Things I learned lately 4 Dec

• The top 2 longest runways in Canada are at the Calgary International Airport (YYC). If it still existed, the 3rd longest would have been the runway at CFB Namao north of Edmonton, which is now an Army base.
• For now, the largest battery powered electric bus fleet in North America is Canadian. Toronto's transit system is now running 59 electric buses from three suppliers. It takes about three hours to charge a battery that has been fully depleted. To maximize use of the bus, it's typically put on a long route in the morning, covering 200 to 250 kilometres. Then it's partially charged and put on a shorter run in the late afternoon. [Update: For comparison, the city of Shenzhen has 18,000 electric buses.]
• More footage from Planes, Trains and Automobiles was cut from the movie than actually ended up in the theatrical release. Some of the cut footage made it into the trailer.
• Clothes sold at factory outlets are often made just for outlet stores and are of a lower quality than what you'd find in the non-outlet stores.
• Apparently music artists can see the names of the playlists we're adding their songs to on Spotify. For the record, some of my playlist names: Sheer rock wall; Soul terrain; Little boxes; Canadian maple; Eclectic chair; Atmospheric haze; Electric storm; Jazz jam.
• In the new Kraft Dinner TV ad, one of the people eating it is former Barenaked Ladies singer Steven Page [pictured]. Yes, he's eating it with Dijon ketchup.
  
  
  
• In Alberta, A&W restaurants are common even in smaller cities that don't have any other national burger chain.
• Cafe X is a coffee kiosk that uses a robotic arm to make your latte. There are 2 of them in SFO and SJC (closed for now due to Covid).
• The last drive-in style A&W restaurant closed in 2000, in Langley, British Columbia.
• Computer AI has surpassed human accuracy when it comes to image recognition.
• China is leading the world in so many technological advances in ways you have probably never heard about. This is partly because many Western countries are becoming embarrassed at how much further ahead China is on many fronts. It is also because Chinese youth working culture follow the 9-9-6 work/life model. Work 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week.