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Navneet Alang

@navneetalang.com
7.4K followers 738 following 4.2K posts

Editor on the Opinion team @ Toronto Star. Pitch me at nalang@thestar.ca. Writer, columnist, bylines all over. PhD. Anglo-Indo-Canadian, each in equal measure. navneetalang.com

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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 2h
friends the "Ah! Well. Nevertheless" guy got a write-up on cnn www.cnn.com/2026/10/01/u...
cnn.com
The tweet that defined a decade of Trump | CNN
It’s been 10 years since Jesse Farrar accidentally defined a political era with one pithy, prescient tweet. He wishes it never happened.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 6h
Hm, thought this was clarifying and helpful.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 8h
This is totally tangential, but this is the second time this morning I've seen someone not desi use the word which... I'm just curious when that started?
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 9h
Here is @vassb.bsky.social arguing something similar in the Star. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
thestar.com
If Canada wants to move away from Elon Musk, this is how it should do it
It's time for pension funds to step up, writes Vass Bednar.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 9h
important update: i posted about muse on linkedin and got no engagement at all there either. i'm just curious about it!
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 9h
mum can you come pick me up, the pope is talking about the spark of humanity in art
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Richard Warnica @rwarnica.bsky.social · 11h
I had breakfast with Brad Bradford and asked him what I think is the defining question of his campaign: Why do so many people from all ends of the political spectrum seem to dislike him so much as a person? www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
thestar.com
Richard Warnica: Does Brad Bradford believe in anything other than himself?
Bradford's relentless pursuit of success may also be his downfall.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 01/10/2026
bsky is the wrong place to ask this huh
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John Michael McGrath @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 01/10/2026
Curious: has anyone heard experiences re Muse that people are actually happy with, or that it does what it says on the tin etc?
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Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I wrote about Kevin O'Leary's proposed Utah data center: how it came together so fast, how it fits into the AI buildout, and why the backlash became such a political force.
theverge.com
The People of Utah vs. Kevin O’Leary
Mr. Wonderful wanted to build the world’s largest data center. The neighbors had other ideas.
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Max Read @maxread.info · 01/10/2026
buddy, they won't even let me fork it
youtube.com
If A.I. Is Making You Crazy, You're Not Alone | Hard Fork
YouTube video by Hard Fork
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
What a brilliant piece. It reads like a fictional journey to a fictional society in part because she is describing a cult. A man more or less LARPing into oblivion while causing harm in the medium and short term.
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Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This is *very* good.
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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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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 30/09/2026
Half-formed thought: sometimes wonder if "can AI write a book?"/"would you read an AI-generated book?" are the wrong questions vs does "AI" change the usefulness/desirability of certain formations/functions of language? What does AI do to the novel less interesting than what it does to the textbook?
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 30/09/2026
Saw Emily Wilson talk at the Reference LIbrary. Pretty interesting! Interviewer even waited until the end to mention the film, so that was a relief.
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Jeremy Appel 🍉 @readtheorchard.org · 29/09/2026
My new book, “Dark Phoenix: The Rise, Fall, and Re-emergence of Danielle Smith,” is out two weeks from today! If you like my work on Alberta politics, please consider preordering it. Preorders are important in signalling demand to booksellers and media. Link below 👇👇👇
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Stephen Tustin @stustin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"Digital sovereignty is about owning or controlling layers of infrastructure, not just funding another vendor - Vass Bednar in @thestar.com #Musk #Starlink www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
thestar.com
If Canada wants to move away from Elon Musk, this is how it should do it
It's time for pension funds to step up, writes Vass Bednar.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 29/09/2026
A while ago, standing in front of an audience, I said something along the lines of there now being a need to embrace a certain kind of snobbishness because the world was about to be deluged by slop. Felt sheepish after... But I think I was on to something.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 29/09/2026
Horace Dedieu (remember him?) asserts that the iPhone Duo is actually version 2 of the iPhone and "as such it will become even more habituated to us and vice versa." asymco.com/2026/09/28/t...
asymco.com
The best selling product of all time
Measuring the iPhone Uno Ten years ago, I noted that the iPhone was the most popular product of all time. At the time, it had just crossed 1 billion units sold. This exceeded the quantities of othe…
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 29/09/2026
Well that’s a relief!
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 28/09/2026
"At least it doesn't have trans fats!" I say to myself through gritted teeth as I struggle through mixing 'natural' peanut butter, a thin sheen of sweat emerging on my brow.
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Graeme Bayliss @gbayliss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I wrote about Premier Doug Ford's apparent indifference to human life for @thestar.com: www.thestar.com/opinion/star...
thestar.com
Graeme Bayliss: His cyclist friend was killed. Why did Doug Ford’s response include ‘lmao’?
No one is expecting the premier to mash out the Bixby letter on his iPhone. Yet we might expect more than this.
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
