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Sean Boots

@bluesky.sboots.ca
922 followers 940 following 484 posts

A better world, by listening.

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Sean Boots @bluesky.sboots.ca · 15h
“The fact that CSS is simple to start, yet deep to explore and master, is part of why I love it so much. It’s the closest language we have to end-user programming, the idea that software should be customizable by any user.” www.wired.com/story/justic...
wired.com
Justice for CSS
In defense of the girliest programming language.
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Sean Boots @bluesky.sboots.ca · 15h
“The message was simple: this could be you. Your rights will not protect you. Your innocence will not protect you. We can take you in the night, and there is nothing you can do about it.” www.equator.org/articles/mah... (via assemblag.es/@inquiline)
equator.org
The Blueprint • EQUATOR
Imprisoned for no crime, I discovered my arrest was a message: speak out for Gaza, and we will come for you
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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 27/09/2026
Hey! This Friday, come join me and Hillary Hartley, co-founder of 18F, the US government's first digital service, former Deputy Minister and Chief Digital Officer for the province of Ontario when we chat about, uh, how people work. It'll be great. Register here: calendly.com/verylittlegr...
Come join Dan's chat with Hillary, co-founder of 18F, the first digital services team inside the U.S. government, and former Deputy Minister and Chief Digital Officer for the Province of Ontario. Amongst other things.
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jenny (phire) @phirephoenix.com · 29/09/2026
I gave a talk last week about tech billionaires (we really don't like them) and how to fight them (labour organizing, it's always labour organizing). Come take a 9-minute break from producing shareholder value and watch! Thanks to @thewalrus.ca for inviting me for #WalrusTalks 🍁
youtube.com
Jenny Zhang: Workers Can Take Back Tech
YouTube video by The Walrus
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Dale Smith @journodale.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You can watch me talking to Patrick about it on my channel here:
youtu.be
"On Treason" and Alberta Separatism
YouTube video by Dale Smith
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Dale Smith @journodale.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Out today is @patricklennox.bsky.social's book "On Treason," about the Alberta referendum. Highly recommended reading.
biblioasis.com
On Treason: Alberta Separatism, Foreign Interference, and Canada's Survival in a Revolutionary Age - Biblioasis
“What is happening here in Alberta is an aberration. It does not resemble, in any fashion, democratic politics as normal in Canada. . . . For the last ten years […]
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Erica Ifill @wickdchiq.bsky.social · 22h
I’m doing more content these days for @badandbitchy.com! “How Danielle Smith Used White Woman Tears to Manipulate the Entire Country” Sign up it’s unpaywalled! www.badandbitchy.com/p/victimhood...
badandbitchy.com
Victimhood Viagra
How Danielle Smith Used White Woman Tears to Manipulate the Entire Country
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staring blankly into the abyss @irmsby.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Can confirm
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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“One day, when it’s safe, when there is no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will always have been against this”
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Vincent uses they/them pronouns 🐸 @v-e-tirado.com · 17/09/2026
theres Dead Internet Theory and theres "Three Specific Men That Are Actively Making The Internet A Worse Place" theory
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Sohan Dsouza @sohandsouza.info · 19/09/2026
Brilliant investigation in "pursuit hunt" mode. The fake personal stories, meat proxies, scrubbing, recycling, anon bylines, developing-world creators replaced with AI slop engines, repurposing of established assets—all indictments of today's information environment. #PotemkinNews #AI #slop #media
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
NEW: Brown Brothers Media is the most successful media company you've never heard of. For years, its success was fueled by AI, fake writers, and fake reporting. When we started asking questions, BBM started mass-deleting content. Somehow, what came next was even worse. futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
How Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per Month
Brown Brothers Media is a media empire raking in millions of clicks with AI, fake writers, and plagiarism.
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Les Perreaux @perreaux.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Listening to the CBC employee in my house walk her parents through getting on GEM could be a CBC sitcom.
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blair @blairaf.com · 25/09/2026
Me: we spent the last year writing an in-depth analysis of how sovereign AI initiatives fuel nationalist mythologies and technofascism LinkedIn guy: ok but have you considered sovereign AI makes countries more sovereign?
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blair @blairaf.com · 24/09/2026
If you want to summon an army of geopolitics guys on LinkedIn to explain your own research to you, all you have to do is post a little criticism of "sovereign AI"
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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Also the systematic destruction of what was the global powerhouse of education, immigration, and research that fed the pipeline of genuine technological advances that improved everyone’s quality of life has dampened my US techno-optimism, but maybe that’s just me.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026
Being really enthusiastic about new technology and our scientific and technology industries was the USA’s brand for what, the entire 20th century? And seems like over the course of about 20 years, big tech and our abject failure to meaningfully regulate it has pretty successfully lit that on fire.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026
It’s really stunning how the USA has so swiftly shifted from being one of the most techno-optimistic and tech-industry-loving countries on earth, to a country where most people seem to assume - not incorrectly, at least in many cases - that tech is out to get them.
