Good morning, and welcome to the weekend.
Grab your cup of coffee or tea, and sit down with a selection of this week’s great reads from The Globe. In this issue, Michael Harris asks whether the rise of cooking apps has broken the link between food and memory, and what happens when recipes begin detaching from family knowledge passed down from generation to generation.
Report on Business reporter Joe Castaldo dives into the physical infrastructure behind artificial intelligence, and the strain a new era of generative AI could have on power and water grids.
And award-winning photographer Goran Tomasevic brings us images from Haiti, where a struggle for power has filled Port-au-Prince with dead bodies, displaced residents and questions about who can bring peace to the troubled country.
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The ties that dine: The way we cook today means that memory is no longer on the menu
The movement toward non-family recipes – recipes created by celebrity chefs and foodie bloggers – has been a long time coming, Michael Harris writes.belchonock/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
We’ve all eaten these mouthfuls of food – the ones that can both recall a catalogue of taste memories and somehow reconstruct for us a whole lived experience. It’s as though a time in our lives may be tethered by an unbreakable string to a bowl of perfectly cooked rice or a still-warm chocolate-chip cookie. But that experience – that tethering of ourselves to a personal past – has grown less frequent in an age of cooking apps. The food we prepare seems to arrive from nowhere, with no familial strings at all. Have cooking apps severed the vital link between food and memory? Michael Harris writes about what we lose when recipes move online.
Energy-hungry AI models could strain water and power grids. Can the sector handle the demand?
Inside CentML's head office in Toronto are rows and rows of desktops used for developing software with expansive GPU's and liquid cooling systems. Typically known as gaming computers, these machines are very powerful for development of Ai technologies.Shay Conroy/The Globe and Mail
Using an AI-powered chatbot in your daily life to write up a grocery list or feed you a bespoke bedtime story for your children, appears seamless, less taxing. But generative AI will need more supercomputers, more data centres and a lot more energy to power them. Data centres are already energy hogs, and Joe Castaldo reports that worldwide energy usage related to the expanded use of AI will lead to even more consumption.
Haiti’s gangs rule Port-au-Prince in the chaos of political crisis
Gang members wear masks to avoid facing justice when governmental authority is restored, or vigilante violence from outraged citizens.GORAN TOMASEVIC/The Globe and Mail
Dead bodies are a common sight on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. As Goran Tomasevic captures the snapshots of a troubled country and Eric Andrew-Gee and Yvon Vilius report, the Haitian state is effectively all but absent, with no elected officials in office at any level of government. On the ground, gangs are the main authority, and their law is brutal violence.
Trump’s vice-presidential contest echoes the chaos of The Apprentice
Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota introduces former President Donald Trump during a campaign event in Rapid City, S.D., Sept. 8, 2023.JAMIE KELTER DAVIS/The New York Times News Service
Twists, turns and political intrigue are to be expected when it comes to the contest for the U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidacy. But never before has it so closely resembled the medium in which former U.S. president Donald Trump arguably took his first steps toward a presidential campaign: reality television. Nathan VanderKlippe reports on politics that have gone the way of The Apprentice, a televised drama centred around Trump, who will once again pick a winner – and dispatch the losers - on a global stage.
Motherhood is joy, but also grief. Cancer taught me to live with both
Farrah Khan and her spouse Kristyn Wong-Tam with their son on May 5, 2024.Supplied
To decide to become a mother is to navigate the ache of comparison, the sorrow of missed opportunities. For those of us who are lucky enough to become parents, we feel pieces of our own hearts break away, beating in our children’s little rib cages as they move beyond us with every step. In many ways, IVF had prepared Farrah Khan for cancer treatment – the tests, the procedures and the loss of control. She writes about the diagnoses that changed everything for her, and made her experience of queer motherhood even more complex.
The Leafs have ousted Sheldon Keefe. Who will be next to land The Greatest Job In Hockey™?
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe watches play during the third period in Game 1 of the team's NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Boston.Michael Dwyer/The Associated Press
Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe has joined a long list of men who landed The Greatest Job in Hockey™ and came out the other side in pieces. Now the question is: who’s up next? Picking from the dozen or so men available on the coaching carousel at any given time hasn’t worked in 50 years, Cathal Kelly writes.
How to plan – and survive – a trip with friends
Friend travel can be fraught: personalities can clash and resentments build.Illustration by Salini Perera
Gayle MacDonald and her friends have remained close through four decades of life milestones, because each year they reunite, catch up and laugh until their sides hurt. Their trips are planned and executed with such little friction and fuss that it’s hard for her to wrap her head around a friend trip that could be an absolute bust. But the reality is that travelling with friends can be fraught: personalities can clash and resentments build. In worst cases, tempers erupt and a dream trip with pals becomes a nightmare. MacDonald teaches us how to make it out in one piece.
Which Toronto neighbourhood does Drake live in? Take our arts and culture quiz and find out
One of Drake’s security guards was hospitalized this week after a shooting outside the rapper’s home. In which Toronto neighbourhood does he live?
a. The Annex
b. Rosedale
c. Bridle Path
d. Forest Hill