Keith Soltys

I have never understood why judges are elected in the US. BTW, we don't elect them in Canada either.

Smudge is laying at the top of the cat tree, Spice is in the middle, and Saja is there at the bottom. It's all coming together now!

NEWS FLASH: We have achieved the rare and coveted Cat Tree Triple Decker

Featured Links - October 29, 2025 Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. Autumn colours in the park Catalog of Dark Patterns . "Discover a v...

This week's Featured Links post links to articles about a catalog of dark patterns used to screw over users, a chip to restore some vision to people with macular degeneration, using NotebookLM as a personal journal, and more.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/feat...

#AI #Science #Vision #Politics

Today's blog post is about my thoughs on the iPad Mini 7 after using it for six months. It's a companion post to yesterday's post about iPad OS 26.

TL: DR: It makes a lovely ereader but the hardware has some limitations.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/appl...

#Apple #iPadMini

Today's blog post is about my first impressions of iPad OS 26 on the iPad Mini 7. TL;DR: What was Apple thinking?

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/firs...

#Accessibility, #Apple #Design, #iPad, #IOS26

All those Seattle fans booing Springer after he went down from being hit by a pitch might have tipped the karmic balance in Toronto's favour, and having Springer hit the winning homer made it especially sweet.

#BlueJays #Toronto #baseball

This week's Featured Links post links to a dozen articles about how SportsNet's announcers broke the mold in their Game 5 ALCS coverage, the coming economic AI apocalypse, what the West should learn from China, and more.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/feat...

#AI, #COVID19, #Politics, #Technology

Options for Phones at Protests Simply showing up to a protest leaves you susceptible to all sorts of surveillance, including cameras, drones, facial recognition, and more. There's not always a lot you can do about pernicious street...

If you're planning to protest tomorrow and have questions about carrying your phone, please check out this article from my colleague @yaelwrites.com

It also shares an easy trick for stripping photos of their metadata.

blog.yaelwrites.com/options-for-...

Mayes: 'Absurd' that Grijalva's not sworn in; threatens lawsuit Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is demanding that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson stop stalling and seat Arizona’s newest congresswoman, who won a special election three weeks ago.

And it's all about Jeffrey Epstein.

Someone somewhere should grow a conscience and leak those files.

Featured Links - October 14, 2025 Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. A grey Lake Ontario Toronto vs Chicago: Transit Moving Mas...

This week's Featured Links post links to articles about how transit in Toronto compares to Chicago's, how librarians are trying to prevent a digital dark age, how a blind photographer ttakes great photos, and more.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/feat...

#AI, #Politics #Science #Space #Technology

Holy crap. This is terrible.

The article states it's "not related to the current U.S. government shutdown". But of course it is: they are both connected by the GOP destroying everything good about this country from the top down and the bottom up.

🧪 #resistrfk #defendresearch #standupforscience #RFKJr #Vaccines #HHS #CDC #antivax

Well that’s not a good development…

We're Toast 63 This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilizati...

Today's post is a collection of links that support my feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. It's part of a continuing series.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/were...

#ClimateChange, #COVID19, #Environment,#Politics, #Religion, #Science,

Insurrectile Dysfunction The White House is determined to achieve an insurrection, even if it has to red pill itself into one.

This is at least the third article I've seen recently about the Trump regime's plans to invoke the Insurrection Act. They need an excuse and they are trying to provoke something. The upcoming No Kings protects on October 18th might do it.

statuskuo.substack.com/p/insurrecti...

Featured Links - October 6, 2025 Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. I didn't post last week, so here's a baker's dozen for you...

This week's Featured Links post has links to 13 articles about the ICE raid in Chicago, China's clean energy revolution, a science fair project that may change lives, and more.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/10/feat...

#ClimateChange, #Environment, #Medical, #Politics, #Science, #Society, #Technology

Alastair Reynolds has blown my mind. once again. "Belladonna Nights" is a powerful, beautiful, elegiac and terribly, terribly, sad rumination on the far future of humanity. It's easily the best story I've read in several years.

For some time, I've been reading mostly novels, so I'm trying to catch up on short fiction. The anthology I'm reading now is Jonathan Strahan's THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY OF THE YEAR, Volume 12, which contains stories from 2017 (When I said 'catch up', I wasn't kidding).

America's Post Trump Blueprint: Day One AFTER Trump A lawful, relentless plan to bury authoritarianism, rebuild our alliances, and harden American democracy so it can’t be broken again.

This reads like inverse of Project 2025. In an ideal world it would happen, but I'm not holding my breath. But it is something to work towards.

deanblundell.substack.com/p/americas-p...

#politics

Toronto does the same thing with cold water from Lake Ontario.

LLMs should never be used in any application where it is important that they be accurate.

They are only appropriate for situations where it doesn't matter whether the task fails.

Transcript: Congressman Crow's Floor Speech on the Concerning State of US Politics & the Path Forward to Unite Our Country WASHINGTON — A transcript of Congressman Jason Crow's (D-CO-06) full speech from the House floor.

Representative Jason Crow (D-CO) on this moment. Not just the transcript but the video of a floor speech yesterday. A rallying cry:

I hope Pope Leo defrocks him.

The Spirit of the Jack Pine "The one thing that Canadians had in common was a vast landscape and a northern geography… What made Canadians unique was their engagement with this hostile and unforgiving land that dictated the term...

In Canada, there is little room for the rugged individualist. Mr. Marlboro Man wouldn't last long here; he wouldn't be able to push his vehicle out of the snowbank without asking someone for help."

charlieangus.substack.com/p/the-spirit...

From Charlie Angus:

"Canada may be the only nation in the world whose original myth stories came from a palette and a paintbrush.

But we are, at our core, still children of the wild north. The reality of life in such a land is so that we could never survive without our trust in each other.

Featured Links - September 16, 2025 Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. Swans on the bay COVID-19 infections impair our immune systems for ...

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about how COVID can mess up our immune system for years, understanding how octopuses use their appendages, how Apple trains its AI to respond to Trump, and more.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/09/feat...

#AI, #COVID-9, #Politics, #Science, #SFF

BREAKING: Charlie Kirk's Alleged Killer in Custody: 22 Year Old Registered Republican From A Trump Loving Family Charlie Kirk’s death was horrific. The rhetoric he normalized made it feel predictable and it looks like one of MAGA's own is responsible.

This is the best commentary I've seen from anyone so far (bloggers, influencers, or mainstream media) on Charlie Kirk's shooting.

I'd quote a bit of it, but I'd run up against Bluesky's absurdly low character count limits and it wouldn't easily split up.

deanblundell.substack.com/p/breaking-c...

The US versus Canada 10 It's time for links to a few more articles about the continuing contretemps between Canada and the US. There are no signs that the situation...

Today's post has links to more articles about the continuing contretemps between Canada and the US. There are no signs that the situation is improving and I don't expect it to soon.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-...

#CanadaStrong #Environment, #Food, #Politics, #ElbowsUp

Featured Links - September 9, 2025 Things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. Some backyard flowers Setting Type . "Exploring book cover layout f...

This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about cover artist Michael Whelan, why the right hates progress, and science under siege in the US.

coredump3.blogspot.com/2025/09/feat...

#Art, #Books, #Politics, #Science, #SFF

If you're an author on the list of books stolen by Anthropic AI, fill out this form to be (I think) part of the class action suit.