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Adam

@chalicotherex.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.3K following 3.7K posts

mentally robust adamsnotes.substack.com

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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 28m
Fun article. The ten year moratorium on scholarly meetings about Umberto Eco that he wrote into his will ended this year. www.thedial.world/articles/new...
thedial.world
300 Umberto Eco Scholars and Me — The Dial
Encyclopedias, AI and conspiracy theories in Bologna.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 15h
I like government run liquor stores but I think as a society we can do better. You should have to stand in line at the dmv or some other government office to buy stamps which can then be redeemed for alcohol at the government liquor store.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 20h
jon from garfield i think is the most depressing cartoon character. when i was a kid if they ran a comic strip with a gag about his shitty life in the newspaper i'd think about how if that was me i'd kill myself. It was depressing to think about too much
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Re: IRGC's letter to Americans. Maybe the best thing America has ever had going for it is that everyone wants to like them. Is it Rick Perlstein or Caro who says the Vietcong had pictures of an American president in their homes before the war? Shame Trump wants to squander it all, again.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 28/09/2026
So uhhhhhh… Apparently meta's muse "AI" is just straight up doxxing people to strangers on FB marketplace??? This has the potential to hurt so so many people, and I genuinely wonder how long before they roll out a fix for it.
Screenshot of a post from threads

matt.j.robb & 16h (€) So muse handled my Facebook marketplace today. Just found out it told people my address and agreed a lowball price and then they showed up without it even telling me until late tonight that it messed up.

Absolutely wild. 1/2

[Embedded image of a series of text messages from a meta muse "agent" given the call sign "Jarvis" (Parts of first message obscured by its logo have been replaced with brackets and ellipses and best guesses from context):]

Heads up, Usman is […] building right now for the MX Keys Mini [. He is sta]nding in front of the Shoppers Drug [Mart.]

$10 by e-transfer. The auto-reply told him to message when he's at your door.

10:28 PM Bad news on the MX Keys Mini pickup. Usman showed up at your building around 9:15 and waited, messaged a bunch of times, and nobody came down. He left angry at 9:38 and left a negative rating.

Worse, my auto-reply told him "Yep I'm here!" at 9:27 when you clearly weren't available, which is on me. That's a bad look and it made the no-show worse.

I've sent him an apology from your account owning it and offering to try again another day. But the negative rating is real, and I should probably stop the auto-replies from claiming you're home when I can't verify that. Want me to change the pickup replies so they don't promise you're there?

[reply, presumably from the threads user]: You gotta never do that ever again don't agree for pickup unless you check with me

[Response from Muse "Agent"]: You're right and I'm sorry. That should never have happened. It's locked in now as a hard rule: i will never […you]'re there unless you've explicitly […] that specific pickup. If someone proposes a time, I'll tell them I'll check and…  Screenshot of a tweet from Ray Wong @raywongy:
    Deleted Muse after seeing this post on Threads about how it told some Facebook Marketplace sellers the guy’s address and they showed up at his door

