Good stuff from @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social : www.tvo.org/article/anal... #ontariosky #canadasky #canadapolitics

Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)

This sounds very interesting.... #econsky

When I heard Carney yesterday, I thought that this is a man who knows that CUSMA is dead, and that NATO probably is, too. Dangerous days ahead, to be sure.

As much as I have loved doing research (and I really loved it when I started my PhD), it hasn't always been great for my mental health, so much so that I walked away from it for some years. Today has been the kind of day that makes me question my decision to return.

The very first "AI in the workplace" presentation I saw had presenters gushing how they used AI workslop to exchange messages with each other. I.e. AI composed e-mails and messages, and AI composed the replies. futurism.com/artificial-i...

How Should We Think About the Economics of AI? open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...

49,000 cars in a market of 1.9 million is hardly overwhelming. That these are electrical cars is potentially very important. About 260,000 EVs were sold last year in Canada: 49,000 low-cost cars should mean lower prices and greater volumes.

Cory Doctorow thinks Evan Solomon, Canada's Minister of AI-everything, might not know what he's doing, and that the tech sector needs to be regulated in the public interest. www.hilltimes.com/story/2026/0...

The Supreme Court only cleared the way for Kavanaugh Stops four months ago and ICE now openly engages in violent racial profiling, snatching anyone who looks non-white and treating them as presumptively guilty of a crime. Remarkable how quickly our liberties can be crushed when courts go along.

The ethically challenged Evan Solomon and Mark Carney power dance may lead to the end of Canada www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file... #canadasky

Just don’t think my government should be creating largely exclusive content for this guy. Put another way, if your constituents had to buy Ernst Zündel’s zine to read your latest policy position, that’d be a policy position in itself. And “but his circulation numbers are high” isn’t a good defence.

Over lunch, I caught a bit of a Rockford Files episode in which Rob Reiner plays a pro quarterback who gets mixed up with the mob. I understand artistic licence and all, but c'mon.... 1/

The arrest of Mark Carney will bring peace, prosperity, and freedom to North America www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file...

So today I was feeling lazy and asked Copilot to take some text and turn it into some Powerpoint slides and I was shocked by how bad it was.... I even tried reworking the prompts, thinking that was the problem.... Finally, just did it myself. 1/

That minister is just a digital asbestos hype man and he doesn’t want to regulate because the tech bros told him it will “stifle innovation” and he credulously believes what they tell him.

I'd like to propose the following norm for peer review of papers. If a paper shows clear signs of LLM-generated errors that were not detected by the author, the paper should be immediately rejected. My reasoning: 1/ #ResearchIntegrity

Think @sundersays.bsky.social is accurate here. The UK has not suddenly become much more racist. However the (re)normalisation of open racism by "respectable" right-wing media and politicians has led to both increased visibility for open racists, & radicalisation of some "soft" racists/xenophobes

An (embarrassing) mastery of the passive voice, here.

The most stressed out I've ever been about Christmas was when I was 16 and I got my first ever job, working at M&S in Dundrum. As soon as I started I kept hearing these myths about the Christmas Eve Waste Sale, where all the food that wasn't sold on the 24th was marked down 90%.

Amazing bit of history.... the car of the future, in 1970, with so many features we take for granted today: cruise control, ABS, EFI, all housed in a gorgeous, modified Triumph 2000: youtu.be/7Woz270D1HE?...

Holy fucking shit: #cdnpolitics #canadasky www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

1. I had no idea that Francis Fukuyama was still alive. 2. It's hard to imagine how somebody who was so spectacularly wrong once would ever publicly venture an opinion again, but yet here we are.

Looks like this might be fake. I thought the Alberta School Councils was an umbrella organization for school boards. It isn't. Sorry. Thanks to @lindsaytedds.bsky.social and @jaredwesley.ca for letting me know.

This is the letter that the Alberta Minister of Education sent to parents across the province. In 2025. In Canada.

On Dec. 12, Statistics Canada released a preliminary estimate of the national poverty rate in 2024. It was 10.9%, the same as in 2023. The Canada Child Benefit introduced by Parliament in 2016 brought the rate down considerably. The pandemic and weak growth thereafter brought it back up. #cdnecon

Tonight marks the beginning of Hanukkah, a time for light and celebration. This celebration also reminds us of the enduring resilience of the Jewish people, particularly in the face antisemitism.

Ahmed al Ahmed, a Lebanese Muslim who owns a Sydney fruit shop, risked his life to disarm one of the Bondi Beach shooters. His courage gives me hope amidst the horror and darkness. Muslims and Jews are not enemies. Our futures, in the Middle East and beyond, are intrinsically bound. A true hero.

This. So much this.

Oh my GOD. This is the Shopify broligarch-involved pet project to influence Canadian policy. Build Canada told journalist Taylor Noakes that Carney's office "has reached out to Build Canada on occasion to ask about our memos." www.desmog.com/2025/12/08/m...

Ontario is one of the most highly educated jurisdictions in the world, yet it is run by this venal kakistocracy that will strip it of culture and learning. #onpolitics #canadasky

It's practically satire with this guy.

Dutch academics take a stand against the uncritical use of AI in universities: openletter.earth/open-letter-...

Some closing thoughts for my students this semester on LLMs and learning #rstats datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...

LOL. A couple of my students' essays definitely read like the AI characters speak. youtu.be/ua4rYsMdC4U?...

Wordle 1,632 2/6 ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Two years ago, I would have dismissed this piece as naive, self-serving and economic nonsense. Now, I am not so sure: www.thestar.com/opinion/cont... #canadasky #econsky

The piece on CBC's The Current this morning, on young people returning to religion was just unbelievably bad. Almost all the people interviewed were young people who "found Jesus"; the one academic was from a private Christian university. 1/ #cdnpolitics #canadasky

Heart-wrenching. Who would do this to a child? www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

A cautionary tale for those who want AI to become part of the Canadian DNA, like hockey and maple syrup #econsky time.com/7295195/ai-c...

How many more of these papers are we going to endure as AI gets hyped up by **everyone** and draws in the worst academics in every field? 1/ #econsky statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/05/19/i...

Another night to sleep on this and I'm solidifying this take There is a reason industry/govt sees a bit win in trading the regulations that would have forced real emissions reductions (oil and gas cap and CER) for vauge future carbon pricing promises that some are claiming will achieve the same 1/

I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim

Trudeau-era environment minister Steven Guilbeault has published a resignation letter detailing the reasons for his departure from Carney's cabinet. He directly cites today's MOU:

"The carbon capture and disposal industry is a scam and is causing harm when it comes to climate solutions." And Mark Carney thinks it's the future. Along with AI. heimildin.is/grein/24581/

And I've just cancelled my membership, too.

How about we start with funding universities like we used to?

Most university programs are not job training programs and I wish politicians would stop wishing that they should be. A university degree should be much, much more than vocational

#statsky 🤔