I just hope that no one looks up "smeg" in the Urban Dictionary. It would be awful if people did that.

Going into 2026, a reminder for everyone who's fallen off the creative wagon, game dev, writing, art, music, whatever, no matter how long:

It's shocking that, as late as 2023, some police "digital forensic experts" might not be aware of address spoofing and, even worse, the existence of email message headers and the routing information they contain.

I wonder if vendors like Anycubic realize that the performance (or lack thereof) of their delivery partners reflects directly on them, too. As far as new hobby experiences go, this one has been awful.

I have dyscalculia and am self-employed, so taxes, accounting, filing documents, etc. quite literally breaks my brain. The CRA is chronically under resourced and the bureaucracy is set up in such a way as to be needlessly frustrating. But I wanna be clear : The people who answer the phones? Angels

Hmm. I'm not sure a single data point is enough to draw a properly validated conclusion. How many billionaires would make a proper a data set? I'm sure society can spare them for a few years (or just days, like the Rockefeller example) to let the experiment run its course. Go, team science!

Excited to announce that my next book, I AM THE NIGHT, not only has a great cover but is available for pre-order now: us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

Trigger warning, Canadian content ahead. Viewer discretion is advised. #CanCon 🇨🇦

It's like Disney looked at how much their brands like Mickey Mouse have already been degraded by churned-out quickie slasher films based on the earliest version of the mouse hitting the public domain this year and said, "Hold my beer."

If you need to grant yourself, as an elected official, immunity from *law society sanctions*, you need to reconsider your life choices. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I had no idea that Hasbro released action figures for the original #Stargate film in 1994. But Daniel Jackson with a trucker hat and an assault rifle as accessories? I don't think they had the benefit of a script to work from. (Although the packaging designers clearly knew about Spader and Russell.)

Closes with a *great* performance of Life During Wartime. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNmc...

Jolly well done!

So good.

New side quest: get PDN Express to deliver the replacement parts that Anycubic sent for the 3D printer I bought in October that had some interesting mechanical failures after just a few days. Anycubic says that PDN is blaming the recent Canada Post strike and suggests I reach out directly.

Sorry, pal, there's no escaping Monday.

Many of these authors are here on Bluesky and you should definitely buy whatever they have in print as gifts for your loved ones. @ryannorth.ca @davidmalki.com @mikereisswriter.bsky.social @xkcd.com @bcdreyer.social @zachweinersmith.bsky.social @amandalitman.bsky.social @markaaltman.bsky.social

For some reason that I've yet to figure out, I find films and television scripted by Richard Curtis oddly relaxing when I have a migraine, no matter how many times I've seen them. Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel.

Sunday #Shelfie from the living room. #Booksky

A photo of a liquor store in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where a cheeky Martimer left a bottle of Newfoundland wine in the empty US section. 🇨🇦😄 #ElbowsUp #Canada Photo credit: Kevin Vincent

Today, we remember the fourteen young women whose lives were stolen at Polytechnique Montréal 36 years ago. Their names are a solemn reminder of the devastating toll of gender-based violence — and the responsibility that comes with our remembrance.

Geneviève Bergeron, 21 Hélène Colgan, 23 Nathalie Croteau, 23 Barbara Daigneault, 22 Anne-Marie Edward, 21 Maud Haviernick, 29 Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, 31 Maryse Laganière, 25 Maryse Leclair, 23 Anne-Marie Lemay, 22 Sonia Pelletier, 28 Michèle Richard, 21 Annie St-Arneault, 23 Annie Turcotte, 20

It's been ages but I distinctly remember getting my Sailor Jack and Bingo Peace Prize free with each box of Cracker Jack.

“Decades of down-sizing and outsourcing of public services—often on the advice of private consultants—have left governments bereft of the expertise and capacity required to design and deliver public policy on their own. Instead, these functions are outsourced to private consultants like Deloitte”

Cribbed from a FB post in my feed today. I can see people falling for this - it's not enough to check the domain name of what you're being asked to click on or reply to; you have to check *carefully*.

