Eric Kennedy

@swanboatsteve.bsky.social Do you happen to have any data for real-world headways at York Uni station during rush hour? I feel like the last couple months I’ve been routinely arriving on the platform to the screen showing a 7 minute wait during PM peak.

A large advertisement on the subway with two photos, one above the other. The top photo shows a man visibly ill in bed, surrounded by Kleenex, with the text “Sick…” written over the image. The bottom photo shows the same man in a crowd at a hockey game, cheering on his team.” The text over this photo completes the phrase as “to SIIIICK” in large cartoon letters. Below is a picture of a package of Tylenol and the text “relief from your worst cough, cold, and flu symptoms.”

Hard to overstate how antisocial and corrosive this Tylenol ad campaign is.

“Take our product so you can go out while contagious and make more customers for us… er, make more people sick!”

Agreed. One thing we do with some folks is fit test masks over different lifespans, wear and tear, etc… often can get good protection way past typical 8hrs!

I do console myself a little, tho… my mask use is nothing compared to medical or hospital waste from a serious illness.

Sounds good, DM or email anytime. I can also try to find you some fit test options in your area.

To be clear for anyone reading: any and all masks will reduce some risk for you and others, fit testing not required! But can be useful for optimizing your personal protection.

Anyways, happy to chat more offline… you know how to find me. But figured I’d reply here in case this info is useful to anyone else too, or in case I can be helpful to others.

Yay masking! Any masking is harm reduction, helps fight stigma, and makes it easier for the next person in the room too :)

I have not been impressed by our testing results on the Flo and would not personally wear it.

Can talk earloop options too, but generally it is hard to get as high a protection (best we’ve seen thus far are N95s modded to earloop).

(3/n)

I’d also fit test you in a Zimi KN100, likely their largest size. These perform really well for many in quant fit testing; they’re semi-reusable designs (just change outer filter); and tons of mods you can make to frame to get it fitting comfortably. Also comes in black like Laianzhi. (2/n)

Context: run community access respirator fit testing program.

If you find auras uncomfortable and tight, but want headstrap protection levels, the next N95 moves we’d often make in a fit testing session would be a Laianzhi KN100 (probably large), perhaps V-Flex L, maybe Draeger 1950 in M/L. (1/n)

I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.

lol I got the same from a colleague: "You're so smart to be wearing a mask. We're all going to get sick. This is a superspreader event."

Thanks, I guess?

Paging @samlmontano.bsky.social

!!!

It's managed to transpose the 38µg/m³ into thinking 38 is the AQI, which it's not... nor is it even the index we'd use here (which is the AQHI, or Air Quality Health Index).

But, sure, the dumb statistical scraper bot is happy to conjure up misinformation and then highlight it to mislead people.

Fun example of "AI" being not just bad but dangerous: Google "AI" is happy to say that Toronto currently has 7 µg/m³ of PM2.5 and is "well below the threshold generally considered healthy." But, the source it links says Toronto is currently actually at PM2.5 of 38µg/m³, which ain't great.

What a classic. And his son went on to be a prolific writer about tragedy fires.

Looking forward to seeing you there and commiserating. En route now :)

CONGRATULATIONS - I'm so thrilled for you!!

I’d be much more open to double spacing if I had literally ever seen a document by a double spacer that wasn’t riddled with an inconsistent pile of single, double, and triple spacing.

Let's check in on how abandoning the whole of idea of public health is going...

**Taps sign**

It ain’t “Artificial Intelligence,” it’s a low-accountability statistical model with a good marketing campaign.

ChatGPT: How do I tell my professor colleagues that LLM drivel they share with me is no more valuable or okay to normalize than the LLM drivel students submit on assignments?

**Taps sign**

It's still 'during COVID'.

You should absolutely wear a respirator (N95, KN95, etc) when in large crowds to protect yourself and others.

But, hot take: if a protest is the only time you’re wearing a mask, you’re making it easier for anti-mask folks to stigmatize and ban. Show solidarity by wearing them elsewhere, regularly.

159 Canadian Forces members were killed in Afghanistan, a higher per-capita fatality rate than Americans.

At least five of those were killed by Americans in so-called “friendly fire” incidents.

USAID ?does/did? have a great wildfire program, but focused on other regions, not Canada. Canada/US partnerships are through other mechanisms (e.g., compacts, CIFFC, etc). Lots of tough questions to ask about how changes in US policy affect fire cooperation, but USAID impacts primarily elsewhere.

Anyways, just wanted to highlight this article for doing a good job at presenting this. I think maybe @hspray.bsky.social is the journalist (maybe?) so kudos! And since CBC doesn't have a Bluesky presence, also want to highlight her good work to @hannahhoag.bsky.social and other awesome folks. (8/8)

This matters because the public needs to critically evaluate different claims, like when a politician takes a shot by implying "the fires/outcomes are worse because they didn't call in the forces." That's often presented without context, so I'm really grateful it's contextualized here. (7/n)

Maybe we as a society want to change that. Maybe we think the military should be in the business of firefighting (many in the Canadian Forces disagree, BTW!).

But, it doesn't serve robust debate when we perpetuate misunderstandings (e.g., soldiers can be dumped in as firefighters). (6/n)

What this article does well is explain /why/ the military hasn't been called before diving into that debate: it's because the military has particular strengths (e.g., heavy lift aircraft for evacuations, able-bodied people for mop-up) and weaknesses (basically zero expert wildfire fighters). (5/n)

But, when this is covered by journalists, it can often be treated as though it's a settled question: "well, we have a military that could help, and they haven't been called in, so why is that?"

The problem is it's not settled: whether the military would actually "help" is a debate, not a truth.