dredthoughts.bsky.social

"Science of learning" proponents often claim their proposals are more likely to be sound because they are grounded in the cognitive sciences. The truth is that they are committed to a very narrow set of cognitive theories, of which there are in fact many!

this man is a gotdamned patriot

Claude developers Thariq Shihipar and Anthony Morris posted 2 days ago on twitter that they left Anthropic? I can't see anything verifying this, so wtf? If if was working on the most valuable product in the multiverse I dunno if I'd quit right before an IPO made me a quadrazillionaire... unless?

🇻🇦 Pope warns young people afraid to make mistakes Pope Leo XIV warns that a "performance-driven culture" is leaving many young people "virtually paralysed by the fear" of making mistakes.

Trump's former communications director says: yes, Trump is a Russian agent, and if you haven't figured that out yet, you're not very smart.

New Talarico ad: 🔥

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is sounding the alarm on the proposed government surveillance law – Bill C-22. If passed, Bill C-22 would put everyone's privacy and digital security at risk. Read our full alert and sign our petition below: ccla.org/take-action/...

In the bedrock of my soul I know he started out thinking the press pool was a literal pool and has been seething with disappointment since he discovered the mistake

Happy birthday to Howard Shore, born on this day in 1946 in Toronto! Starting with the band Lighthouse, he was then the musical director of SNL. He has composed music for over 80 films, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He has won three Oscars. 📸 Darren Cavanagh

“The internet is a store but it used to be a library” hits me like a slug to the chest

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

Greg Proops is a very hard working comic with a bunch of upcoming tour dates. The craziest day of his career? It wasn’t on the road, or on the set of Whose Line. It was the time he was cast in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and being on set with George Lucas. www.npr.org/2026/10/16/n...

Palestinian skateboarder in Gaza doing a kickflip over an unexploded US-made (in Garland, Texas) Mk. 84 2000lb aerial bomb, provided to Israel as one of many tens of thousands of aerial bombs in the 1,000 and 2,000lb class included in US military assistance.

Microsoft provides the back-end administrative infrastructure for Trump's racist pogroms (take away M365 and ICE would collapse): www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Avery Trufelman and I recently recorded a pod on Voltaire's 1736 poem "Man of the World," where he spiritedly defends cosmopolitanism against the conservatives of his day. Hard to do this without sound like a chauvinist, but his wit makes it delightful. articlesofinterest.substack.com/podcast

love it when anarchists say this because most "local community" councils irl in places like new england or small rural towns are typically deeply *right wing* and hate immigrants and queer people despite representing a "broad swathe" of the entire population. leftism is supposed to be COSMOPOLITAN.

Some thoughts about AI, book bans, information, and access in anticipation of a conversation I'm looking forward to having with students. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2026/...

I’m a card carrying socialist & union member & all that and/but this book fucking torpedoed for me the myth that Democrats & Republicans are “the same.” The massive, fundamental differences btwn D & R administrations in regard to disabled ppl’s lives is INSANE.👩🏻‍🦼‍➡️❤️ judithheumann.com/being-heumann/

The labour movement, climate activists, First Nations and the NDP say: stop Bill C-39! Join our emergency town hall on October 14th and let’s fight for our rights and our future together. RSVP: www.ndp.ca/stop-bill-c39

In our course and book _Calling Bullshit_, we posit that If something seems too good, or too bad, to be true, it probably is. Now as a college professor I'm pretty confident that overreliance can AI can harm our thinking ability, but just ten minutes of use? Let's dig into this this study a bit.

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, massively overreaching for someone with tiny arms: “Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC. “And we expect our allies, many of whom are part of the ICC, and that rely on American service members for their defence, to rein in this rogue court.

On this date in 1979, archivist Joan Schwartz rediscovered the Armstrong, Beere and Hime panorama, a collection of photographs that provide an almost complete panorama of Toronto in 1856-57.

So many questions, all of which speak to the credibility of the Carney government & its overall strategy for managing the Canada-US relationship. 1 “In a statement to CBC News, GAC did not deny that it had concerns with describing the U.S. as a foreign interference threat.” Why not? It clearly is.

More Carney government cowardice. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

this is so fucking sad

This is the vice president's guy, no? This should be every headline, it should lead every newscast and EVERY REPUBLICAN SHOULD BE ASKED ABOUT IT.

In today's @theguardian.com, an article about the #Voynich work Colin Layfield and I have been doing: www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

On this date in 1757, the Toronto shoreline was first detailed on a French map. It identifies the Credit River (Rivière au Credit), the Humber River (R. Toronto), Fort Rouillé on the Exhibition Grounds, and the Scarborough Bluffs (Les Grandes Ecores).

On this day in 1864, Joseph Montferrand died. Born in 1802, he became a folk hero to Francophones for his defense of French-Canadian loggers. Since his death, he legacy has grown. Stompin' Tom wrote a song about him and he inspired the Ottawa Redblacks mascot Big Joe .

I have grading and a writing deadline and my house is gonna be soooooo clean as a result

Do yourself a favor. Read these 7 pages by @lilymasonphd.bsky.social right now. It is the most concise explanation of the current situation in U.S. politics I've seen and it captures why calls to reduce "polarization" can ultimately worsen the problem 🧵 www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/pol...

On National Poetry Day, here’s a short poem about the power of poetry to change the world.

“There’s a fundamental contradiction between the tone Carney has struck at the summit and while globe-trotting, and the anger he showed this week after the Stelco news.” This is exactly correct. Another way of putting this is that Carney has been trying to run the old FDI playbook in a new world.…

In addition to the utter disgust and fury I've been feeling towards the sorry excuses for men who raped that young woman at Cornell, she has me thinking of every woman in my life who has trusted me enough to share the story of her own rape. They all share something in common:

On this date in 1760, Major Robert Rogers visited the former site of Fort Rouille. He reported that there were “about 300 acres of cleared lands ... well timbered with large oaks, hickories, maples and some poplars. The soil is clay and the deer are extremely plentiful.”

One hang up I have about queer Canadian history is how the 1969 partial decriminalization is discussed. It is often discussed how 1969 didn't really decriminalize homosexuality but my issue is how the bravery of Everett George Klippert is so often erased from the story.

white nationalists doing hate crime on the highway overpass in Dufferin neighbourhood of Kamloops now

This serves as advertisement for Alex Gibney’s documentary, Musk, opening October 9. Pass it on.