Freelance writer, interested in almost everything (but I repeat myself). Was the kid who read encyclopedias for fun, now am the grownup who reads academic papers and follows smart people online.
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Hearing that Nelvana is shutting down. For half a century it has had a hand in some of very iconic productions. The Magic School Bus, Beetlejuice, Care Bears, Babar, The Edison Twins, Inspector Gadget, Three Amigos. Even the Star Wars Holiday Special. Very sad to hear.
Each and every week there's a new post insisting that Twitter is "our national public square" or "the only conversation that matters" and every time it's written by by Some Guy I Only Know From Twitter and Haven't Thought About Once Since Leaving Twitter.
Apparently Guillermo Del Toro has ruined Frankenstein by… being relatively faithful to the source material. Oh my.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
Hey so. i do and have been talking about this since i got into writing tutoring in college. I'm a weird late millennial+ 1st GenZer. And also I went to like 6 elementary schools + 3 middle schools across the country so i experienced many different public school districts.
My then-wife and I heard it from Lower Sackville, fairly far from the crash site. A friend of mine had taken Swissair 111 on the previous flight, a couple of days earlier, and heard the news poolside in Geneva. It must have been a very strange feeling.
Happy Labrador Day, I hope your day was filled with Canadians and dogs (listens to earpiece) Sorry, LABOR Day, I hope you passed a small human out of your body in a relatively non-punishing way (listens to earpiece again)
Make no mistake, everything that’s happening in the United States is being significantly enabled by the right wing oligarch capture of media. Every other country needs to do everything possible to keep that from happening where they are. Including protecting the CBC from Poilievre here in Canada.
In the immortal words of Austin Powers, "That bridge has sailed."
We considered "Freya" for our newly-arrived black kitten last year, and our grandson (a ginger) suggested "Ginger," but in the end she became Elvira, Mistress Of the Dark.
Seriously, make time to read this essay. You can thank me later.
It's the "what's the price of your soul?" question. It doesn't matter *who* you're willing to shit on for power, just that you *are* willing to shit on them. Once you've made that first compromise, you'll compromise forever. ...annnnd, that's (partly) how the Dems got where they are.
The fraction of people in Germany who were Jewish in 1933 (~0.75%) is lower than the fraction of people in the US today who are trans (~1%). Anyone willing to sacrifice trans people now, would have sacrificed Jews then. Refs: encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a... usafacts.org/articles/wha...
LOL Attention to detail? From this crew?
The latest from Father Nathan Monk (@fathernathan.bsky.social). The TL;DR? Support your local indie artists (and ideally, him too). Sorry it's on Substack, but for those who like his writing (seriously, y'all, give him a look and/or a follow) you can buy his books, his restored jewelry, etc.
I believe "undead" may be the word you're looking for, here.
If you care about protecting children from abuse, it is necessary that you understand who the actual child sexual predators are.
Parenting means trying to tell your kid that you’re thrilled about the delightful person they’re becoming at least as often as you tell them that they’re getting on your absolute last nerve
My kids are 30-somethings these days, and fine adults, but the grandkids are rapidly approaching that age. :P (...and we share a roof)
LOL Well played...
The thing about the Epstein disgustingness that strikes me hardest is that hundreds of rich old men raped underage girls and the only person currently in jail for that vile behavior is a woman.
My late wife, after an unnervingly close encounter with one at a bend in the road: "They said 'size of a horse.' Nobody specified 'Clydesdale'."
He's spent most of his time as VP vacationing. Given that Trump spends most of his time golfing, that's pretty good training.
It's a good one, and the "based on a true story" side of it gives it a little more punch.
To borrow a rhetorical question often used in relation to Trump: if Danielle Smith were an asset of a hostile foreign power, what would she be doing differently?
War and Tom Clancy's Peace
Well, gee, it appears that adding a generative AI extension to your browser might be problematic. Who could have guessed? arstechnica.com/information-...
It's official, Bluesky has the juice where science is concerned. #scisky
...but when? I began to wonder about that a couple of months ago, and asked several former teachers if they could remember when mucilage disappeared from the scene, and nobody could tell me.
