‘Keep Carleton Human’: Carleton University staff rallies to push for protections from A.I.

conversation from earlier today - some of it: tech procurement, the limits of law, tech and culture and compliance, militarism, halfway technologies (per Arnold Pacey), shifting attention from the supply-side production of technology to how we respond to it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kso1...

“Tech critics become technocrats when they overlook the daunting administrative density of a digital-first society. The author implores critics to reject structural dependencies on digital tools rather than naturalize their integration via critique/reform“ J.Penn www.policyready.ca/policymaking...

I see the way systems thinking often moves you from solution space to problem space (which it's hard not to see as moving backwards) lurking behind a lot of @johncutle.fish's points in "20 Things I've Learned As a Systems Overthinker". cutlefish.substack.com/p/20-things-...

✨Amazing✨ "We need to have more conversations that spur us to think about if and how to agitate and intervene in the collective mechanisms of our governments, regardless of which party is in power. I am as tired writing this as you may be reading it. Yet the necessity of this work is certain."

Consensus is a myth. This idea was shared with me years ago, handed down through others that have worked for decades in facilitation. It’s a phrase that stuck, challenging me constantly to accurately retell events that I’m part of, or witness to. biancawylie.medium.com/consensus-do...

every conversation about nationalism is an opportunity to talk about colonialism

"We’ll all need to get better at hard conversations...how do we practice refusal together? how do we challenge, disagree, and support each other in changing our minds on complicated issues" —Saadia Muzaffar, founder of non-profit TGC and co-founder of Tech Reset Canada betakit.com/15-bold-pred...

UofWinds 429, Week 03 2026: Human Intelligence, Everything is Gender, Bird by Bird www.uofwinds.com/429/

Franklin used the image of the earthworm as inspiration for her lifelong work, explaining that the earthworm helps to prepare the soil before anything can grow. thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/u...

Most organisations respond to tacit knowledge problems by trying to write better documentation, style guides, brand books, training programmes. None of this works. You can't learn tacit knowledge by reading descriptions of it. Instead, try the 3 mechanisms here: vaughntan.org/learnwhatmat...

facilitation / collaboration tip: when you make a list of things, end the list with: •other? it’s a) an invitation to others to add and b) an acknowledgement of knowing that you don’t know it all

staying with the trouble or is the trouble staying with me?

i think we're making big mistakes trying to do post-hoc transparency of model decisions. “Showing the work” can’t compensate for unclear delegation of judgment.

favourite part of writing is still deleting

Toronto :) on Wed Jan 28 at 7 pm (doors at 6 pm) come join us @1rg.space for the first event of the new wayfinding series: Privacy - with Jenny Zhang (@phirephoenix.com) + Parker Higgins (@xor.blue) and a group discussion to follow. Will be great :)

“…waiting could be conceived of both as a form of resistance and as a warranted insistence on the space for deliberation and reflection, which are the preconditions of freedom.“ - @lmsacasas.bsky.social theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/waiting-is...

Jan 29th, 12-1 pm ET, remote. $40 CAD attendees will learn about issues that commonly arise in describing archival resources created by and about trans and gender diverse people and communities and describe best practices for addressing these issues. www.aao-archivists.ca/event-6510343

Come to the first event: conversations about Privacy with @phirephoenix.com and @xor.blue luma.com/wayfinding1

I'm really stoked to be doing this!

I’ve been working on this event series with Max and Jen for the past few months and I am so fucking psyched!!! You should come to the first event on Jan 28th featuring yours truly and @xor.blue!!! Did I mention how fucking psyched I am because I am!!! luma.com/wayfinding1

We're really excited to announce Wayfinding, a new series we're hosting featuring conversations about navigating the tensions of tech in modern life.

I'll be doing one of these sessions, we'll take the love of complex patterns and structures which often draws us to work in tech, but instead we'll leave our screens and go for a walk in the woods, foraging new patterns, grounding the abstractions in the natural world.

The path we’re on instead is techno-solutionism: the cheapest, straightest line governments can choose towards efficiency and savings, and the most impoverished innovation strategy possible for a young country with every opportunity to do differently. www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

The idea that a country wants to have agency over its technology systems is understandable. But let’s take care not to confuse this desire with anything resembling progressive politics. My latest for @policyalternatives.ca www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

tech companies using society as a staging server

I mask everywhere to reduce the chances of getting sick. If someone asks me if I’m sick (rare) I say no, I wouldn’t be here if I was - I’m trying not to get sick. I also understand why others may want medical privacy and answer otherwise. or they have to be out sick. diversity of tactics out there.

“Can one change the world one has escaped from by powers gained in imaginary worlds? I think so. Imagination contains the yeast of world-making. If so, this is consistency.” - Andrei Codrescu lareviewofbooks.org/article/cons...

now reading : the history of a tenth of a second by Jimena Canales “it wasn’t until the 1850s that instruments could recognize a tenth of a second, and, once they did, the impact on modern science and society was profound.” press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

learned the most about climate change this year from landscape architects

The instinct to add rather than subtract when it comes to policy – or any kind of problem-solving – runs deep. www.policyready.ca/policymaking...