What do I tell the child that insists "I'm too tired to sleep"?

I will accept answers suitable for children, and the other ones too.

Hey #Toronto fedi, does anyone have any suggestions on where to get Bialetti moka pot gaskets locally? I'd rather not use Amazon or dropshippers if I can help it

The city of Toronto is running a mock election for kids this year, with voting at the advance polling stations this weekend: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/elections/kids-vote-weekend/

They're choosing a tree of the year.

Initially it seemed a bit gimmicky to me, but it's actually been really cool with my six-year-old: they were involved, made a choice, took the process very seriously, and most importantly we had conversations about the voting procedure, secret ballot, the electoral and democratic process. A civics class early on.

Kudos and thank you!

#Toronto #TOpoli

With a couple of good candidates and a couple of bad candidates for councillor, I'm really wishing for ranked ballots as usual

#TOpoli #TOelxn26

The City of Toronto recently released pre-approved designs by LGA Architectural Partners for multiplex buildings that can be built in low-density neighbourhoods: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/building-construction/building-permit/before-you-apply-for-a-building-permit/pre-approved-building-plans/pre-approved-multiplex-building-plans/

The designs are pretty cool, they also include one wheelchair-accessible unit per building (with space provided for a lift from the street level), including necessary clearance dimensions.

Eyeballing the dimensions and setbacks, the "narrow" fourplex needs a ~25 ft wide lot (~8 m), the "narrow" sixplex needs 28 ft, and the "wide" sixplex needs ~35 ft (~10 m). 25 ft is fairly wide in old parts of the city, but easily doable in inner suburbs, parts of which are fairly transit-accessible.

It's also neat that the plans are available for download and you can look at the design involved and learn how stuff is built in new low-rise residential buildings. Look at layout of utility ducts (elegantly kept mostly clear of main living areas) and plans for HVAC (including energy-recovery ventilation, which I think is now mandatory). The plans also have all-electric versions with no gas appliances, which I would think would be a no-brainer for new construction, but I dunno.

The narrow sixplexes have a cool layout of big 'penthouse' units, with the bedrooms on penultimate floor and living/kitchen areas on the top floor. That gets more light in, and terraces where they are useful. The wide sixplexes have more bedrooms, but the layouts feel a little clunkier to me.

I cleaned the dish drying wire rack. Please clap.

Ahhh new #OpenTTD betas have a "Screensaver Mode, which follows random vehicles around your map"

I don't usually run beta software but I want this

Got a Gong for Mayor leaflet in the mail lol

Presumably the people paying for the leaflets will also finance his campaign promises to give away money, cut property taxes, and pay cops more?

The Star is reporting that the Phoenix Concert Hall, a major #Toronto music venue, is planning to move to Parkdale Hall at Queen and Triller in #Parkdale next year. Included is this render from the Phoenix's operator. The Parkdale Hall building is a former movie theatre. Plan is for around 1000-1500 people capacity. The current Phoenix site is about to become housing.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/this-historic-downtown-toronto-music-venue-is-moving-to-the-west-end/article_e3519494-0175-46b5-917d-78bacdfb1216.html (sorry no gift link)

I'm gonna keep on wrenchin'

Stuck bonnet nut

Happy equinox!

Excuse me, since when is it dark at 8pm

Three and a half weeks until equinox

zomg a celestial event not clouded out for once

On this topic, I will also gladly accept recommendations on stuff to do between the GTA and Tobermory, and on Manitoulin Island. Kid is six, FWIW. We're only a couple of days.

#RoadTrip #Ontario

I'm going to be passing through #Markdale, #GreyCounty, #Ontario next week. Does anyone know if #Chapmans has anything consumer-facing in addition to their facilities there? A store or a cafe or something? Would love to stop in with my kid if possible.

Question about personal carbon accounting. I estimate CO2eq emissions resulting from my plane flights, based on estimated figure per-passenger-per-kilometre (0.2 kg CO2eq/p/km), which assumes some standard passenger load factor. Should I account for how full the flight actually was; is that useful?

E.g., I was once on a flight where the plane was mostly empty; maybe 10% of seats were occupied. Dividing the plane's emissions for that flight per number of passengers carried increases the actual passengers' "personal" emission significantly compared to a full flight.

(Substantially more than half of the flight emissions come from carrying the plane itself. For example an A321neo weighs 50 t by itself and can carry ~25 t of people-and-stuff and ~20 t of fuel. A nearly empty flight would still need most of that fuel to carry the 50 t of plane.)

On one hand, I don't feasibly control how fully a plane is booked, and if I hadn't flown, the plane would still have gone, and the remaining passengers would have had an even larger per-capita impact through no fault of their own. On the other hand, if enough people hadn't flown, the flight wouldn't have operated at all, so there's still some personal accountability there... but is that personal accountability already handled in the simple per-passenger-per-km estimate? Bit of a philosophical or ethical question.

Does anyone really fully understand pandas

Old house: the mystery wall edition

So I tried to put a drywall anchor into a wall in my 100 year old Ontario, Canada house, and it came right back out.

There is an opening cut into it for a wall duct and I was able to peek in next to the duct.

Near as I can tell, the wall consists of 0.5" drywall put in front of plaster and lath, for ?? Reasons.

So the whole thing is a little over an inch thick, which explains failure of an anchor designed to grip the back of 0.5" drywall.

I wonder if the wall assembly is strong enough to hold in a screw straight in?

Otherwise I could try to guess studs are 12" from the wall and do some test drills to see if I can find them :thinkingg:

Apologies for the potato photo. The pointy metal thing is a caliper set to 0.5", then I'm seeing a separate layer of gypsum or plaster behind, then wood lath... might be wrong.

#OldHouse