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Anvil Centre Public Art

I LOVE public art and New West has more than its fair share of it.

This is one that I'd missed, even though it's been in place for 6 months on the outside of the Anvil Centre: https://imgur.com/a/u142dWA

``` Rebecca Bair Curl Mapped, 2023 (b. 1995, Toronto, ON, Canada; lives and works in Vancouver, BC, Canada) Anvil Centre Public Art Project April 2023 - March 2024 Curated by Emmy Lee Wall, Capture Photography Festival

``` Commissioned by the City of New Westminster, this temporary public art installation is presented in partnership with Capture Photography Festival

Situated on the façade of the Anvil Centre in New Westminster, Rebecca Bair's site-specific installation, Curl Mapped, tackles the complex, colonial history of archives to represent that which is absent: traces of Black settlers in this region. Bair spent significant time in the city archives poring over the leather-bound ledgers, reading the handwritten notes, and examining the photographs therein only to discover a gap - what she describes as "a ghost in the space." In Curl Mapped, Bair interrupts parts of the map with curly tendrils of hair, which for her, is symbolic of heritage. and cultural care. As these coils reach toward one another, attempting to close the gap in the map, they suggest the subjective nature of maps while gesturing to the need to acknowledge and repair this lack of representation.

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It finally happened.
  • Photo of an estimate from a local mechanic? And same with you - take all the physio you need and bill the hell out of them. Hope the knee's settled down now but an expert opinion might spot something long-term that can be corrected now.

  • It finally happened.
  • Sorry to hear :( Feels like we're all one momentary lapse of concentration (usually someone else's) away from a life-changing coming-together. I've lost track of the situation with the shifting sands of ICBC and what they will/won't do these days, but can you claim against them for a) any out-of-pocket medical expenses (eg physio) and b) damage to bike/helmet?

    Ahhh right, sorry - must read more carefully - I see you've already said ICBC will cover the helmet. If you get the bike in for a mechanic to look over & give you an estimate then presumably they'll cover that as well?

  • Your First Look at GNOME 45's Default Wallpaper - OMG! Linux
  • I've never understood why there's a fuss about default wallpaper. It ships with a dozen options and you can obviously install your own. I guess it's the opportunity for a news story and a sign that things have reached a certain level of development and are getting close to release.

    Personally, I saw the item on installing your own dynamic wallpaper at https://www.omglinux.com/dynamic-wallpapers-for-gnome-desktop/, followed the instructions on github and set up a lovely time-of-day based wallpaper based on the game Firewatch (https://github.com/manishprivet/dynamic-gnome-wallpapers#code-firewatch) - I love all the sunrise/sunset options there but if you've played Firewatch then this one might speak to you :)

  • New West Car Free Day

    This Saturday will be Car Free Day. Columbia St shutdown for "live music, food trucks, site-wide liquor license, and more!"

    Date: Saturday, July 29 Located: Columbia Street, New Westminster, BC Time: Noon - 8 pm

    Always a lot of fun... this is what the food truck festival morphed into (which is probably a good thing because the food truck festival had grown to a ridiculous size).

    Core details including the bands playing on https://www.carfree.ca/new-west

    More details on https://www.newwestrecord.ca/local-news/get-ready-to-enter-a-pedestrian-paradise-new-wests-car-free-day-is-back-7322081 (including that there's going to be a bike valet this year)

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    Uptown Live - Sat Jul 15

    There's no time to relax after week #2 of Fridays on Front - the fun never stops in New West in the summer...

    Uptown Live today, Saturday July 15 from Noon - 8:00 PM - uptown New West.

    Lots of food trucks, lots of bands, lots of vendors.

    Schedule, artists, vendors etc here: https://www.uptownlive.ca/schedule-1

    I'm especially looking forward to hearing Ayla Tesler-Mabé - that woman sure knows her way around a guitar but there doesn't appear to be anything she can't do.

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    Queen’s Park Concert Series

    Arts New West (what used to be known as the Arts Council of New West) is putting on a series of free concerts at the bandshell in Queen's Park.

    Every Thursday at 7pm and every Sunday at 2pm (apparently with a break in the middle...??) until the end of July.

    Go take a picnic (and even a beer if you like) and enjoy free good times. Maybe see ya there.

