“The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function.” Finally reading Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical. There are some bangers in here.

Listen, I want you all to make a firm commitment. Next time we join an online community we all have to insist it's on the open social web so this can never happen again. We have to stop making the same mistake over and over.

You would not believe the number of lifelong evangelicals I have talked to who do not understand this. I was in church at 9 days old and it still took me until I was out of college to clock that the glorified body wasn't just, like, a spirit body you get in heaven.

Cue the Badgers: goal, it's a goal! youtu.be/jEb1Zh8eptg?...

As has been the trend since the Sykes injury, the Tempo stayed competitive for three quarters and then kinda ran out of steam in the fourth. #WNBA

Dallas / Toronto might be some of the most ridiculous combined shooting I've witnessed. It's not just one player getting hot - it's everybody on both teams. #WNBA

It's so refreshing to watch a Toronto basketball team that can actually shoot threes* * Of course Kawhi will help a lot assuming that goes through. #WNBA

Who is going to get to 50pts first tonight? Laura Juškaitė or Marina Mabrey??

This has to be one of the wildest offseasons in NBA history.

tilly norwood is actually genuinely interesting not as an AI “actress” but as a marketing story, because we have gotten a truly incredible number of credulous pieces in serious outlets on what is, essentially, vaporware

"By examining these calls to forgive public people who’ve done bad things, we can unearth a couple of common misconceptions around forgiveness that have crept into our own lives," writes Tyler Huckabee.

‘Stop scrolling and start strolling’ at new Kitchener event www.therecord.com/news/waterlo...

If the Ellisons end up in control of Letterboxd that might be another platform I have to quit because of evil billionaire ownership. We need an ATProto or ActivityPub movie tracking social network.

A small-D democratic reform I'd like to see is fixed dates for by-elections; set 3-4 days every year on a regular schedule to fill any vacancies that occur in the legislature, take the power away from the Premier's Office.

TV writers were right in 2023 and are being proven more right every day — there was a stable television model that made everyone lots of money and put out good shows. Then execs with no understanding of the industry confused the production model and the distribution model, and they blew it all up.

Cyclists of all ages and abilities are invited to join our next community bike ride! Meet in front of Kitchener City Hall on Sunday, July 18 at 2pm. The ride will end at Cafe Pyrus where everyone is welcome to stay for social time. Explore the city, meet new people, and enjoy the summer sun!

I keep seeing people thinking this is a bluesky problem. If you're seeing this it thinks you're in a state or country with age verification laws. This is what every social media site will do if KOSA and the KIDS Act succeeds. Running to another socmed won't fix it, we have to fight the source.

The best argument for this is that every time we extend rights to the nonhuman world, we end up treating *each other* better. Movements to extend moral consideration to animals raised uncomfortable questions about the treatment of humans: slaves, workers, poor people, women, children. 22/

The idea that teaching too many words to the word-guessing program risks creating a "superintelligence" that awakens and converts all into paperclips is absurd, a silly idea akin to the notion that if we breed horses to run ever faster, one of our mares will foal a locomotive. 18/

AI, then, isn't just the fantasy of a world without people - it's the fantasy of a world without people...except for slaves. 14/

But the biggest difference between a machine and a person is *moral consideration*. A person deserves and demands moral consideration: for their wellbeing, their feelings, even their bladders. A machine gets none of this: you can curse it, kick it, snap out orders without please or thank you. 12/

I'm guessing the most likely scenario is punishment only for the Clippers and/or Kawhi's former agent, in which case the deal would proceed as already agreed. Second most likely might be if Kawhi does get a suspension, trade still happens with the Raptors giving up less draft capital.

Graham Platner suspends senate campaign after running out of red flags

I know this is very unlikely to happen but I'd love to see the Raptors bring back both DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas. It would be really leaning into the nostalgia vibes this summer, but they're also the two player types they need most still (a bench scorer and a big rebounder).

The lesson I'm learning from British politics right now is Maine Democrats should nominate Count Binface.

