Solstice celebration: setting sun bracketed by enormous sundogs, so bright they are reflected on the river ice.

Reason to Hope open.substack.com/pub/dgardner...

Our brittle cashless present. During a storm videos of survivors desperate to charge their phones go viral. "Without my phone, I cannot even buy bread" www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Canada Mobilizes a People's Army open.substack.com/pub/charliea...

Early winter drama on the Ottawa River 🧵

For the first time, humans have tracked an individual butterfly, as shown in the Monarch migration of north America. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/s... @savebutterflies.bsky.social @bc-suffolk.bsky.social

Leonard Cohen recites “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae | Legion Magazine youtu.be/cKoJvHcMLfc?... #RemembranceDay #LestWeForget

Human creativity: We’ll miss it when it’s gone. Whether we’ll miss it enough to limit AI’s ability to cannibalize the work of humans isn’t clear. Nor is it clear that the value of human artists can offset the lure of apparently cheap, instantaneous content. stackoverflow.blog/2025/11/05/t...

Absolutely typical November 1st here in Ottawa: roses blooming in the sunshine.

@julietoneill.bsky.social video of @satellitebirdhouse.com performing "Harvest Moon" at SAW gallery on Sunday. Months ago, in the height of summer, wandering in the Byward Market, we were beguiled by these two performing Neil Young's classic in the midst of the traffic. Great to hear them again.

Received my 8th COVID19 vaccination. Not only super effective against COVID with no bad side effects, recent studies show it revs up the immune system against other challenges, including cancer. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

Visited the Museum of History in Gatineau yesterday and saw this new piece - their residential school memorial - and it’s really striking.

I read a lot about people getting 10x more productive through AI assistants (for Code and other work products). And I wonder how that works given that you need to doublecheck every generated line, phrase or paragraph for correctness. Like _how_ inefficient and unproductive were these people before?

Scary & plausible. The response proposed sounds good, in the long term. But will Canada actually do, on Oct 13th, if a USA submarine surfaces off Iqaluit?

“We had to choose between the English of Boston and the English of London. The English of London were farther away and so we hated them less.”

As the leaves turn - on the train to Agawa Canyon

"If you let AI do your reading, thinking and writing, you might pass your courses; you might get a piece of paper that says you are an educated person. But you’ll have missed the point of an education entirely." www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

An M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return. It jibes with the emerging idea that generative A.I., “in its current incarnation, simply isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be,” johncassidysays.bsky.social writes.

A smooth landing… 🛬 🦢 #bluesky #swan

This bird has more IQ then most humans… Can it solve the puzzle… 🧩 🐦‍⬛

Pretty sure someone here needs to watch a baby monarch caterpillar hatching from an egg that I filmed this morning! No, not a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. BABY CATERPILLAR!! 🎶 Shark Attack Theme, The Life Aquatic

PROGRAMMER: I've saved so much time! NARRATOR: They did not save any time whatsoever. In fact, they spent as much time as they claimed to have saved. Again. bsky.app/profile/metr...

Reached 21,000 reputation points on stackoverflow today. It has become much harder to gain reputation since the plagiarism machines ( a.k.a AI ) have begun skimming off traffic. stackoverflow.com/users/16582/...

If the protocol requires Ottawa to fly the flag of a neighbour that is trying to undermine our sovereignty and economy then maybe the protocol needs to be changed www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

Despite AI's unpromising start, it is a conceivable future where machines can fake better than you any work you might turn to. What to do in that future? 1/2

My father, grandfather and afaik all my ancestors were woodworkers, handcrafters, they worked with basic tools and created beautiful things. I did not follow the family tradition... but instead I enjoy handcrafting code. Compiled some hammers I found in my workshop, I'm restoring some of them... ♥️

Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: "Working from home makes us happier." A 4-year Australian study found that remote work boosts happiness, health, and productivity. Especially when chosen. It saves time, improves sleep, diet...

“Iran’s leaders want this war. It lets them cloak their repression in nationalism and their failures in external blame. The regime that massacred protesters during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising now wraps itself in the flag of resistance. This war gives them cover to crack down even harder.”

A singular act of defiance that will never go out of style.

Email tip for PhD applicants ... and everyone else.

So, #vibecoding is when you use a #LLM to write code, and you debug it. Must be for people who hate writing code, but love debugging. I've never met such a person, but it seems there must have been thousands hiding up till now. 1/2

Botshit - the output from a LLM. My nomination for word of the year.

Anyone choosing to use a LLM risks enormous reputation loss. Plagiarism machines ( #chatgpt, #copilot, #gemini ... ), when they can find nothing to copy, output nonsense. www.cbc.ca/news/world/c...

Canada's nuclear reactors (CANDU) are designed to use decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel and can be refueled while running at full power. They're considered among the safest and the most cost effective reactors in the world.

"A student asked for an extension because ChatGPT was down the day the assignment was due". I harbor a faint hope that we might save the world from being wrecked by fascism. With students such as these, I doubt the world will be worth saving.

Secret Shortcut at Pimlico Station Rumour has it that if you stand on the floor Roundel outside Pimlico Station & say the name of any location on London Underground tube map 3 times in a row, you’ll be instantly teleported there. Fun photography featuring photographer Ena #photography

Developing an app to adjust electoral district boundaries. Looked up the derivation of gerrymandering. Gerrymander is a portmanteau of salamander and Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts in 1812, created a partisan district that was shaped like a salamander. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerryma...

Sunset May 4th

When a Nazi flag, or similar, appears be brave and tear it down.

Almost 25 years ago I planted a few blue scilla bulbs around the birch tree in the top right of picture. Today, they have spread all along the path on each side. ( Click on pick and look closely for the tiny blue flowers )

Today's sunset, with high water

This is what sunset looks like from space. Credit: ESA/NASA

It doesn't even generate the most likely FACTS. It generates likely WORDS. THERE IS NO FACT-CHECKING FUNCTION IN CHAT GPT!

Good advice from Sweden: Sweden’s defence ministry asked people to keep a week’s supply of cash on hand in various denominations to “strengthen preparedness.” ( A decade ago Sweden tried and almost succeeded in going cashless - now they are realizing the dangers )

The risks of a cashless society www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

A year ago today I launched my memoir, Oats2Code, into the world. The world is no better, arguably worse now. But still, I think it would be a splendid routine for everyone in their 70s to write a memoir.

And that, as they say, is the Tweet, “The charter of rights and freedoms exists to protect Canadians from people like us on stage, politicians who may use their power to override fundamental rights. The issue is not where you start, but where you stop". - @mark-carney.bsky.social

Getting to know the best gull in the world.

"it’s impressive that 40 years on, Brazil’s bleak, surreal, chaos feels in many ways like the miserable future we’re living."