i sometimes at my worst just feel that social media should be banned outright. given how much more techno libertarian i felt ten years ago, this is a very big evolution
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 26/09/2026
As a living breathing adult in 2026 I am always thinking things like “I don’t have enough cognitive load” and “I have lots of free mental bandwidth please challenge me more to exercise the muscle that is my brain”
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 26/09/2026
Oddbird non-alcoholic wines are good. The blanc de blanc tastes sorta like an off dry prosecco or some such and is genuinely pleasant to drink. Perhaps there's extra work that goes into the dealcoholization process? Still feels off to pay as much as "real wine" though. oddbird.com
oddbird.com
Oddbird
Oddbird
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 26/09/2026
thinking back to last night when I paid $17 for a glass of non-alcoholic wine
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
new york food scene : toronto food scene :: IG/TikTok/X discourse : Bluesky discourse, standard disclaimer that no I will not be explaining
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
best response to the tv show list was on the bad place where some scottish fella said the absence of the sopranos rendered the whole list meaningless...
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
Has anyone checked out what's going on in the used Porsche market? I'm starting to worry I may not be able to afford one
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
Lately I've been reluctant to start any new show or even finish a rewatch of Mad Men (which, btw, would be my personal #1) because -- and I say this fully aware of why it may sound wrong to you -- it feels like if I am going spend watching "moving pictures," they should be films and not TV
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
Pulling, Such Brave Girls *and* Crashing = you know this is a good list
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 25/09/2026
I knew the NYT TV list was going to make me mad because that's the point of top X lists and yet I'm still mad about it! Anyway, look for the Toronto Star's upcoming series, the Top 100 Punjabi-Canadian newspaper editors, curated by me
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 24/09/2026
I would like to reiterate my desire for a doomsday clock-like device but for your individual life expectancy. I want to know what each thing costs me in terms of time. An evening on the couch, -3 days. A run, +20 minutes. A month of healthy eating, +3 months. 1 martini, -3 days. And so on.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 24/09/2026
As algorithmic social media has gotten worse or hostile to news, there's been a return to people visiting homepages. Just had the scary thought, though, of people visiting news chatbots instead i.e. you don't go to nytimes.com but the NYT bot and ask it questions?
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 24/09/2026
Sorry, I know there’s a lot going on, but… there’s an Office of Remigration???
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
Folk often talk about how a film, an artist etc. didn't have a wider cultural impact, or that a once-popular thing just disappeared after the hype. But how can one perceive something as having a lingering effect if there's no monoculture, no shared terrain upon which one can agree/disagree?
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
I like how I wasn't able to write this without at least two spelling/grammatical errors. My teachers couldn't teach me either, apparently.
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
Two similar lines of arguments: Pundits: Schools are indoctrinating kids! Teachers: I can't teach kids reading let alone telling them what to think! Pundits: Immigrants aren't assimilating! Immigrant parents: Good god, how do I stop my kids from assimilating?!
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
good lord
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Kathryn VanArendonk @kvanaren.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
this is not paywalls, fyi - this chart looks roughly the same for sites that have had paywalls since long before 2022. this is all former SEO traffic that has now vanished in exchange for ai search summaries
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
Apropos of one of many current conversations, here are some thoughts from a while back about assimilation, identity in light of far right notions of purity. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...
thestar.com
Navneet Alang: Elon Musk seems to think ‘The Odyssey’ is a fight for Western culture. He’s right
What’s at stake when we change the foundational narratives of Western civilization to meet the times?
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
Still so weird to think about both language as a way of conveying information & also language as being intimately tied to notions of selfhood, expression etc... and the fact that machines can now reproduce the former of those 2 things. Still think "what photography did to painting" is relevant
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 23/09/2026
was gonna say the 12MHz 286 my dad used for this business but then I realized that, no, it was this, from the early 80s
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Jacob Silverman @jacobsilverman.com · 22/09/2026
Today is the paperback release, with a new afterword, of GILDED RAGE: ELON MUSK AND THE RADICALIZATION OF SILICON VALLEY. It's my look at the rise of the tech right, the 2024 election, and the bankrupt ideologies animating tech oligarchs. www.bloomsbury.com/us/gilded-ra...
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 22/09/2026
Made the mistake of checking the "For You" tab on the bad place, and in an odd way, I'm almost sympathetic to the stereotype of "the boomer": the things you felt were sacrosanct and represented real progress in your youth are now being actively denigrated and dismantled. In this case: anti-racism.
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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 22/09/2026
Damn, he had Sam Altman dead to rights in 2016
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Jared Pechaček @vandroidhelsing.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
the fourth monkey is their neglected brother, evil
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Navneet Alang @navneetalang.com · 21/09/2026
The NYT top tv shows thing is already a success in that I'm very mad about something (Station Eleven not being near the top is a travesty)
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