If you see this, post a spider man.

The new Knives Out film is going to have to be *very* good if it wants to top this.

Liking this, but would like it more if there was a fourth tower and they were all connected. On a semi-related note, there is a bungalow in my neighbourhood with a rounded skylight directly in the centre of their roof that I will always affectionately refer to as the Pop-o-Matic Trouble house.

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Lol, Zillow tried to rate the climate risks facing individual properties. The real estate industry *hated* it, precisely because it worked -- it made selling risky properties more difficult. So they rebelled & Zillow caved. Don't look up!

The updated COVID/histamine link thread because people keep tagging me in to explain it and I keep intending to update the post from 2023 (synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/805203.html) and just not having the capacity because of my own health shit so here is a thread I can pin

Oh, sure, you may think you're some kind of big shot rock star comic book artist, but do you have companies knocking on YOUR door to get your art and name on a wedge of cheese? xavier.fr/en/produit/R...

Post your favourite LOTR characters, wrong answers only

This is such a tragic story. Preying on vulnerable people like this should be a crime. Allowing this to happen in Canada is a blight on our reputation and morally repugnant. Regulate this immediately. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I am allowed to fail students for AI use, and I do, and I say I will, repeatedly and emphatically. As a result, I wind up having to fail very few students for AI use.

The OpenAI ruling writers should know about 👀 (if your work was scraped for LLM training, this affects you). www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

Introduce yourself with five concerts you attended, Carleton University edition with Grade A 100% Canadian🇨🇦 content: Sarah McLachlan / The Grapes of Wrath Spirit of the West The Northern Pikes @thenorthernpikes.bsky.social Doug and the Slugs The Pursuit of Happiness

Guess who just got back today Them doe-eyed bears that had been away Haven't changed, had much to say But man, I still think them cubs are crazy The bears are back in town, the bears are back in town I said, the bears are back in town, the bears are back in town...

I recently wrote something about the science of pareidolia, the "you can't unsee this face in this inanimate thing" bias - and all the examples I found are delightful, ludicrous and worrying! (It's amazing how completely it hijacks our mind.) I dare you to unsee the following examples. 1/

UNBOUND AUTHORS: Leftover copies of your books in the UK (MacMillan) warehouse will be pulped within the next week or two. DM me for a link to the warehouse stock list and contacts. If you have no dosh, another publisher (Wilton Sq) is willing to buy the books & distribute on a 50/50 profit split

On a related note, I've solved the mystery of what my pooch had been so obsessed with just on the other side of the backyard fence since yesterday evening (and all through the night, dammit). One of the foxes in the neighbourhood apparently enjoyed a good meal but left it to me to bus its table.

It's a listen to music by @carolekingofficial.bsky.social on repeat kind of day.

Most times, a startling juxtaposition of a @dictionarycom.bsky.social definition and the site's Word of the Day can be an unexpected spot of hilarity. Not sure if today qualifies.

All by itself, "The mind is a terrible thing to have sometimes," is a brilliant quote and so painfully true. The rest is gold, too.

The last time I launched a Kickstarter campaign, in 2019, the thing to expect was a bunch of soliciting DMs from marketing agencies and so on. Now they don't come through KS, they come via email. Par for the course. But a special wag-o-the-finger to the ones claiming to be FROM Kickstarter!

Patient came in with sore throat. While waiting for rapid Strep test result we glanced back at the Covid-19 RAT result: positive. Reminder that masking in health care makes sense, if you don’t want everyone in your waiting room to go home sick, your staff to get sick, and physicians to get sick.

Ten thousand souls was the opening bid And it soon went up to fifty nine But the Lord didn't see what the Devil did And he said that suits me fine I'll raise you high to a hundred and five And forever put an end to your sins But the Devil let out a mighty shout, my hand wins

"You can spend about $40 per employee per year of increased ventilation costs and that will give you $7,000 of gained employee productivity per person, almost a 200 to 1 gain."