I’ve been watching with horror as the US economy is reduced to socialism.  Few are asking how much this will cost.  Those who do ask are getting nonsense answers like 25 billion dollars.  The Savings and Loan crisis of the 90’s took 250 billion dollars to bail out.  This current crisis dwarfs that crisis by orders of magnitudes.  So let’s cut through the bull and look at some math.

The Government is now on the hook for 5 trillion dollars in loans.  The only way they can lose money is if people default on those loans AND the value of the underlying asset (the home) has depreciated since the time the loan was issued.

So let’s say that 3% of people default on their loans.  The government is now on the hook for 150 billion dollars.  The government will now try to sell those foreclosed houses at market value.  Suppose those houses were inflated by a factor of 2 (that is they’ve now lost 1/2 their value).  Now the government sells the foreclosed houses at half the price and they’re on the hook for the left over half.  Thus the cost to the government would be 75 billion dollars.  The formula is thus:

bailoutCost = totalValueMortgages * defaultRate * (1 – (1/inflationFactor))

Now the question is where do we come up with values for things like the defaultRate and inflationFactor? (The totalValueMortgages is given as 5 trillion dollars by the government.)

Google mortgage deliquency rates or mortgage default rates and you’ll find numbers ranging from 2-5,  (I took 3 as an average).  Next to figure out the inflation factor, look at this chart:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/08/21/business/21real.graphic.html
and you’ll see that homes are around 2X inflated in value. 

So given these current numbers, the best case cost would be 75 billion dollars.  If the default rate increases or housing devalues beyond 2X the numbers could of course be much higher.  I welcome any polite criticism and/or suggestions for alterations.

bailout · Case · cialis · Economy · fannie · Fannie Cost · freddie · Google · html · http · inflation · king · mortgage · Red · savings and loan · United States · USD

My latest pet project www.simple2chat.com seeks to make the world of chatting, conferencing and blogging simple and accessible.

I currently have 4 messenger clients on my desktop. I have different collections of friends on each. If I want to conference them all in, it’s nearly impossible. I want to be able to talk to them all instantaneously and easily. I don’t want to have them all install software and exchange usernames, adding each other to friends lists well into the night.

I just want to chat. www.simple2chat.com seeks to accomplish this. Upon visiting the site, a conversation is set up for you automatically. All you need do is pass this link around to your friends and you can chat instantly.

Comparing the alternatives for this type of service we have:

Messenger programs: Yahoo!/MSN/Google/Skype.
Pro’s: They offer rich services. They have web interfaces but you can only access people on their respective networks.
Con’s: Need to install programs, register, add users and you can only conference people who are registered.

Net Meeting Software:
Pro’s: Rich functionality including the ability to share screens.
Con’s: Can be costly and requires installation and registration

Adobe Connect Now:
Pro’s: very rich, no login for your guests, ability to share screen.
Con’s: Needs the flash player plugin which may not be installed on a public computer. Requires a login for the meeting initiator (why? don’t we all have enough logins?!). Only supports THREE (?!) meeting participants in the free version.

www.simple2chat.com
Pro’s: No login, no software to install, no plugins, simple. Users can share images and screenshots using provided instructions.
Con’s: No video. (By the way, have you seen 12 people try to video conference? If 1 can be choppy 12 are definitely choppy.) Yes, video is great, but it doesn’t leave a transcript of the meeting so someone ends up typing the important points anyways.

Admittedly, this is my own site, so I may be biased. Don’t take my word for it then. Visit www.itssoeasytochat.com and try it out for yourself.

Adobe · blog · chat · conference · Google · http · instant share · internet chat · messenger · MIT · net meeting · Net Meeting Software · OJ · player · RAM · Red · respective networks · screenshot · simple2chat · video · video conferencing · web · www.itssoeasytochat.com · www.simple2chat.com · Yahoo!

