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This photograph in particular is repurposed in this July article from News.com.au, an Australian news site: “Anthropic described the project as ‘our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books’ in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.

AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare booksIf you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.www.news.com.au

Last week, @404media.co media added ISBNdb as a character in the story, a firm that “offers high-volume book acquisition services”. Working with various publishers, book retailers and antiquarian resellers in Toronto, I became aware of these types of predatory services in the mid-2010s.

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI SlopISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”www.404media.co

I remember you being there!

Planet Coffee is a go to on Clarendon. Plus its outdoor furniture is not ugly.

lolsob

What I appreciate the most about Leslie Lookout is that it embraces its sui generis, or “unique" sense of place across time. Its industrial aesthetic is mixed with replanting à la Port Lands which is wonderfully loose and scraggly. To do so, CCxA worked with gh3*, Arup, and Dougan Ecology.

The Lives of Others is streaming on Mubi. And the trailer reminds me that Gabriel Yared’s score is really something.

TRAILER - The Lives of Others (2006)In 1983 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces co...mubi.com

Design work is now under way “for the nearby community and housing development, with the first residents expected by 2031 ... ‘We have changed our relationship to the Don River and the city,’ says Glaisek. ‘I hope that this will be a model for more positive development in Toronto’.”

How Toronto is leading the way in the sustainable regeneration of industrial waterfrontsThe Canadian city is offering the world a lot to learn from as it ‘renaturalises’ a harbour once used to...monocle.com

I can see earlier BIM kits being included for non-security aware spaces. But next gen “smart” buildings have blended data sets to the point where “built-patient use” data is protected health data (by Law 5, Law 25 in Quebec). Same with “heat-employee” sets as protected labour data (by CNESST, etc).

It reads like an Uber or AirBnB “platform” pitch from a decade ago, one that claimed to favour the little guy—small enterprises, players, freelancers—by creating “a common format where users can combine their own proprietary projects together with public data associated with a given location.”

The Public Champagne Fountain is still on my wish list.

And the renderings are from the creation of a “design criteria booklet” by Collectif Escargo, Rousseau Lefebvre, PXP Design, and Light Factor. The exercise gathers and sorts public feedback before the design mandate begins—goes out to tender, is drafted, presented, refined, etc.

This is how Montreal politicians, comms managers, staff engineers, and guest architects explain the projet to the public—its goals and renovations in phases.

Réaménagement de la rue De Castelnau EstYouTube video by MTLVillewww.youtube.com

De Castelnau is the perfect street for this. It’s not far from Jarry Park and is full of garderies, cafés, restaurants, deps, general stores, game stores, beauty salons, and barbershops. And ice cream counters!