I thought I’d let the sediment settle before adding any more speculation but now that it’s been nearly three months since the last update I’m even more perturbed.

Let me recap the facts as they’ve been laid out thus far:

• On March 10^th of this year, a car pulled up to the US Consulate on University Avenue here in Toronto, a person exited the vehicle, shot at the building a few times, then the SUV sped off. A short while later the vehicle, at that time identified as stolen, was recovered. The shooting was quickly classified as a “national security incident“. A number of odd aspects to the official narrative were identified here on TCL.
• On July 27^th of this year, a very similar incident occurred. Additional odd aspects were identified here on TCL.
• During a related investigation, a police constable was involved in a fatal shootout that resulted in numerous arrests. More weirdness was identified here on TCL.
• The incidents appear to be part of a wider pattern of similar activities (about 27 shootings in Toronto/GTA).
• A bail review was held in late August after which Zara Jabbi, an escaped and subsequently arrested main suspect, was released with a GPS monitoring device.

Moreover: “The reasons Jabbi was released on bail cannot be reported due to a court-imposed publication ban.”

Welp.

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted many photos recently. Truth is, I think that my camera might be on its last legs.

It’s suffered some damage — not all at once but the accumulation appears to have caught up. I tend to put my cameras through their paces so arriving at this point is not entirely unexpected. Still, the imminent retirement’s a little sad.

For a while the problem was just a cracked body. As a result, controls were a bit wonky but otherwise the photos still looked good. Then the camera took some more damage, this time to the lens, and after that the writing was on the wall.

Up until now I’ve muddled through as best as I could but the equipment’s producing some moody pics these days.

Brief panoramas are still workable but most of manual mode has become unusable.

The image stabilizer’s shot so if I optically zoom in too far it becomes nearly impossible to focus or to keep the subject in frame. At the same time, something in the lens casing, probably the image stabilizer ring, has shifted and now produces a noticeable vignette in one corner; only way to get around it is to zoom in.

Basically, zoom in too far: no good; don’t zoom in enough: no good.

On top of that are the randomly switching settings like exposure, f-stop, even the shooting mode. I consider myself lucky when I hit the shutter button and the camera takes an actual photo instead of powering off or recording video instead.

The pictures in this post are from this past Monday. I thought I might take some snaps of the air show during the last day of the Ex but with the aforementioned zoom problem it’s clear that my optimism was misplaced. Even when, by some fantastic stroke of luck, I actually managed to snap a pic the colour balance was off. Don’t even get me started on the contrast.

Maybe these settings silently switch between shots. Maybe the optical sensor is also damaged. At this point it could be anything and post facto image editing just isn’t cutting it.

I still have access to a couple of small old Cannon point-and-shoot pocket cameras that I might be able to use but, as hard as it is to accept, this season marks the end of an era.

Goodbye, old friend.

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.

“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.

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.

I may soon need a new post category.

In the spirit of the historical “Sunday on X” series, one is prompted to ask the question: where were you 111 years ago?

If you’re anything like me, you weren’t born yet, which is just as well because that period in time would’ve been too tempting!

The following photos from the July 25, 1915 edition of the Toronto Sunday World illustrate the types of fun summer activities of the era — basking in the sunshine and enjoying a roasted wiener with some mustard (or other condiments) …

… reveling in the atmosphere of seaside jaunts …

… partaking in pleasant pastimes …

… and/or engaging in other wholesome summertime activities.

Did you notice that the final “photograph” is actually an illustration?

Well done!

Did you also spot the forbidding “X” on the ball being tossed about by the children? The fact that this commanding symbol hangs over the captured rabbit below it is a sure sign that one shouldn’t venture down any rabbit holes and instead hold fast to the certitude of child-like naïveté.

Happy summer, everyone!

Andy Byford isn’t exactly a household name so let me fill you in on his bona fides.

Andy was chief general manager, then CEO, of Toronto’s public transit system (TTC), for nearly six years (2011-2017). By 2014 he had his foot in the door of the New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and immediately after his departure from the TTC he became president of a similar body in New York. In all three capacities he was to modernize the transit system.

Here’s Andy “Train Daddy” Byford:

What a smile.

I had some criticisms of his tenure during his time in Toronto and recall that his vision for the transit system led to a marked reduction in service just as he was heading out the door:

October 12, 2017
The following is a joint statement from TTC Chair Josh Colle and TTC CEO Andy Byford.

News by Bombardier Transportation today that a promised delivery of a cumulative total of 70 streetcars by the end of this year has been revised to 65 is extremely disappointing and frustrating.

There should be 146 new streetcars in service today; instead there are just 45. This is completely unacceptable. The TTC is having to continue to use buses on streetcar routes to meet ridership demand.

The TTC is pursuing a $50 million legal claim against Bombardier for its ongoing failure to meet delivery targets and the TTC Board has directed staff to pursue other potential suppliers for future streetcar orders. In the meantime, the TTC is making every effort to keep its old streetcars on the road as long as it can, ensuring they are both reliable and safe.

There was also the fumbled Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, $150 million over budget and 2 years behind schedule at the time that Andy picked up and left. Under his watch there were also other budget problems, even as transit fares increased. And the fact that the subway refresh was completed successfully under his watch is not something he can take much credit for; he mostly just guided that inherited train into the station.

A year after relocating to New York, Andy unveiled his plan to improve the city’s bus routes. He left the position in 2020 and, 6 years later, little progress appears to have been made.

