The latest #Hacks episode is a love letter to humanity behind art

a Black Mirror episode IRL. should be motivation for more regulation on these chatbots. for a comparative perspective, here's a piece on what China is doing about anthropomorphic AI carnegieendowment.org/russia-euras...

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this women's hockey final is something

For Toronto area folks, please join us for this super event!

this is a serious snowstorm

i think this attitude — that all opposition is illegitimate and nothing we do can be questioned— is probably pervasive in the white house and helps explain why they keep making terrible political choices

this is where we're at now

modern american politics consists of experts patiently explaining why something insane that people are talking about could never happen, followed by that exact thing happening

If the Swedes can come up with the prize in economics, the Norwegians can come up with a special nobel to save denmark

Reminder: proposals for this conference are due at the end of this week

join us @torontosri.bsky.social next week for a talk "Beyond the Benchmark" by @saffron.bsky.social on building better instruments for understanding AI's societal effects srinstitute.utoronto.ca/events-archi...

President Donald Trump signed a highly anticipated executive order on Thursday that sets in motion a plan to establish a national regulatory framework for artificial intelligence while undercutting states’ abilities to enact their own rules.

Fomo from all the end of the year socials because of a nasty bug

Gaza remains suspended in limbo. Waiting for aid. Waiting for news of prisoners. Waiting for the world to see that the genocide has not ended—it has only changed its form. https://bit.ly/48zjsvP

It’s been awhile since I’ve done layovers within the US. Can I make it from gate B to gate A in Denver in less than 20mins or shall I end up sleeping in some random hotel? We will see

postdoc/research fellow opportunity for aspiring law profs and legal scholars! If you want to spend some time in Toronto, we have two such open positions (good for up to 2 years) - deadline for applications is March 6, 2026 jackmanlaw.utoronto.ca/sites/defaul...

i have high hopes for my to-do list during this fall break

My job talk paper just out in the n American Journal for Legal History! I'll write up a thread in a bit. In the meantime, link here: Who is a central bank for? The founding and legal design of the Bank of Canada: academic.oup.com/ajlh/article...

'No one is entitled to rest content on their progressive laurels by simply referring to the "rule of law" without attention to the kinds of law and legal institution such invocations end up buttressing.' Martti Koskenniemi on international law in NLR 154 newleftreview.org/issues/ii154...

I finally saw the LeBron ad and one thought jumped out at me. It’s the exact commercial Donald Trump would make if he was a basketball player. LeBron came across as desperate. Desperate for admiration. Desperate for affection. And desperate for the one thing he can’t get. He deserves better.

For people who move a lot: how do you do it without losing your mind

A single mom in the Philippines who works as an outsourced OnlyFans “chatter” told us she now has difficulty forming real relationships. “Sometimes, when [messaging] with someone and it turns flirty, I lose interest. It feels like I’m working.” https://restofworld.org/2025/onlyfans-ai-dm-bots

I'm not prepared to answer questions about the nature of time from my four year-old

In a note just published by @ejiltalk.bsky.social, I examine and critique Israel’s paridoxical appeal to humanitarian reasoning and language to obscure, justify, and facilitate harmful conduct www.ejiltalk.org/humanitarian...

teaching brand new law students today! hope everyone keeps up the excitement and curiosity throughout the year

The ultimate ed tech ouroboros: students use AI platforms to do their assignments, faculty use AI platforms to grad them, and the ed tech companies pocket fees, subscriptions, and contracts.

lol what

If you are heading to law school this month and a bit worried if you “belong.” You do. Here is a letter to a 1L on the First Day of Law School. Free to read. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Another semester, another moment to thank that guy from Rice University who made that syllabus maker thing. I love you wcaleb.rice.edu/syllabusmake...

Come work with us! Full-time International Human Rights Program Coordinator opportunity with @ihrp.bsky.social based in Toronto. The closing date is August 10th. jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

"The plan’s 90 recommendations feel less like a unified strategy and more like a political compromise, delaying tough decisions about priorities, trade-offs, and democratic accountability." @kevintfrazier.bsky.social delves into the Trump administration's AI action plan.

Its a chore to maintain two accounts. more non-US stuff is on the other platform but at the same time the content is also more unhinged.

maybe we should all get used to seasonal drinks and food instead to match changing climate patterns

has there been any writing on whats left of legal reasoning after LLMs

It’s been 10 years (and 3 days) since I moved to Canada. Lots of things changed in my life in these 10 years, but meeting @theannasu.bsky.social and becoming a dad are the definite highlights!

If the Supreme Court thinks universal injunctions are unconstitutional, to wait until *now* to say that, in this of all cases, with this of all presidents, is a devastating indictment of both its impartiality and its prudence.

Super-quick take while reading the ruling: This is going to be a much bigger deal for challenges to *other* Trump policies than to birthright citizenship (where it's likely that lower courts will still be able to block the policy on a nationwide basis even after this ruling). *That's* the import.

Really a sad way to go through life www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/b...

“In what’s become a macabre daily routine, more desperately hungry people were gunned down, as they tried to collect food aid from the new US and Israeli backed distribution centre.”

bsky folks, you are all missing the biggest feud on the other platform

bluebook time

Second, we are all harmed by a constitutional order that sees only rights violations and not the distribution of power among peoples as a constitutional problem. Governing others through force and taking lands unlawfully is a constitutional problem that demands distinctive constitutional redress.

The Supreme Court refuses to consider whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act bars the government from destroying a sacred Western Apache site by turning it into a copper mine. Gorsuch, joined by Thomas, has an incandescently angry dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

Cost of living is out of control everywhere. Here's a menu from a Swiss cafe

Really odd how we don’t commemorate this global event in some form

Does anyone have any summer reading recommendations (except sci-fi)? I’m not sure I want to check AI generated book lists

We should have a memorial day for COVID. It is horrific that we as a society have done virtually nothing to remember the millions who have died. Rushing to forget what happened also makes it much more likely that we will continue to repeat our deadly mistakes.