Our antifascist gyro 😻
Follow this all the way to the end, because it's not what you think (spoiler, he's a hospice chaplain). This is what's real, and meaningful. Not that the rest of (waves hand broadly) doesn't matter, but at the end of the day everything comes down to humans, 1:1.
Amazingly, creating a "robo-panegyrist" seems to be going poorly. arstechnica.com/information-...
I remember one of Jane Goodall's reports a young chimp male on the lower end of the troop's pecking order finding two steel containers and rolling them down a hill, hooting, and ended up terrorizing the troop into accepting him as the alpha male. That's basically what we have in the US now.
LOL Yup...
Tim Walz : trans rights are human rights JB Pritzker : we’re taking names of all you fuckers and coming after you Gavin Newsom : lol my pr firm made another meme while i guest starred on another right wing podcast
Online age verification is not like "showing ID to buy alcohol" because a) the liquor store doesn't get to scan your ID and store a digital copy of it forever in a database that will inevitably get hacked b) you don't have to show ID to go to the library because they have cocktail recipe books
Bloody hell. Did you see this, @sarahtaber.bsky.social?
Or better yet, a car wash/detailer called "Danke Shine."
...and in the "trying to claim something that doesn't belong to them" category, I also remember a couple of faux-indigenous numbers.
Huh. Yeah, it's funny how those school songs from childhood stick in the brain. FWIW, in early '70s Nova Scotia, the one in my school included the Boer war ditty "Marching to Pretoria."
“Stay angry, little Meg,” Mrs Whatsit whispered. “You will need all your anger now.” "Okay I get that," Meg whispered back, "but I've been angry for over a decade straight and my arteries are basically solid carbon fiber at this point. Do I ever get a freakin' break?"
Humblebundle to support World Central Kitchen, and get a bunch of my books from @tordotcom.bsky.social including Murderbot and Witch King! #booksky www.humblebundle.com/books/martha...
Today's newsletter from Father Nathan... substack.com/home/post/p-...
youtu.be/2-ealzYGrE8?...
Yup. I'm a former chef. Restaurants that poison their customers take a big hit, and often fail as a result. Even well-established chains (Jack In the Box, Chipotle) take a beating in the aftermath.
Wow, this could go *so* badly wrong. "Inside brain, baby! Use your inside brain!" arstechnica.com/science/2025...
This. Also my aging eyes appreciate the two large monitors on my home rig, and ditto my increasingly arthritic fingers re the ergonomic keyboard. Admittedly I'm an outlier, because I work from home and have little need to use my phone for anything but photos and texting, but still.
Per this and all your other responses here... Yup, I know that. Was providing a "Reader's Digest condensed version" for someone who might be OS-curious. And the comparison with phone OSs was to illustrate the point that most people *have* learned another OS recently, and it's no biggie.
Sch-AI-denfreude... arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
Steve Shirley escaped the Holocaust as a child & went on to found one of the earliest software startups. The really impressive part? She employed women programmers who had been pushed out of the workforce after having kids, & allowed them flexible, family friendly, work from home jobs—in the 1960s!
...just hit me up in chat and I'll answer your questions as best I can.
takes us back to the original issue. I switched from "all Windows" to "mostly Linux" back in 2007, when it was a more difficult transition. I *still* wouldn't call myself any kind of Linux maven. I just use it, don't need to be an expert in how it works. If you want to do a bit of Q&A, /cont
(and so is iOS for that matter). Things are laid out differently, and you'll have to get used to slightly different names and locations for familiar things. Also - and important point - some of the programs you're used to won't be available on Linux. You can use cloud versions, but that /cont
It feels hard or confusing at first if you're totally steeped in how Windows does things, but most people can adapt just fine (you learned a new OS when you got your first smartphone, right?). In fact, your smartphone is a pretty good example of a Linux-like modern operating environment /cont
Well, Apple is a *little* more skewed to individual privacy, but is still headquartered in the US and is actively courting Trump's favor. So with Windows and Mac ruled out, that leaves Linux. It has a reputation for being hard to learn, but that's largely outdated. It's just different. /cont
“Microsoft says U.S. law takes precedence over Canadian data sovereignty” … or how to lose government contracts all over the world in one easy step. 🖕🏾🖕🏾 www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science...