    More details on their FB or their website https://artscouncilnewwest.org/concertseries/

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    www.newwestrecord.ca Join the celebration: Agnes Street Greenway official opening in New West

    A ribbon-cutting, art show and cycling activities are part of Saturday’s grand opening celebration of this New Westminster greenway

    Join the celebration: Agnes Street Greenway official opening in New West

    This Saturday from 11AM to 2PM - official opening of the Agnes St Greenway. We rode it the other day & it's looking lovely. Lots of nice touches - the planting as usual in New West and the doggy exercise yard.

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    Proposed 80-storey building near Lougheed Town Centre passes Burnaby council's 3rd reading
  • sometimes it’s better to take the Evo than my own car just to avoid parking and dodging traffic on the way back.

    I know right? Sure, the Evo concept is not a solution to every traffic/vehicle related problem but there are so many use cases where it's hellishly handy. I've definitely done the same - an Evo into town and no worries about parking... lock and WALK AWAY :)

  • Coffee #1, coffee #2, coffee #3

    Got in a coffee hat trick this afternoon.

    #1 !Photo: New West Chamber of Commerce

    rode into town past the brand-new-just-opened-today-but-not-really coffee shop on 6th - Coasters Coffee. (As far as I can work out they had a ribbon-cutting with the Mayor etc today (Photo: New West Chamber of Commerce) but had a grand opening in March). https://www.instagram.com/coasterscoffeeshop

    #2 !

    got coffee & nibbles in Craft Cafe down on the Quay. Always good coffee and I managed to avoid buying any of the fancy coffee gadgets they have for sale. https://www.instagram.com/craftcafe.ca/

    #3 !

    In Craft Cafe I picked up a freshly roasted bag of everybody's-favourite-New-West-roaster Ghost Roaster coffee. https://www.instagram.com/ghostroastercoffee/

    Is that too much coffeeing for one day?

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    www.beheardnewwest.ca City Budget 2024

    Project Update, January 25, 2024: Following a series of six budget workshops, Council has directed City staff to prepare the 2024-2028 Five-Year Financial Plan and Bylaw based on a 2024 Capital Budget of $151.9 million and a 2024 Operating Budget of $272.8 million.

    City Budget 2024

    City's asking for input on the 2024 budget - go tell them your priorities (and maybe win a local gift card)

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    Summer long bike valet service at Granville skytrain station
  • If this is successful then I'd like to see them consider staffing the bike parkades at Main St, Commercial, Metrotown etc. At the moment there's too much theft going on there for me to ever think about leaving my bike there.

    All you'd need to provide is a desk and staffing - all the infrastructure is obviously there already.

  • Proposed 80-storey building near Lougheed Town Centre passes Burnaby council's 3rd reading
  • One Evo can replace a fair number of parked cars…

    A rep from Evo told me once that their data suggests each Evo takes 7 privately owned cars off the road. (I know that's worded badly and yes I've seen the way some people drive Evos...)

  • Proposed 80-storey building near Lougheed Town Centre passes Burnaby council's 3rd reading
  • Absolutely - I think there's some real estate mantra about how land is the only thing they're not making more of. Using 18 sq m of it for possibly storing one vehicle is a heck of a waste. I saw some stat that there's apparently 8 parking spaces per vehicle in the US - they need one at home, one at work, one at every mall that you might want to visit. So that's 144 sq m of asphalt for storing each car.

    True re condo prices... it might work if there was competition and sufficient supply... but we all know that's not the case.

  • Proposed 80-storey building near Lougheed Town Centre passes Burnaby council's 3rd reading
  • I would love to see the occasional development that goes hard against parking. Build it over or across the street from Skytrain, provide 10% or more Modo/Evo spaces and zero or near zero residents parking. Then cut the price of everything by $60/120K given you're not having to build the cost of underground parking into the prices.

    But even if you could persuade the appropriate council to do away with their parking minimums AND there was some way to discourage car owners from buying (have a neighbouring building with lots of parking? Sign some sort of contract?) I know people's lives change. Just because you work downtown and can take the Skytrain today, doesn't mean you're not going to be working in White Rock or Maple Ridge next year. Or a bunch of people are going to shrug, lie about car ownership, buy the cheaper unit and plan to park on the street somewhere - then complain about how they don't have parking in their building.

    Actually, my GENIUS PLAN is for nobody to "own" any parking in a building. Have all the spaces owned by a parking organization that rents them out on a month-by-month basis. That way you reduce the price of every unit by the $60K that each space costs to build and the family buying a 2-bed who don't need parking don't pay for it and the couple buying a 1-bed who need two spots can get it too. Also there's none of the "I drive a monster truck but my unit came with a 'small car' space" or "I'm disabled but my unit's space is miles from the elevator" issues... you just rent out appropriate spaces to each unit depending on their needs.

