a thin build and balding with grey hair. Jimmy was last seen wearing a red shirt, black pants and blue running shoes. Police are concerned for their safety.”
The only other photo is a cropped close-up of the same image but we can at least rest safe in the knowledge that TPS didn’t misgender him/her/them/zhe/zhim/attack-helicopter-self/etc.
Posted on
August 17th, 2026
–
Comments Off on The City wants you to know…
“You can buy ‘em,” says the official City of Toronto tweet that accompanies the image, “but you can’t ride ‘em. In Toronto, e‑scooters aren’t legal to be ridden on public streets, sidewalks, bike lanes or trails. Instead of an e-scooter, choose a manual kick-scooter, traditional bicycle or legal e-bike.”
There’s much to read between the lines of that message, methinks.
Posted on
August 8th, 2026
–
Comments Off on Splatting the city
Exactly 3 years ago a research paper was submitted to a scholarly research site named arXiv describing a practical new method to produce 3D graphics called 3D Gaussian Splatting. This method differs from traditional 3D graphics in that instead of creating a scene using polygons, splats are created in 3D space as clouds of points.
This may seem like a mere technical nuance but one of the cool results of the way splats work is that they can be made using photos or, increasingly, high-def video. Effectively, a space or object can now be captured and explored in literally photo-realistic 3D. Apparently this even works when motion/time are introduced. Moreover, I’m told that this can be achieved with basic equipment.
The equipment used to capture Graffiti Alley below is a little more advanced and the resulting splat is nearly 200 MB, the equivalent of about 27 hi-res image files, but the results are spectacular.
Imagine being able to join someone on a ride-along in a way that allows you to pause, rewind, replay, and explore their environment immersively, not just from an “inside a bubble” perspective like you currently see in Google Street View. Vacation photos can be used to recreate and explore the resort’s beach. Spaces and objects can be shared virtually without the need for any 3D modelling or expensive hardware. Porn is sure to improve. The possibilities are immense.
... with pictures
... with sounds
... with videos
... with opinions
... that's shorter
... that's longer