Hey remember that raw milk outbreak in FL? They traced it back to Keely Farms Dairy. Here's a pic! Cows lounging in a warm stagnant pond that's lush with weeds & algae, thanks to cow poop. Their raw milk has been making people sick since January for some reason apnews.com/article/raw-...
Because there are grifters profiting from it, basically. Though it probably doesn't help that there's a strong eugenecist element to the current administration, and anything that culls the proles is okay with them.
LOL Don't let the door bang your butt on the way out. Something for everyone to consider, as well, the next time a party chooses to throw its weight behind a "parachute" candidate. If you want someone to represent you, pick someone who's sticking around (coughnotlikePoilievrecough).
Meanwhile, over in the "cool science" department: arstechnica.com/science/2025...
Dammit, that's Chapters/Indigo. (Mutters something indistinct, but containing the words "fingers" and "arthritic," which is out of sync with YA books but here we are.)
Just a heads-up for Canadian readers: I discovered yesterday that the hardcover edition of "Victories Greater Than Death," the first book in Charlie Jane Anders' (@charliejane.bsky.social) Unstoppable trilogy, is getting blown out by Chapters/Indogo at $6, online and in store. Bought it yesterday.
My kid was all-in on that one at the age of 10. Mind you, she's an outlier. Watched "Singing In the Rain" with me at 2, and tap-danced everywhere for months afterwards. Philadelphia Story is probably my favorite ever rom-com, with honorable mention to Moonstruck as a close #2 (or maybe 1b).
Heads up, Canadians. There's a lot of big money working to bring this to our country. The Alberta and Ontario governments are taking the lead on making it happen, and once the toothpaste is out of the tube it's never going back.
(Stands, applauds.) Bad enough when it's trolling from the right, but it's even worse when it comes from ostensible allies in the crab-bucket corners of the left. Nobody owes anybody a debate. Nobody owes anybody a free education they're too fucking lazy to look up for themselves.
Hilarious that the Gavin Newsom ridicule rattled Donald so much that he ditched the all-caps shrieking and the stupid thanking us for our attention. This thin-skinned fool *hates* being made fun of.
Hey look. It’s the worst economy since the last time Trump was in office. Probably just a coincidence
As opposed to Canada, where Mulroney's Conservative government made books taxable as part of its rollout of the GST. ...during the International Year of Literacy, because conservatives on the whole are cheerfully oblivious to irony.
have never clicked a headline so fast www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Milton Acorn was one of Canada's greatest poets in the 20th Century. He not only created a distinctive style of Canadian poetry called The Jackpine sonnet, he also co-founded The Georgia Straight newspaper. This is the story of a legendary Canadian poet. 🧵 1/8
I'll see you and I'll raise you... (local brand from New Brunswick, Canada):
...out there, but it's hard for interested eyes to find anything that's not coming out of the algorithmic firehose. So step up for the artists you like, and do what you can, or we'll all be stuck with the sterile, formulaic, and (ugh) AI-generated. And here endeth the unplanned rant.
...when you can, give them your appreciation. Let them know you've enjoyed their work. Talk them up and link their sites on social media. Review their books (or music, or art) wherever you can, to help get their names in front of other eyes. It's hugely helpful. There's a lot of great stuff /cont
...pitch in few dollars to that visual artist you like on Patreon (or better yet, buy a piece if you've got the budget). Buy a book from that indie author your friend has been telling you about, and ideally buy it directly from them or from an independent bookstore. And most of all, where and..