    Dangerous and creepy

    This would have been 1000x worse if the person was a woman
    4:35 PM · Sep 27, 2026
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
saw it on facebook so it might be fake,
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Is that Vote for Gowron sign in Winnipeg real?
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Eric Williams @geoliminal.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Paul Ernst muses upon labor and automation in "The Incredible Formula" from Amazing Stories June 1931...and we muse upon his musings! geoliminal.com/2026/09/24/a...
geoliminal.com
A Specter is Haunting the Pulps #47: “The Incredible Formula” by Paul Ernst, Amazing Stories, v. 6, n. 3, June 1931
Getting to be nearly that Best of All Seasons (Hallowe’en), so I want to get back into the ol’ pulp strainer world and talk about some neat weird horror…BUT, the previous post abo…
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“The rent strike won because our neighbours did the thing that everyone talks about but almost no one does: they formed an independent organization, stepped outside of legal and political convention, and directly confronted their landlord,” said Bryan Doherty of Parkdale Organize.
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thetemzreview.bsky.social @thetemzreview.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
ISSUE 36 IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!! www.thetemzreview.com/issue-thirty...
A photo taken from a bridge across the Thames River in London, Ontario on an early fall night. The camera looks straight down the bridge, which has a wooden floor and metal frame, towards the lit-up buildings of London's downtown
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Really good piece on migration www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Ferdinand Mount · Modest and Misunderstood: Wretched Strangers
In the great immigration panics of today, sympathy is focused on the home team. We are the ones who are being hurt. It...
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Alex/Digital Geist 🎹 @digitalgeist.com · 25/09/2026
Somebody needs a visit from Pépé and Mémé
Grandma and Grandpa from Le Bureau de Legendes
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
le bureau, c'est bonne télé, la meilleure, at 54, while watchmen, a show no one likes or knew existed because allan moore put a hex on it, is at 50? c'est un scandale grande!
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Kylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is all right-wing politics is now, a guy who's killed tens of thousands of children complaining about podcasters
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 24/09/2026
This is absolutely deranged: Months before murdering 6 people and injuring 27 more, ChatGPT told the teen school shooter in Tumbler Ridge, BC that using a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun is “brutal” in a “hallway, indoors or a crowded classroom” because “close quarters” is that gun’s “playground”
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Imagining the Mad Men opening but it's a silhouette of a beperiwigged Samuel Pepys falling through Restoration London. The episode follows the Mad Men formula: alienated from what should be a happy homelife, goes to the office, bit of history, cheats on his wife, sees something old timey, repeat.
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Patrick Sauer @pjsauer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I visited Toronto for the first time last summer and picked this up as a poolside companion piece. It rocks. (I now own three Gillmor books of totally different varieties). The foodie thing is great, basically his only respite. His cheap wine pairings are chef’s kiss. Good book, good review.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I've got a new book review up at The Temz Review, looking at Cherry Beach by Don Gillmor www.thetemzreview.com/mcphee-gillm...
thetemzreview.com
McPhee Gillmor 36
Reviewed by Adam McPhee
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I think one way of understanding the Trump admin is that all these people have spent decades online now and they think the government is just the mods/admin of the real world.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Tucker Carlson confused but secretly enjoying it voice: what is going on here?
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Hourly Peep Show @hourlypeepshow.bagpuss.org · 22/09/2026
Like one of us should kill ourselves.
16:33
S08E06 Quantocking II 24 December 2012
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
they're calling it the orange wedding
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A note on automata adamsnotes.substack.com/p/automata
adamsnotes.substack.com
Automata
Adam’s Notes for September 21, 2026
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
So I guess the tradeoff is going to be that Canada gets into Erasmus and Eurovision (who cares) while Europe gets 'Head of European Investment Bank eyes Canada opportunities' (ominous)
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5uki5en5or @5uki5en5or.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
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Eric Williams @geoliminal.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
in many christian denominations, it's traditional to spend sunday in quiet contemplation of the historical and literary role of automata: geoliminal.com/2026/09/19/a...
geoliminal.com
Automata in Weird Fiction
To celebrate (and *ahem* advertise) the fact that my short story, “Vaucanson’s Canard,” is available for preorder as an absolutely gorgeous pamphlet from Paradise Editions (with i…
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It's 2046 and you're twelve years old. Your best friend pulls up on his bike and says c'mon, we're going down to the bufferzone to build a lucas lodge and a shahed shed. Your mom tells you to bring sunscreen because it's supposed to hit 65C/149F at noon, and watch out for the mutant algal blooms.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Today it's a novelty, but in a few years these things are gonna litter the beaches like bottlecaps
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
yanis varoufakis smiling down on us from greek heaven
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Elephant Mastodon @emath.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
CBC just greenlit my new docuseries where we fly high achieving Canadians—Olympians, titans of commerce, pop stars—back to their hometowns so some guy they went to high school with can ask them, “so what, you think you’re better than me?”
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
rising fuel costs are forcing me to reconsider my use of a diesel-powered laptop
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
in high school a buddy of mine burned a cd that was just that one queens of the stone age song on it 18 times and it was the only cd you were allowed to play in his van
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Ximena González @ximenaka.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Folks! I’m looking to interview an Edmonton tenant spending more than a third of their income in rent. HMU via DM for more details.
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Antoine de Cabanes @adecabanes.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I can't help but relish the biting irony of these remarks by the Greek Finance Minister : it is surely no coincidence that his choice of words mirrors the statements made by Merkel and Schäuble during the Greek crisis of 2009–2015 on the vital need to implement ‘painful reforms’ #€ASchadenfreude
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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
#ableg trivia: Calgary-Shaw tonight was only the second time ever that the Alberta NDP picked up a seat in a by-election. The first was Pincher Creek-Crowsnest(!) in 1966.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Free username idea: Natalie HAARP
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Phil Watson @frenchmegaliths.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The alignments of Petit-Menec in La Trinité-sur-Mer (Morbihan) now have only c.100 menhirs in 7 rows over 200m. Many were broken up for construction of the lighthouse on Belle-Île and field walls like on the left of this card by Le Rouzic.
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christoaivalis.bsky.social @christoaivalis.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Seriously: how do you think the USA conquers Canada most likely? With a literal invasion? Or by using American capital to buy up our key industries and resources via an 'investment summit'? Carney voters don't want to hear this: But he's doing more to help Trump conquer Canada than anyone
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My 9/11 story is that a frequent substitute teacher at our school happened to be there on the day of. If we ever hadn't done our homework or needed to buy time we'd ask about it, and she'd tell us how she slept in and missed it, how her husband was tricked into buying a fake rolex the day before.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I've resumed writing my novel. If I don't write my novel, someone else will write one, and frankly, after learning about The Sorrows of Young Werther incidents, I’ve realized this technology is too innovative and too promising to leave it to the wrong hands.
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
So it seems like part of the shockingly fast Saudi collapse might be because the Houthis faked an audio recording from a general calling for a full retreat of the Saudi-aligned troops and then managed to get a journalist with a large following to uncritically boost it. lol
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I've stopped writing my novel. It was becoming too good and I'm legitimately worried it will become sentient and destroy civilization. Warning shots like the novel Don Quixote have shown how disruptive this technology can be. Do not underestimate it.
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Doctor Wind Turkey @dog-envier.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Something I'm kind of jealous of but also impressed with is how brain-damaged mathematicians are allowed to be. It's like. If I have to go food shopping, I need two weeks bed rest to recover. But I'm a genius! No but we should let everyone live like that ❤️❤️❤️
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Eric Williams @geoliminal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
help me pay my IWW dues by purchasing my delightful short story "Vaucanson's Canard" in s truly incredible pamphlet form, complete with amazing photomontages and amazing typesetting
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Evening House Books @eveninghouse.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Good news and bad news! Good news: We’re running a hardcover sale bc we don’t like doing returns and we choose books v carefully so we know these are excellent Bad news: We had a break in this week with hundreds of dollars of items stolen and could use some help recouping the loss
DISCOUNT
HARDCOVERS 25% IN-STORE AND ONLINE

