Going to pop a couple Tylenol. For the resistance.

It’s not the long run itself that gets you. It’s discovering an hour later that you can no longer climb stairs. I live in the basement now.

A couple years ago, I thought it was mainly Twitter and Facebook that were bad for me (and democracy). Stepping back for a few days, I think social media generally might have run its course.

Did not have “Berkeley (Berkeley!) cooperates with fascists” on my bingo card, but here we are. The cowardice in American higher ed admin is shockingly deep and widespread.

Kid 2: Can you pick me up from track later this morning? Me: I have to do 31 this morning. Kid 2: Just run it faster. 😐 I ran it faster. 💀

Poilievre: “this is unfortunately a risk that's out there, and we should do everything we can to mitigate it." Looking forward to the Conservative Party’s call for stricter gun control. Everything means everything, right? www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Huh an awful lot of rhetoric shifted from Old Testament to New Testament over the past few hours

Otto Dix’s “Portrait of Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann” is my favourite piece at the AGO. Interesting to learn more about how it landed there. theconversation.com/two-portrait...

Reaction online is predictably polarized. Reaction among the not-always-online people I tried to talk to was a unanimous, “who?” I’m still working through that.

welp

Don’t celebrate political violence, even if you disagree with the politics.

Part of me wants to crack jokes. Part of me wants to take up residence in the Diefenbunker. All of me dislikes having to relive 1980s Gen X nuclear age anxiety.

But I was told Blockchain/Bitcoin/AI would solve this.

This is exactly the set of circumstances when we should be putting money into science and innovation. A country right next door to us that has been a leader in science and innovation is throwing it all away - we should be picking up at least some pieces. What are we doing here? Unfathomable.

One way or another, federal science and innovation funding in Canada is likely headed for a serious clobbering. @alexusherhesa.bsky.social on possible scenarios for ISED in the next budget. higheredstrategy.com/the-coming-f...

OC Transpo in one screenshot. This route is supposed to run every 15 minutes. Now? 3 buses within 3 minutes of each other. You’ll never guess when the fourth bus is scheduled.

Guys. Settle down. “CBC Newz” is a parody account.

Do people know that speakerphone is not the only way they can use their phone on public transit?

America is America-ing way too hard today.

“Instead of ‘democratizing intelligence,’ as Mr. Solomon claims, we are witnessing a kind of collective brain damage. The Minister of AI should be mitigating those risks, rather than naively championing the tech behind it all.” 🎁 link www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/7ff7d5d...

Has a technologist ever had a correct opinion about education?

If it’s a day of the week ending in “y”, I’ve waited at a couple of very green lights while aggressive drivers *accelerate* through very stale reds in the other direction. If I exercised my right of way in Ottawa, I’d be dead a half dozen times every week.

It was a heavy news day and we parents & educators are tired on this 1st Friday of back to school. But there were some potentially important changes to EI announced today that deserve more attention. open.substack.com/pub/robsonj/... #cdnpoli

This thread brought to you by a me still muttering “toast, we’re toast” months after trying out Gemini Deep Research for a few lit reviews and discovering results were not totally terrible. Over the years, I’ve worked with enough decision-makers who see magic in mediocre tech to know how this ends.

I am stuck on a VIA train that is stuck behind a CN freight train, because Canada. AMA

My wife, at an estate sale, has decided we shouldn’t buy the signed, numbered Murakami print for $4,000. I mean yeah, he’s great, but I’m holding out for a Janvier.

I've spent two hours writing about trade and innovation in this current economic and political moment, and I blame it entirely on @dkmunro.bsky.social. open.substack.com/pub/orbitpol...

Ah. This explains the weird style dichotomy around Toronto transit hubs today.

Dangerous thing about LLMs is not that they produce PhD level work. They don’t. It’s that they produce junior researcher level work. Flawed but decent material you can work with. So you ditch your farm team to save money. 10 years later your senior researcher bullpen is empty and you’re cooked 1/3

Our work with @fsc-ccf.bsky.social on the OECD’s latest PIAAC (adult skills) data in one place! If Canada is serious about improving productivity, prosperity and well-being, we need to pay more attention to how skills are developed, distributed and deployed. mailchi.mp/fsc-ccf.ca/n...

How Canadian is Canadian whiskey anyway? Great analysis of the Crown Royal happenings from @canadianshieldinstitute.ca. (Unanswered question is whether I need to find a new bag for my marbles. IYKYK) app.cyberimpact.com/newsletter-v...

Had a coffee at 2pm yesterday, so of course I was awake at 3am wondering if my headache was a brain tumour…or maybe I have lupus…what if that gas station on the corner blows up…how can I be hot and cold…did I pay my friend the $5 I owed him in 1988…why is Bob Dylan good…

Post-rain Munk.

We can learn a lot about how to address Canada’s productivity and growth challenges - and improve social well-being - by paying more attention to the OECD’s latest adult skills data. We’re leaving a lot on the table. My latest with Creig Lamb for @fsc-ccf.bsky.social. fsc-ccf.ca/research/a-c...

We can learn a lot about how to address Canada’s productivity and growth challenges - and improve social well-being - by paying more attention to the OECD’s latest adult skills data. We’re leaving a lot on the table. My latest with Creig Lamb for @fsc-ccf.bsky.social. fsc-ccf.ca/research/a-c...

If you're not subscribing to the National Interest from the Shield Institute, what's the matter with you? app.cyberimpact.com/newsletter-v...

This reminds me of my favourite example of a SR&ED claim by a Canadian company. They received a SR&ED credit for building software that automates and simplifies other firms’ SR&ED applications. Innovation! 🙃

Getting on a VIA train for the first time in months. Pray for Dan.

My most controversial food take is that nobody actually likes potatoes. People like potatoes merely as delivery mechanisms for other things they do like (e.g., salt, oil, butter, sour cream, ketchup, etc.)

If drivers had to pay for roads using a similar “fares+taxes” model used for transit, you’d likely see a shift to transit ridership and city finances improve, while roads for holdout drivers get less congested. But we don’t like to challenge driver entitlement in Ottawa www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Good piece by @viet.bsky.social on the parasitic scraping behaviour of many AI firms, and how it will eat their own potential if they don’t sort themselves out. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com...

I will think about this during my 4.5 hour, 450km train ride tomorrow and weep.

"chatGPT 5 is like having a bunch of phds in your pocket" here's ten trillion dollars "bluesky is having an *actual* bunch of phds in your pocket" dying platform. it disgusts me

Today is August 32nd

“The system that has long underpinned US global leadership in science and technology is being dismantled… Worse, this self-destruction has coincided with a speculative frenzy that may be the swansong of US economic primacy.” www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/ai-c...

I can

You’re not a real runner until you have a poop journal.

Nailed that long run. If you need me, I’ll be doing what any sensible runner would do now: Documenting every single thing I’ve consumed and done over the previous 48 hours so I can repeat the pattern every week until race day.