The media coverage of the AIG crisis is completely off the mark.  The Fed DID NOT bail out AIG.  It did something better and worse.  The fed had two choices, 1) bail out AIG or 2) let it go bankrupt.  The Fed made both choices.  It bailed them out per se with an $85 billion dollar loan, taking 80% of the company in the process.  However, the loan came with an 11% interest rate.  This effectively prevents AIG from ever getting back on its feet.  Instead the company has been given time to arrange for the orderly sale of its assets to repay the loan, but AIG will not survive the process.    So the correct coverage of this story would  be to say that AIG has gone bankrupt and the Fed has stepped in to allow for a slow controlled sale of its assets.

aig · ale · bailout · bank · blog · fed · Federal Reserve System · http · interest rate · king · media coverage · the fed · US Federal Reserve · USD

Growing up I often heard people remark that the “poor get poorer as the rich get richer.”  I was led to believe that this was an unfortunate side effect of a free market economy.  This flaw aside, the free market economy was said to be a much better approach than anything else that had come along.  I spent my time focused on ways of making laissez faire capitalism more compassionate.  We exist in a welfare state and I, living in Canada, live in a society which offers socialized medicine.  Both of these measures are great first steps in assuring the compassion of capitalism however, I was always frustrated knowing that the only true compassion of capitalism would come in allowing everyone to earn wealth.

As I continued to study the problem, imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that we do not live in a free market system.  We live in a central bank monetary system (ie, the Federal Reserve) which has an invisible, moreover, malevolent hand in conducting the nation’s monetary policy.  This may sound like a conspiracy theory however if it was, it’s an awfully dull one given that the chairman of the Federal Reserve openly admits this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x56MpWZh88s
http://broadband.thecomedynetwork.ca/comedy/?vid=19058

Through the Federal Reserve’s mucking with the money supply and the resulting inflation, those with savings saw their savings erode silently falling into the hands of the nations richest few.  In order to escape inflation, you must own debt free assets which index to inflation.  Only the richest few of us can accomplish this and thus evade the silent erosion of our savings into the hands of bankers and the financial elite.  Here are a few graphs showing the effects:

source : http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/03/09/the-best-inequality-graph/

source : http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Central banking (The Fed) is an age old scheme of mob rule over the money supply. 

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”
– Mayer Amschel Rothschild

It has origins dating back to the temple days when Jesus drove out the money changers.  (The word ‘bank’ comes from the Latin ‘bench’ from which the temple money changers made their predatory exchanges.)  The only way to restore justice and equity is to restore the issuing power over money back to the people.  For more info, please see:

http://inflationtax.blogspot.com/

AID · alan greenspan · ale · America · bank · bank monetary system · banker · banking · blog · Canada · capitalism · cent · central bank · central banking · chair · chairman · Economy · fed · federal reserve · Federal Reserve System · free market · html · http · income disparity · inflation · king · MIT · monetary policy · money changers · piracy · quote · Red · socialized medicine · the fed · US Federal Reserve · wealth · welfare state

Randall Mills Holding A Hydrino Reactor

BlackLight’s physics-defying promise: Cheap power from water – Jul. 2, 2008.

“For when we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.”

  — G. K. Chesterton

It would seem that the same is true regarding our worship of fossil fuels.  As fuel prices skyrocket there has been a run on alternative energy ideas.  I’ve covered several on this blog. 

http://mwiner.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/over-unity-cavetation-water-heater/
http://mwiner.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/thane-heins-perpetual-motion-free-energy-or-simply-releasing-a-brake/
http://mwiner.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/perpetual-motion-claim-if-its-a-hoax-its-a-good-one/
http://mwiner.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/solution-to-the-energy-crisis-aluminum-hydrogen-cycle/

This one, like that of Thane Heins breaks some laws of physics.  In the case of Heins, it was the Law of Conservation of Energy.  Randall Mills has broken some laws of Quantum Mechanics in suggesting that there is a lower energy state below the currently known ground state of hydrogen.  Mills terms such hydrogen atoms in this new lower energy state: ‘hydrinos’.

Electrons orbit the nucleus at well defined distances.  These distances (states) are finite, discrete or quantized as it were.  If an electron is excited by an influx of energy, it jumps to a higher state.  Conversely when an electron jumps to a lower orbital state, it releases some energy (a quanta of energy).  There is a theoretical limit to how low an electron can go in this scheme.  It’s called the ground state and it’s analogous to the lowest floor an elevator can go.