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Henrik Bechmann (Toronto) 🇨🇦 @henrikbechmann.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As a general comment about the bill C-39 which increases discretion on the part or Canada ministers to suppress labour actions... I've believed for decades that an initiative that would increase the relevance of unions would be to insist that unions have a meaningful seat at the management table.
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Martin Jordan @martinjordan.com · 26/09/2026
“Given the size of our problems, our imagination space has become very small.” — @indyjohar.bsky.social at Camden Climate Inspire Festival
4 panellists sitting in front of a smallish audience with a folded white canvas behind them; 2 women and 2 men; a man with a grey longer beard and a black pagdi, holding a microphone and speaking
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 25/09/2026
Trumpism can clearly be understood as the resegregation of the U.S. That’s what “make America great again” has always meant. (“When was America great?” “Oh…you know.”)
nytimes.com
Justice Department Scraps Dozens of School Desegregation Cases (Gift Article)
Critics said the changes, mostly in the South, moved the nation “back toward the Jim Crow era.” Justice Department officials said the decrees were outdated.
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David Seater 🚶‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️🏳️‍🌈 @davidseater.com · 21/09/2026
I continue to believe that a bike lane is only "protected" if it has steel beams anchored into concrete to keep drivers out.
"Protected" bike lane on Airport Way S at S Lucille Street fully blocked by the concrete barrier intended to protect it. Presumably knocked out of place by an errant driver.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 22/09/2026
Normal, non-big-tech affiliated, non-effective altruist funded organizations working on ethical tech have been absolutely financially *devastated* in the last few years, thanks to both Trump and Big Tech deciding it no longer needs to pretend to care about ethics.
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Bruce Arthur @brucearthur.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
My personal rule is, always vote. Pick the least worst candidate. Pick the best referendum answer. The worst people don’t want you to vote. Vote
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Stef "inclusion is a human right" Christensen @wikisteff.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Remember when we talked about how if the Iran war goes on for more than 6 months you would get permanent demand destruction from people switching to EVs?
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Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Superb work from @dougsaunders.bsky.social on deconstructing what an "associate membership" will (and won't) look like. TL;DR: we will not get the type of integration that some are hoping (or fearing!) for, but there are some perks - like Aussie style 4 year work permits - that'd be worth pursuing.
theglobeandmail.com
If Canada joins the European Union show, it will only be from the upper balcony
It might be disappointing to some Canadians – or maybe a relief – but ‘associate membership’ to the EU doesn’t look like it would change much of anything
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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I expanded on thoughts about Canada and the EU, with new ideas about development as an important pillar of Associate Membership, particularly support for democracy, rights and international cooperation progressdevelopment.substack.com/p/canada-the...
progressdevelopment.substack.com
Canada, the EU and Development
Can development drive greater Canada-EU integration?
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Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I made the mistake about thinking about inequality in Canada and the US again compared to how much money is pouring into the AI industry
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Micah @rincewind.run · 17/09/2026
the worst part about this is that a lot of the damage will be permanent by the time we can turn the research funding back on a lot of folks will have unsurprisingly and not unreasonably decided that they should leave this area of research because it will never be reliable what a huge waste
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Erica Ifill @wickdchiq.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This Macklemore-Ed Sheeran-Pink debacle demonstrates that the cultural zeitgeist is pro-Palestinian. This is despite pro-Israel sentiment dominating public and private institutions, the ruling class punishing us for speaking out, state violence. Despite this 👇🏾 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
In effort to prime chatbots to make pro-Israel arguments the site published 124 reports, over 560,000 words in nine days, Guardian analysis shows
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 17/09/2026
The strongest point Lewis makes here is that Carney is “out on a limb here” No one asked voters if they wanted to privatize airports. No one was talking about this. It’s unclear Liberal MPs are even on board with this It feels like a random pet issue Carney is pushing on his own out of the blue
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vortex_egg @vortexegg.com · 16/09/2026
The fact that LLMs as a product (not the models) are designed to emit "thinking traces" and to label that as "thinking" is one of the more insidious parts of the propaganda of AI singularity and ASI consciousness woo targeted at the most credulous people who believe in computer pseudoscience.
