Spencer Callaghan

Spencer Callaghan

@spencercallaghan.ca

Director, brand & marketing, @CIRA.ca Board chair, @ncfottawa.bsky.social Board, @openmedia.org Board, @nourishlead.bsky.social internet advocacy, dad jokes, 90s hip hop lyrics, existential dread. Born again Sens fan. spencercallaghan.ca

1.1K followers613 following3K posts

I’ve been saying it for years, and I’ll say it again. This city is not going to change unless someone comes forward, promising real structural change. Systemic change. I’m talking de-amalgamation, federal district, online voting, rank choice, borough system.

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Ottawa needs a competent reset, electoral system, governance, civil service, everything, and much of the change we are offered is cheaper bus passes. The results we are getting are what the system is designed to produce. It’s working as intended.

I’ve been saying it for years, and I’ll say it again. This city is not going to change unless someone comes forward, promising real structural change. Systemic change. I’m talking de-amalgamation, federal district, online voting, rank choice, borough system.

If the kind of change you’re offering is simply addressing the symptoms— poor transit, urban sprawl, etc—then you are doomed to fail. Leiper offering to fix the things that are broken, without having any plan to fix the system that creates them in the first place was simply not inspiring

Where else, other than being mayor of Ottawa, can you suck at your job and do basically nothing for 4 years and be given 4 more years to do the same? I hate this city sometimes

Had a chance to play with the iPhone Duo. Nope. I still don’t understand the entire foldable hype. It’s trying to be too many things at once and not doing any of them well.

What a massive waste of time, money and energy. We should not give these idiots a second more attention. The next step should be charges for treason. We are being too nice to these people.

Spencer Callaghan reposted

🇨🇦's National AI Council Must Include Civil Society! Orgs and experts are calling on the Government of #Canada to ensure civil society, Indigenous Peoples, and equity-seeking communities affected by #AI have meaningful and permanent representation in 🇨🇦's National AI Council: ✍️ aibyall-liapartous.ca

aibyall-liapartous.caCanada’s National AI Council Must Include Civil SocietyWe call on the Government of Canada to ensure civil society, Indigenous Peoples and equity-seeking communities by AI have meaningful and permanent representation in Canada’s National AI Council.

In 1940s Germany, the best place to have candid conversations about eugenics, nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology was probably in a bar frequented by nazi scientists. That doesn't make it a good place to have a drink.

The three rural wards are already massively over represented, each having a councillor despite having significantly smaller populations that the urban wards. Does Leiper think he’s getting any votes out there with this policy? Some bizarre strategy with that campaign.

Any candidate you get a chance to speak with should be asked what concrete steps they will take to get rid of groups like this in Ottawa. Oh and don’t bother asking OPS, given their convoy support (which they have never reckoned for), they probably have a fan club. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

cbc.ca'Only the beginning': Anti-immigration group says Ottawans should 'brace themselves' | CBC NewsFor weeks, posters and stickers across Ottawa advertising the anti-immigration group Dominion Society of Canada — which is calling for mass deportations of millions of people — have been generating co...

Alfie as a Leaf is just further proof in this post-Trump world that literally nothing matters, karma isn’t real and there is no such thing as decency anymore.

This is the guy conservatives want us to negotiate with

Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social

United States President Donald Trump issues executive order instructing federal government agencies to "use the terms 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' and will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting."

It’s funny that a tech CEO is getting credit for coining a term that those who actually do the work have known was a thing for over a year. Congrats on being a thought leader! No one else had figured out that people abuse AI to transfer work and cognitive load onto others!!

It’s so funny to see opposition politicians in Canada trying to jump on every Trump tirade and then having the entire thing reversed in 48 hours or less. If you have a policy position that relies on something Trump has said or threatened you’re playing chess with a chimpanzee.

Meta selling its AI chatbot as a thing that can shop for you is very on brand. We now have AI pushing mass consumption at scale with minimal human intervention. The solution is to buy less, buy local.

Carney has a lot on his plate right now but I think someone needs to figure out WTF Canada is doing with daylight savings time. We are now a bizarre mishmash of timezones that is actually going to cause an accident at some point

Our Prime Minister speaking in both English and French in front of the European Parliament to forge a new partnership is something I never imagined I'd see and never figured I'd react so emotionally to. Our little country is growing up.

Carney mentioning "payments" as one of the main areas where Canada and Europe should cooperate is interesting. The need for a non-American credit card system is a clear opportunity.

Looking to disentangle yourself from foreign tech? Here’s a simple first step, download the new CIRA Canadian Shield app and enjoy free, Canadian-based protection while online. Protect yourself, your family and friends and support Canada’s digital sovereignty cira.ca/shield

CIRA@cira.ca

New look. Same free, Canadian protection. 🇨🇦 Canadian Shield now shows why URLs were blocked, lets you check questionable domains before visiting and offers new desktop apps for Windows and macOS. Learn more: www.cira.ca/en/resources...

Spencer Callaghan reposted

Next week, season four of CIRA's “What’s up with the internet?” puts Canada’s creator economy front and centre. 🎙️ On September 21, host @takarasmall.bsky.social explores how Canadian creators are going global, reshaping media and building careers here at home. Catch up: cira.ca/podcast

cira.caWhat’s up with the internet? A podcast – CIRACIRA presents What’s up with the internet? a serial podcast delving into the good, the bad and ugly around one of the world’s greatest resources—the internet.

Look, late-stage capitalism is toxic and all but if we can get bridges, rail, electricity grids and rare minerals fast-tracked by foreign investment I don't see the issue. It's not like the Chinese or Dutch can take the mines, windmills, or tunnels with them, it lives here by definition.

I’m an apple guy so I definitely had it in my mind that it was *possible* for them to launch a folding phone that wasn’t fugly. I was wrong. The entire product category is a chimera in search of a purpose.

Imagine being the Apple marketing team and knowing you made a piece of cloth live rent free inside the media's head

The Verge@theverge.com

Apple’s newly cheaper polishing cloth is officially confirmed to be compatible with the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro www.theverge.com/tech/991697/...

Maybe there's a ton happening behind the scenes but it certainly doesn't feel like the government and law enforcement are taking the active participation of foreign actors in this process seriously.

Canada's National Observer@nationalobserver.com

Canadians have to be able to recognize when we’re being played by outside forces. But we can’t expect Canadians to take this seriously if our own governments seem to be asleep at the switch, @supriya.bsky.social writes.

The scenarios running through my mind rn would have been insane just two years ago. We are dealing with a rogue state and all options should be on the table to protect ourselves.

We are dealing with a regime that started sinking random Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean Sea with no probable cause or due process and then a few months later kidnapped their leader and seized their country.