Hydrogen is the simplest, and most studied atom in modern science.  It consists of a proton and an electron.  It’s no wonder then that when Mills claims to have discovered a new ‘basement’ state below the known ground state that many physicists dismiss him out of hand.  If Mills is correct however, then this new ‘basement’ state could be used to cause hydrogen to release much more energy than simply burning hydrogen.

The crown jewel of science is the scientific method.  It avoids any political and otherwise human failings.  In short, can Mills produce this effect reproducibly and reliably.  The answer so far appears to be yes.  Mills’ company Blacklight has released prototype commercialized applications of his technology which are slated to be installed in power stations in 2009. 

During the interim, there is soft evidence which is also compelling.  Mills doesn’t want your money.  He has plenty of it in the form of $60 million in investments.  Mills also doesn’t want your help.  He has plenty in the form of an all star board of directors featuring many energy magnates.  All Mills needs to do now is to demonstrate his technology working on industrial scales.  He promises to deliver energy at 2 cents per kilowatt hour, whereas the current national average is 8.9 cents. 

This blog will continue to track events on this front.

ale · alternative energy · aluminum · author · blacklight · blog · Case · cent · energy · energy ideas · energy magnates · flu · God · http · hydrinos · hydrogen · king · lower energy state · MIT · quantum mechanics · randall mills · Red · technology working · thane heins · USD

In 1979 Jimmy Carter delivered a televised speech bemoaning the increasing US dependence on foreign oil.  In it he outlines his Energy Policy for the coming decades.

“[Foreign Oil is] a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation.”

– Jimmy Carter  (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html)

Today the US relies on 60% foreign oil (http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/oildep.shtml) in strong defiance of president Carter’s prescient warning.

As far as the US dependence on foreign oil, nothing has changed since the Carter’s clarion call aside from the problem getting far worse.  However, president Carter didn’t live in a world threatened by Global Warming (at least it wasn’t commonly known).   President Carter also didn’t live in a world with two superpopulations, India and China weighing in at a billion people each who are poised to ramp up their consumption.

Clearly oil will no longer do as a source of energy.  Luckily science has provided an alternative: The Hydrogen – Aluminum Cycle.  To be clear, I’m not speaking of hydrogen power alone.  Hydrogen power alone is a red herring of alternative energies.  The catch is that hydrogen is hugely expensive to make and today largely comes from the demethylization of hydrocarbons; ie oil.  No, the Hydrogen – Aluminum cycle is something different entirely.

When we think of hydrogen, some horrible images from the past might emerge.

Here we see the Hindenburg which was filled with hydrogen bursting into flames.  Many see the risks of hydrogen in cars and decry ‘oh the humanity!’.  Well there are no such worries with the hydrogen – aluminum power cycle because the hydrogen is produced in micro amounts and only as needed.  Hydrogen need not be stored in a cryogenic canister with motorists barrelling down the highways with a bomb on board.  This in situ or just in time production solves the danger of using hydrogen in a car.

Next, we must solve the problem of where to find our hydrogen.  Clearly deriving it from oil simply won’t do.  The other current method for obtaining hydrogen is through a process called hydrolysis which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.  Regrettably, this process is too inefficient to be used on a wide scale.

Enter into the picture aluminum.  Aluminum has a high affinity for oxygen.  Whenever you hold a piece of aluminum it has a skin of oxidation.  This skin, once formed, prevents any further oxidation which is why you never have to worry about rust in components built of aluminum.  Aluminum likewise reacts with water;  A jealous lover of oxygen, it bonds strongly with it, ousting the hydrogen.  While a jealous lover aluminum may be, it is quickly satiated and forms a skin failing to react any further.