artists of choice as directly as possible, if you want them to be able to continue making art. Hit their Bandcamp page, if they have one. Buy direct from indie musicians, whenever possible (I'll throw in a shout-out to Joe Fournier, a longtime country-rock/"Americana" favorite), /cont
of the ticket monopoly/cartel squeezing all the juice from that particular orange. So that leaves merchandise as the last revenue source standing, and now venues are looking for a cut because the ticket cartel has been shredding *their* margins as well. Bottom line, I guess, is support your /cont
...in royalties. Now, artists receive fractions of pennies from their music being streamed on Spotify, and even legitimate hits aren't giving most of them any kind of financial independence. Touring's not much of a cash cow anymore either for most artists not named Swift or Beyonce, because /
(and younger Canadians, tbh) won't necessarily know his name, but he wrote and sang a number of hits back in the 60s and 70s (he wrote The Archies' "Sugar Sugar," for example, Billboard's #1 song of 1969). He told the CBC he used to receive cheques "well into six figures" a couple of times/year
Wow, those were the days! Of course, the erosion of residuals here echoes the same trend in the music industry. More money for shareholders, less for those actually CREATING THE VALUE. I heard Cdn singer/songwriter Andy Kim on CBC not long ago, talking about music royalties. Non-Canadians /cont
On this day in 2016, The Tragically Hip gave their final concert. Performed in their hometown of Kingston, it aired live on CBC TV and radio, and streamed on the Internet. The concert was watched by 12 million Canadians, one-third of the country. 📸 David Bastedo
Apparently I'm not the only one who got an anti-EV mailer from the Conservatives.
If you really want your vote to count—and hit them where it hurts—start voting in Republican primaries. 👉 www.yourprimarypower.com/p/the-power-...
Conversely, she was also a big fan of Terry Pratchett and suggested, quite seriously, that Thief of Time merited a Booker nomination. She'd have won my heart right there, even if I hadn't read anything of hers.
A tale of two platforms: "When I talk about fish on Bluesky, people ask me questions about fish. When I talk about fish on Twitter, people threaten to murder my family because we’re Jewish."
Upon reflection, chutzpah's probably not the word I was going for. "Bravado" might have been a better fit, because that was a heck of a bet on her own skills. Gutsy, in any case.
Okay, now I'm even more pumped for "Lessons." I really, really liked Possession. A.S. Byatt had some serious chutzpah, creating not just one but two fictitious Victorian poets, with distinct and recognizable styles, and making 'em work.
Important to understand that the Turing test is not something for computers to pass but for humans to fail.
Shocker, right? Postal workers, take note.
Throwing out a question for probably the #writingcommunity, perhaps #histsci or #historians in general: Can anyone direct me to resources about how night soil (human waste) was historically disposed of in freezing conditions, when slopping a bucket into the "honey wagon" wasn't an option?
(Hastily pulls on his old Subhumans T-shirt, raises fist in salute)
My dog eats the tomatoes before the squirrels can. At least he's small, and can only get the literal low-hanging fruit.
And 2) fortune.com/2025/08/18/m...
Kind of a fun 1,2 punch for AI news items I saw today. Real cause and effect energy. 1) www.bbc.com/news/article...
Just a speculative question: what would happen if the European leaders came out of their meeting and indicated that they were seriously concerned about the mental fitness of the American president? Would anything change? Would it just be written off by media as some sort of posturing?
Our original purchase of eight all had names. The scrawniest and youngest of the pullets, a Leghorn, inevitably became Miss Prissy. She got broody this summer and we let her set a clutch of 9 eggs, which yielded... one chick. She defends the little guy so fiercely we've had to segregate them. :P
Meanwhile, what does my (Conservative) Member of Parliament consider a priority to mail-spam his constituents about? Rolling back legislation that encourages EV adoption. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
It's only going to get grimmer, as the Trump regime doubles down on higher-cost fossil fuels rather than renewables. Something for Canadians to bear in mind, with the CPC being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the oil industry, and Carney leaning that direction himself. www.npr.org/2025/08/16/n...
I need people to understand: 1. Every US state already evicts more people annually than all of the EU combined 2. In most states, having a disability, health emergency, or a financial hardship is not a defense to an eviction suit 3. In most states, there is no right to counsel in eviction cases