Mélodie B. Plourde

Folks might not know a lot of people are getting *very* upset that the materials they request are not available in the libraries/archives they're requesting from.

We're getting lots here at the Library of Virginia: requests of documents likely surfaced by large language models that *do not exist*.

Passages fauniques sur les routes : le Québec doit faire plus! - Québec Science Chaque année, on déplore plus de 7000 collisions avec la grande faune sur les routes de la province. Mais le gouvernement rechigne à adopter les bonnes pratiques en matière d’aménagements fauniques.

Passages fauniques sur les routes: le Québec doit faire plus! Chaque année, on déplore plus de 7000 collisions avec la grande faune sur les routes de la province. Mais le gouvernement rechigne à adopter les bonnes pratiques en matière d’aménagements fauniques.
www.quebecscience.qc.ca/animaux/pass...

A poster on 8.5 x 11 inch paper saga Fishtown fish facts: red lipped catfish or of ocephalus Darwini. Then a pic of that freaky fish with 4 limbs it rests on the ground and then the words “stg this fish real red-lipped batfish walk ocean floor with they flippers RLBF have RBF, not they fault RLBF have a bioluminescent lure that glows to attract dinner RLBF lipgloss is popping, RLBF lipgloss is cool, all the fish keep jockin, they chase RLBF after school RLBF got scales like armor and shine bright like a diamond Red-lipped batfish will teach you how to dougie, I can promise u that. @yaboyni Take a moment And and realize the moment You took has already passed Thank you See you next time

One of my neighbors has been putting up these fish facts posters. All kinds of different fish, marine, freshwater, deep, shallow, all kinds. This is a good one. “Stg this real fish” took me out. Good work, neighbor.

YouTube video by euronews All aboard except the driver? A fully autonomous train takes to the tracks in Germany

1. In Hamburg there is a "fully autonomous train" that for some reason has a human operator to press the ON switch first thing in the morning and the OFF switch at the end of the night. In a recent talk about AI in science, I asked the audience to consider whether they want to be like that operator.

Sauver le wallon avant qu’il ne soit trop tard? Aujourd’hui langue moribonde, le wallon n'est presque plus parlé dans le sud de la Belgique. Y aura-t-il un sursaut pour la sauver?

Jusqu'à la Première Guerre mondiale, le wallon était la langue la plus parlée dans le sud de la Belgique. Aujourd’hui, la langue est moribonde, mais certains espèrent encore un élan pour la sauver. ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/221...

So love wobbegongs. Everything is good about the wobbegong. Its name. Its flattened Oscar the Grouch face. Its frondy bits. Its lazy life as a hungry rug. And it’s a shark. Outstanding animal 10/10

For comparison, every robotic mission NASA has ever sent in its history, from the dawn of the Space Age 65 years ago to today, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond, has cost less than $40B.

I know which one has done more for humankind and which one should be dismantled.

si ce vote là passe...

je n'aurais jamais cru que l'état de droit serait autant menacé au canada, et pas par les conservateurs!

“Society says “young men are turning far right because of feminists” and not “young women are turning to feminism because of far right men” is because the first rule of patriarchy is to blame women for everything a man does.” meme text on black bkgd

Rudolph gets all the love, so let’s talk about the names of Santa’s other reindeer.

dasher | noun | one that dashes
dancer | noun | one that dances
prancer | noun | one that walks or moves in a spirited manner

Ok, those three are easy to understand.

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A civilisation that contains destitute poor as well as billionaires is an abject failure. A civilisation that contains trillionaires is one that will soon collapse. You've all been warned, many times, by many people, and yet here we fucking are.

Girl Guides of Canada Inclusion makes Girl Guides of Canada stronger. It ensures that girls and youth have a place to build confidence, develop the skills to thrive and connect with a community that sees them for who they truly are. Girl Guides of Canada welcomes all girls - cisgender and transgender - as well as non-binary people who are comfortable in spaces that focus on and are driven by the experience of girls. Learn more about our commitment to inclusivity and accessibility at girlguides.ca/inclusivity

Girl Guides logo with a trans flag ribbon in one corner.

Girl Guides of Canada has made a statement, likely in response to the cowardly decisions of Girlguiding UK. 🏳️‍⚧️

Supriya Dwivedi: Mark Carney is giving in to the bros Fighting poverty and violence around the world means embracing feminist ideas.

So happy my girl @supriya.bsky.social is out here opinionating again: "When Canada walks away from feminist policy, it abandons a key driver of poverty and strife. And when Canada appears to bow to bro-signalling ... it has joined the league of polite misogyny." www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive? Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?

