I was a "dial zero" phone operator in the 90s. Late one night a British chap in a Toronto hotel requested a person-to-person collect call to England. "Who shall I say is calling?" I asked. "David Gilmour," he replied. I, a huge Pink Floyd fan, said absolutely nothing as I patched him through.

omg what an honor! um i'd like to thank the academy, james frey, my parents for ruining my personality (just kidding mom and dad it's not your fault!) lithub.com/the-most-sca...

"Academics literally cannot make genAI go away" we also can't make underage drinking go away and we're not advocating for installing bar carts in every classroom.

We can break out of this cycle, together. Let this radicalize you to action rather than lead you to despair:

Just got out of the theatre after watching The Sound of Music, and, well, we all know the villains are the ones who told Georg that Nazi shit was inevitable and he'd best just go along to get along. Lots of flags still need rippin', is all I'm saying.

Ontarians who value their free healthcare, read this 🧵 and get ready to protect it! ✊ @onthealthcoalition.bsky.social is planning province wide protests to demand the Ford govt restore public funding to our public hospitals and stop their privatization scheme. #ONpoli First, SIGN their petition:

Thing is, of course, as a Gen X kid this is just business as it used to be. Thinking back on the releases of the first 3 Star Wars movies 3 years apart. That was a loooong time for a kid to wait while Han Solo was encased in carbonite, man.

Starting a countdown to the next season of Plur1bus. Gonna be a long, bitter wait. Right up there with Severance (both as a show, and as a long bitter wait for season 2.)

I had to think about this, so now you do too: The Simpsons pre-dates the World Wide Web. By 4 full years. Enjoy feeling old.

Up here the code word is "Old Stock Canadian," but the White Supremacy is identical.

"Universities have accepted [AI] in a FOMO-driven frenzy without consulting their faculty, collecting empirical data on whether generative AI is pedagogically useful, or pausing to inquire about the long-term impact of AI on the students..." www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...

File under I for "I wish editors would stop anthropomorphizing stochastic text generators in the cover art for articles about people anthropomorphizing stochastic text generators."

I own three of these--two in my classroom, a spare at home--and can attest they're brilliant. They're so quiet that I double-check every day to make sure I've actually turned them on. Two together still make less noise than the fan on my video projector! Worth every penny!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Superb piece on why “AI” is bad user design from @sifu.tweety.fish - and why AI proponents and skeptics so frequently seem to be talking completely past each other. buttondown.com/apperceptive...

My energy for 2026. www.404media.co/why-i-quit-s...

Merry Fucking Christmas to Black's photography.

I ordered my photo books on Dec 01. Their website said "order before Dec 15 to ensure delivery by Christmas." Consider me deeply unimpressed to receive this do-not-reply email notice at 10:46 PM on Dec 23.

I feel this in my bones.

I have always said it, I will continue to say it, we are limiting the productive potential of millions of freaks by demanding they earn a wage to survive instead of enabling them to do whatever thing their brain is broken for

This is just a note to say that I have eaten the falcon in a widening gyre and that you were probably saving for anarchy Forgive me it was delicious so rough and full of passionate intensity

But I can see you Your bronze helm shining in the sun And there's Gilgamesh with scale armor on, baby And I can tell you and Enkidu will still be strong After the boys of Sumer have gone

"It’s designed to put out the most mid result..." is my new favorite off-hand dismissal of the Slop Machine.

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees 🧵

This is also a way to flaunt his protection from the law, by law enforcement. This says the OPP works for me, plebs.

"I refuse." 🔥🔥🔥

Reminder on this day of Advent: If your Christianity isn't oriented around bringing down the powerful, liberating the oppressed, feeding the poor, and sending the rich away empty, the Theotokos says you are doing it wrong. #Advent #Magnificat

So much to love in the world today.

Mostly I don't care for football, but every once in a while I am reminded that it is a ritualized form of ballet. Go Bears! 🩰🐻🏈

To be certain, #Carney joined forces with the corrupt and incompetent Ford regime to open up the James Bay Basin to plunder. In the same week Carney endorsed Ford's single "environmental assessment", the Ford sought to dismiss an Indigenous lawsuit seeking to protect their land and 1/2 #cdnpoli

this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will

I reached out to Jason Allen, author of 52 Things to Do in Hamilton: The Insider’s Guide to Fun in the Hammer ( @wolsakandwynn.bsky.social, 2025) to ask him about his book & his experience travel writing the hyper local. Read our interview here: creativenonfictioncollective.ca/interview-wi...

My admin asked me how I felt about yesterday's Embracing Co-pilot presentation so I took five full minutes to blast their upper management for bringing that unethical, socially corrosive, deskilling nonsense into my workplace. They were shocked: "I'd never thought of it that way."

So many other great places to eat in #HamOnt. I wish only the worst for union busting restaurateurs.

The energy that I will try to carry into 2026:

dear #BlackHoleSun: why you gotta be like this?

Finally scored a copy of THE GREATEST CHRISTMAS ALBUM EVER RECORDED!! hmu if you want to come over and have a dance party. Also dug in to the story of the recording. 🧵

Side note: gendering chatbots is peak cringe, and it's almost always a feminine pronoun being used, which speaks volumes about how some people see / value women. "This chatbot is so compliant and friendly and licks my virtual chatballs...it must be a GIRL CHATBOT." Ugh gross grandpa.

Also cool with banning Francis Fukuyama for everybody.

Where I'm at.

"We know you all hate this thing, but trust us--a company that wants your money--when we tell you you are wrong."

I think it is vital to our growth as a society that we empower weird wonderful people to make weird wonderful things that we can share freely to make each other's days and lives weirder and more wonderful.

Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua! #EdwinMorgan reading “Trio”, published in The Second Life (1968) and recorded by Ewan McVicar in 1990 at Tower Studio, Glasgow 🎄❄️

Overheard in my gr 11 class this afternoon: "I'm sooo far behind: the last time I submitted an assignment for History, England was still Catholic." 😆💀

increasingly starting to think that the endgame is to kill consumer computing so end users are driven to use centrally-operated cloud computing farms that these companies have total control over, so AI becomes inescapable right now AI is irritating but possible to avoid, and we can't have that

Seems reasonable. I say we go for it.

There's a thing I think is going on that we don't have a word for yet, at least I don't. I think it's one of the less noticed themes of 2025, actually.

Ford and Downey are at it again. Another “tough on crime” bail bill that won’t reduce crime, won’t improve safety, and will violate the Constitution while punishing poverty. Their Cash bail grift is bad law and worse policy. www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion...

I listened to the new Lily Allen album yesterday and ye gods this is a true and resonant statement about the importance of authenticity and vulnerability in the practice of the arts.