Amelia Bellamy-Royds

@bkardell@toot.cafe The poll isn't clear if they mean "talk" as in "keep up a conversation over the entire ride" vs "talk" as in "polite greeting & thanks when entering & exiting the vehicle". I only rarely take taxis, and never one of the other services, but I couldn't imagine not talking at all even if the route & payment are all handled by app. But I'm also not interested in filling the ride with chit-chat. Once we're settled, off we go, watching out the window until it's time to find a good drop-off spot. It's only awkward if the driver keeps trying to make conversation or asking personal questions.

Love to wake up to no running water on a day when I was planning to have a much-needed shower before going out in public... 😖

@gildilinie@beige.party For specifically local charities, Boyle Street (focuses on helping people living rough) and Bissel Centre (focuses on keeping people off the streets, family & employment & transition services of various types). Just remember to tell them not to waste your donation money sending you paper mailings.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/117010425511942166 In related news, the EU now requires publishers & social media platforms to label all "AI" algorithm-generated text & image content. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/07/28/eu-tells-firms-to-label-ai-generated-content-from-sunday_6755910_4.html (But still, I love that LinkedIn is actually using the term "AI slop" in their UI to describe generated filler text. The tides, they are turning.)

@ned@beige.party I've been in Edmonton 15 years, and it's been consistent that we have rainy summers whenever there's an El Niño weather pattern globally. So when the news started mentioning a (global warming fueled) "Super El Niño" this year, I knew there an extra wet summer was likely. I didn't know it would be this extreme, and I didn't know for sure it was going to happen that way; it was possible that the "super" weather patterns could have shifted enough that we'd get dry weather like they've been having in Calgary. But I was expecting a switch back to rain after five La Niña influenced hot dry summers in a row. (There was one mild & dry El Niño winter in that stretch, but it flipped back before Canadian summer.) Anyone who tries to suggest that this is just random weather variation & not part of global climate change is just keeping themselves willfully ignorant. #YEGwx

@jeffsamsonow@mstdn.ca The tornado watch doesn't currently include the city, so that's something. But it does include most of the area west of the city, and as close as Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, & Devon. Meanwhile, the city's thunderstorm watch is orange because of the flooding risk after yesterday's & Saturday's storms. But hey, one more big storm downtown & we'll hit the record for rainiest month ever measured in Edmonton — beating out July 1901, and last month. 🥲

Update: The street is now a street again. I went out to clear sticks & mud from the drains & realized there was a driftwood tide line left behind on the shores of our temporary river. Before they did the major drainage work in the neighbourhood, it was common to have the street flood up to the curb level in a particularly intense summer thunderstorm downpour with hail. But I've never seen it flood quite this high! Also, the air is now very stinky again. That was a foul wind that blew no good, at all. #YEGwx

@louisffourie@c.im Do you know which parts were censored? It certainly says something about a society (small or large) which things they situations a child should not see.

@tubbdoose@mas.to Figuring out how to get internal monologue brain to shut up & let internal radio brain take control of the fingers has been the hardest part of learning to play my own music (or to make up instrumental lines for cover songs, for that matter). Singing: no problem, inner monologue is happy to take credit for whatever tune the rest of the brain prompts it with. Playing the vocal melody on the instrument is also fairly straightforward (OK, with a little fumbling). But it's another matter entirely to sing or hold the vocal melody in my head while playing the instrumental accompaniment parts that I could "hear" just fine when I was lazing about not focusing on how to actually make the music.

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Those are very pale plums, but the jam they made does look nice. If you don't really eat jam, though, maybe make more of a savoury plum sauce with the rest? Yes, commercial plum sauce is usually mostly pumpkin instead of plum, but roast garlic & plums do make for a nice sauce for meats.

@MetalheadDana@metalhead.club (June was the rainiest June ever; it was the 2nd rainiest month, now it's the 3rd. July has just exceeded its total by 0.8mm at Blatchford station. July 1901 is still the rainiest month ever measured in Edmonton. Although they weren't measuring to the tenth of the mm back then.)

@DavidM_yeg@beige.party I had to look them up. Stéphanie's photos look just like the Lavatera (annual mallow) I grow in my garden, but apparently not only do the rose mallow plants get much taller, the flowers are much bigger! And it looks like the plant shape is much more elegant clump than either the spindly Lavatera or the giant spike of hollyhocks (which also has similar flowers). So yes, it must be a nice addition to a garden, indeed. That said: "Proven Winners" claims their rose mallows are hardy to zone 4, so it might survive in Edmonton in a sheltered spot with some winter mulch & other fussing? For non-woody perennials, though, zones often aren't enough: spring/fall temperature swings & dryness can often kill a plant even if winter cold doesn't. @stephanie@ottawa.place ("Silvercup" Lavatera from September 2024. I don't think I'm getting any this year. Between April freezes, May droughts, and then soggy chilly June, my germination rate for flowers planted from seed has not been good this year!)