I've never said "X" in real life. As a writer, I only use it to say "X, the platform formerly known as Twitter" because I get paid per word and this earns me enough money for an appetizer

starting to think that being terminally online infects some people into becoming utterly unable to admit they might have been wrong about anything they posted online “keep posting through it” has become a desperate mantra

Every single one of these is both: 1. accepted wisdom pretty much everywhere except in very left spaces; and 2. completely false.

Every single bulletproof bullshit zombie narrative favours the right—Liberals treat AB like garbage, conservatives are better with money, propping up fossil fuels is smart business but investing in renewables is wasteful hippy shit, the working class is all white men with dirty fingernails, etc.

Unfortunately, a stunned Paris is how they all got into this whole mess to begin with

DAWG WE'RE DOING STATE-RUN GAS PRICES AT PRICE CONTROLLED RATES DESPITE INCREASING SHORTAGES TO PACIFY THE PEOPLE AND THEY'RE SCREAMING ABOUT HOW THEIR OPPONENTS WANT COMMUNISM I AM GOING TO LOSE MY ENTIRE GODDAMN MIND

Local woman wakes up, dissolves the major telecom companies in Canada and redistributes the money to maintaining locally run news media, arts and community organizations, makes oatmeal.

Facebook’s own researchers found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools”, an internal report in 2016 found. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

There’s a scene in the dystopian sci-fi movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise’s character is riding in an autonomous vehicle that gets remotely commandeered by the police to bring him into custody. The audience is supposed to see this as flagrant disregard for privacy and due process.

My next request for @surf.social is for a toggle on the sports feeds that keeps out all gambling posts.

Question: if you don't use transit (or only rarely), why is that? Time? Hassle of paying? Limited transit service in your area? Unreliable? Something else? (This is a genuine question to better understand barriers people face with transit, not a judgement that you 'should' be using transit more!).

These days especially, I think of Power more as a power addictive drug than as a privilege. No addict wants to endanger their supply, very few give it up of their own accord, all deserve help getting unhooked, and it takes a long time for them to truly understand the damages.

"People deserve to be given second chances." "People can change." Yep, great! They sure do, and sure can. But can anyone explain to me why the person in question needs to have or retain power and influence and publicly lead others after a major indiscretion or disqualifying event?

"I’m not asking for much. I’m simply demanding that the nation’s badly needed housing be built in any town other than my own." 😆 www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/to-...

Every time - and this is a lot on social media like Bluesky - that there's another discourse about a public figure being caught doing terrible things, I just want to point everyone to "On Repentance and Repair" by @theradr.bsky.social

New post: I look at the most ideologically "pure" or least problematic general tech choices---stuff that isn't owned by bigots, not openly bootlicking for Trump, DRM- and AI-free, based on open standards, and isn't cartoonishly greedy. www.diversetechgeek.com/least-proble... #tech

it can still be 0-0 if infantino has the courage

Oh boy. US republicans whining that we're not buying their booze, while completely ignoring why we're not buying their booze. It's called cause and effect babes, look it up. www.cbc.ca/news/world/p...

I don't know how many hard feelings there would still be if he had to play alongside the bigger star he was traded for, but coming back to be a key bench scorer chasing a title in Toronto would be a pretty great late career story.

Awww, poor Republican legislators upset that when their guy waged economic war on their closest trading partner, some provinces picked one way to stand up for themselves. If they don't like this way of doing things, they could try reining in Trump's war on free trade. www.cbc.ca/news/world/p...

Today is the first day of permanent GO train service to Stratford. What we need now is for Metrolinx to purchase the rail corridor and upgrade track to increase speed. Stratford -> Kitchener currently takes 53 minutes, but it can be under 30 minutes with simple track upgrades.

1 billion people means about 1 out of every 8 people on the planet, before taking out that a large number of those are small children, or too old, or have disabilities, or could never afford it, or whatever other reason they can't play even if they want to.

Rogers now owns essentially all Toronto sports except the Tempo. They thought the WNBA would be a bad investment.

You can't solve the problem of too many cars by encouraging more cars. The only way to reduce car congestion is to give people better options (transit, bikes, walking) to choose. When those are faster, cheaper, easier, less stressful, less dangerous, that's how you get less car congestion.

I remember my grade 10 geography teacher saying “Roads beget cars” That was in 1970