Jett Thunders

Following the outcry, The Sweetshop — the production company hired by TBWA\Neboko to create the ad — released an incredibly defensive statement justifying their work. “For seven weeks, we hardly slept, with up to 10 of our in-house AI and post specialists at The Gardening Club [our in-house AI engine] working in lockstep with the directors,” Sweetshop’s CEO wrote. Sweetshop even went so far as to argue that the amount of labor hours wasted cleaning up AI hallucinations justified the horrible end product. “We generated what felt like dailies — thousands of takes — then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production,” they said. “This wasn’t an AI trick. It was a film.” “I don’t see this spot as a novelty or a cute seasonal experiment,” the CEO continued. “To me, it’s evidence of something much bigger: that when craft and technology meet with intention, they can create work that feels genuinely cinematic. So no – AI didn’t make this film. We did.”

The ad agency's statements are INCREDIBLE

futurism.com/artificial-i...

Artificial Intelligence Wants to Sell You Stuff While the World Burns Meta is betting on generative AI for a new generation of aggressive advertising. It requires immense energy, much of which will likely come from fossil fuels.

Generating video is *immensely* energy intensive. Let's say they produced 3,000 10 second clips for this ad (suspect that'd be an underestimate). At 1KWh per clip it's 3 megawatt hours.

Maybe ~400-500 households usage for a day?

newrepublic.com/article/2028...

Gardening.club 556 followers 1w Our team at The Gardening.Club have been pouring in the hours to achieve something that we finally feel ready to put our name to, and while Al film might be dividing opinions, we want to open the process up and reveal just how much human expertise and craft went into this campaign. There's this idea floating around that Al will do all the work for us. Let's set the record straight: the man-hours poured into this film were more than a traditional Production. Yes, this ad is 100% Al. But it was built with the same care that we bring to any live-action film. The brief was tightly prescribed, with a clear mandate for every single scene, so complete control of each shot was essential and pulled off by our team using proprietary workflows, and pulled off spectacularly well, this was not a prompt-and-pray process. Just like a traditional shoot, the film needed a director, real storytelling instincts, and intentional casting, we selected and shaped each Al performer, their look, energy, and emotional presence, to meet the brief just as we would in live action film. It required virtual location scouting, solid references, screen tests, and a countless amount of takes to maintain true cinematic continuity. Our in-house Gardening.club Al and Post team, spent seven intense weeks refining every single frame. They rebuilt shots, debated composition, shaped shadows, and tuned emotional microbeats with precision all overseen by Sweetshop director duo MΑΜΑ.

Many scenes had ten or more specialists, with each shot running through a tightly engineered pipeline, Google Earth base plates, style-transfer passes, pixel-level refinements, custom LoRAs, control nets, and bespoke ComfyUl workflows. We composited, fixed physics, balanced lighting, and cleaned artifacts in Flame. New tools, same goal: a film that feels real. Of course, we came across roadblocks. There were many times we were challenged, but the team was able to problem-solve on the spot. This project demanded a team willing to push further than the tech was ready to go. But that's exactly why it works. So no Al didn't make this film. We did.

This is a since-deleted LinkedIn post from the marketing agency that created the since-deleted AI-generated McDonalds Christmas ad, and all I can think of is how the energy consumption must've been about on par with a small suburb or heavy industrial load to produce 30 seconds of slop everyone hated

Jordan Peterson’s School Isn’t Accredited. Smith Offered Alberta’s Help | The Tyee The premier met with the controversial psychologist and tried to help his business, finds a Tyee investigation.

As someone who has experienced both Peterson Academy (one week) and an accredited Alberta university (5 years, oops) it is striking to me that Albertan officials were discussing "transferability." The most rigorous testing PA did is an AI-generated multiple choice quiz. thetyee.ca/News/2025/12...

Travelers visiting the United States from countries like Britain, France, Germany and South Korea could soon have to undergo a review of up to five years of their social media history, according to a proposal filed on Tuesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The change would affect visitors eligible for the visa waiver program, which allows people from 42 countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa as long as they first obtain electronic travel authorization. In a document filed on Tuesday in the Federal Register, C.B.P. said it plans to ask applicants for a long list of personal data including social media, email addresses from the last decade, and the names, birth dates, places of residence and birthplaces of parents, spouses, siblings and children. Under the current system, applicants from visa waiver countries must enroll in the Electronic System for Travel Authorization program. They pay $40 and submit an email address, home address, phone number and emergency contact information. The authorization is good for two years.

This is INSANE www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...

and these are our closest allies!

Never forget Jimmy and Paris pushing NFT nonsense. What a hack.

‘After almost destroying the world, our families are friends’: the thrilling podcast from JFK and Khrushchev’s relatives Their relatives might have been on opposite sides of near-nuclear war, but the US and Soviet leader’s descendants have teamed up for an intimate BBC podcast. They talk humanity, hate – and why Trump i...