Jerry Woodall, a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Purdue, discovered in the 60’s that when aluminum, gallium and water were mixed, the aluminum oxidized fully, liberating massive amounts of hydrogen.  It would seem that the gallium acts as a mediator in the reaction and prevents the formation of the oxidation skin on aluminum.  The end results of this reaction are hydrogen gas, aluminum oxide (aka alumina) and gallium.  The gallium is not consumed, and thus can be recycled.  The alumina can be electrically converted back into aluminum and thus recycled.  Burning hydrogen produces only water.

The idea of using hydrogen to power a vehicle is certainly not a new one.  While Woodall was experimenting with gallium in the 60’s, GM was trying to prototype a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle: The Electrovan.  It is recognized as the first hydrogen fuel cell prototype.  The prototype was scrapped due to the high cost of the rare (precious) metals used in its fuel cells and the complexity of storing hydrogen.

The aluminum-gallium-hydrogen cycle may allow us to succeed where the Electrovan failed.  So now, let’s put the pieces together: How does this get you to work in the morning?  Your new, non-polluting car has two fuel tanks, one containing water, the other containing aluminum and gallium flakes.  As hydrogen is needed the water and the flakes are mixed.  The hydrogen is harvested and runs the engine.  Also the heat produces by the chemical reaction may be harvested for energy by a Stirling Engine which is a type of engine which can run off of temperature differentials.

When it comes time to fuel your vehicle, the new filling station attaches three hoses to your car.  One removes the slurry of used alumina to be recycled.  The other two replenish your supply of water and aluminum-gallium flakes.  When it comes time to pay for your aluminum flakes, will it be competitive with gasoline?

“Since standard industrial technology could be used to recycle our nearly pure alumina back to aluminum at 20 cents per pound, this technology would be competitive with gasoline,” Woodall said. “Using aluminum, it would cost $70 at wholesale prices to take a 350-mile trip with a mid-size car equipped with a standard internal combustion engine. That compares with $66 for gasoline at $3.30 per gallon. If we used a 50 percent efficient fuel cell, taking the same trip using aluminum would cost $28.”

–  (http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/x/2007b/070827WoodallNanotech.html)

Next, some may wonder where the aluminum will come from.

Enough aluminum exists in the United States to produce 100 trillion kilowatt hours of energy. That’s enough energy to meet all the U.S. electric needs for 35 years.  If impure gallium can be made for less than $10 a pound and used in an onboard system, there are enough known gallium reserves to run 1 billion cars.”

–  (http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/x/2007b/070827WoodallNanotech.html)

Recall that alumina (aluminum oxide, the waste product) can be recycled electrically back into aluminum.  So it’s not like oil where, once burnt, we can’t reclaim it.  We can electrically reclaim the waste alumina back into aluminum.

Ecologically this is a dream come true.  When thinking ecologically it’s important to think in terms of cycles.  Everythings output must be something’s input cycling back to the original source.  Here we have aluminum going to aluminum oxide (alumina) going back to aluminum.  The alumina to aluminum step can be powered by non polluting nuclear or renewable sources such as solar or wind etc.  The water turns to hydrogen which combines back with oxygen to produce water.  Gallium is never consumed and is recycled continuously.

So there you have it: president Carter’s dream some thirty years later, but not too late.  With the skyrocketing prices of oil the need for this change has never been more clear.  The only missing ingredient in this equation is the political motivation to fund and accelerate the conversion process.  This may prove to be the trickiest part of the equation to balance.

Further reading:

Please don’t take my word on this matter, feel free to do your own research:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=aluminum+gallium&spell=1

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=aluminum+gallium&search_type=

There is also a similar approach using boron

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=boron+hydrogen+car&meta=

AID · ale · alternative energy · alternative fuel · aluminum · cent · chemical reaction · China · Coming · conversion · Economy · energy · energy crisis · engineering · equation · foreign oil · fuel cell · fuel cells · gallium · global warming · Google · html · http · hydrogen · hydrogen car · hydrogen gas · ie oil · India · industrial technology · inflation · Jerry Woodall · Jimmy Carter · king · levis · logic · mediator · oil · President · price oil · professor · professor of Computer Science · Purdue · quote · RAM · Red · solar · stirling engine · United States · USD · waste product · www.google.ca/search?hl=en& · www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=boron+hydrogen+car&

… The Israeli accent is a great accent to fake at a bar.

