Go Tammara Soma! BC Academic of the Year! #philsci #sfu cufa.bc.ca/award/2026-w...

Writing a food security paper raising issues for techno-optimism about space food tech, with kick-ass co-author Tammara Soma. And citing Alien Clay by Tchaikovsky! It's the first but definitely not the last time I'll find a way to cite his work in a philosophy paper. #philsci #philsky

Fuck yes. And if you don't like it, move back to whatever shittier state you came from a couple years ago

Happy #transdayofvisibility! If there is anyone (yourself, friend, family member) who seems bemused by "this whole trans thing", a great book to get them is The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks. It is a fantastic book anyway, and walks through that thinking and out the other side, very effectively

Eid mubarak! Los Angeles palm trees and moon.

Eldest child drew me this amazing snail blorbo on my notebook cover, had to share

Blue hour Academic Quadrangle on the walk home #sfu

ok damn this is a good speech. paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...

Just gotta point out that "Canadian content" got us both Strange Brew and Heated Rivalry which combo is an amazing Canadian taxpayer contribution to society en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadia...

It takes special bravery in a family game of Apples to Apples for a teen to play the "Your mom" card.

Eldest child made this arcane lore christmas meme. Happy christmas eve!

Preprint for "Foundations of Causation", from my 2024 talk at the Minnesota CPS. I've been saying this offhand for years, so it was good to finally get specific and into the weeds about what it means to branch out a new science of causation. #philsky #philsci philpapers.org/rec/ANDFOC-2

Kid 2 got a plasma ball birthday gift. Here it is in slo mo.

Heads up to PhD letter writers and to programs using My Liason system for grad letter submissions. I am not receiving any emails from Liason to my SFU address, even to reset my password. IT Services can't find anything; this happened last year also. You might need to go looking! #philsky #philsci

Giving a talk today! I am excited to be working out how to structure this overall argument, lots of moving pieces and not in any final form yet. And definitely longer than 1 paper. In the meantime, here's the bit I am focusing on now. #philsci #philsky philosophy.ubc.ca/events/event...

I got myself a neuron scarf for my talk in Bloomington at IU HPS and it is so awesome. Bringing to attention of philosophers of science if you want to support small biz artists #philsci

Eldest child discussing queer characters in lit is 🔥👍. Described Sir Gawain as "sadboy rizz". Still wonders why Moby Dick doesn't get the "oh no, queer!" ban in the US. We wondered how many creatives might've counted as aro-ace (Eldest: "they'd be more locked in") and I realized...KANT

One upside of the week's news is that I am reading cool historical stuff on Rosalind Franklin and her work #philsci

The crows in Bloomington do the same evening commute through the sky together as they do in Burnaby. A river of flying crows at sunset. View from @jordicat.bsky.social 's office: there were dozens to hundreds per tree.

Bloomington is a very lovely place in the fall. Had some fantastic philosophy of science discussions today and set up for even more tomorrow

Flying out of Vancouver is pretty much always some flavour of gorgeous

Spent my extra hour last night watching the finale of The Residence, had to know whodunnit. Great show, exactly the right kind clever funny escapism. In contrast, have been watching The Foundation series while cooking, and keep thinking, can't Harry Seldon just die and stay dead already please

Can't help but laugh at the idea that anyone is taking seriously this "but is she REALLY your aunt" and the fact that this is the only straw they could grasp. If you spell out the details for how you are related to your aunty you sound like Merry and Pippin

Call for Papers for the Society for Exact Philosophy conference in Vancouver in May 2026. @hkandersen.bsky.social is one of the keynotes! meta.phil.ufl.edu/host/sep/mee... #philsky

I accidentally Gettier'd someone today. Person: I knew you were married to a a Norwegian! Me: How could you possibly have known that P: Your last name, it's the Norwegian spelling. Me: But mine is Danish. And his last name is completely different. Yes, though, married to a norwegian. #philsky

This is fantastic context for the protests. I remember this way back in the 90's. I graduated high school in 1995 in NW Montana and you could tell so much sometimes by the town some picked to move to after graduating. Portland was a slightly fringe choice and it was all this attitude

Heading into the long weekend with some atmosphere. Philosophers: do have a strong, or mild, preference for reading papers when its one paper with that hang together at 14k-ish words, or two shorter papers that each have less in terms of a point but also are only 7-8k each? #philsci #philsky

Happy Mid-autumn harvest festival weekend! I made fusion mooncakes, cookie outside with a paste of dates and four kinds of nuts inside. Metro Vancouver style energy snacks, because I absolutely have to finish this draft today.

