On the domestic front, in the last month or so, the condition were still rather horrible at work: it was way too hot (ventilation is working but there’s absolutely no air conditioning so we regularly work at temperature of 28~33 ? including the humidex — 23~25 ? with 45%~55% humidity) and we are still running like crazy… Therefore, most of the time, I come back home totally exhausted.

When I was not busy chasing quotes for the balcony and masonry repairs on the duplex, I was taking care of the stray cats, but this year’s cat saga has finally concluded: the two females have been sterilized & released and their kittens have been adopted through a good samaritan shelter. Despite all this (and maybe thanks to the omega 3 supplement I am taking? Nah…) I wrote much more than the previous months (many capsule reviews including commentaries on the Ghost in the Shell and Valerian live-action movies, as well as the superb Pline manga)  and I also started contributing to the Irrésistibles blog (with a version of my commentaries on Animeland #214 & #215, dBD #115, Pline #1, and the movie Silence).

In the news, everything was about the Trump circus. I was literally consumed by the news of this train wreck in the making, like watching an accident where you know you shouldn’t but just can’t turn you gaze from it. So we’ve spent countless hours watching news reports on MSNBC (mainly Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell shows) about the latest trump scandals — and there’s a new one almost every day! It never stops: the Buzzfeed Russian “dossier” (Wikipedia, document), the possible election tempering collusion and financial involvement with Russia, the healthcare repeal & replace disaster, the sabre-rattling with North Korea and, finally, the controversial comments following the Charlottesville violence contributing to inflame the supremacist and racist agenda! When will the republicans realize they have bet on the wrong horse and decide to put him out of his misery? I can’t believe it has gone this far…

I have also watched today’s partial eclipse of the sun (58%) on TV and with my own eyes (using a home-made filter) but, unfortunately, I was not able to take any respectable pictures (by lack of preparation and appropriate equipment). But, at least, the weather was cooperating and I was able to see it. The next opportunities for such event will be June 10 2021 (partial at 85%), October 14 2023 (partial at 29%) and on April 8 2024 (a total solar eclipse!).

As always, I tried to remain acquainted with the affairs of the world and gathered oven an hundred notable news & links — which I share with you (in both french or english, and roughly separated in a few categories of interest), after the jump.

[ Traduire ]

Local news

• Aug 21 Solar Eclipse visible in Montreal (Time & Date)
• Canada Gets A New $10 Bill For Its 150th Birthday (HuffPost, Bank of Canada)
• Final print edition of La Presse to be published Dec. 30 (The Gazette)
• Une bombe de 258 ans sous la ville de Québec (Le Devoir)
• Les décombres du parlement du Canada à Montréal révèlent leurs secrets (Le Devoir)
• Élections municipales de 2017 à Montréal (Wikipedia)
• A Montreal mystery: Hunt for lost village of Hochelaga starts on St-Viateur Ave. (The Gazette, CBC)
• Le projet du futur centre animalier prend encore du retard (Métro via PressReader, PDF)
• An IGA in Montreal is growing its own vegetables on the roof (The Gazette)
• How ANN Was Hacked (ANN)
• Montréal élargit son réseau sans fil gratuit (Le Devoir, The Gazette)
• Cellphone service spreads to half of STM’s network (The Gazette)
• Update: What’s Going On with Anime News Network? (ANN)
• Inauguration du Parc Frédéric-Back: Détail (Tohu)
• Montreal’s Pompeii: Archeologists sift through ruins of Canada’s torched Parliament (The Gazette)
• L’énergie solaire pourrait-elle ébranler le monopole d’Hydro-Québec? (RC)
• Montrealers treated to a partial solar eclipse (CBC)

Apple stuff

• How to Find Out Which Mac Software Needs Updating (NYT)
• Watch: How to gain access to a locked iOS device (Apple Insider)
• How to batch rename files in macOS (without third-party tools) (The Next Web)
• Apple Pay is now available for Tangerine clients across Canada (Mobile Syrup)
• Tim Hortons mobile order app is coming next week, says franchisee (Mobile Syrup)
• WordPress App Update for iOS Makes the iPad Pro an Even Better Tool for Bloggers (iPad Insight)
• Apple worked with hearing-aid firms on direct connection to iPhones, with free licensing (9to5Mac)
• iPhone 8’s radical redesign could bring awesome UI change (Cult of Mac)
• How to stop the same song from autoplaying every time you plug your phone into a car (The Verge)

Books, Library & Culture

• Banana Yoshimoto’s Improbable Literary Journey From Waitress to Writer (Culture Trip, Wikipedia, Mtl libraries)
• Coderre offers 3-week amnesty on library fees, overdue books (The Gazette via PressReader)
• Vous n’avez jamais lu de manga ? Trouvez celui qui vous convient (Le Monde)
• Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Up 5% in 2016 (ICv2)
• Moins d’inscrits mais plus d’usagers (Livres Hebdo)
• How to: turn your iPhone or iPad into the ultimate book reading tool (Apple Insider)
• Not everyone on the internet should write a book (Quartz)
• Leonardo da Vinci’s Visionary Notebooks Now Online: Browse 570 Digitized Pages (Open Culture)
• Top 10 Manga Franchises for Spring 2017 (ICv2)
• William Gibson Talks Archangel, Apocalypses, and Dystopias (Vulture)
• The death of reading is threatening the soul (WaPo)
• My Library Book Borrowing Dilemma (Book Riot)
• The Secret World of Colorists and Letterers (The Atlantic) [My wife was a letterer and touch-up artist for Eclipse Comics, so I know…]
• Karl Ove Knausgaard: what makes life worth living? (The Guardian)
• Concours booktube “Livre-toi” (web, FB)