Vous avez l'impression qu'on veut nous entrer l'IA gen dans la gorge coûte que coûte même pour des apps souvent très polluantes (plutôt nombreuses) qui souvent n'améliorent rien ou qui ne servent à rien? Raison? OpenAI a des plans d'investissements de 1400 milliards et des revenus de 20 milliards.

Parmi les phénomènes qui ont retenu, entre autres, notre attention: les schibboleths "baleine", "arrête", "connaissent", "photo", "poteau" ainsi que la postériorisation de /a/ devant /R/ dans des mots comme "guitare", "gare", "prépare".

Depictions of evolution where a phylogeny often has humans on the far right or top can give an impression of evolution being progressive of leading to ‘increased complexity’ when it does not. Top figure shows such a phylogeny which can look the same as ‘the March of progress’ depiction most commonly used to depict evolution (showing monkey to man erroneous march of evolution) - instead swiveling some nodes on a phylogeny where humans are shown closer to the center (which doesn’t change relationships) can lead to better ‘tree thinking’

New post by me on #MITPressReader @mitpress.bsky.social

On the 100th anniversary of the #ScopesMonkeyTrial
the ways we depict #evolution can still give an erroneous progressive view (that evolution leads to humans or ‘increased complexity’).

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/is-our-pictu...

"What kind of future are we leaving for our children" is no longer asked. Billionaires and their cronies have evolved into beings that can't think more than six months out. Nobody is building anything to last or endure. Kids today are raised in a world where humans are sacrificed eagerly for profit.

Le regard de notre caricaturiste Chloé sur l'actualité du 1er décembre 2025 👉 bit.ly/48J7twX

The unpaid bills of Alberta oil and gas companies, explained | The Narwhal We break down the ways some Alberta oil and gas companies are shirking their bills, and what that means for Alberta municipalities and landowners

Oil and gas companies collectively owe hundreds of millions to Alberta citizens, municipalities and the provincial government, and making these companies pay up isn't easy. Why do they owe so much? @drewanderson.bsky.social breaks it down: thenarwhal.ca/alberta-surf...

‘I didn’t even know this type of attack existed’: more than 200 women allege drugging by senior French civil servant In a case echoing the Pelicot trial, dozens of women allege they were given hot drinks mixed with a diuretic to make them urinate. Three of them speak out here

A man in France is accused of drugging more than 200 women at a job interview.

He gave them a drug to make them need to urinate, and then made sure they didn’t have access to a toilet.

Many had to urinate in public or have accidents.

This is why we choose the bear.

Notre énergie à la bonne place Nous n’avons pas besoin de plus d’énergies fossiles ni de projets d’oléoducs au Québec et au Canada. Rappelons aux gouvernements qu’il est temps de mettre notre énergie à la bonne place.

Bien fait. naturequebec.org/campagnes/en...

Thoughts about “AI” Yes it’s: The slop The theft The brainrot The loss of work The crumbling of creator rights The destroying of the environment and infrastructure But it's also the destroying of trust in anything that you’re not seeing with your own eyes right in front of you. Wonder now turned to the narrowing of eyes in immediate scepticism seeing something magical. Questioning the realness of everything from a stilted written apology to profound works by students in school. It feels like a slow poison to creativity and humanity at large. [At the bottom is a doodle of me, mouth a thin line, looking at the viewer]

Morning thoughts about "AI".

Where do we go from here?

Two things that I think would be beneficial to track in our current library attacks/book censorship era that I do not have capacity to do and suspect others who've been doing this for years don't, either.

1. Canadian library budget cuts. There are a LOT.
2. Libraries banning ALA membership.

L’expression « bon matin » acceptée par l’OQLF | OHdio | Radio-Canada Écoutez l’extrait de l’émission Place publique : L’expression « bon matin » acceptée par l’OQLF

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Est-ce que votre diète médiatique est équilibrée?

De formats, sujets, origine géographique et points de vue différents?

open.substack.com/pub/brucemeh...

For Carney, economy = society.
His utter neglect of social policy and basic diplomacy brings to mind Margaret Thatcher’s famous claim that there’s no such thing as society. It suggests someone who sees the world in terms of (underspecified) economic models. Welcome to governing in econometrics.

It shifts responsibility from universities, who do have a duty of care, to journals, who absolutely do not.

Encouraging publication is good. Teaching publication is even better. But outsourcing graduation to the global peer review lottery? That deserves a much harder look.

The uncomfortable truth about mandatory publications for PhD students

There’s a point in this debate that many people tiptoe around: mandatory publication doesn’t just create pressure, it also creates inequality.
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When publication becomes a graduation requirement, the student’s fate depends far more on the efficiency of their environment than on their talent or effort. That’s not academic excellence, that’s structural luck.