Preprint: specific subtypes of epistemic injustice where academic science interfaces with Indigenous knowledge in the BC area, targeted by epistemic transformative justice in 3 "the future looks better than the past" case studies. Great coauthors here #philsci #philsky #sfu philpapers.org/rec/ANDIEI

We're coming up on philosophy PhD application season. In case it is helpful for you or your students, I have a guide to this process, developed over the years of working with SFU MA students. Let me know if you have questions or suggestions #philsky #philsci www.hkandersen.com/applying-for...

Time lapse cloud drama looking northward. Fresh breeze through the window makes this stage of writing less sloggish. #sfu

Working on a paper where I swear every day I am making progress but am coming to suspect it is more like Pachelbel's Canon progress because damn it is no closer to being done

A lovely moment shared with Ebeneezer Murderbeak on the walk in. They played with that mallard decoy! Pushing it around like a toy duck. And they coo'd at me! You can hear them make little cozy sounds if you listen closely. Definitely improved my day to be counted as birdfriend. #sfu #heron

Very happy to announce that the CFP is now open for APSA26: The Inaugural Biennial Conference of the Asian Philosophy of Science Association! It will be held at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The keynote will be Craig Callender. Submission deadline: 31 Dec 2025. URL: tinyurl.com/APSA26

Feels like I am doing something right enough in life that when I die, no one will think, thank god the trolley got em, whoever redirected that trolley thereby spared so many other people.

Youngest Child just wrapped up a long think about the best ever books for kids younger than him. Results: When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town, and The Monster Under the Hill.

Ebeneezer Murderbeak is back! Just in time for the start of Fall term. Here he is atop the AQ, admiring some brutalist Arthur Erickson architecture in the morning light filtered through wildfire smoke. Waiting for his moment to lecture some students and snack on some koi. #sfu

Oh summer garden drama. Stolen rhubarb-weird? but whatever. Then stolen tomatoes, which is pure sacrilege. After 8 years w/out a single apple, our little tree did so well! Kids were proud. Till a bear sat on it and squashed the whole thing, trellis and tree. Still a great garden year, though

Great triple header topic! I wish I could join in person, and am also very glad for all the discussions that Zoom enables instead. Looking forward to meeting participants

University teachers, we may very well be next. No one will pay us for sabbaticals and prep time if our right to strike lasts 12 hours. If your flight is delayed, please remember it's because someone else is doing your civil disobedience for you. #cdnpoli #canadasky www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Head canoning: if you crack open an Infinite Improbability Drive from the Hitchhiker's Guide, what you will find powering it is a Lucky Day plot hole #LuckyDay by Chuck Tingle is a great read, especially if you are a "cuddling with numbers to reassure myself" type of queerdo

A fantastic discussion last night about climate change, how nice it is to NOT be at war, found & built family & community, queer culture & robot culture, for Automatic Noodle @annaleen.bsky.social Already planning the next Phil&Scifi syllabus, feeling lucky to live in hopepunkville AKA Vancouver

Got the new Chuck Tingle novel on release day, cracking it open to start tonight 💀🎲🗡️🏳️‍🌈

Vancouver, BC, friends! Tomorrow, 8/12, I'll be talking about Automatic Noodle with @hishamzerriffi.bsky.social at Iron Dog Books, 7pm! Come for the robots and noodles; stay for a discussion about rebuilding our infrastructure! irondogbooks.com/events/30790...

Short pet peeve rant! When people push back against "scifi got too woke/too many women these days" by saying that scifi was invented by a woman, AND THEN give the credit to Mary Shelley. It goes at least back to natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World, 1666. #philsky #sff

Bad news is I found a wasp nest. Good news is somehow it looks very cozy and homey? I kinda want to crawl inside with some tea and a blanket and book and take a nap?

Went for a long lovely walk this evening. He used to be so much smaller on evening walks on this trail! But also the trees used to be shorter, so. It gives pics of him here this kind of out-of-time character

There was a bomb threat called into campus today. Whole mountaintop cut off, people sheltering in place, etc. RCMP and neighbourhood lists/groups/chats were superhelpful and timely. NOT A WORD from @sfu.ca Apparently there's an app? Who knows? There is also email and basic consideration to use

Was not expecting this, thank you Mark Carney 🇨🇦 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Saw an exhibit of work by Håkon Gullvåg at this sprawling hilltop fortress in Halden, in one of the old storehouses. Teens were enthralled and terrified, they refused to be alone with it. This trio was my favourite, reminded me of The Twisted Ones by @tkingfisher.com