David Haigh

Denmark’s government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15 Denmark’s government on Friday announced an agreement to ban access to social media for anyone under 15, ratcheting up pressure on Big Tech platforms as concerns grow that kids are getting too swept up in a digitized world of harmful content and commercial interests.

Yes. Maybe raise that to the mid-20's.

Our kids are not eyeballs for advertisers and targets for trolls.

Denmark’s government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/denmark-moves-to-ban-social-media-for-children-aged-15-under/

#socialmedia

Cartoon by Stephen Collins

#StephenCollins lays the #aihype bare...because now #ai is in your peas!

#cartoon #comic #funny #rofl

I don't always agree with Tom Muclair.

He nailed this one - from 10 years of #environmental gaslighting to completely open disregard from the Liberals. So much for pur #green #economy.

Tom Mulcair: ‘Only God can make a tree,’ but a bad budget can destroy it […]

Looks like BC has a brain when it comes to supplying power to data centres for #AI and #crypto.

I love this line:

"In that sense, looking at AI data centres “are not particularly attractive with respect to generating economic activity,” said Antweiler, chair of the strategy and business […]

t's clear that you can build a nicer online environment than X has; in many ways Bluesky already did. What's less clear is that you can build a Twitter clone that mostly makes people feel good. For as vital and hilarious as Twitter often was, it also accelerated the polarization of our politics and often left users feeling worse than they did before they opened it. Bluesky's ingenuity in reimagining feeds and moderation tools has been a boon to social networks, which have happily adopted some of its best ideas. (You can now find "starter packs" on both Threads and Mastodon.) Ultimately, though, it has the same shape and fundamental dynamics as a place that even its most active users called "the Hellsite."

I wrote about Bluesky a year after the big post-election surge in users, and whether you can build a happier version of Twitter while keeping its same basic shape https://www.platformer.news/bluesky-2025-content-moderation-fediverse/

Wab Kinew's gov't tabled bill 50 in Manitoba that won't allow any future provincial gov't to use the notwithstanding clause for provincial legislation without going through the courts first. This is what a true leader does for his constituents. Alberta's and Quebec's leadership pale in comparison.

I took a course with Dr Blit. His opening statement was, "I just sold all of my tech stocks" and "AI is the new electricity" and "generative AI can do everything in descriptive analytics".

That was all I needed to know that he was a hype artist on par with #Altman, #Nadella, and #Musk.

Try not […]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
..
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and […]

"Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out."

The Jay's gave Toronto and Canada an […]

Carney Says He Apologized to Trump Over Ad Reviving Reagan’s Tariff Criticism

Elbows all the way down, part 2. Carney fans were sure he wouldn't really have done this. Now I'm sure they'll say he's merely playing 4D chess.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/w...

Cover of The Three Questions by Bob Rae

I still remember meeting (then Premier) Bob Rae as a high school student when he toured an automotive supplier where I was working.

He struck me as a thoughtful, genuine leader who saw trade-offs and had a clear moral vision.

Rae introduced me to Rabbi Hillel's 3 […]

[Original post on mstdn.ca]

I am immensely grateful there are some intelligent voices that recognize the risk of #AI and that, instead of cheerleading the technology, it must be regulated.

I hope the #Canadian government listens. Our future is at stake […]

Image of 4 Pumpkins - a smurf, a maple leaf, a Pikachu, and a traditional jack o lantern

The pumpkins are ready...

#Halloween #canada #smurfs #pokemon

Image of 4 Pumpkins - a smurf, a maple leaf, a Pikachu, and a traditional jack o lantern

The pumpkins are ready...

#Halloween #canada #smurfs #pokemon

Good riddance.

Now do the rest.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livestory/prince-andrew-is-losing-his-prince-title-and-his-royal-estate-9.6960522

A week or so ago, I wrote about an absolutely horribly-designed poll from the government of Canada, theoretically asking Canadians what they thought we should be doing about "AI". I said that it was tilted so far in favour of AI - the questions basically embedded assumptions that we need AI, we […]

Now take this policy, and apply it to the unstarted, paused, and vacant apartments in the GTA.

#housing #housingcrisis

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/26/right-to-buy-reverse-brighton-tackling-social-housing-crisis

Armed police swarm student after AI mistakes bag of Doritos for a weapon - Dexerto Armed officers swarmed a 16-year-old student outside a Baltimore high school when an AI gun detection system flagged Doritos as a firearm.

Edge cases matter when you're outsourcing decision-making to a system. #ai

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/armed-police-swarm-student-after-ai-mistakes-bag-of-doritos-for-a-weapon-3273512/

Elbows Up! by Various; edited by Elamin Abdelmahmoud | Penguin Random House Canada A blazing collection of responses to the U.S.'s shocking annexation threats and the swell of Canadian national unity that followed, from a remarkable array of Canada's sharpest and most influential mi...

You can buy a copy here or wherever books are sold.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/808505...

RE: https://aus.social/@firstdogonthemoon/115428881079224079

Good cartoon highlighting terrible design.

#Cloud everywhere creates enormous reliability concerns. If companies do that, they need immediate fail-over and fail safe protection...which is very hard.

Why is Halloween starting so much earlier each year? A business professor explains Once a modest fall festivity, Halloween has transformed into a monthslong commercial phenomenon. You can hardly blame retailers.

tl;dr profit

Why is Halloween starting so much earlier each year? A business professor explains
https://theconversation.com/why-is-halloween-starting-so-much-earlier-each-year-a-business-professor-explains-267716

@dyckron Third biggest retail sales event, behind back to school and Christmas.

With more and more supply chain volatility, vendors are queuing inventory earlier too, even before the promotions start, resulting in backlogs, demurrage, spoilage and waste up and down the supply chain. I'm working […]

New Comic Strip found: Arctic Circle by Alex Hallatt for Sun, 19 Oct 2025 https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/arcticcircle/s-3885430

#comicstrip #arcticcirclestrip

Canada’s brain gain: A scientific migration amid U.S turmoil More than 600 scientists – about half from the U.S. – ‘raise their hands’ as they compete for positions at a Canadian Hospital.

Canada’s brain gain: A scientific migration amid U.S turmoil

#elbowsup #tradewar

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/canadas-brain-gain-a-scientific-migration-amid-us-turmoil/

Big Tech is paying millions to train teachers on AI, in a push to bring chatbots into classrooms The country’s largest teachers unions are teaming up with tech companies like Microsoft and OpenAI to help educators build literacy in artificial intelligence.

No...no conflict here.

#ai #school #education

https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-teacher-union-microsoft-f7554b6550fb90519dd8129acac8e291

Big Tech is lying to everyone about its fantasy-land AI deployment, and most of our "journalism" organizations are merely doing stenography. As usual.

Ed Zitron is one of the few people who's doing, you know, his job […]

Amazing what happens when governments cooperate, focus on the citizen, prioritize - bringing time to completion from 3 years to 1.5 years is no small feat!

#construction #toronto #lean

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gardiner-expressway-construction-complete-october-2025-9.6942578

Cartoon by Stephen Collins. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2025/oct/17/teach-kids-internet-bollocks-not-my-old-rubbish-says-shakespeare-the-stephen-collins-cartoon

Ghost #Shakespeare makes some solid points. But the teacher should check #mastodon first.

#stephencollins #cartoon #funny

RE: https://mastodon.social/@thefunnypages/115386448026588421

Bonus points for being the first comic I've seen with the word "planogram" in it!

#merchandising #retail #funny