Did you know you can just watch a Star Trek? Whenever you want? You can just turn on a Star Trek and feel good all the time. There is infinite Star Trek and if you know how to use the internet it's free, and it's like taking your brain to a brain spa. I forget this sometimes but I remember now.

"Our goal is to ensure that everyone feels heard, seen, and valued while continuing to uphold our mission: championing everyone’s right to read, watch, listen, and explore ideas without barriers." #abpoli #cdnpoli 📚

Canada abstained

a cognitive scientist here: there are no functions (brain or otherwise) dedicated to "performing" human feelings

Become ungovernable

Calling ALA, attention, ALA. The American Library Association is supposed to represent Canada too, and they should be making a huge stink about this.

Check out the new website for the Library Freedom Journal, published by the folks at the Library Freedom Project. journal.libraryfreedom.org They're looking for submissions for articles, reviews, hot takes, zines, & artwork focused on privacy, intellectual freedom, information democracy, & more! 📚

Alberta's government is one of our nation's great shames

Reminder that we at @xtramagazine.com are working with Gender Queer author Maia Kobabe to produce a series of original comics focused on censorship, out next month. Unfortunately, the project continues to be timely!! xtramagazine.com/inside-xtra/...

The Alberta government is now considering some level of book restrictions in public libraries, not just schools. And once again they are taking aim at LGBTQ2S+ books. Don't forget where this focus came from. It was never actually about "concerned parents." xtramagazine.com/power/politi...

The jackals are coming for Alberta's public libraries next. #abpoli #cdnpoli

How did we end up with a culture of people bragging about being planet-boilingly bad at their jobs Like do people genuinely not feel shame any more BRING BACK SHAME

"Mohamed, a rising star with immense talent across the speculative genres, may be an author you are discovering today." Waaaaa thank you @raforall.bsky.social !! For the kind words and for including the (hem hem multiple award-winning) NO ONE WILL COME BACK FOR US!

I'm sorry, Casey who

1/ "That this Artemis launch is happening in the lead-up to America’s 250th birthday has heightened the sense that it’s a nostalgia act for the Baby Boomer gerontocracy. All the more so because 47, the oldest person ever to be elected to the WH, is presiding over the whole affair." Gift link.

Today in "Things Liberals fought against when Harper did them but now are good actually when Carney does them".

This is why I keep it out of my classrooms. This is why I teach my students to be careful/critical in their consumption of gAI. This is why universities shouldn't be so bloody ridiculously uncritical in forcing gAI on faculty, staff and students. We're inculcating dependence on a catastrophic scale

Why. Does. A. Rocket. Ship. Have. Outlook.

I've laughed waaaaaay more at this than I should have.

I'm not sure there's a single trait in rulers that is more universally criticized in the canon of western political thought that susceptibility to flattery. The favorite president of west coast Straussians and various other avowed Western Civilization Defenders *brags* about it.

There are now 10 toilets in Space International Space Station: 4 Crew Dragon Docked at ISS: 1 Soyuz Docked at ISS: 1 Tiangong Space Station: 2 Shenzhou Docked at TSS: 1 Artemis II on way around Moon: 1 This will be the first time a toilet has left low earth orbit!

To me, there are few human achievements as great as spaceflight. I try now to imagine how far we could go if it was pursued for its own sake, apart from the military industrial complex and ignorant nationalism of which it is a part.

"We are going for all humanity." "Artemis crew is go for launch. Full send." Publicly funded science to explore our universe and our own precious world is a beautiful thing.

"While it is important for learners to understand AI, I feel that it is also key for learners to be able to reflect upon and identify how AI is making them feel and how they are responding to AI, increasingly important given how persuasive AI hype and personalization can be."

If all goes according to plan, in a few hours, a crew of astronauts will begin a journey that will take them on a loop around the moon. Here's a video that NASA put together to help people visualize the journey through space, first orbiting the earth before looping around the moon and flying home 🔭

Five years after a deadly heat dome claimed the lives of 33 New Westminster residents — the most heat-dome-related deaths per capita in B.C. — city council has passed a bylaw requiring landlords to ensure at least one room in every unit in a multi-family rental building stays at or below 26 C.

Rosa Parks gets the boot from Alberta’s education system.

"Some of us may no longer be Habermassians, but we learned from, with and against him what it means to keep faith with critique."

Interesting to find AB separatists describing the pre-1965 Cdn Red Ensign as "explicitly Christian" vs the "pantheistic" maple leaf. I wrote about this (fringe) interpretation and am surprised to see it rear its head again. #cdnhist #abpoli #cdnpoli #vexillology activehistory.ca/blog/2023/02...

Be careful online today. This is the one day a year when people post false information on the internet

A thorough summary of the horrors lurking in the darkest corners of Alberta: white Christian fascism. #abpoli #cdnpoli

In honour of 'cognitive surrender' gaining traction in college-wide generative AI discussions AI at MPOW, I'm posting the article from whence the term came once again.

Academics doing talks at conferences, remember this today (and all other days): no one thinks you're funny

One of the great slogans of our age.

In my headcanon, the man driving the car is Guy Maddin

My university: "Copilot is Microsoft's AI-powered productivity service that uses large language models (LLMs) to help you create content, analyze information, summarize documents, and complete tasks more efficiently." Microsoft: LOL

Every. Goddamn. Company.

and what do we call those who are anti-anti-fascism again? www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

Replacement likert scale just dropped

Education is inherently political. 'Removing politics and ideology from schools' is a political and ideological decision with political and ideological consequences. The UCP knows exactly what they are doing with this bill: placating their far-right base. #abpoli #cdnpoli

This referendum would lose, all things being equal. Those who stand to benefit from it will ensure that all things will not be equal. The firehose of disinformation will be turned up in the coming days and weeks. #abpoli #cdnpoli

As the deadly war in Iran triggers what the International Energy Agency has described as the worst oil crisis in history, climate advocates are calling for a faster shift away from fossil fuels. But the conflict may also hamper that transition. Useful explainer!

It’s actually not okay to pay someone with a PhD $2500 to teach a college course

That's right

David Climenhaga: Who could have imagined that social democrats, democratic socialists and their ilk wouldn’t want Conservative policies rebranded as Liberal policies from their own party as well? #canpoli #abpoli

This is very funny but it's also yet another reminder of the fundamental misalignment of this site's leadership and its core user base, which I imagine will cause legitimate and potentially existential problems down the road

Friendly reminder: