obviously I would prefer that my employer not be defunded, but reading someone say "show some courage, would you please?" to Bill Flanagan is cathartic

Not long before seeing this tweet, I asked Gemini 3 (thinking) whether Hausfather & Peters (2020)'s argument was widely accepted or contested. It said the former, citing (among other sources) the American Enterprise Institute. This sort of thing is imo much more of a danger than "hallucination"

FYI Americans: if you had Canadian grandparents/parents: you may be Canadian

LAPD kills man allegedly holding gun near California Science Center, officials say

An investigation by a German outlet has found that in German supermarkets, wines from illegal settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank are labelled as "from Israel". This violates both EU regulations and the International Court of Justice's advisory ruling on the occupation of the oPT.

Apartments are safer and more affordable than single-family homes. Why do we treat them like a hazard? www.vox.com/future-perfe...

It's genuinely crazy the degree to which scientific racism is way more popular among liberal elites than normie liberals, despite it not being supported by relevant science

As an Albertan, I reject the premise that there are legitimate complaints that have led to this. The right has spent the past ten years manufacturing grievances against Ottawa and Canada. From Trudeau to pipelines to equalization to vaccines, it’s all been torqued and twisted and manipulated.

now they always say congragulations 🎵

recognizing a lot of names from the Epstein Files as someone who used to casually browse edge dot org circa 2012

The Atlantic Magazine just dropped a tremendous story on the Minnesota Resistance. The author is a war correspondent & sees the echoes of leaderless community empowerment around the globe: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202... (supposed to be a gift link, might not work, it’s in Apple News, too.)

Read @mbolotnikova.bsky.social excellent new story on housing aesthetics and housing politics, covering my work w/ @dbroockman.bsky.social & @jkalla.bsky.social, the advocacy of @urbancourtyard.bsky.social, and more! Gift link: www.vox.com/future-perfe...

A new report says Alberta has lost its status as a leader in attracting renewable energy investment — and provincial policies are to blame. thenarwhal.ca/alberta-rene...

Two women trained as first responders were abducted by three ICE agents. One of the agents starts seizing. The other two don’t know what to do. The women jump into action and save the agent’s life, only to be re-handcuffed and processed. www.startribune.com/detained-by-...

don't really want to argue about the ethics of genAI overall right at the moment but if you're giving OpenAI in particular your money please consider literally any other option

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti. "Please get the truth out about our son."

This piece by M. Gessen should have been co-signed by the entire NYT editorial board. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...

DOJ lies. DHS lies. ICE lies. That has been established. Do not repeat their claims as fact. Their claims are arguments or, often, misleading propaganda — when not outright lies. They are seeking to make a case for their lawlessness (and to please Trump), not seeking to inform.

remarkable how much contempt this white house has for the nation’s historical and artistic treasures

I'm sorry whose water supply now

The Aviary in Edmonton needs our support after fire damage. They are asking folks to buy gift certificates, and plan to reopen soon. This size of venue is very important for the arts community here. Please support as you are able...sharing helps! #Edmonton #yeg #yegArts #TheAviary the-aviary.net

An incredibly important video on the huge benefits of upzoning a North American city, and the risks that present afterwards: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVQ6...

every roadside dhaba in the country around Baroda offers the same holy trinity of cuisines: Punjabi, Kathiyawadi, Chinese

Prediction markets simulate “science” with a few numbers and curves. Any serious scientist would hesitate. In a system that keeps attacking expertise, forecasts turn into pure gambling. Maybe that’s exactly the appeal. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

My latest on Substack -- a write-up of the talk I gave at NeurIPS in December. aiguide.substack.com/p/on-evaluat...

Good architecture is a posterchild public good: non-rival and non-excludable. Had great fun using the economics toolbox to study why developments look rather underwhelming and simulate what policies could lead to more beautiful cities. @bsoeberlin.bsky.social github.com/Ahlfeldt/DPs...

Wîhkwêntôwin Neighbourhood Renewal final designs are out now: buff.ly/ea557h2 There is a short engagement period, with two in person events and an online survey. We think that an important neighbourhood like this deserves a more ambitious design. #yegbike #yegcc

60 workers at Ubisoft’s studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia voted to form a union. In response, Ubisoft announced it was closing the entire studio. Maybe it’s time to look into the millions they get in public money for operating in Canada.

If you're able to do something about this - it sounds extraordinary to say, but genuinely millions of lives are at stake.

There is a crisis of impunity. The Musk/Grok stuff is just one f many examples of people who are counting on there never being any consequences. And it all makes me just incandescently mad.

This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Indonesia blocks Musk’s Grok chatbot due to risk of pornographic content

🌳PhD Opportunity in plant ecophysiology🌡️ Join EPFL (Switzerland) for fully-funded 4yr PhD on tree responses to air drought and heat. Climate chamber + long-term experiments to uncover physiological thresholds under climate change. www.epfl.ch/labs/perl/pe...

New research from our group: A pervasive increase in tree mortality across the Australian continent - driven by rising temperatures rdcu.be/eXSa7

I often get asked about the Miyawaki method of forest restoration, usually by people who have heard extraordinary claims for it. Morales et al. (2025) have reviewed the evidence and found it to be weak or absent. 🌏🧪🌳🌲 besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The world must boycott the World Cup and the Olympics. It is both the only moral choice and will actually get the attention of these dead-eyed clout demons.

If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free. consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov

an argmin year in review

I've slowly been reformatting notes from my population and conservation genetics course at Montana State University into a web book—a rough draft is now live here: elinck.org/popgen_conge...

This story is absolutely wild. Did you know that avocados change sex over the course of a day? And that it's controlled by a single ancient balanced polymorphism? This is flat our crazy

Since I can’t get it out of my head, I wrote up my thoughts on @kevinbaker.bsky.social's critique of AI-automated science and the logical end of processes that can't self-correct.

there’s now a petition for the canadian government to overturn the recent legislation in AB and SK designed to strip trans youth of their rights. please sign: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

I just find it frustrating that the same people constantly pushing against ridiculous claims from AI-Luddites don't show similar frustration in response to equally ridiculous claims from the actual labs.

I wrote a piece on LLMs, citation metrics, and the institution of science. It's been up for a couple of days, but it is officially "out" now.

this, from @kevinbaker.bsky.social, is a better analysis of the intersection between LLMs and academic science than 98% of what's out there.

I got the same request. I filled it out, and I was glad to do so, but the LLM-generated hypotheses were really quite bad.

So, El Fasher looks like one of the worst single event atrocities to happen this century so far, but the evidence has come in such a trickle it seems to only now be getting verified

The RSF just attacked a kindergarten, killing at least 33 children in Sudan. Meanwhile, the Trump Admin. continues to sell arms to the UAE, who are aiding these atrocities. Imagine if Trump spent as much time trying to stop the killing, as he did getting the UAE to invest in his crypto coin.

No one of you is going to mistake this short column of mine for trenchant economic analysis. Nevertheless, here’s my attempt to explain to a popular audience why I think they should join the “raise my taxes” movement: www.christiancourier.ca/raise-my-tax...