James Andrew Smith

Yes, I'm sure that these academics always dreamed of a job checking the work produced by stochastic parrots.

The DARPA roots go back a long, long way. Anyone who wasn’t comfortable knowing that the military would come calling should have done their homework. It’s a little like SpaceX employees or Tesla owners suddenly protesting Elon when they discover what he’s really about.

"the drone caused the crash."

Dear university management, You told us that we had to focus on in-person teaching after the COVID lock-downs. How about we continue to focus on people rather than AI-everything? Seems like at least company is banking on a "more human" approach. Seem likes a good idea.

I ordered the 5Pro because I wanted an efficient whole room air purifier that is packable. I've already got a number of air purifiers I can fit in a suitcase, but none of them have really high airflows like the 5Pro does with it's 4 filter, CR Box-style configuration. youtube.com/shorts/_rcbp...

Neat!

It's time to have a rethink of higher-ed ... these guys clearly don't get it.

Another one embracing our new plagiarizing, brain-eating, water-guzzling word-guessing machine overlords. 🤖🫧💥

Brad Bradford is on CBC telling the host that his construction plans require taking on debt and making our children pay later. Why? Because "it's not fair" to make today's residents pay for stuff that they'll only get to use later. Pass the buck. On construction, the environment, the economy...

The rotting corpse of Canada's national magazine saw fit to print a first-person account of how a 23-year-old Alberta separatist was radicalized because a mask fogged up her glasses during COVID. Honest to Zeus, this is the dumbest fucking timeline...

Maybe universities shouldn‘t be tying which departments and programs they decide to invest in based on projected job trends they have no actual clue about. Why not just invest proportionally in every field of inquiry rather than underfund some disciplines and overfund others?

“Plenty of AI assistants share by public link”

Local woman wakes up, thanks 76% of Alberta for not being fucko buckos but reminds us that as we get the results from the rest of the 9 questions, this province still has a long way to go developing critical thinking skills and unlearning systemic racism, makes oatmeal.

Dear Alberta: way to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on a pointless referendum.

Canada's province of Alberta has rejected a plan to hold a binding independence referendum, results show, a setback for separatists backed by allies of US President Donald Trump u.afp.com/SCah

Despite the Trump administration's best efforts, Alberta votes not to break up Canada

Wonderful news: Waking up to the referendum results that 75% of Alberta’s voters want to remain in Canada. Our Canada includes Alberta. 🇨🇦

We also need non-stagnant funding for discovery research. And we need leaders like Carney (and Harper before him) to stop directing huge amounts of money to recruiting a handful of "stars" and supporting their favourite industries like fossil fuels and AI.

There. 3/4 of Albertans disagree with you. Now shut up, traitors. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

On CBC they’re reporting how “[Meta’s] Muse doesn’t check with me… and gives some guy my address.” Expect more bad stories about people using AI like this. blogflow.ca/en/article/y...

"I did my own research"

We need whole cross discipline, college level, courses on how the human mind is primed for this. How we are forged to form community, how we seek a deeper meaning to our existence, how we Want To Believe so fucking much. We were built to fall for this. We are in so much trouble.

We are in so much trouble

Another way in which AI is undermining the human practice of mathematics

The future is in reach. More of this, and a focus on perfecting battery technology as we transition from AC dominance to DC dominance. Such a shift would change EVERYTHING.

The Canadian military had better not be designing systems to rely on Musk’s Starlink / Starshield. The Americans applied the kill switch to it… degrading Ukrainian defence systems in the process. Doesn’t matter who applied the switch. The fact is they did. #ElbowsUp www.npr.org/2026/10/18/n...

LLMs produce statistically plausible text given a particular context. «Agents» run that in a loop, «given everything we’ve said so far and this new text, what is the most plausible next piece of text?» There is nothing there. It’s all in people’s heads.

A huge loss for science and health reporting. Thank you for all your critical work @helenbranswell.bsky.social!

Keep your #ElbowsUp, everyone.