BenSchmidt

Twitter.com/NautureUnlimited, reports "watching a beaver eat cabbage lowers stress by 17%" 17%? Not 16% or 18%? That's the kind of precision only cabbage-based research can deliver. 👍 👩🏻‍🔬 I watched it twice: my stress dropped 34%, but I'm now measuring stress in percentages. 😜 x.com/NatureUnedit...

French astronaut Colonel Sophie Adenot, sharing a view of the « Southern Lights », halfway through her 9-month mission on the International Space Station (via her Flicker page.) www.flickr.com/photos/soph_...

Dear Ottawa, « March comes in like a lion… » is an expression — it’s not an actual law 🤷‍♂️ 😜

Imagine highschool geometry classes where students used 3D printers to perform experiments like these… #ReuleauxTriangles Video via Science Girl, twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3

My AI Learning journey: new addition for a gentle, page-turner intro to genAI: You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place (2019) by Janelle Shane—a look at how AI works & why it often behaves unexpectedly.

My AI Learning Roadmap: 1st reads… •Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (2019)—Intro to neural networks, learning algorithms, & natural language processing •Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence (2018)—how AI’s predictive power impacts business models

Age is just a number — Curiosity has no expiry date. Grace Hopper began computing at 38, completed the first compiler at 46, helped shape COBOL at 53, kept developing COBOL for the Navy in her 70s, retired at 80 & then became a consultant for Digital Equipment Corporation. Credit: @MIT_CSAIL

IIn the late 90s, 🇨🇦's mobile scene was dominated by Bell & Rogers selling locked CDMA phones. Fido was the 1st 🇨🇦 carrier to offer GSM, enabling SIM swaps. This Nortel handset (1997) added cutting-edge audio developed by BNR/Nortel’s Ottawa acoustic lab, under David Cuddy. #mobilephones #TechHistory

The animation detail in #HayaoMiyazaki / #StudioGhibli productions is amazing! 👏 #TheWindRises (2013) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Win... Video: x.com/anime_twits/status/1938424656647659735

Switzerland's Federal Office of Transport (FOT) is trialing solar panels between tracks in Buttes, where trains run at 70 km/h, to assess wear & tear, and the challenges of maintaining rail infrastructure. A brush placed on the end of trains, keeps the panels clean. www.swissinfo.ch/eng/climate-...

Consumers Distributing (1957–1996), a nostalgic 🇨🇦 experiment in “Internet shopping before the Internet”: •flip through catalogue at home—circling toys, electronics & jewelry •grab a clipboard & stubby pencil to fill out a form w/ item numbers •wait for the conveyor belt to bring items from the back

This morning’s philosophical reflection: «No man ever eats the same cookie twice, for it's not the same cookie and he's not the same man.» —Heraclitus

Making new friends at Day 1 of DPI-Canada.com 2025. Ameca is the world’s most advanced facial expression robot, successfully crossing « the Uncanny Valley » #DPI2025 #DPIPDW

Tomorrow, Monday April 28, 2025 is election day in 🇨🇦. In 2021, just 62% voted. Ask family, neighbours & co-workers to vote! Find your Polling station: elections.ca/Scripts/vis/... #ElbowsUp #CdnPoli

TheMarginalian, by mariapopova.bsky.social, shares advice for writers, from author johngreensbluesky.bsky.social #TFIOS #EverythingIsTB www.themarginalian.org/2014/01/14/j... #writing #creativity

A decade ago, Toronto doctor & uToronto.ca prof, 🇨🇦 Dr. Danielle Martin, schooled a partisan U.S. Senate committee on Canadian health care, and on why private (or as #NeverPoilievre promotes it) "hybrid" healthcare exacerbates waittimes, diverting resources to the wealthy. www.cbc.ca/news/world/d...

Yesterday, Trump's admin trampled yet another symbol of Canada/US friendship 🇨🇦/🇺🇸— terminating 120 years of access enjoyed by Canadians to the Haskell Free Library, built by 🇨🇦 Martha Haskel, on the US/Canada border, to memorialize her love for her late 🇺🇸 husband Carlos. www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/art...