(Israeli Accent)

“Hey Baby, I’m going to pre-emptively attack you by asking for your phone number before I even say hello…”

(normal accent)

It always works like a charm! How can any female argue with that?!

(beat)

However, there are a few disadvantages to the accent. The problem is that a few words are mispronounced leading to double entendres. For those of you who took the GED on TV high school equivalency, that’s a ‘double meaning’. A good example of this is the word ‘peace’ – as in ‘peace on earth’. Israelis tend to pronounce it as if they’re saying the bodily function ‘piss’. When I was in Israel, I attended a discussion of the Peace Process given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, given in English. In this case, the double entendre worked to his advantage – it made sense to me in both meanings. It went something like this:

(Israeli accent)

Good morning and welcome to Israel. I’ve been asked to speak to you today about the Piss Process and the prospects for piss in the Middle East. I think it’s appropriate to first start out with a history of piss in the region.

Back in the days of Golda Meir, we tried to make piss with our neighbours. The Arab culture is a strange one in that they are not willing to make piss with a woman. Personally, when my desire to make piss is strong, I would make piss with any person standing at my side, but I can’t speak to their culture.

Next we come to the Camp David Accords. Back in the 70’s all the Middle East Leaders flew to Camp David in the United States to make piss. It was hoped that the United States could provide the required push needed by all sides. Unfortunately, as many of you know, when a bunch of men get together, sometimes there is an anxiety about making piss. Regrettably, that’s exactly what happened. Even though we were all there standing side by side, the anxiety made it such that no piss came out of those meetings. The morale of the story is that if someone wants to make piss, no one can push them to do it — the push for piss must come from within.

Well, the 80’s were a dry desert in the search for piss in the Middle East. Thus, in the late 80’s, out of frustration, the Palestinians began to throw stones hoping to relieve the blockage in the piss process, and it worked. In 1993 we held a meeting in Oslo out of which piss began to flow. It ended with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat making piss on the White House lawn and the uncomfortable hand shake afterwards.

Everyone had high hopes that the Oslo Accords would quickly spread piss all over the Middle East. Unfortunately piss trickled ever so slowly, causing much frustration and disappointment. It is in this era, that of the late 90’s, that they started talking more about a piss process rather than piss itself. From this we learn that when people start talking about a piss process, they are not serious about piss. We all know that when you want to make piss, you simply make piss -– it’s not complicated. And this leaves us in our current state of long discussions about the process of making piss, with very little piss being produced.

In conclusion, it is my hope that we will soon learn from our mistakes and all parties involved will be sincere in their desire for piss and we shall soon see piss spread all over the Middle East.

ale · arab israeli conflict · Camp David · camp david accords · Case · cent · gold · golda meir · http · Israel · israeli accent · king · middle east · middle east peace · Minister of Foreign · Minister of Foreign Affairs · oslo · oslo accords · peace process · Red · United States · White House · White House lawn · Yasser Arafat · Yitzhak Rabin

Flounder: Intelligent Design?!

 I was watching this debate on Creationism (Intelligent Design):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Q8p3GqPqQ

If you want to stump a creationist, it’s easy.  Just ask them to produce a testable hypothesis.  They’ll stamp their feet and wave their hands but they won’t produce nary a one.  While they fume, you might offer some examples of unintelligent designs to drive some final nails into the coffin of what is ultimately a stupid debate.

Here is an interactive which provides evidence for evolution through the imperfections found in nature:

http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/SciTech/Evidence-for-Evolution–Unintelligent-Design-209350.html
http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz20935017f89d8.html

** If anyone is aware of evolutionary imperfections, please post them in the comments.  If we get enough of them I’ll create a post list.  An example would be the fact that humans can’t make vitamin C but make it 3/4rs of the way along the chemical pathway.

chemical pathway · creationism · evolution · head · html · http · ILS · intelligent design · nature · unintelligent design

