Oct 22, 2025, 6:13 PM
A new kind of #corporate bullshit has arrived: some of my document writing has been flagged as "off-putting AI generated style", even though I did not use any AI to assist on writing that.
Ironically, I did use an LLM to write some cruft at the end of the doc, but that part wasn't flagged.
Apparently as a non-native speaker my English is not "simple human English". And that's already me self-censoring on the use of em dashes because I had already noticed that ChatGPT overuses them.
Oct 21, 2025, 10:39 PM
What's the direction The Walrus is looking for? To follow NYT steps as a place where a veneer of journalism can be used to wrap a trojan horse of garbage opinion pieces appeasing questionable people?
We don't need "radically pluralistic" outlets. We need media companies that have uncompromising standards and vet the stuff they're amplifying.
Oct 21, 2025, 10:27 PM
> No randomized controlled trial has ever shown that masks — even good masks properly fitted — reduce transmission of respiratory viruses.
> The only explanation for this, that I can think of, is that there was a desperate need for a way of ritualizing the fear that had been generated, and masking provided the needed ritual.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/david-cayley-cbc-actively-suppressed-credible-covid-dissent
This man is objectively wrong in his reporting of public health matters and thinks that the issue is that #CBC needs to be "radically pluralistic"
Oct 21, 2025, 10:25 PM
A few weeks ago #TheWalrus came up with a page promoting online gambling. Now they're platforming opinion pieces (https://thewalrus.ca/does-the-cbc-still-speak-for-canada/) that parrot the narrative that CBC is partisan or pro-government propaganda.
To no one’s surprise, the author of this barely veiled accusation masquerading as book has published nonsensical COVID "dissenter" bullshit during his CBC tenure and is grieving that his shitty journalism was rejected
Oct 21, 2025, 1:44 AM
Nature makes the wrinkliest mushy grapes the sweetest pleasure bombs. Sometimes I doubt myself… perhaps this one is too far gone? No. Trust the process. Be not afraid of rotten grapes because fortune favours the bold.
Oct 19, 2025, 4:38 PM
As good as any other day to remember
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Hotel_Vancouver
opened on February 28, 2017, with Donald Jr., Eric Trump and developer Joo Kim Tiah in attendance […] met with public protests and a boycott of the ceremony by Mayor Robertson and other local politicians.
On August 28, 2020, the hotel reportedly closed permanently and was filing for bankruptcy. […] On April 1, 2022 TA Global Berhad reopened the hotel under the brand Paradox Hotel Group and the name Paradox Vancouver.
Oct 17, 2025, 1:23 AM
Oct 16, 2025, 1:10 AM
ICYMI @viticci I found a funny quirk of AI ubiquity on MacOS:
The Books app generally doesn't facilitate the reader to copy text blurbs from books. But in Tahoe, I can select text from the book and use "Proofread", which opens a small window that does offer the copy option.
LLMs really are the natural enemies of copyright lol
Oct 15, 2025, 11:54 PM
Oct 15, 2025, 11:48 PM
Oct 11, 2025, 4:09 AM
On the other hand it’s unfortunate that this normalizes the unwillingness to divert car infrastructure to active mobility. They have some really egregious sharrows and cyclists end up choosing the sidewalk.
In terms of cycling infrastructure and the ability to bring your bike on public transit I do see Vancouver as being ahead. It’s the ubiquity of cycling and public transit that puts Japan on a different level to me.
Oct 11, 2025, 4:03 AM
It’s amazing how accustomed the Japanese are with sharing the sidewalk among pedestrians and cyclists. They are often zipping by, and pedestrians don’t even flinch. And I’m not talking teenagers, it’s middle age commuters on e-bikes stitching on the sidewalk with baskets full of stuff on decrepit old wheels.
It goes to show how overblown is the panic that people in NA go through regarding bicycles on the sidewalk and e-bikes in general.
Oct 8, 2025, 6:10 AM
Japan is so dense and its commercial streets are so lively that I just had lunch on the third floor, the crossed the street and had an espresso again on the third floor.
The amount of pedestrians walking around and discovering shops is so high that you don’t even need a storefront on the sidewalk to be viable, a sign in front of a stair/elevator is enough.
Oct 6, 2025, 10:41 PM
My Buddhism professor uses NotebookLM to render audio explanations with “slides” for some of their teaching materials. It’s surprisingly good. Amusingly, it has the same speech “accent” that we have, which is pretty specific.
Sep 23, 2025, 3:16 PM
> Sure, the people who I was most interested in hearing from and interacting with may have been the types to leave their friends and family for the big city, but for most people, friends and family were the entire point of life generally, and by extension, social media specifically.
Weirdly relatable minor side comment by Ben Thompson in Stratechery, on why Twitter _was_ more interesting than Facebook but the latter was more promising
Sep 23, 2025, 2:30 PM
lol Sturko booted from BC Conservatives, who could have imagined such a thing… it turns out she is not “one of the good ones” no matter now many necks she steps on
Sep 22, 2025, 1:05 AM
Crowd Source
If you live in Vancouver and like birds, this book can be an agreeable companion. I love how niche that is and yet how some of its verses feel so relatable.