“It was not lost on me how spectacular it is that humans can be friends or have the potential to be complete enemies,” adds Kennedy…“We see this over and over when countries have gone to war, and it just illustrates how unbelievably stupid it is to fight.”

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

This is compelling. The UCP is manipulating procedural rules in the Legislature to shut down legitimate inquiries. This time it was about settlement expenses in the health area. Next time it could be about settlement expenses in relation to coal.
#ableg #abpoli

@manaboutcowtown.bsky.social

I signed up!

The notion that lonely terminally online people are a big part of our path towards fascism is what scares me about all of these institutions; governments, universities, etc; just digitizing everything and discounting human connection. We are social beings man, we need to interact with each other.

a man in a pink shirt is holding a banana and the word whamed is on the screen Alt: George Michael in a pink shirt is embracing his shoulders and the word whamed is on the screen.

Have you been “Whamageddoned” if you hear only one second of the song and run away before you hear another note?

Jason left the “this legislation was intended to recall the opposition, not us” part out.

Don’t overlook the role QR77 has played in failing to call out and challenge Smith on this radio broadcast. No rebuttal questions are asked. No fact checking is taking during the show. This continues to be a UCP advertisement on publicly licensed airwaves.

Alberta’s Smith says courts should not be gatekeepers on constitutional questions Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says those seeking an independence referendum should not have “gatekeepers,” like the courts, standing in their way.

The things judges tend to like are the ones that are constitutional.

Perhaps the problem for the premier is is less about judges' opinions and more that she thinks being elected should give her carte blanche and that's (at least currently) not how this works.

www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/art...

This is among the most democratically dangerous things Danielle Smith has said.

She wants to remove all checks and balances on her power and projects herself as the embodiment of "the people."

We have left the realm of liberal democracy in this province.

Thesaurus politics.

BREAKING!!!

The day after the UCP attempted to stop the courts from issuing a ruling...

The courts have ruled.

And they not only rule the question is unconstitutional, but that separation requires the consent of First Nations period!

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

We knew that recall petitions were rattling the UCP. But clearly they are also rattled by Corb's no-coal initiative. If Bill 14 gets the expedited treatment that the UCP accorded Bill 2, then the UCP can kill Corb's initiative and make him restart under new, more complex rules.
#ableg #abpoli

Alberta legislation would change citizen referendum rules, restrict political party names | CBC News Bill 14, introduced Thursday by Justice Minister Mickey Amery, transfers powers from the chief electoral officer to the minister when deciding whether citizen petition initiatives should proceed. It a...

So Alberta's latest proposed law would:

👉 Take power over citizen-led referendums from the chief electoral officer & give it to cabinet.

👉 Ban new political parties from using certain words in their names, including: 'conservative,' 'democratic,' 'liberal,' 'Republican,' and 'wild rose.'

Containers of Roundup, a weed killer made by Monsanto, are seen on a shelf at a hardware store in Los Angeles on Jan. 26, 2017. Reed Saxon/The Associated Press

Study that said glyphosate herbicide is safe retracted 25 years after publication www.thestar.com/politics/stu...

𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀 ⇢ CanadaHealthwatch.ca 🍁

Alberta government hires PR firm during teacher strike! 🤯 Read the full story and comment on TownAndCountryToday.com

Alberta government awarded PR firm sole-source $200K contract to run education campaign to sway public opinion during teachers' battle

www.townandcountrytoday.com/beyond-local...

At the recommendation of the premier, CPE was moved from the Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance to Executive Council in April, making Danielle Smith the minister responsible for overseeing the department. CPE has approximately 288 full-time staff and a budget of $38 million.

BREAKING: Alberta Health Services CEO who took over after a controversial firing in January is now himself out.
AHS confirms Andre Tremblay on leave. Minister Matt Jones has appointed a new CEO and chair.
Tremblay was named CEO after Athana Mentzelopoulos was fired earlier this year.

Watch this. The scandals just keep piling up.

Do you remember when a woman started a racist rant at John McCain? He stopped her and admonished her.

NOT ONE of these people, members of Congress and the government, has the decency to do that.

NOT ONE.

🚨BREAKING!🚨

The NDP revealed yet another real estate deal involving Sam Mraiche and seemed to raise concerns he was might have been given the heads up to buy the building by someone in government!

If you watch 2 minutes today, make this it!

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

Interesting story about the current US ambassador to Canada

🚨about $47 MILLION LOST: The Sam Mraiche/AHS Scandal.

Infographic breaks down the Globe & Mail investigation: $600M+ in contracts, political resignations, and the ongoing RCMP & Auditor-General probes.
#ableg #abpoli #UCPCorruption #CorruptCare #UCPayToPlay #DodgyContracts #CdnPoli #RecallThemALL

WOW!

In March, Danielle Smith justified not calling for a public inquiry in part because her new right hand man...

(former #YEG Police Chief, Dale Mcfee)

had looked into the corrupt care scandal

The same one who the Globe showed was partying with Sam Mraiche!

#abpoli #ableg