My essay on the simple strategy Iranians first used to hold the world economy hostage 1800 years ago — and why larger world powers keep falling for it, over and over With awesome interactive cartography! www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

I haven’t decided what I think of @avilewis.ca in general, but he’s right on Canada Post being treated as a public service rather than a profit business. This is also true of other public services like national rail transportation and urban public transit. ALL politicians need to get this right.

“I was expecting an attack on climate science,” @drkatemarvel.bsky.social said. “But actually, who they went after 1st was pediatric cancer & Parkinson’s research, and childhood vaccines. I was completely unprepared for an attack on science, because it’s a means of finding out & telling the truth.”

I'm struck anew that Apple created this and said "looks good, ship it."

Transport Canada is doing a survey on the pervasiveness of overly-bright headlights when you’re driving at night. (These new bright headlights are so unsafe!) If you have thoughts, please fill out this short survey: tc.canada.ca/en/corporate...

As a public servant, I write weekly notes to let people see what I do. In my week 204, I gave a talk about good digital governance to MPs of the Kingdom of Bhutan 🇧🇹. I also co-hosted a meetup on the future of the welfare state and co-ran a workshop on designing services around life events.

Congrats to @avilewis.ca! I hope he reads @nolore.bsky.social and takes it to heart noraloreto.substack.com/p/the-elepha...

This is a helpful overview of the overlapping regulatory failures of the present moment

The Human Cost of Failing to Name COVID 'Airborne' via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

If you’re wondering, those excuses include “It’s just a cold” “No one else is doing it” “We don’t have to” “Covid is over” “I’ve been vaccinated” “I don’t like how it feels” “I’m not sick” “People might think it’s weird” Zero of those are worth someone else’s life or health.

For more than 2000 days, we have had the power to stop Covid transmission in healthcare facilities with adequate respirator masking, and we haven’t, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of disabilities. It can stop anytime we decide to stop making bullshit excuses.

I took a bike share yesterday even though it was 0C and I am a huge baby, the utility of the program is truly unmatched

Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

As post secondary institutions close satellite campuses across the land, I am ready many similar stories as below but I notice a common trend—a blame of the feds and post secondary but nary a mention of the real culprit, the provinces. www.ctvnews.ca/canada/artic...

You'd think that saying in 2026 that your vision is "government by app" would be seen as incredibly naive, given that it's not the *apps* that have power, it's the Very Large Online Platforms that the apps rely on.

The question of whether a government sees itself as a collection of apps, or an OS is an interesting question & perspective in and of itself. (And another example of how computing metaphor is the metaphor of the century you can hit absolutely everything with)

As a by the by, I was at a mtg yesterday where an official described the ministerial vision for "government by app". This is a flimsy, transactional view of capabilities - sthg built on top of an operating system you have no control over that prizes shaving seconds off interactions over resilience

Great piece by @pollymackenzie.bsky.social on what resilience looks like. This is what I've been thinking of lately as relational infrastructure. When crisis mode becomes the norm and transactional infrastructures are threatened, these kind of capabilities are foundational

This is Germany. There is not 1, but there are 2 #Bauhaus. One is a DIY shop. One is the historic art and design school. People regularly get confused. Here, they promote themselves side by side.

"Why Electoral Reform Is the Missing Piece in Canadian Democracy" www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/why-electo...

Manitoba is the new Quebec (doing interesting policy things!)

In this week's National Interest newsletter, we take a look at Manitoba's ban on algorithmic pricing, and the ways that this is actually a sovereignty issue. Plus, a cool chart about Canadian IP ownership, and some weird Quebecois jazz. Read it all here! canadianshieldinstitute.ca/latest-updat...

It remains outrageous that no one in Canada even bothered with a proper inquiry into the massive failures of the pandemic.

I wrote about the findings from the inquiry about the impact of the pandemic on the NHS, and the mistakes of the first year. I hope it makes you angry - it should make us all angry. open.substack.com/pub/christin...

