Over here checking sources

@janis.bsky.social

503 Followers 489 Following

Vancouver librarian, writer, music and radio type (etc.), often worrying about mis/disinformation and AI. I block profiles that give a weird vibe -- sorry if this leads to some errors. (Opinions are my own.)

New York Times: What to Know Before Seeing ‘The Odyssey’ Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem has monster battles, a sorceress and dozens of thirsty suitors. Here’s a primer.
Ideas with Nahlah Ayed: In his book On Oil, Don Gillmor traces the transformative grip that petroleum has exercised over humanity. He argues that oil is not just a substance — but an idea … one that has come to constitute its own potent system of belief. He joins Nahlah Ayed to discuss how oil became the one true global religion.  
Fragments of French language news headlines, on forest fires, etc.
Uki Goñi on Argentina’s anarcho-capitalist future “South America has long been a honey-trap for world-class charlatans with out-of-the-box ideas,” writes the author and journalist Uki Goñi. Now, President Javier Milei has announced he will be “transforming Argentina, the planet's eighth-largest country, into a tax haven for ‘non-human corporations’.” Peter Thiel has moved to Buenos Aires, and if Milei has his way, totally autonomous AI-run companies will be following on his heels (as well as a fleet of data centres consuming clear glacier water across Patagonia). It seems almost impossible to believe it could happen – but that’s the plan. Read Uki’s compelling feature here.
A pinned post from the "I'm a lectern" Bluesky account: "Wow, this account only skeets about lecterns!" Smile emoji, follows. "Wow, this account only skeets about lecterns!" Expressionless face emoji, unfollows.
"The Farewell Kiss Ring: Oxidized 925 Sterling Silver or Stainless Steel." A close-up of a wide-band ring with an image of a man throwing a show at another man at a lectern, standing beside an American flag.
Conservatives like to gripe about participation trophies, but AI is the ultimate participation trophy
A screencapture showing the watch movement filters available for watches that are not "women's" or "ladies'" models: In addition to quartz options you can select Automatic or Hand Wound.
Screen capture showing two Timex watches, featuring Snoopy. Both have pink straps and emphasise "cuteness." One shows Snoopy hugging Woodstock, the bird. The other shows Snoopy with three pink hearts, and a dial view above him shows further Peanuts characters with additional pink hearts.
A Star Trek title image, with the Enterprise in orbit around an earth-like planet. The lettering says, "Just say no to AI slop."
A Google result screen where the user has typed the word "Stop" into the search bar. The AI Overview replies: "Understood! All activity has been halted. Let me know whenever you're ready to start again, and feel free to point me in a new direction." A red image of a stop sign appears next to this message. (I am not sure why?) Below this is a definition of the word "Stop" from the Collins English Dictionary.
A fortune cookie fortune that says: “you will be travelling and coming into money.”
A lavender coloured Dan Echo (Danelectro) guitar pedal with a glowing power light and two cables plugged in. The pedal has curving lines we reminiscent of a late 1950s car.
Queen Bee graphic from the New York Times Spelling Bee game
A sickening moral slum of an administration: 
Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.
A graph showing very extreme and squared-off peaks and valleys rather than curves.
A scene from "My Neighbour Totoro" where Satsuki and Totoro are standing at a bus stop in the rain, Satsuki with an umbrella and Totoro with a leaf on top of their head.
Growling Riflebird. A photo of the body of a glossy black bird with a gleaming green-black breast, marked with tags, a specimen in a museum.
"We are writing to inform you that we will be updating the Mauril Privacy Notice on December 24th, 2025. Your continued use of Mauril after this date will be subject to the updated Privacy Notice. Here is a summary of the changes: In order to minimize data collection, your name will no longer be collected. Your email address, and your pseudonym (optional) will be the only account identifiers. Mauril will introduce a pronunciation feature that will process users’ voice in real time, but this voice data will not be retained. We remain dedicated to protecting your data and ensuring a quality experience on Mauril."
Poster with photos of babies in diapers. The wording says: This budget stinks! We demand a change. Join the WTC & Friends Diaper Change-In at City Hall, November 25th, 9-10:30 am.
