OK, library people who are into (or are having it shoved at you, either way) common applications of AI in libraries (I am... very much not, my interest is real narrow) -- what does "Ethical AI" mean in a library context? I have seen it bandied about a lot but have no idea what it actually is.

i stand by this statement every year

Do I love that Pierre Poilievre is bleeding members? Heck yes. Do I hate that the Liberals are so conservative that it's enticing Conservatives to join them? Heck yes.

Scientists at Canadian institutions have long punched well above our weight despite low and stagnant funding. Spending a billion dollars on external recruitment while science here is starving is exactly what Harper got wrong about supporting research excellence in Canada.

This is *entirely* (in the modern era anyway) a DRM/ownership problem. If libraries could *own* a copy of an Epub, they could make backups, plan for preservation, etc.

I...can't believe Indiana isn't disappointing me for once.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Senate Republicans reject new congressional maps in defiance of Trump’s redistricting push.

Here's how this will go down: 1) Adversarial attacks on Sora will be unrelenting, putting Disney characters in all kinds of compromising videos 2) These will be a new firehose of slop that fly-by-night content farms will monetize on Facebook & elsewhere 3) Fan backlash will be significant

Yeah the whole arcade1up thing has always mystified me. I got SO MUCH interest in retro gaming, I'm of the right age to be whack-a-block nostalgic over cabinets etc, and I have *never* been tempted by one of these. I mean maybe because I live in a small apartment, but... man, too big! Big things!

There are rumors Arcade1Up is going out of business. There’s this email claiming they’re closing Friday, and a few people have reported that their contacts at the company aren’t responding. Bummer, but not surprising. There’s a limited market for these and even then people only have so much space.

Am I the only person who thinks the OpenAI-Disney deal is some backdoor maneuvering to create the circumstances where AI output is (more) copyrightable? Literally the only completely good thing about AI output right now is that it's usually *not* copyrightable.

More excellent reporting from the student newspaper at IU Bloomington (albeit a little late for world #AIDSDay) www.idsnews.com/article/2025...

The best explanation for #MarkCarney as PM that I've seen is through the #ShockDoctrine lens, courtesy of the great @naomiaklein.bsky.social. He's using Trump's #51stState threats & the #ElbowsUp movement to give private capital everything it could ever want www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/01/a...

For people who trusted copyright laws to rein in AI, this should be the last scene in Animal Farm. “They looked from IP to Tech, and from Tech to IP, but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

JoJo Siwa Your Life Is Calling

Yup, they got the sanctioned tanker. THANK GOD, I was legit worried he just ordered the US Navy to commit actual piracy. Lololol. This is 100% defensible, even tho a lot of people are gonna really hate hearing that.

It's a real shame encumbered epubs and ebooks generally are such utter horrible shit because the Epub format itself - separated from DRM - is actually really nice. I love to read public domain books on my eReader.

Fun copyright fact: you cannot copyright titles! Which is why there are so damn many books using short quotes from Shakespeare as their names.

Hey maybe fund the universities too? Cool idea bro

This is a masterclass in how to move opinion. All the rhetorical emphasis falls on "your anger and fear are understandable," while the tacit premise that "AI is in fact useful and not going away" slides in like a vaccination needle you barely even noticed.

copyright doesn't exist... in HELL!

Because I am a grown ass man with a job I did buy the Jones Soda Fallout Themed 12 Pack at the Costco Business Centre

I love you bluesky but I admit I don’t totally understand the rabid and uncritical AI hate that predominates here

"People are getting replaced" is a basic problem in capitalism, it's not inherent in any given technology, it exists at the level of the larger value system. And unless those values are replaced and rebooted, that situation won't change.

Okay, to translate as a designer: it’s “diversity” because part of the reason Calibri was adopted is because it’s more legible to people with dyslexia and other visual disabilities….and also everyone else, but why let that get in the way of a weird grudge?

What's the most DEI font? I'd say Papyrus. Sure. why not.

Gotta admit "the font is DEI" is a stage of absurdity I could not have predicted

No matter what you do in your classroom, the institution has positioned your students as customers. This impacts their experience of your classroom. You cannot make it a "pure" educational space free from market pressures.

Everything is shit but at least we had McDonald's speed running 'Bro you don't get it our misanthropic AI Christmas ad was so much work, bro, we typed so many prompts, we haven't seen our families since August' to 'THIS VIDEO IS PRIVATE' in under 24 hours.

Dunno man. If this was an indicator of quality, I would be the single most famous best writer in the history of humanity

20+ years ago when I was deciding to become an educator, I know how passionate I was about preparing students for hyper-specific jobs in bubble-driven industries that will have peaked 5 years ago by the time the first cohort graduates

In early 2024, I got to speak to Deans from up & down the West Coast of the US & Canada about "AI". I told them that the only value of ChatGPT for university administrators is as a contrast-dye test to show where resources are lacking.

Unclear how a $19 billion dependency on a US tech giant will "promote and protect Canada's digital sovereignty" blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issue...

Hey, goth/industrial folks; wanna hear something kinda funny/concerning? A few weeks ago, I read someone having the nerve to write down "i miss when music wasn't political. Like Laibach!!" Media literacy is deader than Bela Lugosi.

Reasons academics should contest universities’ AI campaigns: a manifesto - chatbots are being trained to replace your teaching - you are wasting time grading chatbot papers - you are wasting time peer reviewing chatbot papers - you are wasting time submitting papers reviewed by chatbots

Researchers envision their vaccine being used as both a treatment and a preventive, and as an approach to treating multiple cancer types. NOTE: This is PRECLINICAL. • www.umass.edu/news/article... The study has been published in Cell. YES, it is PEER-REVIEWED. • www.cell.com/cell-reports... 🧪🧵⬇️

For a hot second I thought that Pigface had released a follow-up to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome...

there's got to be a better way

Postmedia is controlled by an American hedge fund, placing a key part of Canada’s news media under foreign influence; Other countries, such as Australia and France, have established policies to safeguard domestic control of media, providing workable models for Canada.

Unless you're the state of Minnesota

Interestingly (to me anyway) this is an increasingly important part of my work, preserving websites that are due to vanish from lack of funding, labs shutting down, etc.

Is The Temporary Foreign Worker Program working? We asked 4 Tim Hortons franchise owners, and one slum landlord

Happy anniversary, to those who celebrate h/t @calphonso.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/news/tor...

'We will never fucking trust you again' www.readtheline.ca/p/matt-gurne...

Have heard some Canadians are getting age-checked by bsky on login, despite Canada not having regulations (yet, anyway) on age. I haven't seen this yet - if it involves uploading ID or something I will probably just leave here entirely.

For a while, they said if you needed tech help, ask a 10yo. But current 10-20yos didn't have to explore and click around and futz with things to get them to work, so if it's not immediately obvious, they can't do it. Basically if you're 30-50 you're just doing tech support for everyone forever.

I mean yeah, but before Canadians get smug over this, we basically do the same thing for most residency streams - there's a whole rubric where you earn points for things like language ability, age, level of education. Plus we used to have (and Quebec might still?) have a visa you could just *buy*.