iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I think you can - I see an option to add home, work, and other...

Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges – Retraction Watch retractionwatch.com/2026/07/31/f...

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

"Alberta has abundant wind and solar energy but these resources are being wasted at record levels and driving costs up for consumers in the process." Lost in Transmission | Pembina Institute www.pembina.org/pub/lost-tra... #Renewables #Electricity #Solar #WindEnergy #AlbertaAdvantage

An ostrich stands on a dry landscape with its head lowered to the ground. In the background, there are wind turbines, solar panels, and an oil pumpjack. Snow-capped mountains under a clear blue sky are visible in the distance, while two small animals are in the middle ground.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Alberta's flu season is now the deadliest in recent memory as experts call for action | CBC News www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... ""What we need is a province that says, 'Immunizations are important: they've been proven, they're effective and they're safe."

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Last year, I asked whether these lists would be made available. Surely it should be subject to ATIA? Alberta school boards remove dozens of library books as provincial ban in effect www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-lif... #ABLeg #BookBans #Censorship #SoDumb

Thank you for your email regarding Standards for the Selection, Availability and Access of School Literary Materials. The Honourable Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Education and Childcare, has forwarded your correspondence for a response.

On July 10, 2025, Alberta’s government announced standards to provide school boards with clear direction on selection of and access to school library materials. These standards were developed in response to increasing concerns from stakeholders, including parents, about the materials available to students in school libraries. Examples of sexual content found in school library materials prior to the development of these standards can be found at the following link: viewer discretion is advised.

The original standards led to some schools planning to remove books that were never meant to be affected. In response to one (1) school board’s proposed removal of more than 200 books, including classic works like Brave New World and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Alberta’s government has updated its standards for school literary materials to ensure that classic literary works remain in school libraries, while books with graphic visual depictions of sexual acts do not end up in the hands of children.

As you note, under the standards, by October 31, 2025, school authorities were required to provide the Minister with a list of any school literary materials identified for removal to support implementation of the standards set out in the Ministerial Order. These submissions were provided for information purposes only and are not subject to ministerial approval. Decisions about which materials are removed are at the discretion of school authorities. Should you have any questions on how your local school board is implementing the standards, including questions about any school literary materials they plan to remove, you may wish to contact them.

Thank you for contacting Alberta Education and Childcare.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

The second of two wild and crazy things mentioned during an AI CoP this morning. Can YOU get a chatbot to draw a clock where the time is NOT 10:10? #StupidPartyTricks

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Released today: 2025 Canadian Cancer Statistics cancer.ca/en/research/... #FuckCancer

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Now that is cool! Air Loom: The 3D Flight Tracker googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-... But what if you could actually see those planes move through the air in three dimensions, gliding and flying around each other in 3D space? - That’s exactly what Air Loom offers. #DataViz

Screenshot of Air Loom, showing flights around London Heathrow

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

New blog post: Are you getting your news from AI? You might want to reconsider that… – The Distant Librarian distlib.pival.me/are-you-gett... #distlib #AI #News #MisInformation

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

One of these things is not like the other. What an interesting site description offered by #Perplexity for Google Earth.

A screenshot showing 4 citations from Perplexity. For Google Earth, the snippet appears to be an advertisement for body odour!

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

One of these things is not like the other. What an interesting site description offered by #Perplexity for Google Earth.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Money is so weird. "Advertisement." The Times Literary Supplement, no. 3020, 15 Jan. 1960, p. 40. The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EX1200317218/DSLAB?u=ucalgary&sid=bookmark-DSLAB&pg=16&xid=f60fd924. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025. #economics #inflation

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

UMaine unveils app to gauge AI's environmental cost - UMaine News - University of Maine umaine.edu/news/blog/20... This looks very much in line with everything else I've been reading of late...

Screenshot showing amount of energy used by generating a paragraph of AI text vs watching a 1-hour Netflix movie.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

New blog post: I'm no longer concerned about energy use and ChatGPT distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025... #distlib #ai #energy #water

Graphic showing how many litres of water are used by data centres for various online activities.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Some interesting, though not very surprising, findings. Who is most likely to fall for fake news? - UBC News news.ubc.ca/2025/04/misi... #misinformation #disinformation

Although the observed effect sizes of the current study may not seem large at first glance (e.g., the average performance gap between Gen Zs and Millennials is 0.25 standard deviations, equivalent to approximately 0.6 points on the MIST, or 3 percentage points) – given how much time most people spend on the internet, how much misinformation circulates online, how easily it spreads (Vosoughi et al., 2018), and how consequential it may be – from decisions regarding vaccinations to decisions at the ballot box – the real-world impact of these differences may be non-trivial (Götz et al., 2024).

