Northern lights from the other night, Ottawa Canada.

Don’t want to pay for one, but man my lathe could use a giant bandsaw buddy.

The global average concentration of the CO2 surged by 3.5 parts per million to 424ppm in 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957. We might be switching from negative to positive carbon cycle feedbacks - a horrific disaster, if so. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

What the FUCK are we doing?

Woodbine is such an amazing, Canadian audio drama podcast, new season is rolling out for spooky season. I love the pacing, voice acting, setting. A bit saucy at times, funny, latest season is wonderful. woodbinepod.com @parkdalehaunts.bsky.social

I was a skeptic about the import of the Epstein files. But 3 invasions of cities, one military buildup outside Venezuela, a government shutdown, and so many other things meant to distract have me convinced whatever’s in there is the biggest presidential scandal in U.S. history.

Where are the good songs and art satirizing the ai boom and tech bros? @edzitron.com ? Listening to commercial rock radio it’s slightly bizarre there’s nothing coming out about it. (Though I do understand how this might start out underground.)

If we cannot all be on the same page that the sitting president threatening to invade a US city is fascist dictator shit then truly I do not know what to do.

Melting into an airport chair listening to Kind of Blue while your airplane is delayed, contemplating life, is a great vibe.

The McCordick Mystery 👽🛸

Light painting equipment testing…

That tagline

My biking buddy

Since 2023, translators and interpreters have seen work dry up, rates plummet and their jobs reduced to editing AI-generated output. Some are leaving the field, others are considering bankruptcy. All despite any major upgrade in translation quality. This is how AI is killing translation work:

Someone posted this on Reddit but great news - in another three weeks AI will be writing 90% of code www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-ce...

Generative AI by definition is conformity. It is an averaging of anything you ask of it - quite literally guessing what the most likely version of a thing might be. It is, by definition, mainstream, as is everything it creates old and deeply ideological, as every model trains on similar data.

Biking in the Marlborough forest. notepad.rjyoung.ca/marlborough-...

Montreal is a great place to explore.

we are literally naming our bank after the mountain lair where the dwarves became consumed by greed until they finally realized they had to move beyond it to survive we absolutely understood the message of this book intended for children, we are very smart people. please give us all your money now

Maple bowl, digging this one

Dusting off my IR camera.

It’s been a long spring and it’s time for a rest. 😅

Trying to break in my bowl gouge.

FYI, if you're at all interested in building up a physical media library for any reason, a *lot* of unsold stuff has ended up on eBay for pretty cheap That Perry Mason box set wasn't even $60, and it's 72 DVDs. DVDs are old-fashioned... but so am I and I'm honestly loving the simplicity and ritual

AI agents don't read, but I do. And call me a radical, but I don't dream of a future where society replaces actual critical analysis of the tech industry with the tech industry's own AI products

First laser map attempt, almost there…

Dusting off the mountain bike

Had a great time joining Cory Doctorow on CBC Understood's "Who Broke The Internet" to talk about the horrifying state of Google (and Google Search). www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p... podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/u... open.spotify.com/show/69ttdE2... www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Today I learned that my Nikon Z5 has a truly tiny indicator for no SD card. I found this out after a nice photo shoot. Goddamit Nikon. Every other camera I’ve ever own screams at you if you start shooting without a card. The Z5… lets you shoot away. 😂😭🫣🤬🤬🤬

If you don't want your news to come from AI bots scraping Trump Admin press releases, literally main thing you can do to ensure it doesn't is fund indie media. The mainstream pubs are already canning folks who do the work, and they're retaining people who are effectively propagandists.

Sprucing up my old camera bag.

#EarthDay "PERSONAL EFFECTS 2016 (after Hokusai)", 5ftx7ft8", charcoal & graphite on paper

Voted!

These pleather patches are pretty cool.

Made a bunch of these. If you’d like one they’re available for the cost of a donation to a Canadian charity.

Okay I'm sorry but this is pretty funny. You just made plans to blow up the world economy for no reason and you're being like "we've made a beautiful little card it's so expensive. Isn't it beautiful. The card is made of metal I think"

What are you trying to optimize in your life and does it actually need to be optimized? Be careful that you're not losing a game which only you are playing.

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller April 3,1952

Magnetic exhaust coupling for the laser.

Upgrading my laser ventilation, this was super fun to make.

This is going to be the vibe coding version of the Chernobyl disaster, a wholly preventable failure caused by a combination of hubris, incompetence and design flaws.

If it helps you understand why I get so cranky around folks who take electricity for granted or worse keep popping out of the woodwork to denounce electrification as a project... this is why. You have the most miraculous creation of human intellect and effort inside your home and you're gonna pass?

Army vet @charlotteclymer.bsky.social on Signalgate: "It’s so inexplicably irresponsible and careless and dangerous, that for those of us who have been in these environments, it’s difficult to articulate the stratospheric degree of fuckup this happens to be." open.substack.com/pub/charlott...

Testing a design. #canada

More laser stuff

i'm sorry, like, this is not what they intended, they had no intentions, they have been desperately trying to work out what the hell they are doing for years. Framing these companies as deeply strategic/like they have a master plan gives them power. They're lost!

Coffee robot sighting. I’d rather pay for a baristas salary but an interesting sight.