Leaving his New York job he almost immediately slid into a very similar role in London, England. He quit that position two years later. Unsurprisingly, Transport for London was left with budget holes and disgruntled workers. Similarly, Andy’s main accomplishment was to oversee the completion of a project someone else had started.

In 2023 he joined Amtrak as Vice President of High-Speed Rail Development Programs and last year Trump appointed him as a special advisor to the Amtrak Board of Directors. I expect a train wreck followed by a hasty exit.

Given the implications, it’s odd that I haven’t seen the following information being discussed in any major Toronto publications or blogs. According to a mid-February post on the Better Dwelling website, roughly 1 in 6 people in Toronto are seniors over the age of 65, outnumbering kids (aged 0-14). The fact that seniors make up about 17% of Toronto’s population may not seem particularly alarming until one looks at the trend:

The problem here is that the system requires youths to subsidize geriatrics (via taxes, etc.) and the systemic imbalance in this arrangement is growing. As noted in Better Dwelling’s analysis, “A key ratio when analyzing an economy is the ratio of new workforce entrants (age 20 to 24) to exits (60 to 64). Entrants, who are soon-to-be first-time home buyers and about to enter family formation years—need to outpace lost experience and maintain productivity. When they don’t, it signals economic drag ahead.“

The current data indicates that, “Entrants fell 4.6% (-25.6k) to 557.6k in 2025, while exits climbed 1.4% (+5.9k) to 439.7k. Even with temporary residents inflating the near-term count, the ratio is approaching critical levels [and] The interprovincial migration trend worsens the issue.“

Better Dwelling’s analysis claims that, “Returning to the destabilizing immigration targets may be the first reaction of many policymakers, but it only temporarily improves the short-term optics while creating a bigger dependency issue.“

In its conclusion the report says that even if the government managed to “correct course” right now, it would still take decades for the city and surrounding regions to pull out of the morass.

Translation: interesting times lie ahead for Toronto.

Months have now elapsed since the unusual U.S. embassy shooting here in Toronto.

To refresh, in March of this year a vehicle pulled up in front of the United States embassy on University Avenue, two people got out, opened fire on the building, returned to their SUV, and sped off to the south. At the time the cops were calling it a “national security” issue.

On May 19^th an update on the incident was reported by CTV news in which an Iraqi national by the name of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi was implicated. It’s alleged that Al-Saadi was associated with a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI), translated as the “Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand” (or something like that).

It’s claimed that HAYI was unknown until March of this year although, ostensibly, a dormant Telegram group existed for it as far back as 2024, maybe earlier. The history here is a bit murky.

Nevertheless, the narrative has since widened, implicating a parent Iranian group by the name of Kata’ib Hezbollah in the recent killing of Toronto Police Services Constable Marc Pinizzotto.

According to reports of the time, a co-conspirator named Nicholas Bennett was shot by TPS during a related takedown and a 19-year-old male going by Zara Jabbi (below) escaped.

Four other people were in the apartment at Martha Eaton Way near Trethewey and Black Creek at the time of the coordinated raids. Additional details remain scarce, with the exception of the alleged supplier of stolen transport equipment, Sheldon Tracy-Stewart.

It’s recently come to light that the final suspect (Jabbi), has been arrested. To wit, “He is charged with theft of a motor vehicle, possession of property obtained by crime, discharging a firearm at a place, attacking premises of internationally protected persons, and multiple firearms offences.”

Here’s where it gets weirder: I meticulously analyzed and questioned the official timeline of the shooting which was reported as beginning at around 4:29 a.m. Yet numerous media outlets claim that the shooting happened at around 5:29 a.m.

Maybe this is just an AI summarization error, maybe editorial sloppiness. Could be a Mandela Effect. All I know is that there’s still a missing and unexplained hour in the timeline.

I have some history with this subject.

A little over 16 years ago I posted about the start of the St. Market North redevelopment project. If you’re not familiar, the north building sits directly across the street from Toronto’s historic St. Lawrence Market — an adjunct, if you will.

Initially, five teams identified only by colour put forward their proposals for the upgrade. About 2 months later, City Council chose the “Red Team” consisting of Adamson Associates Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

The following is a panorama I took of the north market at the time. For comparison, below it is the original “Red Team” design from about the same angle:

I stand by my earlier description of the then-existing market as “a stripped-down school gymnasium”. Built in 1968 as a “temporary” measure, it was basically a concrete enclosure into which folding tables, camping chairs, and local farm products (antiques on Sundays), were dragged on a weekly basis.

No matter which team’s design was chosen, the redevelopment was bound to be an aesthetic improvement.

The new north market finally opened about a year ago, in early April 2025. The following image is probably also a rendering (too many suits in the area!) but this is pretty much exactly how the building looks today — same angle as that initial 2010 pano:

A budget for the redevelopment was estimated at $58 million and the building was expected to be finished in 2014. Unofficially.

The official budget was nearly $75 million, revised in 2013 to about $95.5 million, and the final approved cost in 2024 was about $128 million.

An official timeline for the project’s completion may exist but I haven’t yet found it. There was the whole “archeological finds” thing but that accounted for only a couple of years of delays.

In short, based on the available metrics the St. Lawrence Market North project was close to a decade behind the estimated schedule and close to 70% more expensive than the official outlook.

Sounds familiar.