“Your Appliances Got Worse On Purpose” — including the wild stat that Americans spent 43% more on appliances in 2023 than 2013 (inflation-adjusted!), because appliances are so much less reliable.

“What if ranch dressing really is delicious?” On the weirdness of the USA through the eyes of others. flaminghydra.com/issue-583/?g...

If it's a crock of shit you must acquit

💀

The federal government is running a public survey on Billy Bishop Airport expansion so they can say they consulted with people, but the questions are designed to elicit positive responses about the economic impact, while framing concerns around “what would make airport expansion ok with you?”

Smart stuff from @vassb.bsky.social about AI shopping. They promise to remove the hassle and get you deals, but the agents don't actually have to prioritize your best interests. It's very obviously a bait-and-switch, but what are we going to do about it? thewalrus.ca/ai-shopping-...

The risk from AI is not that it will become super-intelligent and plot to destroy humanity. The risk is that it has no intelligence at all, and yet people will offload responsibility to it for important decisions before it’s ready, without adequate safeguards.

The whole city breaths a huge sigh of relief. Esti has been found! (Please take down all pictures, let’s leave the kid alone.)

In which @shawnmicallef.bsky.social offers righteous fury about our city’s often infuriating smallmindedness

It’s a lovely palate cleanse to read an article about children and San Francisco that barely mentions AI. As in her great book, Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener demonstrates her talent for evocative cultural observations. (And as a parent of similar-aged children, I found it all very relatable!)

I keep waiting for a signal of the Carney Liberals pushing progressive policies of any kind. Over a year in power, I tally: income tax cuts, broad cuts to government programs, new restrictions on refugees, a massive boost in military spending, and advancement of oil pipelines. And now union busting?

My first extremely literally blue sky post, repeating some photos from the bad place while trying out @flashes.blue

Asking for a friend — how do designers ever finish redesigning their website without accidentally spending the rest of the day browsing typefaces?

Each time I write the verb “flourish”, I doubt the spelling and my sanity because it looks like an adjective for “resembling milled grain” or a language spoken by the Flour People? (Part of a curious but small group of verbs borrowed from old French like finish, punish, nourish, polish, establish…)

Continuing my slow pace of publishing about Slow Tech, post number two is about how to consume news and why we still need to.

Continuing my slow pace of publishing about Slow Tech, post number two is about how to consume news and why we still need to.

This is like a transit nerd’s dream come true.

Really starting to wonder what Doug Ford is so desperate to hide 🤔

The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit.

Sometimes I think everyone that works in Toronto Parks & Recreation hate people and hate beauty.

Listen to @mattgalloway.bsky.social 's long interview w former Toronto police det Idsinga on force's racism, anti-semitism & corruption + terrible leadership. This kind of honesty from a cop is rare & we need more of it. Police brass are accusing him of harming trust, but he says they already did.

This paragraph/answer ended: There's a scholar of nonviolence named George Lakey who says polarization is good. That’s when you have clarity. Sometimes people have to pick sides. You do not get authoritarians to behave better by being meek and gentle and polite. You get it by being strong.

If I were trying to sell AI to the public I would be saying “it’s a useful way to write code faster and automate some tedious tasks that couldn’t be automated well before” and instead they’re running with “get on board or get left behind” and “we WILL eliminate your job.”

The Carpenters’ Regional Council secretly bought a $4M house for its leader, Jason Rowe, who was parachuted in to oversee the union’s “restructuring”, and later ensured that it endorsed Doug Ford in the 2025 Ontario election. CRC has since received $27M in funding from the Ontario government. 👀

Via @maxread.info, a fascinating analysis of Viktor Orbán’s rise and fall in Hungary and his role as the middle man of the international far right. It has me wondering what lessons there are for pro-democracy liberals and progressives when it comes to building soft power and influence in the world.

After a long period of inactivity, I finally updated electoralcartogram.ca, my map of federal election results in Canada. It now includes data from every election and floor crossing since 2015 (including yesterday's by-elections!), and the map reflects the latest electoral district redistribution.

For those liberals and others (like me), you can send your thoughts right to the man himself by going here www.pm.gc.ca/en/connect/c...

Today in Tabs, @rusty.todayintabs.com put a lot more heart and smarts than I ever have into why A.I. Isn't People. Another way I think about it is that a million monkeys on a million typewriters still don't actually _intend_ to write Hamlet or understand why it would be any good.

Suprematism, by Nikolai Suetin, 1920-21, 📸 by @tiltoncreative

Hellebuycked

"Statistically, Willie would likely always have a better chance of predicting an early spring due to Wiarton's placement in the snow belts, a.k.a. the land of lake-effect snow and cloud," explains Weather Network meteorologist Kelly Sonnenburg. "Willie is a glass half-full type of rodent."

It’s worth walking people through the logic, because it doesn’t get repeated enough from the top: 1. There is no “immigrant crisis”. This is a panic instigated by racist slurs from a President’s that, even very recently, decent white people would have admitted were shocking and unacceptable.

My friends know I've been threatening for years to blog again, or start a newsletter, or literally do anything other than passively doomscroll. I guess slow tech is buying the domain name and actually using it 6 months later.

Prime Minister Carney’s speech today really is as remarkable as everyone is saying in its description of the current moment. Worth reading (or listening) before reading anyone’s hot takes on it or him. Hat tip to Paul Wells for re-printing it verbatim:

Posts from Minneapolis residents read like they'll be read in voiceover in a Ken Burns-like doc one day

“…We do not flourish independent of the society and ecosystems we are part of. We are, overall, more idealistic in the literal sense of more concerned with ideas and ideals, with the principles of the larger society we live under, with justice and human rights.”

Christmas came a day late for Willow this year. ❄️🐶

I kind of like this whole “We won’t buy your liquor but we will air your state-suppressed news stories” niche that Canada’s apparently carved out.

@thestar.com has a story today about our public hospitals using donations to subsidize rent payments for patients at risk of homelessness. While commendable, how backwards is it that we use charitable giving to fund what should be government policy—guaranteed housing? www.thestar.com/news/gta/thi...

Microsoft made it ubiquitous, yet Times New Roman is a British typeface designed for The Times newspaper in 1931. It was inspired by an earlier British typeface, Plantin, in turn modelled on 16th century French renaissance type by Robert Granjon. 1/7

Turns out there is a way to hide screenshots, not just from the Bad Place, but also the various other Dubious Places!

Has anyone made a plugin for Bluesky to hide all screenshots from the bad place? (I’d unfollow people but I feel like it’s half the people I follow. 🫠)

On this American holiday, the origin of a Canadian term apt for these American times that originated from an American show created by a Brit who met an American in Canada and invented the show together while watching hockey, the sport that later popularized the term… defector.com/how-a-campy-...

Vote for people who'll spend more on housing and social programs. Vote for tax cuts and exclusionary zoning, and you're asking for encampments in poorly maintained parks.

Terrific investigation in @thelocal.to who did some light verification of a freelancer with a sizable list of published work in respected publications. Articles were full of plausible details and interviews with people, some real, some… not, who never spoke to the author. thelocal.to/investigatin...

Love that nobody’s really sure if the Carney government will fall in the budget vote today, but we’re all just kinda waiting around, assuming it won’t? The vote is in a few minutes! www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Mamdani: "Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up."

A sneak peek at the cover of next week’s issue, which celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s historic win. #NewYorkerCovers https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/451hFM

At the end of the day I'm not sure how much difference it makes. But it is striking to put out a budget that axes a luxury tax on yachts and adds a co-pay for refugee claimants accessing drugs and dental care.

peak baseball is indistinguishable from the feeling of hitting your head against a cement wall