42% of all US adults surveyed had purhcased the same book they borrowed from the library. 70% bought another book by the same author as one they borrowed from the library. Those numbers also increase with younger generations. That percentage increases to half or more of younger generations buy books they first tried at the library.
A cartoon: A woman at a computer says to herself: "There's no way I can finish this 20-page report tonight. ChatGPT, please generate a report from these 10 bullet points." Then we see a man at a computer: "Has Anna just sent me a 20-pager? I don't have the time to read that. CoPilot, summarize the report Anna just sent me into 10 bullet points."
A New York Times headline: “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?”
An online registration form with 11 required fields for name, email, library/company name, job title, job function, institution type and address, and phone number.
Questions: we may not have answers but we will certainly commiserate. With meme: “My buddy lost his job to AI. It was his job to chug thousands of gallons of water at a data centre.”
Four movie titles from TCM on tonight’s schedule: That Thing You Do, This is Spinal Tap, Eddie and the Cruisers, and A Hard Day’s Night. (None of this is about the harvest or family dinners but then again TCM is an American channel and they’re not celebrating Thanksgiving in the US today.)
From Reddit's technology sub: 3mo ago I recently heard about a teacher who instead of trying to circumvent students using ai, which is impossible, she made assignments by going "ask ChatGPT to write a report on this subject, and then research how and why it's wrong". Not only did the students discover that chatGPT is extremely wrong a lot of the time, it also lead them to realize that they should not use it as a primary source.
Cocktail Recipes with Benedictine and Lemon Juice Ever wonder what cockails you can make with Benedictine and Lemon Juice? These are the best cocktails, created by AI, that utilize Benedictine and Lemon Juice.
An old contact sheet showing multiple small photos of a garage-punk-pop band playing in a small club in the early 1990s. The text says "Touch & Gos: Now on Bandcamp." There is a QE code linking to the Bandcamp page.
“Service press one Chinese press two Yo honey, haul you a deal why she only tongue jumping, but should you yell shouting in your fooling and eat on earth? Your phone number will be out of service today for details English service press, one Chinese press two Your phone number will be out of service today for details English service press, one Chinese press two Yo honey, you need a deal why she only tongue, jumping panting, but die should you yell shouting in you fooling and you doing lunching on earth…”
Globe & Mail: Laid off with $2.5-million in savings, should Jake and Wanda retire ... Jul 4, 2025Jake and Wanda, both in their mid-40s, have two children, a mortgage-free house, a rental condominium and $2.5-million in savings and…
A screen capture showing a wall of html code: repeated   (non-breaking space).
Cartoon where the Brontë sisters check out men.
It is too hot to waste all that water on A.I. Blast me with a firehose of cold water and let me answer things incorrectly.
One person has been arrested after a small passenger aircraft was allegedly "hijacked" and landed at Vancouver International Airport Tuesday, according to Richmond RCMP.
Screenshot of a pop-up saying "Unlock AI for 50%" off, showing a graphic of wrapped presents.
From the CBC: Nearly one-third of forests in northeast B.C. could burn by year's end: province
Congress, now more than ever, our nation needs your cowardice. Published: June 20, 2025 Who will stand up for our democracy? This question, fraught in even the most peaceful times, has only grown more pressing as our country approaches its 250th anniversary. Each passing day brings growing assaults on essential liberties like freedom of speech and due process. Meanwhile, our delicately assembled legal system faces a constant barrage of threats. Even as this issue reaches publication, the U.S. military has been deployed against peaceful protestors. We teeter on the brink of collapse into an authoritarian state. That is why, today, The Onion calls upon our lawmakers to sit back and do absolutely nothing. Members of Congress—now, more than ever, our nation desperately needs your cowardice. Our republic is a birthright, an exceedingly rare treasure passed down from generation to generation of Americans. It was gained through hard years of bloody resistance and can too easily be lost. Our Founding Fathers, in their abundant wisdom, understood that all it would take was men and women of little courage sitting in the corridors of power and taking zero action as this precious inheritance was stripped away—and that is where we have finally arrived. Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket. Now is not the time for listening to your idiotic constituents drone on about what’s happening to their precious democracy. This is the time for getting down on all fours and groveling. Now is not the time to say, “Enough is enough,” and have the tough conversations about resisting the ongoing assaults on American liberty. This is the time to let the wave of apathy and indifference roll over you as you think about getting a really nice renovation to your house in Kalorama. But what can I, one coward, do alone? you might ask. It’s true. As a solitary person, your fecklessness will make little impact. But if you joi…
Screen capture of search results: "On June 19, Join Bandcamp to Support Racial Justice, Equality, and ... Jun 12, 2023. On June 19 (from midnight (PT) June 19 to midnight (PT) June 20), we'll hold our annual Juneteenth fundraiser, where we donate 100% of our share of sales* to the Legal Defense Fund to support their ongoing efforts to promote racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public..."