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Chris Whong @chriswhong.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Just gave it a permanent URL on my personal website! chriswhong.com/whongs-law/
chriswhong.com
Whong's Law — Chris Whong
Whong's Law: every government agency, everywhere, is working on a
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Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, PhD @mbonsma.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"more european than ever before" i shout into car windows while riding two abreast down a cycle track
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Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, PhD @mbonsma.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Here's Toronto's intersection count data from 2000-2026. There are plenty of intersection counts where bikes outnumber cars, even more where they make up for their road space allocation and then some. datawrapper.dwcdn.net/WqVOi/1/
datawrapper.dwcdn.net
Toronto intersection counts 2000-2026
Intersection count data (total 8- or 14-hour pedestrian volumes, total 8- or 14-hour vehicle and bicycle volumes for each approach to the intersection, percent of total that are heavy vehicles).
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Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, PhD @mbonsma.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Not to mention that in places with a bikeway, bikes are easily approaching and exceeding car volumes. It's a very efficient use of road space.
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 15/09/2026
The other day I went to the farmer's market and saw a bunch of bad ChatGPT signs, which made me sad. Then I went into the adjacent music store, Sidetracks, where I saw all of the signs that Steve Keene painted ~30 years ago, which made me happy. I'll choose human-made art every time.
An obviously ChatGPT-created sign reading "Illicit Empanadas: $5.99. So good it should be illegal." It's on a sandwich board on the ground.A bin of CDs, with a crude, handprinted sign reading "SOUND TRACKS," with the words written vertically. The sign is plywood, painted red, green, and white. It was obviously painted quickly.
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 15/09/2026
@chriswhong.bsky.social Just tossing a dollar in the "cited Whong's Law in a meeting" jar
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jenny (phire) @phirephoenix.com · 08/09/2026
I've looked at literally thousands of online event listings over the past year and a half and now I have Opinions™ about how they should be structured, perhaps you would be interested in these if you also run events or you just enjoy a slightly exasperated blog post phirephoenix.com/blog/2026-09...
phirephoenix.com
things I wish every event organizer would do for their event listings
Hello yes, I am aware that it’s been almost a full year since the last post. This is largely because running Show Up Toronto and writing a newsletter for it every week takes a lot of time and energy. ...
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Martin Jordan @martinjordan.com · 05/09/2026
As a public servant, I write weekly notes to let people see what I do. Last week’s notes were still missing. Now, they are published. I co-ran the GDS-developed ‘Introduction to #serviceDesign’ again – now linked to the #ServiceStandard. I also reflected on the lack of interest in service quality.
verwaltungsgestaltung.de
Week #226 at the Digital Service: Notes for 24–28 August
For the 5th time, Martin co-ran the GDS-developed ‘Introduction to service design’ in Germany. For the first time, it was deeply intertwined with the Service Standard. He also reflected on the lack of...
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S. Ashleigh Weeden, PhD @ashleighweeden.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
On Labour Day Weekend, remember that “responsible AI” is not a thing, but actual humans are - so join or support your applicable union. Yes, that means you, white collar workers in medicine, law, academia, government, or elsewhere. Every profession is a skilled trade. Don’t be fooled otherwise.
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Noel Hidalgo 🗽❤️🚲 @noneck.org · 03/09/2026
Socialism for corporations & billionaires; Market Capitalism for everyone else.
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 03/09/2026
I would *really* like 1Password to rescind this and apologize because moving my family out of 1Password after 12 years will be a pain in the ass and I don’t want to do it. But, what, I’m gonna fund this Nazi? No way.
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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 03/09/2026
Wondering who in the civic tech world is going to pick up the baton and go through the shitshow of the USPS whistleblowing report. You know it's going to be good because it's a "portal". www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/do...
blumenthal.senate.gov
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jenn schiffer 😎 @jennschiffer.com · 03/09/2026
if there are people at 1password making the racists afraid to be openly racist at work, a genuine thank you. no one is paid enough to do that work but it’s not to be taken for granted, also sorry you work with scumbags and your ceo is a colossal baby with no swag
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_______________________________ @filipamv.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
*inhales* ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
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jenny (phire) @phirephoenix.com · 01/09/2026
my prefigurative politics involve treating customer service (and posting on social media) like it's still 2014
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jenny (phire) @phirephoenix.com · 01/09/2026
I just called Staples to be like "hey I bought a thing last week and there's now a new coupon for a significant discount, before I just return this and re-buy it I thought I'd check if you could save us both the hassle and just give me the discount" and they did????? Talking to a human worked?????
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Andrew Young 🇨🇦 @young.me · 01/09/2026
If you notice any website (Canadian or not) with a Google Maps embed displaying the incorrect "Lake America" label and not "Lake Ontario", this is the fix 🍁 A nice side-effect of this fix is: it will always display as "Lake Ontario", even for users in the United States. #elbowsup
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