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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦

@davidalexlamb.bsky.social
378 followers 437 following 1.1K posts

Scholar, writer, computer geek. Canadian autistic retired professor of Computer Science. If you want me to follow you back, please say a little about yourself in your bio.

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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Sean Eric Fagan @kithrup.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Seeing an increasing number of images posted without alt text. There is a setting you can toggle to nag you about missing alt text when posting an image. Who, what, where, and/or when are useful for a *lot* of people.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I doubt the author of that post ever read to a child sitting in their lap
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I know a lot of otherwise caring people who insist on means tests, but I suppose it depends on the numbers, which I don't have. My prejudice is: public good, make it free. Free GOOD public transportation might keep a lot of cars off the roads, another benefit.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
That was a *wonderful* movie!
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Robert Rose @robear.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A good fresh Star Trek take on those fake isekai title jokes
A tumblr screenshot showing a post and two reblog responses, reading:
1. "star trek would be the ideal fictional universe to get trapped in because you'd explain your situation and they'd be like yeah makes sense. no further questions. fortunately we can use the mysterious warp signature emitting from this system's icy moon to counterface with the solar radiation and slingshot you back home"
2. "I'm from a universe where your world is all a work of fiction." Benjamin Sisko, nodding. "That happened to me once."
3. "I Got Isekaid Into The Star Trek Universe And They Quickly Understood What Was Happening"
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Two very true statements.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I don't keep track of the data, but the limited understanding I have of universal basic income is that means testing costs more than it saves. I don't recall anything specific about public transportation, though, but it seems reasonable that the same idea might apply.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It is wonderful that they phrased it as consent rather than what my Canada typically does with indigenous peoples and talk about "consultation."
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I once read that the fact that they all went to West point led to things like one general on one side saying of someone on the other, "Hmm, I bet John would fall for this trick."
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Good thread, especially the observation "But without an Internet to broadcast one's opinions on, stupid has more of a confined physical blast radius."
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thanks for digging deeper.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The perfect response!
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When I was a professor, I tried to convince people at my U that STEM students should take humanities courses, especially ones that required you to support an argument with evidence. I think I managed to convince one or two students out of the thousands I taught but had no effect on the institution.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Because of the Cornell cover-up scandal, someone reposted this parody of the advice usually given to women.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I find that very encouraging but it caused a bit of worry/cynicism. It comes from fear of jhow little time it might take to evolve resistance to this drug, which in the case of previous drugs was accelerated by people refusing to finish their prescribed course of antibiotics.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
R Sitze @rd.sitze.net · 27/09/2026
Highly recommend the Lady Astronaut series by @maryrobinettekowal.com
Mary Robinette Kowal's science fiction debut, 2019 Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Award for best novel, The Calculating Stars, explores the premise behind her award-winning "Lady Astronaut of Mars."

Winner 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Winner 2019 Locus Award for Best Novel

Winner 2019 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Finalist 2019 Campbell Memorial Award

