Erin Braaains!-John 🧟

A puzzle box that says MC Escher. The picture is “Order and Chaos”, which is a pencil drawing with many broken things arranged around a geometric sphere and star.

Zane the floofy grey lynx point cat is sitting on a chair at the table and looking at many grey puzzle pieces

Zane the floofy grey lynx point cat is sitting on a chair at the table, resting his chin on the table, giving those puzzle pieces a closer look

It’s Thanksgiving so as per tradition we start a new puzzle at my parents’ house. Zane is helping.

Would you go to Canada Post for your mortgage? Why advocates think postal banking could be a lifeline for the Crown corp. Amidst the labour dispute between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, a debate concerning the future of post offices across the country has once again taken the stage: Should Canada ...

For a place like Canada that has a banking oligopoly and a telecom oligopoly, maybe a public option provided by the post office would be a welcome addition,” said Enoch.

www.thestar.com/business/wou...

"Hopefully tomorrow's performance of 4'33'' will cleanse my artistic pallet."

You can write your MPs to say you would consider this a betrayal of our sovereign goals.

Love the ghosts on the Tenth Ave bike route.

Canadians: The federal government is seeking public input on how AI should be developed and used in business, research, and the military.

If this scares the shit out of you, please let them know:

Ken Sim's stunt of a motion has put the City Manager in the difficult position of delivering against an unreasonable ask, with an unreasonable timeline. The process is so rushed that we will have NO details when we vote in November.

Ken Sim won't know what he's voting to cut. And neither will you.

this is huge and legitimately the best thing Carney has done for Canadians.

it should have been done decades ago. it's horrific that previous prime ministers didn't

"What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid."

That's the thing about this swing to involuntary care: people can't get voluntary care. People who are incarcerated can't get care. Where are the resources to support involuntary care suddenly going to come from?

"Recent actions announced by the City of Vancouver do not add up for our economic survival. Asking every city department to arbitrarily cut budgets by a blanket percentage is not only a ineffective short-term measure, it could negatively affect our long-term recovery."

-- Ken Sim in 2020

This budget is reckless. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our amenities are quite literally falling apart. A 0% increase combined with a raise for the VPD means big cuts to already struggling services and infrastructure, no matter how ABC wants to spin it.

Ah, I'm behind then. Trying to hold too many things in my brain at once right now.

If taxes don't increase, the VPD will still take its cut and your landlord's just going to raise the rent anyway.

Contact Mayor and Council Contact City Council and the mayor as a group.

Take 5 minutes this morning and leave Vancouver City Council a note to oppose Motion 1: 0% tax increase. Vancouver has some of the lowest taxes in Canada and we pay for that through deferred maintenance on infrastructure and cuts to arts and essential services. vancouver.ca/your-governm...

The new economics of media is the old economics of media. Affiliate marketing links to Prime Day and related seasonal sales events generates a not-insignificant revenue for these companies. Something I first encountered hawking my debut novel. Which I thought for sure had to be illegal in some way.

People dropping by my office this week to say sorry #Kyanite won, we know you were really excited about #Tugtupite. It's okay guys, I'll live. #MinCup25

Many small piles of wool in many colours ranging from yellow-green to red, peach, orange, brown

People sitting and having tea around a long table with many small piles of wool in many colours ranging from yellow-green to red, peach, orange, brown

End of day madder, coreopsis, walnut #ehgautumnalreds #wool #botanicaldyes

Fresh bright red wool locks out of the madder pot with colourful tongs

Samples of wool and yarn in various shades of peach, orange and pink

I’ve been waiting for this all year. It’s madder day! #botanicaldyes

So I'd like to show a demonstration of what this "waffles" thing is. Here's a conversation between *this site's* CEO, some random guy, and the cofounder of "Tangled", a GitHub clone built on top of Bluesky's protocol.

Please take a moment to really think, about the shape of this thoughtlessness.

Crumpet is a great name for a cat.

Two Indigenous women MLAs in Winnipeg have had their offices firebombed in the past six weeks. And yet, it hasn't been national news. Hear about this and more on today's 7-minute Daily News podcast.

sandyandnora.com/daily-news-o...

Chow is pushing for larger signage and changing Toronto’s program so that once a driver is fined for speeding the first time, they cannot be fined again for seven days. It gives drivers an opportunity to receive their fine in the mail and become aware of the camera’s location.

This makes me feel crazy. Being aware of the speed limit is like step 1 for driving! "Stealing is illegal, sure, but how are people supposed to know which stores they can steal from without getting caught if the camera ones don't have giant 'NO STEALING' signs??"

www.thestar.com/news/gta/20-...

I didn’t really have sharing the gym with the Dallas Mavericks on my bingo card today but okay.

COVID-19 vaccine campaigns launch across Canada for 2025-26 | CBC News Provinces and territories are starting to roll out updated vaccines to protect people from COVID-19.

"If you receive this updated LP8.1 dose, you actually will get [a] nice fourfold increase in the antibody levels compared to if you didn't get this vaccine."

While blue kyanite is used in jewelry, porcelain & pottery glazes, plus gets physics points as an index mineral, it’s the extraordinary ‘reindeer blood’ tenebrescent, & phosphorescent tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals” which is also a gem, gaining both art and physics points for me. #MinCup25

Go for blood. Vote #Tugtupite! #MinCup25

How any Jews can read this and not hear our own history is utterly beyond me.

This would be why I am such a strident critic of digitization as a substitute for actual archival preservation. My sixteenth century documents are far sturdier and likely to survive another 500 years than the detritus on the internet. And digitization is not democratization.

In the end, while this is a very tough choice between two I love, I vote #Hematite. It turns Mars red, tells the story of the oxygenation of Earth AND possible presence of water on early Venus, crucial in art (ancient & modern) & was my gateway drug into geology. Say YES to the bloodstone! #MinCup25