    But obviously the developer is going to want their money up front for the parking they built so whatever organization owns & manages the parking is going to need DEEP pockets and the return on investment is very very slow.

  • Metro Vancouver municipality will debate whether to officially adopt 15-minute city model
  • New West kinda breaks down into several areas where this pretty much applies already - uptown, downtown, Sapperton etc.

    Obviously there are places where you can live and not be within 15mins of everything but it does have multiple centres not too far from each other. Maybe setting this as policy might make it easier to add things like neighbourhood corner stores.

    I think the ship has already sailed for Surrey. Even if the city wasn't designed around cars, council seems too busy focusing on themselves and police forces to do anything useful for their residents.

  • The school drop off/pickup thing is the most carbrained thing I've ever seen
  • There is a nice sweet spot when they're old enough to have phones but not old enough to complain about having you track them 🙂

    It's great to have them walk, even when they're very young and you need to walk with them.

    Back in my day (insert grandpa Simpson gif here!) I had a 10min walk to a bus stop and caught a public bus. Felt sorry for the adults that had to catch the same bus with 40 wild children.

    These days I think my friends' school age kids all walk or cycle - we're in a small city with fairly good bike infrastructure.

  • Leaked Tesla documents shed new light on why the Cybertruck is taking so long
  • It’s also pointy as fuck. Mobile guillotine.

    North American trucks in general are death on four wheels for pedestrians, cyclists etc. The tall vertical leading edges hit pedestrians in the hip and torso and then toss them under the wheels.

    In the EU there's regulations about this stuff, designed to ensure that people are hit (ideally not hit at all, but you know what I mean) in the legs and thrown up onto the hood. Plus regulations about spacing underneath the hood to the hard engine components which allows for a certain amount of cushioning deformity when the victim hits the hood. Would love to see that sort of thing regulated in North America but not a chance in hell of it happening.

  • Reddit CEO (/u/spez) is going to hold a AMA about the API update
  • so it would not be a surprise if Reddit administration or spez personally decides to usurp those mod teams.

    There was some comment about "we'll do whatever's necessary to keep reddit online" so I think the implication there is that if high-traffic subs went dark for an extended period then he'd evict the mods and replace them with his yes men.

    Personally I think the subs should go dark for 3 days each & every month. You can still run a successful community with those restrictions but it's a pretty visible signal to investors that hey your userbase hates you and is itching for the opportunity to leave your sorry ass.

  • Every time I see this community, my blood runs cold.
  • Maybe a possible help here is Lemmy's federated nature? I wonder if it works like Mastodon.

    If a certain instance is obviously the source of a significant proportion of the troglodytes then I wonder if their users can be blacklisted from a single community (maybe mod tools could do it??) or if their entire instance would have to be cut off from everywhere else.

  • Debian 12 Release
  • Migrated to Debian 11 from Ubuntu 6 months ago. Loving it.

    With Ubuntu I used to stick to the LTS releases and wait for a .1 upgrade. But I've been running a Debian 12 VM in anger (ie actually doing work on it - I needed PHP 8) for the last month or two and it's been faultless for me. Might break the habit and upgrade the main machine early :)

    Edit: almost pulled the trigger a little early tonight. Ironically the one package I have that doesn't seem to exist for 12 yet is Virtualbox - not something I could install & test in my Debian 12 VM...

    As the manual says you should run

    apt list '?narrow(?installed, ?not(?origin(Debian)))'

    before upgrading to check what non-Debian packages you have installed.

  • Reddit CEO (/u/spez) is going to hold a AMA about the API update
  • It's gone pretty much as you'd expect:

    #1 doubling down on everything and saying "I'm sorry that you were upset about this"

    #2 ignoring the untrue allegations he made about the convo with a 3rd party developer and calling him out for having recorded the convo instead

  • A comprehensive guide to finding and borrowing video games from our local libraries
  • Wow - thanks. It never occurred to me that NWPL (or any library actually) might still have Wii games... going to have to see if mine still turns on lol.

    And cataloging on HowToBeat by library & platform with links... that's going above & beyond - amazing, thank you.

  • InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)JO
    jonjennings @lemmy.ca
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