Evening Hause
BaksUNFUN NEWS:
WE HAVE HAD A BREAK-IN OVER LABOR DAY WEEKEND. THE PERSON TOOK HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS OF TAROT DECKS, A CUSTOMER'S SPECIAL ORDER (DRANK SOME OF OUR WINE??), BROKE SOME THINGS BEHIND THE DESK AND MORE. WE'RE STILL WORKING THROUGH THE DETAILS.
WE'RE AN EXTREMELY SMALL NEW BUSINESS, RUN BY JUST THE TWO OF US, WITH NO SAVINGS OR DEEP POCKETS. JUST A SLOW BUILD UP MADE POSSIBLE BY CUSTOMERS AND COMMUNITY OVER THE LAST YEAR AND CHANGE.
EVERYTHING WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO STOCK ON OUR SHELVES HAS BEEN A GAMBLE, AND IT'S HARD NOT TO FEEL DISCOURAGED BY THIS, BUT WE'RE GRATEFUL MORE WASN'T TAKEN OR DAMAGED AND EVERYONE IS IN GOOD HEALTH.
IF YOU DON'T MIND A REQUEST, WE'LL MAKE THE ASK:
IF YOU CAN SHOP WITH US THIS WEEK, WE'D GREATLY APPRECIATE YOU FOR DOING SO. WE LOVE RUNNING THIS SHOP AND MAKING A SPACE FOR PEOPLE TO FEEL COMFORTABLE AND ENGAGE WITH ART AND CULTURE DOWNTOWN.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.
- JOHN & AMANDA
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
sounds like he's remembering an editorial cartoon, but not even one that he's in
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
vaguepost: midway through my boomer era I was touching grass, for the bussin' pathway lowkey had me crashin out fr
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Adam @chalicotherex.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
“excuse me, well-practiced therapist yet again determination forces change and running ninjas ache to strike the moon” — #fridgle 25 fridgle.net/p/39c
fridgle.net
fridgle
daily fridge poetry toy
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Aurora @vegapunk-aurora.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
*Mr Beast voice* I HELPED THIS WOMAN TURN A ROOM FULL OF STRAW INTO GOLD USING ONLY A SPINNING WHEEL! IF SHE CAN'T GUESS MY NAME IN THREE DAYS, I'M TAKING HER BABY!
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