Entertainments (and other geeky stuff)

• Valerian Review: A Bigger And Lesser Fifth Element (UpRoxx) [I disagree: it was great!]
• Living Dead director George A Romero dies at 77 (BBC)
• Doctor Who’s 13th Time Lord unveiled (BBC)
• Jodie Whittaker: Doctor Who‘s 13th Time Lord to be a woman (BBC) [Yeah!]
• Martin Laudau: Iconic ‘Mission Impossible’ Star Dead at 89 (Hollywood Life, BBC)
• The Director of the New It Movie Signs On To Bring Robotech To the Big Screen (iO9) [Good!]
• The best film and TV trailers from San Diego Comic Con 2017 (The Mirror)
• HBO gives Game of Thrones season 8 release date and episode length update (Independent))
• Game of Thrones script ‘stolen in HBO hack’ (BBC)
• FUNimation Sold ! (ICv2)
• Femmes résilientes, hommes déconcertés à Fantasia 2017 (shomingeki)
• Kirkman, Hurd, Alpert, and Mazzara Sue AMC (ICv2)
• Box-office: deuxième meilleur démarrage de l’année pour Valerian (Les Inrocks) [Conclusion: peut-être que les Amerlocs ne pigent pas la sf française]
• George R. R. Martin Is Sad One Major Book Character Got Cut From Game of Thrones (Forbes)
• Game of Thrones: Most Essential Episodes (Times)
• Victoria and Poldark producers making new Pride and Prejudice series for ITV (Country Living)
• Neuromancer Finally Coming to Big Screen? (ICv2)

Health & Environment

• How Exercise May Protect the Brain From Alzheimer’s Disease (Time)
• Giant iceberg splits from Antarctic (BBC)
• La faune sauvage se meurt, selon une étude (La Presse) [Et ça prends une étude pour conclure ça?]
• Turning chopsticks into tabletops (Vancouver Sun)
• The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates (ProPublica)
• World’s first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland (BBC)
• Sea level fears as Greenland darkens (BBC)
• Want to help save the planet? (National Post via PressReader)
• Earth to warm 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, studies say (CNN)
• We didn’t have the environment “Green things” in our days… (HrtWarming FB) [Indeed!]
• Antarctica iceberg: Massive chunk of ice breaks off Larsen ice shelf (USA Today)
• Where global warming gets real: inside Nasa’s mission to the north pole (The Guardian)
• Plastic-plucking robots are the future of recycling (Engadget)

History & Sciences

• The Areni-1 shoe: The oldest leather shoe in the world was found in a cave in Armenia (Vintage News)
• It’s widely abused as a buzzword. But can quantum mechanics explain how we think? (National Post) [Very interesting idea to explain consciousness !]
• Scientist describes life on the ice in Greenland (BBC)
• Ancient DNA solves mystery of the Canaanites, reveals the biblical people’s fate (WaPo)
• Archaeologists discover three ancient tombs in Egypt (BBC)
• What Saliva Reveals About North America (Ancestry))
• Has the true identity of Jack the Ripper been revealed? (The Telegraph, Inquisitr)
• France: archaeologists uncover ‘little Pompeii’ south of Lyon (The Guardian)
• Taking Photos Won’t Take You Out of the Moment, Study Suggests (NYT)
• USS Indianapolis wreckage found after 72 years (CNN)
• The Next Solar Eclipse: Eclipse Maps for the Next 50 Years (Times)

Japan

• The Mystery of Why Japanese People Are Having So Few Babies (The Atlantic)
• The Japanese practice of ‘forest bathing’ has scientifically proven health benefits (Quartz)
• Les origines complexes de la politesse des japonais (Japanization)

Politics, Society & Economy

• Canadian baby given health card without sex designation (CNN)
• US Customs says it can search iPhones, but not cloud services (Apple Insider) [Isn’t it outrageous enough?]
• Wisconsin company Three Square Market to microchip employees (BBC)
• Have You Saved Enough for Retirement? Let’s Do the Math (WSJ)
• Jimmy Kimmel Asked People To Find North Korea On A Map: It Didn’t End Well! (Some Entertainment)
• Trump responds to Barcelona terror attack by spreading debunked rumor (CNN)
• Corker: Trump hasn’t demonstrated the stability or competence to be successful (CNN)
• When White Nationalists Get DNA Tests Revealing African Ancestry (The Atlantic)

Technology & Gadgets

• Bell Fibe TV iOS and Apple TV app can now play DVR recordings (Mobile Syrup) [at last!]
• Jawbone reportedly shuttering business amidst financial turmoil, new health startup to rise from ashes (Apple Insider)
• Jawbone’s demise heralds the end of the wearables industry (Engadget)
• Fitbit 2Q17 earnings down as smartwatch wait towers (Pocket Now)
• Transmit 5 Review (Mac Stories)
• How to Photograph a Solar Eclipse (Mr Eclipse)

Humour

Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy for January 23, 2017

Dilbert by Scott Adams for January 25, 2017

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 25, 2017

Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy for January 28, 2017

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 2, 2017

Dilbert by Scott Adams for February 3, 2017

Dilbert by Scott Adams for February 4, 2017

The Other Coast by Adrian Raeside for February 16, 2017

Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 16, 2017

Bizarro by Dan Piraro for February 17, 2017

Bizarro by Dan Piraro for March 7, 2017

Between Friends by Sandra Bell-Lundy for March 9, 2017

Dilbert by Scott Adams for March 13, 2017