@senanthic@mstdn.ca That was colour for both the wood lily & the lilies of the valley? They are both gorgeous, but yeah, maybe shorter sessions. And in the meantime, so cold wet towels or something like that.

@tubbdoose@mas.to I have finally mastered that part (well, singing & playing bass or clunking a one-handed piano line — two-handed piano parts are another matter!). But it does take lots of practice, both in general and for any particular song, especially if the instrumental rhythm is different from the vocal rhythm.

@britt@mstdn.games I can't tell... is the jaw articulated, too? Can you make him go "oh, nom, nom" ?

@puzzled@coales.co They're saving it all up for the long weekend, clearly. That switch between high of 31°C on Saturday and high of 14°C on Sunday is sure to come with a little whiplash in between. 🫣

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Oh wow, fresh garden corn & it's still July, that's pretty impressive. How early did you plant / what variety?

@chad@mstdn.ca Huh, that one's new. I'm pretty sure that's the size usually described as golf-ball-sized hail. But maybe there was concerns that a golf ball was not a widely enough understood reference? 🤔 Has mini-putt gone so out of favour that the young people don't know how big a golf ball is?

@Albertan_AlbertAn@mstdn.ca @megmac@social.treehouse.systems Yeah, I'm fairly certain the issue here was branches & other mess in the pipes under the street, left over from past storms (and from the crews cleaning up broken branches from those storms). Not any one particular drain blocked, but also not the whole system — our alley also flooded, but the next street over looked fine. So my concern is that the junk is still down there even if the evidence on the surface has finally drained away.

This was during the storm. Sound on, not much to see here. Who needs wind chimes when you can have hail chimes? (That's my air conditioner that the hail is plonking on just outside the window.) #YEGwx

@Chigaze@cosocial.ca They used to use a hole punch on it when they gave you back an expired passport. Maybe the new ones are too thick?

@senanthic@mstdn.ca Nice coordination between the hair & the backpack, there. A favourite colour coincidentally showing up in things you bought before the dye job?

@Bowreality@thecanadian.social I know you need the rain, but I do hope it comes down slowly for you. A downpour on parched ground is a lot of run-off.

Has anyone tried allergy desensitization treatment for pollen allergies? Did it make much a difference? How long did it take? Did the improvement persist after stopping treatment? How bad were your reactions to the treatment itself? If you're in the Edmonton area specifically: Where did you get treated? How did you get referred? Was there a long wait? I'm now at nearly three months a year (spring and then again in late summer / early fall) with an extra layer of disability from allergies. Anti-histamines only do so much & they aren't cheap. I'd really like to be able to enjoy the garden without triggering multi-day crashes. And to open the windows on nice days. And to, you know, have at least a little bit more energy for everything else. #YEG #AskFedi

@MetalheadDana@metalhead.club There are so many ways to slice & dice weather statistics, it's easy to get them jumbled. 🤷🏻‍♀️ But whatever way you slice it, it's been wet!

For all you #YEGwx watchers, last night's brief but intense storm was just enough to make July 2026 the second rainiest month ever recorded in downtown Edmonton, surpassing last month's total. Yes, we have had the 2nd & 3rd rainiest months in the past 145+ years, back to back. With the forecast currently dry until Saturday night (August), that is hopefully where the monthly record will stand. But we're almost guaranteed to end 2026 as the highest-precipitation year ever measured.

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Oh wow, I wasn't expecting that blue. Very striking!

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Oh, OK, that makes more sense. The way it clings to the fruit it really looks like red skin around white flesh, but I'd never seen plums like that before!

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Oooh, I'll have to bookmark that entire website for next seed-shopping season! Only growing 4 feet tall sounds like a benefit both for getting your cobs faster and for resisting wind & hail. My cornstalks are currently about 4 feet tall except for the ones that are leaning over sideways...

@britt@mstdn.games I am now imagining a soundcloud that is all 10-minute long ambient tracks of you clicking each of the fidgets in various rhythms.

