Eric Kennedy

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.

This is actually quite a live debate in the emergency management world - lots of forums & publications debating it! People hold passionately different views (e.g., "the forces are well equipped with strong young people" vs "they lack training or expertise for this specific work"). (3/n)

One trope is this: wildfires are bad, so we should call in the military!

You hear this a lot from different advocates, politicians, and community members. It's based on a broader assumption that the military is inherently and objectively a catch-all for any disaster response.

(2/n)

Why hasn't Sask. called for military help? The province says it needs wildfire expertise | CBC News Despite facing one of its earliest, most aggressive fire seasons, Saskatchewan has not asked the federal government for the military's help. Why not? Provincial officials say the military doesn't have...

One of my pet peeves with wildfire coverage is when media outlets uncritically parrot bad understandings of emergency management and how different levels of government work together to manage wildfire.

So, I want to highlight CBC doing it well! Brief 🧵 (1/n)

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

This is how I start the conversation about LLMs with my students: it’s like going to the gym and riding an e-bike on the treadmill.

Then, we figure out how to co-create a class where it’s safe to struggle at workouts together.

You said you weren’t gonna let that happen! :p

This is how I feel when I see folks saying “we should have a Canadian FEMA.”

Perpetual subtweet on people using AI in academia: if you can’t be bothered to do the analysis or write it yourself, why in the world should I be bothered to read it, let alone trust it?

Wait are you here for iREC?? It would be absolutely delightful to finally get to meet you in person!

One of the things I love about working on wildfire is the way to gives doors to talk about things that folks normally have walls up about otherwise. Air purifiers, masks, climate, etc…