“Would you like any bags sir?” the obnoxiously gum chewing, Lululemon athletic apparel bedecked cashier asked. “Yes, I’ll have two please.” She frowned disapprovingly through her gum chewing as to suggest “why don’t you just choke a pacific albatross to death? It’s faster.” If I subscribed to the latest internet fads, Facebook and Twitter (which I don’t) I’d know that this season, Lululemon is hot, and plastic bags are not. The cashier mercilessly tacked on a 10 cent levy to my bill for my environmental trespass, tossed aside my bags — me along with them — and addressed her next customer: a Lululemon toting trendy mother of 2.2 children. …

http://www.citycaucus.com/2009/06/letting-the-endangered-cat-out-of-the-plastic-bag

cashier · cent · Environment · Facebook · Great Pacific Garbage Patch · http · Internet · internet fads · lululemon · plastic bag · plastic bags · Red · toronto · Twitter

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

With the recent passing of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn I was reminded of a lecture by psychology professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto.  This lecture expounded the virtue of taking personal responsibility in dealing with our fears.  Peterson used a children’s book “There No Such Things As A Dragon” and the moral lessons therein to reveal how we all can be crippled by a metaphoric fear dragons and released only by facing them.

Peterson first deals with the common fears we all deal with such as fear of dying and losing those we love.  Then Peterson comes to dealing with fears and adversity imposed upon us by social forces such as tyranny and bureaucracy.  This is where he begins to discuss Solzhenitsyn. 

Solzhenitsyn is a survivor of the former Soviet Gulag where according to Solzhenitsyn’s account, approximately 60 million people died between the years of 1919 and 1959.  Solzhenitsyn started out life on the Russian front.  He was captured by the Germans where he was thrown in a special POW camp because Stalin in his neuroticism refused to sign the Geneva convention.  Conditions were so bad in these camps that other POW’s — who were not much better off themselves – threw packages of food over the fences in pity of the Soviet inmates.

With the end of the war, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia expecting a hero’s welcome.  Much to his surprise, he and his comrades were thrown into the Gulag out of fears that they may have been contaminated by their exposure to Western culture.  Conditions in the gulag were intolerable.  Many of Solzhenitsyn’s fellow inmates ate a type of clay just to have their stomachs feel fuller.  Solzhenitsyn then asked a remarkable question under the circumstances:

“What did I do to get here?”  This is a remarkeable question because many of us would immediately look to the external conditions that brought about Solzhenitsyn’s plight.  There was the war, the Soviet Empire and any other host of external conditions that could be used to explain his current situation.  Solzhenitsyn instead chose to revisit, over the following 10 years, all the things he had done wrong in his life.  In Peterson’s words “he revisited anything that gave his conscience a pang”.

Out of this introspection, he wrote the Gulag Archipelago – a 3 volume 1900 page book – which he committed to memory as there was no pen and paper available to him in the gulag.  This work circulated for years in the underground before it was eventually published in 1975.  The Gulag Archipelago went on to be the greatest literary attack on the Soviet Empire.  Solzhenitsyn, under completely unreasonable circumstances, chooses to take personal responsibility for his plight.  As a result of this soul searching, he wrote a literary attack which in many real ways bested the former Soviet Empire.  Some may immediately be tempted to say: “well the world doesn’t work like that!”  Peterson retorts: “Do we really know the world works?”  Peterson equates injustice large and small to dragons that we must all face on a personal and societal level. 

In a related work, Peterson quotes Solzhenitsyn saying: “one man who stopped lying could bring down a tyranny”.  Peterson further commented: ”I don’t think he meant that as a metaphor–or hyperbole.”

Peterson’s lecture can be found at:
http://www.tvo.org/podcasts/bi/audio/BIJordanPeterson031806.mp3
(The section about Solzhenitsyn begins at time index 44:00)

ale · Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · cent · Chaos · Communism · dca · food · Geneva · gulag · Gulag Archipelago · Harvard · html · http · Jordan Peterson · king · life · MIT · mp3 · personal responsibility · professor · psychology professor · quote · random · Red · Russia · Solzhenitsyn · Soviet Gulag · Stalin · toronto · University of Toronto