steph

A family friend was telling us about what her husband shared about his experience in Broadview before he was deported back to Mexico. She's been sharing to friends and family because she's just in disbelief & horror what her husband told her. She wasn't able to talk to him until he was in Mexico.

Surprise guest Matúš Vallo, mayor of Bratislava: “One of the main tasks of us mayors is to make people, our citizens, believe that change is possible.”

Bringing a Survey to a Gun Fight “Pollingism” Has Failed Democrats and Voters. Here’s Why, and What to Do Instead.

The job of a good message isn't to say what is popular. The job of a good message is to make popular what we need said.

MAGA and Madison Avenue have known and exploited this. But it also very much applies to campaigns for good.

www.weekendreading.net/p/bringing-a...

if lore is to be believed, fred astaire used to dance and glide around his tailor's workshop before taking a suit home to make sure the collar always stayed glued to his neck

All the thinkpieces about Bluesky don't account for the fact that it's occasionally 100% wall-to-wall baseball on here

The great American pastime is finding any justification to make people suffer

open.substack.com/pub/somethin...

Pop Base tweets: "Kim Kardashian said on ‘The Kardashians’ that she believes the moon landing was fake: “They’re gonna say I’m crazy no matter what, but like, go to TikTok. See for yourself. […] There’s no gravity on the moon. Why is the flag blowing? The shoes that they have in the museum that they wore on the moon is a different print in the photos. Why are there no stars?”"

"go to TikTok. See for yourself."

Screenshot of an article headline "AI layoffs to backfire: Half quietly rehired at lower pay" with "at lower pay" being highlighted

This is sometimes read as "look 'AI' isn't working". But the opposite is true.

_This_ is what "AI" is _for_. Push down labor power, push down wages, make employment more insecure.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/forrester_ai_rehiring/

Looks like some Calgary high school students are organizing a walk-out in support of teachers.

Reddit post: tr.ee/abpost

They're using Instagram to co-ordinate it.

Main account: www.instagram.com/calgaryhighs...

I made a list of all the IG accounts: tr.ee/cmlist

#Calgary #Alberta #ableg

What Republicans Know (Full Book) | Flux Community Get more from Flux Community on Patreon

🧵There's a pernicious myth that Republicans have more money than Democrats. In fact, Democrats have raised more—including so-called "dark money."

Republicans have less money but understand politics better. This is why they win.

My upcoming e-book "What Republicans Know" discusses…

what's with the alt text

Chicago kids FTW

Flyer: www.threads.com/@emily.gener...

Attention #yycbike

Alright, organized labour in Alberta, eyes are on you (us). Time to stand up for collective bargaining. Time to stand up for workers rights. Time to push back against draconian anti-worker overreach.

Regardless of direction, the next steps will define the labour movement in Alberta for decades.

Guillermo del Toro quote "...think about wealth for me for example. A wealthy man that has enough..."

"not a man that needs more. If you have enough to invite somebody to beer..."

"...you're rich. If you have, whatever-"

"- yachts and planes and islands and you STILL need more? You're not rich."

Guillermo del Toro on wealth: "a wealthy man is a man who has enough, not a man that needs more. If you have enough to invite someone for a beer? You're rich. If you have a yacht, planes, islands, and you still need more? You're not rich."

Colour image of Haida artist Yagulanaas’s ‘Bone Box,’ also associated with his Haida Manga work.

‘Bone Box’ by Haida artist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, BC. “Fabricated out of discarded trays that once stored archeological collections, this interactive work calls for us to engage with one another.”

Scientists themselves determine what is valued within science. Yet we act as if beholden to external managers, bean-counters who confuse the production of papers with scientific progress.

We don't have to find better ways to navigate the prison of metrics-driven scientific assessment.

What does a reaction like this reveal? It reveals a kind of learned helplessness. A mind so accustomed to the constraints of its environment that its first impulse is not to imagine a different world, but to seek a more efficient way of navigating its own prison.

Ubadah Sabbagh is referring to closed-access for-profit publishing here, but I keep thinking about how perfectly it describes the general push to incorporate large language models into the scientific workflow in the interest of higher "productivity".

ubadah.substack.com/p/beware-giv...

Every time I sit down to write a piece I feel certain that I would rather die than actually write it and yet somehow I would rather die ten times harder before I ever let the word machine write for me.

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro says 'I'd rather die' than use generative AI Del Toro's new Frankenstein adaption reimagines Mary Shelley's 1818 Gothic novel. Frankenstein was like a tech bro: "creating something without considering the consequences," he explains.

“I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I'm 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak. ... The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, ‘What is your stance on AI?’ And my answer was very short. I said, ‘I'd rather die.’” 🫡

Heyyyy we desperately need more archaeologists to volunteer to answer questions from students via video chat through @skypeascientist.bsky.social.

We have 80 unmatched teams. We’ve already matched 650 😵‍💫

If you know any archaeologists, please send them here www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

I am starting my third winter bike commuting right here in Edmonton. It has changed my life for the better. I kept my bike parked at home only about 15 work days last year. Winter biking is fantastic - even in Yeg!

Choose!
220 e-cargo bikes vs. 1 Rivian.
Fight!

I honestly believe that opposition to Me Too—or even willingness to mock it—is an indicator of personal moral rot and nascent conservatism. So far this has a 100% predictive accuracy.

shoutout to calgary ward 7 for getting terry wong out of municipal politics 🫶

This is a metaphor that applies more broadly, too: pandering to a tiny minority of conspiracy-curious Albertans makes life objectively (and needlessly) worse for the rest of us.

Remember that. #abpoli

This is the essay Albertans need to read going into the municipal election. I can’t say I’ve ever been more disgusted by public discourse anywhere in this country than the current race to the bottom for mayor. Calgary comes off as a city without a single courageous leader.