Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him

How to analyze 1,503,894 words in 22 minutes ino.to/f8mqJsq #QualitativeData #Anthropic #BiggishData

37-page PDF describing how public libraries in Alberta must restrict content that visually depicts a sexual act. open.alberta.ca/dataset/7002... #OpenData #OpenGov #censorship

Google can now use your Gmail data for ads: How to turn it off ino.to/cUoQiu0

😧

'You Chose to Pick a Fight with Librarians?'

As the count continues, we are getting a clearer picture of the results from Monday's AB referendum: 1. Separation was trounced 2. No real mandate on the heavily pushed Q1-9 Big picture: the Urban-Rural divide Cgy+Edm voted No on all questions Rest of Alberta (combined) voted Yes

Author Jodi Picoult came to Utah with a surprise: 600 free copies of her bestselling novel banned from public schools www.sltrib.com/news/educati... Fan-frickin-tastic!

Remember "Alberta is Calling"? That was so last year...

Spectacular paragraph from the "2021 Alberta referendum" Wikipedia article.

Announcing Privacy Badger for Safari on macOS www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... #EFF #Tracking #Privacy

In 1976, some English schoolchildren were asked to write about life in 2026. Here was Nicola Barker's effort:

Browser fingerprint tool shows how easy you are to track using the latest sneaky tricks www.theregister.com/security/202... It really is fascinating to see all the information your web browser passes along! #advertising #privacy

The McDougall letter: document conservation at the University of Calgary albertashistoricplaces.com/2026/10/14/t... #Archives #SpecialCollections #MPOW

Sport Calgary's new amenity map makes finding venues easier livewirecalgary.com/2026/10/13/s... This is cool, but damn, I wish we had a handful of freely accessible outdoor tracks in the city!

Whew, it's been a minute, but I've updated the University of Calgary Starter Pack, adding a couple dozen new accounts: go.bsky.app/CSqFD78

Character.AI files for bankruptcy www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

I hope Alberta universities are watching and understanding that caving to this kind of repression only invites greater repression. I'm esp worried about book bans which were initially only for K-12 schools, but have now been extended to public libraries. Will universities be next?

Someone Posted an Instagram Selfie. Scientists Spotted a Giant New Species in the Background gizmodo.com/someone-post... ht: @researchbuzz.bsky.social

I love it when hobbies and work collide (not often for me!) Regulating technology, enabling participation: evaluating the impact of a new cycling racing class in the UK www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #QDA #Cycling

A Spotlight on School Book Bans in the US: pen.org/report/book-... Man, Alberta's in some poor company (www.pen-international.org/cases/books-...) #censorship #BannedBooks #ABPolitics

Mozilla: “Let us be clear: there is no safe way to create exceptional access to encrypted data that only the intended actor can use. An access mechanism created for law enforcement can also be discovered, exploited or abused by potentially bad actors.” blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/20...

Alberta takes U-turn on changes to disability benefits, citing public feedback www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/art... Holy crap, the #UCP can actually hear the public? #ABLeg #AISH #ADAP #ABPoli #DisabilityRights

Wow, look how great privatization has been for Alberta. Now imagine that same model for what we pay for utilities, and pretty soon health care!

Hey, here's some cool news! Maya Turner named 1st female captain in University of Manitoba Bisons football history | CBC News www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The Daily — Violent victimization and unwanted sexual behaviours experienced by 2SLGBTQ+ people in Canada, 2025 www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo... #FFS #TRAHR

Song-splitting app achieves the impossible in 40 seconds newatlas.com/technology/a... Well that sounds pretty cool!

Jeez!

"If you were to completely cancel and refund all of the money spent on bike lanes, even in the last 10 years in the city of Calgary, you wouldn't even barely be able to afford just one single interchange that's built in the suburbs," -Mayor Farkas @jeromyyyc.bsky.social #yycbike #Calgary

University of Alberta Researcher's Local AI Keeps Data Off the Cloud ino.to/78BMBBS I'm going to try to play with this over the next few days...

The Gripes of Rath

#ucalgary

Hi Nobel Prize! Hope you are doing well. Does Canada need to proactively close our border just in case, or are we good? Wink twice if we need to close.

UCalgary students decry residential school denialism debate livewirecalgary.com/2026/10/01/u... See also: www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?t... #JAQingOFF

Read the CIA’s Manual of Trickery and Deception, Written by a Professional Stage Magician

UNT Removes LGBTQ Archive Amid Lawmaker Criticism www.dailysignal.com/2026/09/25/u... What a #snowflake. Happy to see UNT didn't remove all the other LGBTQ+ content I was able to still find on their site(s)!

Every year around OA Week I've started putting together what I'm calling the State of Scholarly Publishing report: This year's is now posted. elibtronic.github.io/2026_state_o... #openaccess #libraries #CdnPSE #CDNunis

PublicHealthCite — Canadian Open Government Data Search publichealthcite.com #opendata #OpenGov

Perspectives: Calgary-Shaw: Voters were tired of being taken for granted livewirecalgary.com/2026/09/19/p... #ABLeg #ABPoli

I just honestly can't get over that Save Women Sports, an anti-trans group could only find five trans athletes competing K through 12. Five. The NCAA president testified a year and a half ago or so that there were less than 10 college level trans athletes. What the fuck are we doing, people

Oxford and Springer Nature launch frameworks on use of artificial intelligence - Research Information #AcademicPublishing

The Sprawl wins 5 Alberta Magazine Awards—including Mag of the Year www.sprawlcalgary.com/alberta-maga... Bravo! #LocalJournalism

Advertised salaries for curatorial, museum and gallery roles — free dataset, CC BY 4.0. Maintained by curatorsearch.com github.com/nsamman/cura... #jobs #salaries #MuseumJobs #curators #GalleryJobs

US executive-branch stock-trade disclosures (OGE 278/278-T), refreshed nightly github.com/disclosedcap... Every disclosed stock and asset transaction by senior US executive-branch officials parsed from their official OGE Form 278 and 278-T public financial disclosures. #OpenData

What do young people around the world think about AI? www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/... #Pew

Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, dies at 81 www.npr.org/2026/09/16/1... A reminder to go read more of her stuff!

#ABReferendumb #ABReferendum

I recently worked with Abacus Data on a poll of Albertans, probing deeper into the separation debate. Today we are releasing the 2nd of 5 reports. This one looks at vote intentions: 🟢 64% Remain ⚫ 24% Commence separation process 🤷 9% Undecided 💨 3% Would skip question This varies by region. 🧵...

Statistics Canada thanks Canadians for their exceptional participation in the 2026 Census - Canada.ca www.canada.ca/en/statistic... "The overall response rate for the 2026 Census of Population reached 98.4% nationally." #OpenData #Census

Mount Royal University launches School of Computing Sciences and Mathematics | MRU www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRo... #ABPSE

My 20 Favorite Google Docs Features ❤️ wondertools.substack.com/p/google-doc... Some good tips and tricks in here - bet you'll learn at least one new thing!