If you are not wearing these boot covers, the only other way onto the Jupiter 2 is as a stowaway—I'm looking at you, you trouble-maker Dr. Smith! 🚀 🪐

A total LUNAR eclipse on March 13-14, 2025, starting just before midnight Thursday, with totality, in Ottawa, between 2:30 a.m. & 3:30 a.m. EDT. Don't bother w/ eclipse glasses from April 8, 2024's SOLAR eclipse. LUNAR eclipses are safe for eyes or binoculars 😄 credit: @museumofscience.bsky.social

Thank you @jamestaylor-com.bsky.social. When convicted felon & president, Trump, keeps getting us down… 🎶 …we all wish we could climb way up to the top of the stairs onto the roof where the world can't bother us …where at night the stars put on a show for free. And share this all …up on the roof 🎶

We ❤️ and support our American neighbours. It's bullying and attacks on our right to exist as a country 🇨🇦 — by Trump, his handlers, and his GOP enablers — which we cannot abide. 🇨🇦

Respect for Illinois Governor @jbpritzker.bsky.social. "The best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel …the kindest person in the room is often the smartest." x.com/GovPritzker/...

Happy Valentine's Day. Thankful it didn't fall on a Wednesday. 😜 ❤️

Thank you @thedailyshow.com #Trade #Tariff #Tarif 🇨🇦 …Convicted felon and president, Trump, wonders who made the terrible deal with Canada 😉

Habitually standing while leaning forward can be a symptom of several medical conditions. #PSA: If you or someone you know is experiencing this, it might be helpful to consult a healthcare professional for a thorough evaluation and appropriate management. #unfit

Wow! A recording of an actual meterorite impact last summer. And in Charlottetown, Canada! 🇨🇦 cc @ambermac.bsky.social I must have been living under a rock or 🎶 on a planet that's revolving at nine hundred miles an hour and orbiting at nineteen miles a second 🎶🙂 skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

A powerful graphic on housing affordability across Canada, shared by @abetterottawa.bsky.social. Minimum wage also varies across Canada. www.retailcouncil.org/resources/qu...

On this sombre #MartinLutherKing day, Jan 20, 2025, relive a more hopeful day 4 years ago, with the inaugural poem for President Biden, by #AmandaGorman, a self-described "skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother": "There is always light…" www.youtube.com/watch?v=44VO...

A humorous diversion by South Africa's thekiffness.bsky.social and George the Cat: 🎶Sometimes I'm alone 🎶

"Geography has made us neighbours, history has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. ” —JFK Before Trump's & the #GOP's embrace of hate, our southern neighbours shared @tombrokaw.bsky.social's view of America's most steadfast neighbour & ally, Canada 🇨🇦. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrA4...

#GPT is a #LargeLanguageModel, not a knowledge repository. It has no knowledge of right or wrong, or truth or untruth; it is simply predicting the next word aka making things up. It just so happens that what it makes up sounds reasonable most of the time. www.educationnext.org/artificial-i...

An inspiration for today, courtesy of mariapopova.bsky.social, re: David Bowie (Jan 8, 1947 - Jan 10, 2016) and reflections on creativity.

Xmas themes by @hallmarkchannel.bsky.social: 😄 •Parent resents son/daughter's poorer date •Big-city type meets small-town type—discovers true meaning •Supernatural entity brings couple together •Hope, faith, & xmas miracle •Fake bf/gf for xmas turns out to be the One Image: @iconawrites.bsky.social

When you just know at least one of these security officers is not coming back from the away mission. #StarTrek #redshirt

ME: Feeling like I just passed a Canadian 🇨🇦 winter rite of passage: successfully replaced the broken-off shear pins on a snow blower —for the first time! 🙂 WINTER: Game on! Next Level Unlocked! 😡❄️❄️❄️

Lovely sunrise this morning, 0℃. Though duration of daylight starts increasing on the solstice, Dec 21 — in Ottawa, the exact time of sunrise each day will be a little less than a minute later, until mid-January. 😎

"To be clear: Elon Musk is an enemy of institutions of higher education and the values we stand for." Universities Should Abandon X www.chronicle.com/article/univ... via @chronicle.com

Please do better ottawa city. ottawa.ctvnews.ca/chief-willia... ottawa.ctvnews.ca/city-closes-... cc @bikeottawa.bsky.social

It's beginning to feel a lot like xmas at canmushistory.bsky.social — as seen from the historic 120-year old Alexandra Bridge over the Ottawa river, relied on daily by 1000's of pedestrians & cyclists, but sadly, scheduled for demolition in 2028. 🥲