Sep 22, 2025, 1:01 AM
Foundation Season 3, 7 out of 10
The production is still the best thing about this show, and the acting is not too shabby but the plot and directing choices are still hit and miss. The Genetic Dynasty remains as the most entertaining blocks of the story, and in this season they are definitely consequential.
Sep 21, 2025, 11:26 PM
Handing out Foundation Models in #iOS either on-device or private-compute for free is nuts. I don't think I can even imagine how transformative that's going to be.
We developers are a frugal bunch. If you give us an awesome but paid API and a free but inferior API, we'll find a way to make it work with the free shit even it takes 200x more requests and ten times spaghetti code to get something done. And now that spaghetti is also generated so...
Sep 21, 2025, 5:37 AM
Sep 20, 2025, 6:42 PM
Sep 20, 2025, 4:50 AM
After COVID, invasion of Ukraine, genocide in Gaza I have been so ready to not witness any more historical moments…
but it turns out the next one is the accelerated decline of USA that my communist geography teacher from middle school got me pumped up for so many years ago, and for this one I am so back with popcorn
Sep 19, 2025, 9:57 PM
Now this is the kind of thing that belongs on my Home Screen https://mstdn.ca/@HUBVancouverUBC/115233049823395759
Sep 18, 2025, 4:15 AM
Unironically liking #LiquidGlass on all devices, and could not care less about the tenth similarly looking iteration of the physical devices. Just don’t buy the thing 🤷
Sep 16, 2025, 12:35 AM
I was totally out of the loop on this trend of "yield max" funds that are based on covered calls. Wild stuff.
I don't know who out there needs to hear this but active management and complicated derivatives are not correlated with higher returns, the opposite actually. These are instruments marketed to leech on retail investors.
The best #investment you can make is education, specifically on not getting seduced by financial products salespeople.
Sep 3, 2025, 3:11 PM
The Martian, 8 out of 10
Watched this one again with Aline. One of the great space movies of the last few years. Can’t say I’m a super fan of the crew parts but it’s the survival storyline that carries the weight here.
Watching this in 2025 highlights interesting artifacts of the movie’s optimistic times, when the USA is not broadly hated and the president is not tweeting crazy stuff against the Chinese.
Sep 3, 2025, 3:02 PM
11/23: 11 Years / 23 Stories, 9 out of 10
A wild and different kind of biography. Somewhat alien to me as I was never this deep into the punk scene but still enjoyable, thanks to my teenager metalhead days probably.
Sep 3, 2025, 2:59 PM
Vancouver's Special Guardians, 9 out of 10
An interesting collection of research, from documented facts to hearsay, on these locally famous but otherwise obscure little still creatures. The photography involved is great, it shows that the author is a professional. The book is thin even using a large font so it isn’t a lot of material but I appreciate the effort in collecting it all in one place.
Aug 29, 2025, 2:26 AM
I was having issues with not getting personal projects through the finish line, always starting new ones that sapped the energy from ongoing ones.
Then I got promoted and now that problem is solved. I don’t have the time nor energy to even get something started
Jul 26, 2025, 8:22 PM
Jul 26, 2025, 8:14 PM
Jun 25, 2025, 12:13 AM
Murder of Couriers, 10 out of 10
Found this doc/movie by accident and found it so interesting. I ride bicycles, I live in Vancouver, and I caught myself wondering about courier life. This film allowed me to peek behind the reality, awesomeness and toxicity of courier culture in the area.
May 28, 2025, 7:15 PM
The Burnout Society, 4 out of 10
Surprisingly uninteresting, quite a disappointment. The book is a social critique written as a philosophy graduate essay: a lot of time is spent on stating analogies to describe modern society defended by other philosophers only to say that the description is inaccurate because so and so. The book has some pillar concepts related to "achievement society" but routinely reaches for unnecessary analogies to immune systems or alternative framings like positivity/negativity. The audience is people who read Heidegger instead of people who do want to understand burnout society.
May 28, 2025, 7:02 PM
May 28, 2025, 7:02 PM
Schitt's Creek Season 2
Good lighthearted fun. John and David continue to be interesting characters, Alexis is given some more development, but Moira is still... that. I wish they tried less hard to make Roland so disgusting. Overall a slight improvement over the first season, with an hopeful ending that did feel a little forced.
May 20, 2025, 11:08 PM
May 8, 2025, 8:07 PM
May 8, 2025, 7:18 PM
The Handmaid's Tale Season 6
Should this series have ended a while ago? Probably. Are we getting tired of the series trying to hype up yet another conflict using a closing shot of June looking at the camera? Maybe. But we're still here for it, and I think the overall arc of the story is developing in a sensible direction (USA losing to Gilead means Canada starts capitulating with the winners). I just wish that the whole June & Blaine didn't take so much of a central role in the story, it's not an interesting foundation for the plot.
May 8, 2025, 7:14 PM
May 8, 2025, 7:14 PM
Schitt's Creek Season 1, 8 out of 10
Good lighthearted fun. John and David are amusing, but it's a shame that the women characters of the family (Alexis and Moira) are a bit too stereotypical. David's character had a bit more creativity going into him, so why not spice up the women too?
Feb 6, 2025, 7:29 AM
Jan 30, 2025, 7:21 PM