Meme showing a two girls, one playing a tuba that is over the face of another. The girl forced to listen is labeled “me.” The girl playing tuba is labeled “every company.’ The tuba is labeled “unwanted AI.”
Walter Masterson: Any protest they don’t like will be deemed a riot, any riot they do like will be labeled a peaceful tour of the Capitol.
"This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary."
D.L. Mayfield Here’s my pep talk after studying authoritarianism: 1). They never truly expect a long-term resistance movement bc they think people are a collection of trauma triggers who are easily controlled thru terror 2). If they can’t terrorize you 24/7 in your mind, they have already lost the war 3). The single best way you can resist fascism is to not let them terrorize you constantly. Protect your mental health to ensure you are not constantly in a terrorized state 4). Keep connecting to who you are at your core. Your values, preferences, ethics, and beliefs. Build up capacity to resist 5). Remember they are like abusive parents: they only see us extensions of them. They have no clue how powerful joy and community and self-expression can be. We can use this to our advantage — we can be the strong-willed child they never saw coming. Spending time connecting to your true self is not selfish in these times — it’s intricately connected to a resistance movement that is tied to honoring our bodies, our communities, and to the land. We have to build capacity to resist by being exactly who we are!
“Habeas corpus: Existing since the 13th century, habeas corpus is both a free-standing right and, more recently, a right protected under section 10(c) of the Charter.[1] Habeas Corpus translates to “produce the body”.[2] A habeas corpus application is used by persons who feel they are being wrongfully detained. Upon application, the individual is brought before a judge who will determine whether the detainment is lawful. Provincial courts must hear these applications quickly. The right is available to all individuals in Canada, including refugees and immigrants.[3] “
"In 1925, after The New Yorker was founded, White began submitting manuscripts to the magazine. Katharine Angell, the literary editor, recommended to editor-in-chief and founder Harold Ross that White be hired as a staff writer. However, it took months to convince White to attend a meeting at the office and additional weeks to convince him to work on the premises. He eventually agreed to work in the office on Thursdays."
Michel Cormier, executive director of the Leaders' Debates Commission, speaks to Power & Politics about criticism over allowing the post-debate question period to be dominated by small right-wing media outlets on Wednesday, and why he says he was 'afraid' of what would happen if a particular organization was denied accreditation. As the politicians arrive, the Leaders' Debates Commission has been taking heat for removing Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault from the debates at the last minute, as well as for accrediting far-right media outlets tied to Rebel News. Questions from Rebel journalists ended up dominating the leaders' media availability after the French-language debate last night. The commission's executive director, Michel Cormier, defended the decisions but said the commission made some changes for this evening. "We're learning from what happened last night and you'll see, hopefully, a fair representation tonight," Cormier told Power & Politics host David Cochrane. Cochrane later reported there will be new rules for tonight's scrums. Questions will be limited to 20 seconds and no followups will be allowed. Media outlets are also being asked to limit their questions to one per outlet.
Banning books will only drive young people online for answers, where they are more likely to encounter content produced by people who have no interest in equipping them with the information and skills they need to navigate the world. In this age of digital exposure and misinformation, librarians play a more vital role than ever. We should trust them to do their jobs.
Some headlines in French on a phone screen, eg EN DIRECT: M Singh affirme que….
Back when I was a kid you didn’t need Joe Rogan. Your best friend had a 27 year-old brother who was a fucking loser who would smoke pot in a room with black light posters and tell you the Mayans invented cell phones.
Drawing of a raccoon with a laptop in library stacks, with a take-out coffee cup, banana peel, and apple core nearby.
Page not found error message with drawing of raccoon in library stacks
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. A sticky note says “Just following orders.”
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