Carolyn Pinto 🇨🇦

😡

Lula: "We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate. A crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in the real world. We cannot have monstrous companies earning millions... not paying taxes... wanting to steer elections."

Relieved about the victory of hope over nihilism in Brazil and Serbia. Wish we were saying the same for BC.

Yet another reason not to visit the US: www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

There’s only so much you can do for a province that bases its identity and economy on a volitile and declining resource governed by international forces. #cdnpoli #ableg

Independence Referendums in Canadian History: To -Leave- Canada: 1980 Quebec: 60% No / 40% Yes 1995 Quebec: 50.58% No / 49.42% Yes 2026 Alberta: 76% No / 24% Yes (as of this writing) To -Join- Canada: 1948 Newfoundland: 52.34% Yes / 47.66% No @craigbaird.bsky.social

So despite all the foreign meddling, less than a quarter of Albertans voted to eventually have a real referendum… and even *they* largely admit they just wanted to send a message?! Yikes #Alberta

As Canada awaits the Alberta separation referendum results, let’s remember how stupid this all is. Huge public money spent on a Russian & American-fuelled separation movement for an awfully-written and badly managed unbinding referendum on whether to hold a binding referendum that would be illegal.

Fascism.

This is the future of infrastructure management

Modern hero.

A separatist vote win, or even a relatively high separatist loss, would IMMEDIATELY DAMAGE CANADA, particularly economically, as it would send a message to every possible investor in Alberta and Canada that such an investment is a bad bet. And that’s what these shady foreign actors want. Vote.

You are never going to convince the separatist die-hards. They're around 20 per cent of the population. They've *always* been around 20 per cent of the population. It's the soft federalists/send a message folks that matter. And this constant grievance-mongering pushes them in the wrong direction.

Let me be specific: Donald Trump is an f-ing traitor. He is in cahoots with Putin and Russia to break our democratic ally, Ukraine, which makes all of us less safe. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/w...

This approach is built on the assumption that Generative AI is the inevitable future, and the only path open to us is to use it rather than resist it. It's nonsense. AI can no more "protect and support" authors than a fox can protect and support chickens.

Mark Zuckerberg, who famously runs our lives, is so profoundly inhuman.

He's really, really good at rhetoric.

The AI scourge has been the greatest contributor to the uglification of urban environments

Many Americans were already ok with the death penalty. From there, it’s just a coupe of small leaps to “firing squad” and “livestream”.

To me the pink house is synonymous with what I love most about Montréal. It's whimsical, spontaneous, technically illegal... requiring no understanding or explanation.

And Twitter (X).

Spread the word. Surely he means no harm.

Habs fans cheered louder for the support staff than Leafs fans did for the players

Lawsuits against fossil fuel companies are our best hope to stop climate change from getting worse, so this Supreme Court case is really about the habitability of our planet.

I love @lingthusiasm.com, a smart interesting podcast about #linguistics Bonus: won’t leave you profoundly depressed. Recommend!

Holy shit.

🗳️ En cette veille d'élections, j'ai beaucoup d'empathie pour les candidat-es qui se sont donné-es à fond pendant la campagne. C'est physiquement et mentalement très exigeant. Frapper aux portes à tous les jours est un dur exercice d'humilité sans garantie de résultats.

Part of why I don't like the AI-or-bust economy is the constant flopsweat of people on the news who say this HAS to work. Quit making everyone so anxious. Goddamn. If this is the next Google then why are you acting like this? I don't remember being told to buy an iPhone at gunpoint.

A successful regulatory strategy would recognize these companies as bad actors whose business model almost compels them to act against the public interest, as in this story. They require hard, punitive regulations and enforcement, as @ntusikov.bsky.social and I explain here.

Dealing with my med clinic’s AI = 0/10 experience. It spits out unneeded info, then transfers me back to.. itself. I follow a phone labyrinth until I land on a human who likely fields calls all day from frustrated patients all day. She seems relieved I don’t blame her for the snafu.

End of the world The Globe and Mail by @deAdder Substack: deadder.substack.com/p/end-of-the...

I did, and it was a lovely experience.

I think Canadians are over the "please come back" tourism ads! Good summary by @maxfawcett.bsky.social (clever invoking PET's classic "just watch me", referring to decidedly more domestic matters..)

Our ancestors weren’t “the nice guys”; they just had little ability or strategic need (at first) to subjugate their Indigenous allies back in the 1600s. Let’s look at relations between modern Quebec governments and Indigenous communities!

Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.

Marking my birthday by cancelling old subscriptions and accounts that may come back to haunt me. Festive!

And this has nothing to do with the AI industry propaganda about the technology being an "existential threat". The threat is the climate crisis, the authoritarianism, the mass surveillance, the tech fascism. The real threat is not the tech, but the billionaires.

when ai leaves u behind

This is not a good look, @liberalca.bsky.social

When shipping costs are at an all-time high, Trump wants to import potash fertilizer from halfway around the world, rather than across the border from Saskatchewan to the Great Plains breadbasket of the world. Explain that to me like I’m not a former global supply chain manager.

Great idea!

US military nearly attacked a Chinese ship because of false, hallucinated AI claim that the ship had nuclear weapons components on it. Planes were "in the air" and the attacks was halted "only just before" they were set to begin.

NEW by me: When I saw that the White House had stolen 'The Magic School Bus' to promote its racist ICE deportations, I could not be quiet. The books' publisher, Scholastic, has remained noticeably silent, while others like Hasbro and Tetris have clapped back. www.thequeenzone.com/trump-regime...

I’ve been wary of the Scholastic Book Fair racket since becoming a parent. Their silence re Trump’s abhorrent appropriation of the Magic School Bus is very disappointing.