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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦

@christophersolar.bsky.social

380 followers 210 following 580 posts

Furniture designer/maker, cyclist, inside the Ottawa bubble. He/Him.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Nov 9

How about a little intro? I'm a furniture designer/maker in Ottawa. Some of my work is one-off/custom pieces, some of that in turn are pieces that use reclaimed roofing copper from the Parliament buildings. Here are two cabinets and a mirror using the copper cut up and rearranged.

Large black credenza with two sliding doors covered in a pattern of overlapping arches in reclaimed roofing copper.

Black console cabinet on slender legs with four small doors clad in reclaimed copper in a diamond pattern.

Large round wall mirror with a frame clad in multi-tone strips of reclaimed roofing copper.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 3d

With any luck, Barren Trump.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 6d

I'm Canadian and I don't think I know the names of any of our SCC judges, yet somehow I know the names and in some cases scandalous backstories of every SCOTUS member.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

Self-reporting sounds like red tape my friend. It should be enough to glance up from your phone and give a little wave, maybe say "oopsie" as you speed by.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

(could or should, take your pick, just not the portmanteau I invented there)

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

Doug Ford chould check in with school bus drivers re: the effectiveness of flashing lights for traffic control.

Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · Dec 14

P1: Ok we need a vehicle to move some kids to school
P2: How about a bus?
P1: Perfect.
P2: Lets make it big and yellow so no one misses it
P1: Great
1/

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

Air travel is going to get a lot easier when we rip out all the X-rays and security screenings, and move to NO WEAPONS ON THE PLANE flashing signs in the departure lounge.

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

CRA to stop all auditing of tax returns, will instead put flashing lights and "DON'T CHEAT" in big letters on the NETFILE page.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

I wonder what other areas of law/rule enforcement can be replaced by simple flashing lights? Doug Ford is a genius. No one else thought of this.

Deeply stupid and corrupt ham-faced Premier of Ontario stands in front of two sample flashing light speed signs that will replace working photo radar systems.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 18d

sadly microphone too close to the mouth hole also

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 19d

The ICE cars that accelerate this fast are few and far between. When half the random SUVs in the Costco parking lot can go 0-60 in 3 seconds, I think we'll have a problem.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 19d

Halifax (1/2 the size of Ottawa) has it too, but they call it Nocturne.
(PS if you're at Nocturne, go see my daughter's installation at All Saints Cathedral 🙂)

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 20d

Would also like that too-wide roadway split into a narrow vehicle lane (one that makes the posted 40kph limit feel appropriate) and a dedicated cycle track. Lots of room to work with there.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 20d

Ironic considering all the effort that went into slowing down demonic speeding cyclists near the dock & pub areas this summer (extra signs, flex posts, speed boards) and meanwhile a set of tire tracks cuts right past it all, straight into the lake.

www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Vehicle crashes into Dow’s Lake along Queen Elizabeth Driveway

A vehicle remains in Dow’s Lake Tuesday morning after a driver left the road and crashed into the water.

www.ctvnews.ca

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · 27d

His post on Facebook has almost 800 comments along the lines of, "what a disgrace thank you for saving the country". And maybe two people piping up with, "um there was no meeting actually?"
We're so screwed.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 13

To be clear, political violence FROM THE RIGHT that he has been studiously courting. No one to blame but yourself, Pierre.

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 12

How the copper looks when I get it! Those triangular pieces on the cart were the source of the really vibrant/mottled tiles in the final cabinet. The copper is owned by the federal government. I get to use it on projects for Canadian diplomatic properties abroad.

Several pieces of rumpled, reclaimed roofing copper are stacked on a rolling cart.

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 12

I finished a thing today: a 4-door sideboard in white oak with doors clad in reclaimed Parliament copper and white oak latticework. Each door ended up having 50 individual parts to fit together. (There was some self-directed cursing.)

Front view of a white oak sideboard with four doors. The doors feature a pattern of diamond-shaped tiles of reclaimed copper set into a latticework of oak strips. In the background is a cluttered woodworking shop.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 12

[me, opening Bluesky] well what parade of fresh horrors awaits me now

Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 12

Ottawa without the NCC would be a pretty grim place.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 12

They're also going to be freaking out about the 25% tax increase needed to start addressing the years of neglect and deferred investment.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 11

This isn't leadership, it's pandering. We don't get a prize for having the lowest tax increase, not when core services like transit are falling apart.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 10

A folding iPhone is what people are going to get the first time they sit down with a super-thin phone in their pocket.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 10

Age verification.
I used to play video games on my home computer...but first I had to type in the game's code from pages of dense hexadecimal machine code printed in a magazine.

Example of machine code type-in game from Compute! magazine in the 80's. Row after row of one-byte hexadecimal numbers fill the page.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 10

That's great, but it's a decades-long project to do this. Even if there was the political will to tackle it (a big if) I'd like to see at least some harm-reduction now.

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Christopher Solar 🇨🇦 @christophersolar.bsky.social · Sep 10

If there really was an epidemic of well-meaning drivers getting dinged while going barely over the limit, surely the Premier would be in a position to show some data? And just as surely a problem like that could be fixed with a few clicks on a keyboard? But no, we have to stop all enforcement.

Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · Sep 9

In Ontario, criminal vigilantism works and will influence gov't policy.

Keep that in mind.

‘Get rid of the speed cameras,’ Doug Ford warns municipalities after several cut down in Toronto overnight

Premier Doug Ford says he plans to take matters into his own hands if Ontario municipalities don’t “get rid of the speed cameras” in short order.

www.ctvnews.ca

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