N.L. Bates

N.L. Bates

@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Canadian author of SFF stories, sometime accidental filker, frequent tabletop gamer. Dancer, cyclist, boxer. Segue incarnate. I am also the musician Natalie Lynn. She/her. Find me at https://nlbates.com/

149 followers118 following284 posts

N.L. Bates reposted

Carl T. Bergstrom
@carlbergstrom.com

Your monthly reminder that if you're using ChatGPT to do your science, you're failing your colleagues, community, and all of us. Here, ChatGPT makes up data and presents it as the real thing — then apologizes when confronted.

N.L. Bates reposted

Tim O’Brien
@timobrien.bsky.social

The owners of Elvis Presley’s music sued Anthropic, saying it trained its AI models on more than 200 of Presley’s songs without permission, accusing it of copyright infringement. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/a...

nytimes.comOwners of Elvis Presley’s Music Sue Anthropic for Copyright InfringementThe $41 million lawsuit contends that the A.I. company used Presley’s music to train its models without permission. Anthropic disagrees with the claims.
N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

A thought occurred to me while voting yesterday: I know a bunch of musicians. What if, next time there was an election, I organized non-partisan block parties at the city's polling stations in an attempt to get more people out to vote? Why am I *like* this?

N.L. Bates reposted

John Wiswell
@wiswell.bsky.social

Ever notice "abusers can grow and change" uniformly comes from people who haven't actually checked if someone grew or changed? It's like a magic wand of sentiment they wave over harm.

N.L. Bates reposted

godless dustbin 👻
@godfrey.work

imagine your legacy being using your political career to undermine your entire pre-politics career just so you can make the most humiliating blunder and lose to a party that was on the verge of collapse

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Just wait until they find out money doesn't show up by magic like their platform thinks it does!!

more mr. spice guy@juniorhoncho.bsky.social

well, guess all you can do is wish the BC conservatives good luck as they work to uhh (skimming thru their online presence and recent party history) immediately become hobbled by infighting over what's the right way to do racism then self immolate before any of em find out what government is exactly

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

While everyone's watching Alberta, I read the BC Conservative platform so you don't have to. They're not cutting services, promise. $1.425B in new spending! Don't worry, the tax cuts they're proposing will totally pay for it. Also, to whoever formatted the platform doc: I would like A Word.

N.L. Bates reposted

Brent Toderian
@brenttoderian.bsky.social

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.

N.L. Bates reposted

Rebecca R Helm
@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social

I normally don’t quote tweet, and please don’t dunk on this person, but I want to point this out: There is no debate around the complex material realities of biological sex. There is POLITICAL disagreement about if or how biology should be used. So let’s go down that rabbit hole, quickly… 🧵

Cuaderno de Quejas@acaesarea.bsky.social

Conflating the objective material reality of sex with socio-psychological constructs dilutes both scientific clarity and the shared material reality of women.

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Which means you can ALSO find contact information for cabinet ministers and members of special legislative committees. If you're not a constituent of that specific MP's riding, just make clear that you're writing to them in their capacity committee member. Ministers will have dedicated emails too.

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

(By the way, did you know that your MP's contact information is publicly posted? So is an email address for the Prime Minister, and I believe the Prime MInister's Office also has a contact form you can use.)

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

I will stand and yell about people getting more engaged with civic and democratic processes until the cows come home, so here we are: if any of this concerns you, speak up about it!

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

It also tries to bypass the legal and moral obligation Canada has to consult with First Nations about projects that would affect their territories (which is also worrisome for community consent more broadly!)

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Finally, it's being moved through Parliament very quickly, with one, mostly partisan committee that is being to do an impossible job of reviewing this 250-page bill in a short period of time, *at the same time* as the bill is being reviewed by Senate.

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Best thing is to ask your elected officials to table amendments to C-39 which REMOVE the proposed amendments to Section 107 all together. More on how to do that in a second.

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

But first, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the bill contains a lot of other objectionable stuff: it slashes environmental regulations by compressing approval timelines, allowing exemptions from critical regulations, and allowing project approvals without knowing the footprint.

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

The government is claiming that the amendments to Section 107 in Bill C-39 were made in consultation with unions, but I'm speaking with my labour activist hat on when I say that the proposed changes to Bill C-39 are NOT a good thing for workers.

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

There ARE tools elsewhere in the bill which are actually helpful, like more enforcement around good-faith bargaining (although there are many other problems with the bill as well, which I'll get to in a sec). But if you want to raise your voice on the right to strike, specifically:

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N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Bill C-39 contains concerning amendments to Section 107, the legislation that the federal government uses to force federal works engaged legal job action back to work.

N.L. Bates
@nlbateswrites.bsky.social

Specifically, the bill proposes amendments that consolidate the ability to use Section 107 against workers under the umbrella of a single minister, who just has to declare that a strike is "not in the national interest" to force striking workers back to work.