How will self-driving cars handle snow?

The roads in my subdivision are snow-covered, ice-rutted. The roads are slippery and treacherous. Many have not been salted or sanded and there is no sign a snow plow has been by. It is hard enough for a human driver to negotiate these roads, how will a self-driving car fare? I look at our winter roads and I am filled with concern. (This image is a download straight from my point-and-shoot. The scene is as black and white as pictured.)

Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Late last night, well after midnight, my wife, unable to sleep, went to the kitchen. She looked out the large kitchen window and thought the backyard made a picture. Despite the hour the yard, with all the snow, looked quite bright. Still, she wondered, is a picture even possible. Soon I wasn't able to sleep either. My wife had me up trying to get a picture in order to get back to bed where I belonged.

The resulting image was marred with blotches of yellow and there was a lot of noise across the entire image. The noise resembled the clumped grains of silver that once marred images taken with film pushed to a too high ASA/ISO number.

I took the image into Photoshop, changed the mode from RGB to Grayscale and then blurred the noise that marred the snow. The change to Grayscale caused the yellow staining to disappear. I changed the image back to RGB and weighted the picture to cyan with a touch of blue and a hint of green. In my world, snow demands an overall cool colour.

My wife tells me that this is the way our backyard looked last night. She, of course, is wrong. Memory is generous. Photographers don't have to deliver pictures that accurately depict what folks see but simply trigger the right memories. Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Is it packing snow?

 

 It's snowing tonight and tomorrow morning we should be deep in the fluffy white stuff. My granddaughters will be excited and the big question will echo throughout the home: Is it packing snow? Snow is good. It means snow angels, slopes transformed into sled runs and a bigger and better snow doughnut in the court.

But if it is not packing snow is means no snowman. No snow taffy. But tomorrow there is no school. The teachers are on strike. And so the grandkids will make do with whatever snow blankets the neighbourhood. They will play happily in the snow until they are good and cold. Then they will come inside and make hot chocolate decorated with marshmallows.

Racing on the Boler Bump

We could not believe the number of cars parked in the various lots surrounding the chalet at Boler Mountain this morning. The place was packed.

When we had parked and walked to the base of the main hill, there did not seem to be any crowd. And then we learned why: there was racing at Boler today. The racers came with their own cheering sections.

It was actually rather exciting to watch, especially if you had a young son or daughter out on the course.

Ralentissez pour nos enfants: slow down for our children

London is an english-speaking community in the south-western part of the province (Ontario). Yet, London has a number of french-speaking schools.

École élémentaire Marie-Curie is not a french immersion school where english speaking children are immersed in the french language. Marie-Curie is a french first-lanuage school providing instruction in french for children who come from french-speaking homes.

Why does London have school like Marie-Curie? Because Canada is a bilingual country: french and english are the languages of the land. Of course, in Quebec, french is the primary language while in most other parts of Canada english takes the primary position.

My granddaughters attend Marie-Curie. Why? Are we a french-speaking family? No, we are not but Fiona, my oldest granddaughter, went to a french-speaking daycare when she was but a toddler. Today she is bilingual. Because of her fluency, her sister, Isla, was accepted into the Marie-Curie french pre-kindergarten class. Today, Isla is fluent as well.

In a bilingual country, speaking both languages is a plus. At the very least, it makes a number of cable channels available that would otherwise be of no interest. The channels of which I am speaking are, of course, the french language ones.

I can read french and so I turn on the captions for the hearing impaired and watch the french channels. I especially enjoying getting the french slant on the news by watching TV5 out of Paris.

An artsy approach

The day before yesterday I posted a photo showing a child playing on the snow "doughnut" in the middle of the court in front of my London home. The doughnut is a real kid magnet each winter. Click on this link to learn more and to see the original picture. Link: Our doughnut is spelt oddly: woonerf.

The first picture shows enough of the snow pile to make its shape somewhat clear. The photo also places the snow pile in the road on pavement and bordered by suburban homes. It is what I would call a photo that documents.

The picture today is simpler. It is almost a silhouette of the playing child. There are very few elements and one the tree seems to be included simply for its graphic appeal. Today's photo is more artsy, more visually creative, than the first image.

Modern, contemporary but conservative

This infill development is quite small. It is one long row of condos with a paved acccess at the front and that's it. Beyond the pavement is the next property. When it comes to increasing density, this development delivers.

Visually I find this development both contemporary and conservative. There are not too many different, competing-for-attention exterior materials. It is just brick, wood and painted metal garage doors. All trim, and it is limited, is metal and painted to match the garage doors. The exterior lighting is simple and the small balustrades circling the small balconies are supported by thick, break-reistant glass panels.

These units look as if they would be very efficient to heat in winter, cool in summer and general maintenance should not be too much. Someone did their homework before these were built.