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

New blog post Librarians and teachers amongst the heaviest users of AI - The 2025 AI Index Report distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025... #distlib #ai

Occupational representation in Claude usage data vs US workforce distribution

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

New blog post: Using ChatGPT to keep up on the news is like using a potato to commute to work. distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025... bsky.app/profile/down... #distlib #AI #SearchEngines #News

An AI-generated hyperrealistic image of an office worker commuting inside a giant potato, modified as a vehicle. The potato has wheels, headlights, and a small windshield

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Missing from the screenshot is the animation of the mouse shaking his head.

Picture of a mouse shaking its head underneat the word "No".

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Finally got off my butt and officially checked out.

Screenshot showing the deactivation of my Xitter account.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Awesomesauce! I wish OpenAI allowed us to more easily share the results.

Screenshot showing that ChatGPT won't allow the sharing of conversations with user uploaded images.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Gen AI strategies for Australian higher education: Emerging practice | Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency piv.al/4go0j29

The provided text does not contain the words "library" or "librarian".

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Not generating a whole lot of solar this week :-(

Picture of a lot of snow outside my kitchen window

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Anyone else a fan of Letterpress? Years ago I got matched against a random person and we've been neck and neck ever since! #Words

Screenshot of an evenly-matched Letterpress opponent

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Thanks for the excellent work creating a custom map showing the location of Calgary with the specific image I uploaded, @ChatGPT! #AIWillTakeOurJobs

A crappy map created by ChatGPT that most definitely does not show the location of Calgary.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 23/10/2024

We tried hotpot for the first time for our last meal in Melbourne - pretty good! We did not try this dish, though.

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 21/08/2024

AI is not quite ready to take over the world

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 28/06/2024

How I used AI today. I'm seeing tons of these being installed around town and am loving them! #AI #AccessibilityForAll

Screen shot of ChatGPT describing a tactile paving surface

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

ARL/CNI 2035 Scenarios for AI Influenced Futures in the Research Environment www.cni.org/news/arl... Some interesting thoughts in here, and meant for you to have, as well. While we're supposed to keep an open mind, I identify pretty strongly with one of these 4. #AI #Libraries #ThoughtExperiment

ARL/CNI 2035 Scenario Set. Scenario 1: Democratizing AI, Scenario 2: Technocratic AI, Scenario 3: Divisive AI, Scenario 4: Autonomous AI

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 03/05/2024

New blog post: Launching ChatGPT Voice Chat on an iPhone 12 with back-tap distlib.blogs.com/di... #Distlib #ChatGPT #Shortcuts #iPhone #Accessibility

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 12/04/2024

Oh I'm SURE that's why you won't answer the question!!!! #ConspiracyTheory

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 11/04/2024

I uploaded a series of PDF reports, but have no trust that ChatGPT is accurately representing what's in them :-( Inspired by Ethan Mollick, I WAS able to remind ChatGPT that it actually has an ability it claimed not to, though! 2/2

ChatGPT transcript where I insist ChatGPT really can read through PDFs

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 04/04/2024

Google Books Is Indexing AI-Generated Garbage www.404media.co/goog... Do better, Google!

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 26/03/2024

I thought maybe I could drop a couple of apps from my phone. I asked ChatGPT if it could remove the background from a recent photo, and this is what it gave me 🤣

A screenshot showing how ChatGPT not only removed the background, but also changed the subject of the photo!

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 28/02/2024

Hi, friends, I'm putting together a series of workshops on AI and would like to include some images like the attached to lighten the mood. Can you send me what you've got? I'm not looking for AI-*generated* images...

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Paul R. Pival 🇨🇦 he/him @ppival.bsky.social · 05/02/2024

Today I learned of the existence of numbats, and I have a new favourite animal! The Numbat — Project Numbat www.numbat.org.au/th...

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