NEW: City of Calgary says major northwest water main break likely tied to Bearspaw South feeder main. They're still investigating the cause and potential damage. DEVELOPING STORY #yyc #calgary buff.ly/w8uoWxE

Please let it not be The Pipe. I'm not ready for months of catching grey water and two minute showers again.

How my week off is going: got up this morning, then took a nap.

Verso is also offering a discount on their book club membership - 20% off if you buy an annual membership. The ebook membership is excellent...there's a range of books available to you every month, and often very new and very relevant scholarship.

I am rooting for Adobe to do the same kind of ad as the moving lift company Böcker did after the Louvre heist.

Looking for: postdoc on quantitative history of China; postdoc on measuring wildfire fuels with LiDAR; PhDs on modeling fire in the boreal forest and the Pacific Northwest; MSc’s on earth system science; interns in many topics. Check it out!

🚨Extremely short notice: Looking for prospective PhD or postdoc w/ geological engineering or modelling experience, w/ interests in mountain geohazards for project focused on landslide-triggered tsunamis in subarctic w/ me & @geocron.bsky.social 🧵 🧪⚒️ Pls share! nserc-crsng.canada.ca/en/news/laun...

Not now, haunted Victorian shoes

My Christmas gift to my menopausal self was to replace my winter parka with a larger one that fits this changéd body. The shape, it is not what I used to be. The fight, I do not wish to have. The fucks, I have not even one left to give.

This is pretty cool. It's nice to see some new writers in the issue and people actively thinking about the situations we're in via fiction.

I just read a clearly AI-fueled or AI-written book in my academic niche, and while I stumble to finish it, I predict that future historiography will have literature categories and markers like *published post 2024* or *published ante 2024*. Our days will be seen as the barrier between these worlds.

The @berliner-philharmoniker.de's 'digital concert hall's streaming service is so worthwhile. I have a monthly subscription and this evening, I'm listening to chamber music. www.digitalconcerthall.com/en

Now she tells me! #booksky #writingcommunity #amediting #memorialmemoir #amrevising #amwriting #Iwritememoir

I have a paper published today on developing a trauma-informed classroom for teaching romance and erotica creative writing! Leaned heavily on @asv.bsky.social's core principles and the class was amazing. jis.athabascau.ca/index.php/ji...

It is so very windy today (we're having a chinook at the moment, so it's WARM and windy!) and there's something from the balcony garden scraping on the window. I think. It's probably not a bony hand. I mean, you don't get those, this time of year...

hence: arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/w...

I'm curled up in my jammies, grading undergraduate papers and there's a part of me that's kinda mind-blown that I get to do this.

I finished filling out my annual graduate award competition application today. I hesitated, but I added menopause as an allowable inclusion for the section on things that can impact research and coursework. It's not an illness, but the poor sleep - for one - sucks.

The Rainbow Collection; @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social’s essays make great gifts!

me: i need a delicious source of potassium banana: i'm here for you me: i am also an avid fan of slapstick comedy banana: ok you're not gonna believe this

It's clear, crisp and sunny today -- a perfect day to put bed pillows outside to air.

Roads are cleared down to bare pavement but the sidewalks are a sloppy mess. @calgary.ca @jeromyyyc.bsky.social why can't we do just as well for pedestrians?

For a moment, I was really excited for the bird observatory.

I wrote about the under-appreciated hazard of landslide-triggered tsunamis, which need serious consideration in discussions of new pipelines from Alberta 🧪⚒️ @theglobeandmail.com @davidebybc.bsky.social @natural-resources.canada.ca @mark-carney.bsky.social @ucalgaryscience.bsky.social

@mattcahill.bsky.social happy birthday to us!

ensured that even after 50 years, the Edmund Fitzgerald is *still* the last large ship lost on the Great Lakes. It's not just a meme, it's not just a song, it's given the families of working sailors peace of mind that they'd never had before 1975.

I'll finish out the day's Edmund Fitzgerald posting by pointing out that Gordon Lightfoot was afraid the shipwreck would just be forgotten, like the thousands of ships lost before her. Thanks to him, their memory will live forever, and their fame brought about improvements to safety that have...

IT'S TIME!

Be a flu watcher! If you live in Canada, you get a weekly quiz (two questions) to help track respiratory illness. public.cnphi-rcrsp.ca/fluWatcher/r...

The professor in "Imagine Yourself Happy" by Premee Mohamed takes just four minutes to record a message. Take a few to read it and a few more to have a cry afterward:

Ghostly BCS for Halloween! "Where They Sleep" @lectio.bsky.social BCS #419: "the shades would wander out from the empty hills. People we knew. But more we didn't, moving slowly along in search of something, somebody. Then they would mill aimlessly" www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/wher...

You know things are bad when thousands of Albertans are watching the leg livestream at 8:45 in the evening lol #ableg #abpoli #abed #cdnpoli

"Intelligence has indicated that an adversary nation has recently felt emboldened to stake a physical claim within the Canadian Arctic and enforce it militarily. Canada has responded through multiple avenues to dissuade any territorial incursion."

"The DND/CAF is seeking visionary essays in hard science fiction that explore how emerging technologies can empower military forces to defend Canada’s sovereignty and national interests in the Arctic." HARD SCI FI NO FEELINGS ALLOWED

Finally, a contest for @premeemohamed.com and @gianttourtiere.bsky.social... www.canada.ca/en/departmen...

Also I picked up a TA contract to help my department, and the contracts were all signed at the beginning of the October but somebody forgot to process the pay, so I was told I'd get paid in November followed by 'with kind regards' idk but that did not feel like somebody's actual kind regards.

We got an active assailant false alert today, immediately followed by an email that said PLEASE DISREGARD LAST MESSAGE AS IT WAS ONLY A TEST MESSAGE, PLEASE DISREGARD LAST MESSAGE AS IT WAS ONLY A TEST MESSAGE idk but the tone of the email didn't help.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

This photo accompanying a news story about the heist at the Louvre is perfection.

🚨 This is inexplicable news to share. If in Alberta and you want flu and covid shots for NEXT year (2026-2027), you have only until December 15 of THIS year to order them. This is not incompetence. It’s a deliberate choice to prevent as many people .. bookvaccine.alberta.ca/vaccine/s/pr... 1/2

Had my flu and covid vaccination double header on Friday afternoon. Friday night: fever, Saturday: all day yuck, Sunday: much better!

Oh and the superfecta is that I also go and get my covid vaccine today!

It's a trifecta kind of day: payday, Friday, long weekend ahead. I plunked down my sweet treat allowance on the Ursula K. Le Guin short list, and also Kate Cayley's 'Property.'

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

WE'RE BLOGGING

Scholastique Mukasabonga's Our Lady of the Nile (translated by Melanie L. Mauthner) was such a good read. Feels eerily familiar when reading it today and looking at America.