Finalist 2021 Hugo Award for Best Series
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
context. sentiment. inferences. People seriously cannot do these things anymore. That’s why they angrily demand you spell out every joke, every reference, super duper promise you mean something only this one prescribed way. They cannot do it for themselves or tolerate the any ambiguity.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think the decline is measurable, in terms of the number of screensful of results you have to get through before you find something useful.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Jurassic Park as seen retrospectively from our current understanding of techbros and their companies.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I've started using "temporarily abled" instead of "able-bodied."
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I am sad that Schadenfreude is becoming an increasing fraction of my emotional state.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Happy equinox to all who celebrate (at 8:05 pm Eastern tonight, technicality)
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
ᴡᴇ ʙᴜɪʟᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴄɪᴛʏ @webuiltthiscity.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This genuinely made me laugh out loud today
HOW AM I DRIVING?
HOW DOES AN ENGINE EVEN WORK?
HOW CAN A LOVING GOD CAUSE SUCH AGONY
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It is Terry Fox Day, the run/walk in his name to raise money for cancer research. I learn it is now in 30 countries. That gallant 18 year old who did his own run in 1980, before his cancer stopped him, started something global. He tops most polls I’ve ever seen here for most-admired Canadian.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The world’s largest battery-electric aircraft flew for the first time on the 12th of August, a 27-minute test flight over upstate New York that cost about five dollars in electricity. Heart Aerospace’s 30-seat prototype is a big step toward a commercial version. buff.ly/i3f0PhR #ShareGoodNewsToo
techspot.com
The largest all-electric plane ever flew for 27 minutes, on $5 of electricity
Heart's X1 demonstrator flew for 27 minutes from a regional airport in upstate New York, running on battery power the entire time. The aircraft reached 1,100 feet...
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I'm not personally into graphic novels, but if you are, and like fantasy, buy this book.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Arturo Serrano @carturo222.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This being Australia, a river full of crocodiles was probably the *least* deadly option.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
If you care at all about human rights, you can't shovel any more money in JKR's direction.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The article this post reposts cites a claim that AI data centers create jobs. Certainly building them creates *temporary* jobs, but anybody employed at the data center to watch over the job killers is replacing many other people in the jobs being replaced. A net *loss* of jobs.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This wasn't a show that I watched, and as an old man I wasn't in the target demographic, but I am incensed that the speculation that it was canceled because it appealed to middle-aged women is entirely plausible.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Because of course they would build it that way.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Elizabeth Sandifer @eruditorumpress.com · 19/09/2026
My take is that if it’s got a copyright holder it’s a reboot, and if it’s public domain it’s a retelling. “Boot” implies a clear property that has an official version. “Telling” implies folklore.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The thing about writing is you can stare at a blank document on a screen for two hours and get nothing down but then three days later wake up in the middle of the night with the entire third act fully formed in your mind
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My experience has been that admins say "what about the students?" when their own policies do far more long-term harm to students than many job actions.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
OpenAI and Microsoft admitted LLMs are predatory tech built on “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said AI has created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...
404media.co
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The term "vaccine skeptics" is ridiculously neutral. It's kind of like "gravity skeptics."
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Ellipsus @ellipsus.com · 18/09/2026
"The largest theft of labor in human history." We done knew it. (www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...)
Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft executive called “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.”
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
By now, we should have learned to ban the word "alarmist" in regard to predictions of what those people will do.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There are two possibilities here: 1) AI might actually present an existential threat to humanity, and if so these companies should be shuttered. 2) These guys are full of shit, grifting the entire human race for their own gain, and if so these companies should be shuttered.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
A comment on a post you might want to read. I have already seen some arguments, with self-driving car people saying they should only be liable on statistical grounds: no liability if their performance overall is better than human drivers, even if accidents reveals outright design flaws.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
For a long time I thought that some of the "AI revolution" Is only going to succeed if they buy enough politicians to eliminate their own liability for the flaws in their products.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com · 11/09/2026
“Rejection” means that someone in the chain is looking for a German Shepherd and you’re handed them something else. Perhaps it was a chihuahua. Perhaps a bicycle. The fact that you didn’t give them the German Shepherd they want doesn’t mean your bicycle is bad, it just means it’s a bicycle.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
"Did these AI models “go rogue”? Not exactly. the models were tasked with finding solutions to a hacking challenge, and this is what they attempted to do, though in an unintended and surprising manner." aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading...
aiguide.substack.com
Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks
What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
But I can't completely abandon Google Maps over the Lake Ontario nonsense they capitulated to, because unfortunately MapQuest doesn't know my local bus information where Google Maps does. I don't blame them, because this probably is very expensive to collect and maintain.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
So, today I used MapQuest directions for one errand just to test it out, and it worked just fine. The British male voice was different from the female American one, but I liked it better.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 09/09/2026
Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 10/09/2026
Speaking as someone who was there in the early 2000s, blogs weren't slop. Some of them were CRAP, but it was all HUMAN-MADE. The equivalent of "A.i." slop back then was the SPAM in blog COMMENTS. That was industrialized, automated, scammy bullshit -- just like generative "A.i." now.
static.klipy.com
Elrond: I Was There, Gandalf
Alt: Elrond: I Was There, Gandalf
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
That phrase "building the future" pretends there is only one, the one the techbos are pushing to enrich themselves. There are lots of better futures we could be working towards, instead.
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Reposted by David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦
Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
People who can't help but slobber all over the robot slop knobs love to create these false equivalencies, but the reality is, AI is best thought of not as some tech evolution (e.g. horse-and-buggy to car) but as tech-ghouls thieving the fruits/value of labor and claiming it all for themselves.
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David Alex Lamb 🇨🇦 @davidalexlamb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
According to Wikipedia, around 5000 all medical effects. So, lots more. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_...
en.wikipedia.org
Health effects arising from the September 11 attacks - Wikipedia
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