I got a tip that all over the world, people are using a dead-simple hack to manipulate AI behavior. It turns out changing what AI tells other people can be as easy as writing a blog post *on your own website* I didn’t believe it, so I decided to test it myself www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Please enjoy my cartoon for Tuesday's Toronto Star

Just a reminder to #Canada that we aren’t immune from neo-Nazi ideology & populist politics, as currently playing out in the US. All those anti-maskers love a good covering these days 🫠

22 January 1920 | A Dutch Jew, Bernardus Sarlui, was born in Amsterdam. A baker. He arrived at #Auschwitz on 18 August 1942 in a transport of 506 Jews deported from Westerbork. No. 59939 He perished in the camp in September 1942 --- 📖 Jewish prisoners at KL Auschwitz: https://bit.ly/3Mqw3dT

Can confirm things ain’t how they used to be. I used to go to the US a lot and I just can’t anymore bc they hold me for hours every time. The last time they held me, the officer said a Canadian can’t be a contractor for a US company. When I said they absolutely can, he googled it in front of me lol

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

In 2024, Danielle Smith wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau to complain that they didn't get *more* immigrants than their planned allotment. (She also wanted more Ukrainians specifically, and we all know why). Receipts:

One of Stephen Harper's funnier retorts:

Travelling with babies who aren’t vaccinated for #measles is not problematic- it’s dangerous.

Study: SARS-CoV-2 RNA found in 39% of hospital air samples during outbreaks, despite good ventilation. Kirby Institute researchers sampled air and surfaces in a Sydney hospital ED and ICU during two COVID-19 waves (Nov 2023–Jul 2024), detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in 39% of aerosol samples collected.

Thermo-terror Attack Imminent With a week of severe cold forecast, serious rotating black-outs already as most thermal generation capacity destroyed, and district heating networks targeted, russia is literally intending to freeze civilians to death. Justice for russia cannot come soon enough.

Stop sharing the “our AI agent made up data” reddit story. It is as fake as the AI you think you are critiquing & the people sharing it have done zero due dilligence 🙄🙄🙄🙄

This underfunding and nonsense about ‘finding efficiencies’ is all about heralding in private care. People will get even more upset, sick and scared - maybe enough to buy the spin that getting private care will make it easier but it won’t. All the research shows it doesn’t.

"UK confirms Russia poisoned Navalny in prison with rare toxin" www.gov.uk/government/n...

The CBC made this clever & cute video that uses kids to explain the rules of curling:

Are you one of nearly 70 million American women who changed their names when they got married? 🙋‍♀️ Republicans in Congress want to make it harder for you to vote. Tell your senator to oppose the SAVE Act. indivisible.org/actions/stop...

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again I’ve been genuinely astounded at how quickly & effectively RFK Jr & his allies—Drs Prasad, Bhattacharya, Makary, Høeg, Oz, & Kulldorff—have been able to dismantle the US vaccination system, including vaccine R&D I thought guardrails might slow them, but nope

Literally millions of people worldwide will needlessly suffer & die because of this.

We are now advising Canadians to avoid all non-essential travel to Cuba. Canadians are urged to leave while commercial flights remain available.

A productive meeting with my Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, to discuss Canada’s support for Greenland’s sovereignty and our cooperation to strengthen security and stability across the Arctic.

Breaking The world’s first vaccine targeting the entire SARS coronavirus family has commenced human testing. GBP511, developed by UW Medicine and tested by SK Bioscience, seeks to provide protection against COVID-19 and future coronaviruses, potentially preventing the onset of the next pandemic.

And I think that should be a source of hope here. Not optimism, not denial, but evidence. Authoritarian tactics rely on compliance and exhaustion. Minneapolis shows that when people refuse both, the strategy starts to break down. (7/9)

That kind of response matters because fear depends on scale and silence. It depends on people believing they’re alone, and that resistance will be met with no backup and no witnesses. (3/9)

You'd never know this by the media cycle

It’s very loud in Kyiv. russia is attacking us with ballistic missiles. Let the world know.

Canadians, Please consider signing this petition asking for renewable energy to be funded equally well as fossil fuels via subsidies. www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

The many eulogies for AI capability growth after the release of GPT-5 seem especially short-sighted right now, and it created voluntary blinders for many people. Models have advanced a lot since summer, but, more importantly, good agentic harnesses seem to lead to capability leaps on their own.

