Jana Thompson

I’m fucking high, right? This is a hallucination brought on by overwork and tequila, right?

I'm working on my master's in landscape architecture at UBC. I just found your work and would be interested in meeting some time to talk about the intersections of infrastructure and landscape.

Building actual sovereign AI is something Canada should be capable of given the skills of its researchers in the field. Why rely on Open AI and be yet more beholden to a country that has threatened the sovereignty of Canada?

Because NYC is the country's largest city and metro area by far and the home of its news media.

Don't have NYC envy. And I'm not sure MARTA is even vaguely comparable to MTA.

For a country where guns are so freely available, the people who live here seem dumber than dirt when it comes to owning them. I was raised around guns and taught to treat them as deadly weapons that were not toys, but most people in the U.S. seem to treat them like a kid with a water pistol.

But really most people don't care about your visionary leadership skills that aren't that interesting anyway. It's boring. If you're going to share something, stop playing main character and think about the quality of information you're sharing with other people.

This is indeed what most LinkedIn posts really are like. I appreciate people sharing research, or the difficult experiences with a job search. I don't even mind normal corporate news stuff like partnerships or deals because that's probably useful information for someone.

Also I was pregnant around this time too. I remember transit was dangerous for me as my pregnancy progressed because I had to practically yell at people to give me a seat when I was seven months along. I just started taking a car everywhere so that I'd be safe if it was too far to walk.

The taxi system was horrible and they weren't playing by the rules. Lynn Breedlove and others started Homobiles around that time so queer people have safe transportation in that city because taxi drivers were so bad.

In California at one time it was Republicans opposed to gerrymandering, because of how bad it was in that state due to Democrats.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. All people have a right to fair representation, even if I disagree with them.

And what on earth is up with listing Democritus? This just shows you these people have an issue with science. By listing David Hume, they just are showing they have a real issue with empiricism.

I don't approve of what Uber has become or all the unregulated gig economy mess, but the early instance of it was a welcomed thing in that time and place.

Uber was a very particular solution in SF at the time. Transit in SF could be really unreliable on some routes (I remember once walking two miles before a 22 Fillmore showed up). Taxis in SF wouldn't go to parts of the city or would harass certain passengers (Homobiles started as a result as well)

What an odd grab bag of humanity they listed there. Ayn Rand and Dawkins are about as intellectually grabbing as a puddle of vomit, while Chomsky and Foucault have contributed so heavily to the intellectual growth of humanity.

I often wonder why the bits of poetry that come into my head are usually Tennyson or Horace, when neither is even close to my list of favorite poets.

And the result is a a world of pure enshittification.

Americans balk at dense housing. Maybe if we upgraded our building standards a bit so that there was adequate soundproofing it would help, sure. But I really don't get why anyone in their right mind would want a giant house that means two hours in a car commuting every day.

"Build more houses" out here is stupid. Build more housing, yes, but building more single family housing in areas such as WA that don't need more concrete, and in CA where available land is probably a fire trap? That is a really dumb idea.

In Seattle's August 5th elections, I chose every progressive candidate and no new tax outlays.

Taxes in Seattle and Washington State always lay a greater burden on the poor and working class by design (car tabs are a notorious example). Let progressives find a way to work with finances as is.

The mythos of efficiency in that state is ridiculous. It's never been efficient. Given the proliferation of news stories and gossip remembered from childhood, efficiency is only generated from a generous infusion of cash.

The behavior of people within bureaucracies seems to differ by culture. French and Italian bureaucrats shrug and find a laugh in bureaucratic nightmares. Canadians apologize profusely. Texans apparently throw up more roadblocks and say "it's the process".

The bewildering phenomenon of declining quality Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls. Quality and care for craftsmanship seem to be things of the past

While I think this article really doesn't go deep enough, it does make me wonder about why people with enough money to buy decent stuff tend to buy cheaply made junk (as I look at my Dansko clogs which I bought 15 years ago for $10 at a thrift shop): english.elpais.com/culture/2025...

I need to write an email to someone about the state of an academic program and am curious if "performative academic rigor" is a thing because it feels like it is.

Maybe? I keep an eye on what my kid does online. I don't monitor her communications because those ARE private. But honestly, especially given the use of recommendation engines that steer kids towards far right videos and misinformation, I don't think this is child abuse. It's necessary parenting.

Also, for me the stuff of nightmares is the SNCF announcement jingle. I know if I hear that, I'm going to be running late to whatever French town I'm trying to get to. Sometimes for reasons unknown. Sometimes the train hits a boar.

Trains in Europe/UK are better than Amtrak or ViaRail (although ViaRail staff are super apologetic for their late trains). But outside of Switzerland, they often run late.

This is the kind of thing that just makes me roll my eyes. I was born in the 70s and am white, raised working-class. I was and am in no way marginalized because other people were just given a shot at education and getting ahead.

This sort of nonsense is the real victim mentality.

As a person who spent over half their life in Texas, it doesn't surprise me when weather events from there make the news. It surprises me even less when the ineptness of the state government makes the news.

We live in an age of vibe-based evidence. AI is merely a symptom

I have said for twenty years if the U.S. is stupid enough to get mixed up in a war in Iran, I'm leaving and done.

I'm done. I really don't want to live through another twenty years of self-congratulatory war mongering here.