samuel mehr

At the second day of BRAMS 21st anniversary, Université de Montréal Dean of Arts and Sciences @fbouchard.bsky.social kicks the day off with a bit of Virgil: Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes (from the Aeneid - roughly "It is good to have improved life through discovered arts")

At the BRAMS 21st anniversary celebration, Simone Dalla Bella points out how the lab wins the award for most insane (and most important) work disruption : when the city of Montréal dug a 20-storey-deep hole in front of his office (denoted by the blue arrow) It was for the REM! Super useful!!!

Lol just a few days in mtl and there I go frenchifying my English. I hadn't even noticed that I typed "constructed"

At the BRAMS 21st anniversary celebration, Simone Dalla Bella points out how the lab wins the award for most insane (and most important) work disruption : when the city of Montréal dug a 20-storey-deep hole in front of his office (denoted by the blue arrow) It was for the REM! Super useful!!!

the power and internet is out at my hotel, not their fault, some emergency repair the city is doing in the road. and so I am devouring a book by flashlight, an activity I think I have not done since sleepaway camp in the Berkshires, where our cabins didn't have any electricity

guys i'm back on the mcgill campus today, and was on the UdeM campus yesterday, and eduroam just works now????

every time I'm back in Montréal, switching languages every twenty-five seconds, I think of "c'est vraiment top notch"

another language thing I love here is incorrect but French-inflected English grammar like in this café the barista just told a customer "someone's there at the moment" when he asked for the bathroom key, which is subtly different to many other Englishes

while every generation thinks they're better than the previous one, parenting has advanced in leaps and bounds by numerous objective metrics for example, it is far less common today for parents to hit their kids than it was when I was a kid. this is unequivocally a good development

if you want data on reported physical violence against children (as opposed to just paretnal attitudes) here's a study of a 25-year decline in rates of "minor physical violence (at least once during year)" in québec. [light grey line] 47.7% of children in 1999, 13.5% in 2024. that's a massive shift

while every generation thinks they're better than the previous one, parenting has advanced in leaps and bounds by numerous objective metrics for example, it is far less common today for parents to hit their kids than it was when I was a kid. this is unequivocally a good development

if you don't believe me, do a web search for "attitudes toward corporal punishment" and add whatever part of the world you live in. I am tweeting this from a hotel in montréal so here are the statistics for Québec parents. tldr: line goes down statistique.quebec.ca/en/communiqu...

i am on a plane sitting next to a lady who looks 40ish and has informed me that this is her first time flying she is visibly excited. she asked the flight attendant how much a soda costs and was happy to learn that drinks are free on airplanes. she's taking lots of pictures. i love this for her

Landed with a bit of a loud bump and she laughs nervously "j'avais un peu peur, c'était normal ça??". I reassured her and tried to figure out how to say "there's a spectrum" in French

i am on a plane sitting next to a lady who looks 40ish and has informed me that this is her first time flying she is visibly excited. she asked the flight attendant how much a soda costs and was happy to learn that drinks are free on airplanes. she's taking lots of pictures. i love this for her

Lol I just remembered that when she told me it was her first flight I was taken aback just enough that I stammered "ben.....félicitations!!" ("uhh...congrats!") which I guess is kind of fitting

i am on a plane sitting next to a lady who looks 40ish and has informed me that this is her first time flying she is visibly excited. she asked the flight attendant how much a soda costs and was happy to learn that drinks are free on airplanes. she's taking lots of pictures. i love this for her

Update : my happy neighbour has discovered the map feature on the seatback screen. She's taking a video out the window of Winnipeg's city lights, then zooming in on Winnipeg on the map. She's having a great time

i am on a plane sitting next to a lady who looks 40ish and has informed me that this is her first time flying she is visibly excited. she asked the flight attendant how much a soda costs and was happy to learn that drinks are free on airplanes. she's taking lots of pictures. i love this for her

she said she really likes the views and offered to swap seats with me so that I could take some pictures too; I thanked her and said she should enjoy it for the whole flight since it's her first time (I've done this flight so many times I know the numbers by heart, in both directions)

i am on a plane sitting next to a lady who looks 40ish and has informed me that this is her first time flying she is visibly excited. she asked the flight attendant how much a soda costs and was happy to learn that drinks are free on airplanes. she's taking lots of pictures. i love this for her