1 February 1930 |A French Jewish girl, Mathilde Zameczkowski, was born in Paris. In August 1942 she was deported to #Auschwitz and, after selection, murdered in a gas chamber. --- 🎧 Listen about the development of the mass murder infrastructure at Auschwitz: https://youtu.be/tRwZ49q-9e0

NEW: The @wired.com Security desk put together a comprehensive guide to filming ICE—with tips for reducing risk at the forefront. No paywall, but please consider subscribing to help find these kinds of resources. And stay safe out there. www.wired.com/story/how-to... www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

You see, it’s a joke about the Freedom Convoy, which also freaked the voters of Carleton out enough that it’s a big part of why he lost his seat in the last election.

Ottawa WAVE (Wastewater Analytics for Viral Epidemiology) as of Jan 25. LEFT IMAGE: 7d trendline of SARS-CoV-2 signal since spring 2020 (A); Past year (B), and 2 months (C), inferred case incidence (D), and Reff (E) determined with ern (PMID: 38905266). RIGHT IMAGE: other viral traces

I feel like part of my shtick on BlueSky is to point out that yes, AI is real and it is especially important for critics to realize it is real, since we need more good criticism of AI, rather than dismissals that it is hype Well: the impact of Claude Code/CLIs & successors is going to be very large

The largest randomized trial of medical A.I. —Over 100,000 women in Sweden —radiologist + AI vs 2 radiologists, in follow-up —AI added led to 29% more cancer detected, 44% reduced workload, and —Less cancer dx in subsequent 2 years, and, when found, less aggressive thelancet.com/journals/lan...

While hospitals are being downsized through government funding decisions, #ONpoli is expanding contracts with for-profit surgical facilities. In December, the government announced four new private surgery facilities as part of a $125m scheme over two years. www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

In order to avoid cuts to current service levels, Ontario will need to increase health sector spending by $6.4 billion in the upcoming budget. However, immediate emergency funding is needed now to ameliorate the $1 billion structural deficit facing Ontario hospitals.

Ran into a paediatric colleague the other day and we were both stunned by how few cases of RSV that were admitted this winter season. This is a bug that used to fill wards with infants struggling to breathe, all thanks to the new RSV vaccine. Don't let charlatans take these miracles away from you.

Healthcare workers at SEIU told me yesterday: “We got into this job to help people.” They also told me they’re burning out. Patient volumes are exploding. The system is breaking under Doug Ford’s cuts—and yesterday we learned Ford is planning to cut 10,000 more healthcare workers.

In case you were wondering how things are going in Ottawa… - half trains - longer intervals between trains - trains breaking down and riders having to do a death march in the snow. This is NOT a serious city. (But props to the councillors working to make it better.)

Ottawa WAVE (Wastewater Analytics for Viral Epidemiology) as of Jan 18. LEFT IMAGE: 7d trendline of SARS-CoV-2 signal since spring 2020 (A); Past year (B), and 2 months (C), inferred case incidence (D), and Reff (E) determined with ern (PMID: 38905266). RIGHT IMAGE: other viral traces

Among burn patients who received GLP-1 RAs within 30 days of injury in TriNetX there was at 90 days post-burn, significantly lower rates of soft tissue infection, opioid prescriptions, readmission, and mortality www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This hit so fucking hard today.

"'We did nothing wrong here,' Ms. Novoselsky told employees. 'ICE is a customer within the public affairs group, so we help them from our social-media management perspective.' "Hootsuite’s terms of service prohibit use of its platform for law enforcement, surveillance and tracking."

Brutal. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

🗣️🎙️Nick Kouvalis on Trump, Conservatives, and Canada | The Herle Burly Subscribe and join us: YouTube youtu.be/EKEmW58X1qc?... Apple podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t... Spotify open.spotify.com/show/0tiRBlL... Air Quotes Media www.airquotesmedia.com/pods

Salty talk in this one! I absolutely ❤️ it when die-hard partisans acknowledge that the other party (in this case PM Carney) are doing the right things. That attitude is essential to our democracy. Thank you for this, gives me hope.

If Canadians, travelling domestically, want to use the "good" security line at the airport, they need a NEXUS card, even if they aren't going to the US. And they need the blessing of Donald Trump's Homeland Security apparatus to get one. I'm calling on Canada to end this absurdity. #Canada #NEXUS

So important. What they say is not the story. That is never the story. What happened is the story. Write what happened.

"Vancouver tech firm Hootsuite provides services to U.S. Homeland Security" www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

24 January 1942 | A Czech Jewish girl, Jiřina Steinerová, was born in Prague. She was deported to #Auschwitz from the #Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 May 1944. She did not survive.