It's always a good time to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation, but now is an especially good time.

Wikipedia does what is essentially a full ban on AI content: www.404media.co/wikipedia-ba...

“Britain’s public services are often described as broken. At the heart of this is a simple truth: they rely too often on inadequate digital systems.” @benterrett.bsky.social: www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...

the most reliable use of ai continues to be "diagnostic tool where usage indicates missing support"

My take on the cursive discourse is that the most important class I took in high school was typing. I can’t believe how many teens and twentysomethings I see hunt-and-pecking their way around a keyboard. Everyone should be taught touch typing!

@michellecyca.com also spoke about @thenarwhal.ca's efforts to be more transparent through its guide explaining what it means to be interviewed by one of its journalists: thenarwhal.ca/interviewee-...

NASA might have been the coolest organization on planet earth — a real life/larger than life organization that the smartest people in the world respected, kids dreamed their whole life of working for, & even Hollywood couldn’t make larger than it already was. So of course Trump ruined it in a year.

My resignation letter

“To opt out, GitHub users should visit /settings/copilot/features and disable "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training" under the Privacy heading.” www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/g...

I’m peer reviewing a draft transportation plan for a city I’m advising, which is always interesting. One of the most common problems I find is in phasing/timing relative to the urgency of the #ClimateEmergency. I’m reminded of Mississauga’s urban biking plan that would take 27 YEARS TO BUILD OUT.

This is actually a stark and terrifying window into the corruptions because it shows the crown is part of the thin blue line.

"we protect our own"

>clicks 'contact us' link >links to chatbot >ask for direct email >chatbot: if you want to reach us directly, click this link >links back to chatbot

The theme of public excellence is something Mamdani emphasized in his inauguration address. One big potential he mentions here is inhousing tech talent rather than spending too much on contracts that don't deliver.

Government must deliver for working people—and every dollar in our budget should work as hard as they do. That’s why I directed every agency to cut waste and help close our budget gap. Here’s some of what we found.

‘Remaking the welfare state’ —last night, we ran our 12th public sector design meetup. Some 60 people joined us at @tsbberlin.bsky.social’s CityLAB Berlin. We had 3 talks and 4 speakers offering sharp problem analysis and tangible solutions to address current challenges. Recordings follow shortly

There was also the Irish social worker in BC who was arrested by CBSA (right before he was supposed to go work with kids in Tumbler Ridge) because IRCC decided he wasn't actually performing social work as his primary job and sent the letter demanding proof to addresses he no longer lived at.

This comes on the heels of a bunch of terrible IRCC stories including the British midwife in BC who faces deportation for not submitting proof of English competency. The portal did not allow her to upload the test results and the checklist made it seem optional.

The sheer carelessness of this is so galling. Every job related to immigration has life-altering stakes for every person whose file is being worked on. And yet these officials, from the decision-makers who adopted AI to the case workers who aren't actually supervising it just don't care.

I mean, including everyone who made the decision to integrate this heinous technology into the already profoundly dehumanizing process of immigration vetting. This should be a government-altering scandal and no one will even notice it happened.

Today in AI: Canada rejected the PR application of a McMaster postdoc from the Sorbonne who works in the immunology of aging because the generative AI being used to process applications (😱) entirely hallucinated her credentials. Everyone involved should be fired. archive.is/ELrCI#select...

most public officials are not sufficiently excited about their opportunity to create public records

And the website - where you can subscribe and support these young Luddites www.theludditeclub.org

OH MY HEART...the Oberlin Luddites Reject "The Year of AI Exploration"! 💚

Yep, the FCC consumer router rule is essentially a shakedown: www.theverge.com/tech/899906/...

Yukon government friends! The Procurement Support Centre in HPW is hiring a data and information analyst as a 1-year TA. You’d be working with an awesome team. 📊 Details here (apply by March 30, only open to existing YG employees): yukongovernment.hua.hrsmart.com/hr/ats/Posti... #Yukon #Whitehorse