@reallyflygreg@mstdn.ca @buffyleigh@mas.to I'd say this is a case of "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence". Except to the extent that maybe it's malicious that the UCP keep giving more work to Elections Alberta without an increase in funding. As for the declaration issue, Elections Alberta has acknowledged that it does not reflect the current law (& their encouragement of people to use special ballots to reduce polling place line-ups). You are allowed to strike out that sentence. Special ballot packages include a declaration that […] contains a line […] that is causing concern and confusion for electors. We recognize this is carryover language from a previous version of the Election Act which required reasons to apply for a special ballot. Electors may cross out the statement “I declare that I am unable to vote at an advance voting place or a voting place on Election Day” and complete the rest of the declaration, and Elections Alberta will accept it. https://www.elections.ab.ca/resources/media/news-releases/revised-deadline-special-ballot-applications-sept-25-2026/

@transitionalaspect@fnordon.de Hmm, yes, a thin slice of a very fragrant egg+herb pie next to potatoes & meat, I could see that working very well. Glad it sounds like all that work won't go to waste, anyway!

@bkardell@toot.cafe It's really a lost opportunity that the wire services (Associated Press, Canadian Press, etc.) never developed a subscription model where you can access the article feed of all their member newspapers. CP and AP have their own news websites with their original reporting & select licensed articles, but that's not the same as getting the full content of all the local papers.

@dillyd@turtleisland.social Sometimes an onion flower will just grow a little onion bulb instead of setting seed. (And there's a variety of onions specifically bred to do that, walking onions.) But the colour on that doesn't look quite right, so an insect gall might be more likely.

@slightlyoff@toot.cafe Well, that's disappointing, but thanks for the data point. Had you suffered from allergies for a long time, or had you developed them fairly recently before trying the therapy? (I started getting spring tree-pollen allergies when I moved to Edmonton, 15 years ago now, but the late-summer allergies are just in the past few years. It kind of feels like such a recent change should be reversible, but I know that's not necessarily how immune systems work!)

@JP@mstdn.games Somewhere in Edmonton, some junior witch is muttering "I was just trying to humidify my apartment during the winter!"

I've spent a lot of time this year at the River City Revival House, in the basement of the Starlite Room, a building that has housed music venues for decades, the original Citadel Theater before that, and a Salvation Army temple originally. I have no idea how old this piano is or which famous musicians might have played it. It is currently parked in the washroom, neglected, out of tune, with some keys that don't sound at all and other keys that won't stop ringing when you release them. It is mostly decoration. But it can still be played, and the washroom acoustics are more gorgeous than my phone can capture. On a break from the main jam in the bar, Shane & Teemu here started up a brief 4-hands collaboration. #YEGmusic

@linux_mclinuxface@fosstodon.org "Zen and the Art of Powerpoint Presentations" ? Your ring (it's an Oura, right?) is tracking your average heartrate, heartrate variability, O2 saturation, temperature rise/fall, and hand motion. From there it's estimating respiratory rate, sleep/wake cycles, physical activity, and this stress level descriptor. Maybe they are factoring in slow, controlled movements (mouse/touchpad vs typing) as a sign of peacefulness when combined with the sort of slow deep breathing that comes from thoughtfulness about your actions? They have one published study about stress on their research page, but it uses heart & breath statistics during sleep (plus total sleep time) as a measure of overall daytime stress, so it's not directly comparable to tracking stress during daytime activities. But the relevant findings were that steady breathing, lower heart rate, and higher heart rate variability (heart rate rising/falling with breaths in/out) were linked to lower stress.

@tphinney@typo.social I assume this is about reporting user-contributed posts, so it's not really "their" slop. (Whether they've got AI slop all over their codebase is another matter.) But as I understand it (I don't have an account, so I only see the complaints), the LinkedIn post-promoting algorithm has for many years optimized for just the sort of vague filler content that AI excels at, so detecting the AI slop in a sea of hand-crafted slop is going to be difficult.

@Daveography@yeg.bike Well, that's a fun new name for an elevated train system.

@buffyleigh@mas.to I think Saskatchewan has used the phrase "Saskatchewan time" for many years to help make clear that it is different from other places that observe Central time with daylight savings adjustments. So the logical solution, of course, would be for Alberta to use the name "Saskatchewan time", too, since that's what we're going to be using. We could pretend it's named after the rivers! We are coordinating time across almost the entire Saskatchewan river basins (and beyond)! And when you tell people that Alberta is switching to Saskatchewan time, they are more likely to actually understand the impact than if you just say permanent daylight time.

@puzzled@coales.co I'd somehow never clued in that range roads were only the north-south roads. I thought the name was used for the full grid.

@spiralganglion@merveilles.town Sounds like a soundtrack to a moody 80s movie, some rainy city at night & we're about to be swept up in a spy thriller romance. Are they real horns, overdubbed, or synths? Either way, gorgeous.

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social Well that makes it even more of a shame that they didn't have the budget to send the camera operator/producer out to the farm to get the goats in the shot!