Chris Pappas will be the first out gay man in the U.S. Senate
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/11/chris-pappas-will-become-the-first-out-gay-man-in-the-u-s/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into LGBTQ Nation @lgbtq-nation-LGBTQNation

PsyArXiv moving to a new platform. See https://blog.psyarxiv.com/2026/11/02/psyarxiv-migration-faqs/

Katherine Rundell powerfully articulates her alarm about LLMs undermining the development of thinking skills. https://substack.com/@politicsusa46/note/c-349236073?r=epscf

#jazz Hermann's Jazz Club (in Victoria, B.C., Canada) is partway through a valiant effort to re-open, looking for small donations. Starting early in the pandemic they regularly ran free live streams of their jazz shows, available to the world. Help bring that back! See https://savehermannsandvss.com/

@futurebird

I think when teaching statistics, the first place to start is with a set of experiments you are going to run. Literal physical experiments. For example you could drop little paper helicopters with a paperclip and measure their flight time. You could drop balls of crumpled paper and measure their drop time. You could roll balls down ramps and measure the rolling time. You could measure the time to drain a funnel with different types of cooking oil, at different temperatures.

In any case, I'd recommend reading Kranzberg's paper.

And if you're interested in more well-written AI criticism that spends a lot of time on psychological and sociological impacts, I have to recommend browsing through @olivia 's and @Iris ' works:

https://olivia.science/
https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/

There's so much good stuff here, like this paper from last year:

https://zenodo.org/records/17786243

Opinion: BC voters cheated by first-past-the-post electoral system https://pgdailynews.ca/index.php/2026/10/25/opinion-bc-voters-cheated-by-first-past-the-post-electoral-system/ #cityofpg #bcpoli

Margined calligrapher fly sampling Asiatic dayflower pollen. One of my favorite pics from late summer/fall.

Whelp, I finally got moved to another server and will start posting more regularly soon. Still recovering from back surgery but things seem to be doing well.

Don't normally ask, but a boost would be appreciated so I can connect with my followers again.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@hannorein/117484899534152804

This post is not getting enough tracking. So I'm upgrading it to from "worth a read" to "best thing you'll read on the internet today"!

I really wanted to use Proton Docs with a couple other people to work on real-time collab writing on a paper... I appreciate @protonprivacy privacy-first, data-sovereignty stance over Google. Sadly, Proton Docs doesn't integrate @zotero (or bibtex, etc.), which gives a practically deal-breaker advantage to Google. However, I've managed a bit of a work-around, far from ideal but I think will make this feasible. I blogged the steps if it's useful to anyone else https://chroknowlogy.ca/blog/know-fore/a-way-to-use-zotero-with-proton-docs

“The government claiming we must drill more fossil fuels so we can use the tax revenues to fund the green transition is about as logical as a doctor telling you to smoke two packs a day to raise the money for your lung transplant.” Caroline Lucas

#climateemergency #andyburnham #greentransition #ukpolitics #climatecrisis

Happy birthday to Ursula K. Le Guin. "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."

My take on Shaking Beef. #food #foodie

It’s #OpenAccessWeek!

As a Canadian open data repository, Borealis is recognized by the Tri-Agency RDM Policy as a reliable repository that supports researcher compliance with journal & funder policies on open data.

"SAFE Labs ("Starting Aware Fair & Equitable Labs") is an initiative for group leaders who want a fair, well-run lab. At its heart is the SAFE Labs Handbook, a set of concrete commitments: how you set expectations on working hours, decide authorship, run meetings, give feedback, support people when they join and when they leave, and more. Every commitment comes with examples from real lab manuals, so you never start from a blank page." See https://safelabs.info/

BC Green Party nominee Pete Fry wins vote for major of Vancouver! https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/vancouver-progressives-take-power-as-green-pete-fry-is-elected-mayor/article_0e6f2e17-3b28-510e-aaf3-a2a297fce229.html

University of Victoria ranked #2 mid-sized university in Canada (with our friendly mainland neighbour Simon Fraser University #1). https://macleans.ca/education/university-rankings/canadas-best-mid-size-universities-for-2027/?utm_source=CapitalDaily&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=oct-18-the-results-are-in&_bhlid=b9f59a6902eeb9014438e2ac7e9ca7d2b281b491

It is sad that most non-profits gave up on having a useful web site. They just moved all their communications to social media.

Gave up all their control and agency.

They still have a web site, still pay for hosting and whatnot. And it just sits there like a forgotten binder on a shelf.

Voting day for Victoria, BC, elections. https://www.victoria.ca/city-government/elections
#canada #victoria #elections2026

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip endorses B.C. Greens' Emily Lowan. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grand-chief-stewart-phillip-emily-lowan-green-9.7383673