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Tom Slee 🇨🇦

@tomslee.net
348 followers 1.1K following 1.7K posts

I refuse to argue on BlueSky. Some writing and charts and a ridehail simulator at tomslee.net, mirrored at tomslee.github.io

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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 3h
Pepys is in the black. Gets to celebrate.
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Jack Lynch @jacklynch000.bsky.social · 7h
Teaching Swift today, and will always share this on “Modest Proposal” day.
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World Bollard Association™️ @worldbollardassoc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Probably the greatest parallel parking you’ll ever see. #WorldBollardAssociation
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 29/09/2026
I have no idea about Anthropic's future. I can see it being immensely valuable or a bust (especially if open weight models win the enterprise space). But in my feed Simon Willison is being reasonable and Ed Zitron is eye rolling and sarcastic, so Ed not doing himself any favours.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 28/09/2026
I'm surprised by this post. I wonder if the big jump in inequality is purely a US phenomenon that I've absorbed by osmosis, or is there another perspective (e.g. is wealth inequality different?)
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John Michael McGrath @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Honour just to be nominated!
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 27/09/2026
Next up: Facebook introduces AI tool to answer your phone calls.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 27/09/2026
Trying again. A new set of @mjmimages.bsky.social Possible New Idioms still always brightens my day.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 27/09/2026
Well that's not good.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 27/09/2026
A new set of @mjmimages.bsky.social Possible New Idioms always brightens my day.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Vandy, C.A. @cavandy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
ohrealllly I think @katie0martin.ft.com may beg to differ that Meta is "doing the right thing"
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 24/09/2026
Another entry in "One-sided efficiency gains are never an equilibrium". This time on AI shopping agents by the always-on-the-ball @vassb.bsky.social Gift link, you lucky people. www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/034a874...
theglobeandmail.com
The dangers of letting AI agents do your shopping
Wall Street loves Muse, Meta’s new personal shopping agent, but the tools can be a minefield for consumers
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 24/09/2026
One of my few firm opinions is that This Kind of Thing will be ubiquitous. One-sided efficiency gains are never an equilibrium.
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Bias has a technical sense in machine learning that closely tracks but is not identical to the human one. Nearly all the anthropomorphic words people object to are quite clear in their technical context, just as “uncertainty” is quite clear in physics or “odd” in mathematics
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 24/09/2026
Proud to say that my opinion on one topic has remained unchanged for three weeks.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 23/09/2026
Stochastic Parrot authors: "I wish we could come up with a compelling phrase that would bring this research to a wider audience." Monkey's Paw: "OK then."
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 23/09/2026
Disappointed by Jill Lepore's "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State". I have loved Lepore's writing but here she is preoccupied by the ideology of the most outspoken tech leaders, and misses the more important social and technological currents at work. www.librarything.com/work/3600757...
librarything.com
| LibraryThing
. 110 members, 4.07 stars, 4 reviews.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 23/09/2026
I think "Exit Party" is my favourite book by Emily St. John Mandel. Partly an imagining of two alternative futures (automated and criminal?) but mainly a portrayal of how the characters reckon with their lives. www.emilymandel.com/exit-party
emilymandel.com
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
A breathtaking novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party and a woman searches for answers.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 22/09/2026
Is this good or bad for Sports Illustrated?
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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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Aaron Wherry @aaronwherry.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I return to my contention that the real benefit of Canadian federalism is that at any given moment there's always one province whose political situation can provide entertainment for everyone else.
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Jennifer Robson 🇨🇦 @jrobson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
She served 2.3 Trusses or just over 10 Scaramuccis
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 19/09/2026
Mr. Ratcliffe would have more credibility if underperforming Manchester United (4th in wage bill) was in the top half of the premier league. #DoctorHealThyself
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Excited to announce that the EMERGE lab has hacked 5 companies unintentionally, just this week
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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
‘Model-making’ (1977) This picture was clearly captured in the 4-minute interval between opening the packet and the plasticine colours getting mixed up. Artist: Harry Wingfield
Two children are playing with plasticine . One child has made a yellow dinosaur and the other boy has made a blue… Maybe elephant? 
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 18/09/2026
Agreed. Also, aren't all bugs "legacy bugs"?
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 18/09/2026
Same
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 17/09/2026
The funding for "Under Brisbane", the croc-based follow-up to "Under Paris", is guaranteed.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 16/09/2026
My BlueSky experience of the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident is depressing. A steady beat of confident voices proclaiming that the other side is stupid, exaggerating and ridiculing the weakest parts of their arguments. Then name calling in the replies. Not a good way to learn anything new.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 16/09/2026
"We all learn from our mistakes." says man who aids suicides. "Well, except for that mistake." he failed to add.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 16/09/2026
People are dunking on this paper but it could not have been carried out with just classical computation. Will IBM tout this as the latest demonstration of quantum supremacy? Also: it raises serious questions about how what "double-blind methodology" means in the multiverse.
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
"LLMs are just n-dimensional classifiers" has a very similar flavor to "everything is just quantum mechanical interactions." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
More Is Different
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 15/09/2026
Thanks Grauniad, but not sure "hijacking the internet" is adding a lot here.
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Shane Gates 🇨🇦 @shanegates.ca · 15/09/2026
Toronto transportation philosophy in one picture
Driver blocking intersection delays three streetcars and a bus from advancing through a light
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
1. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news... So Matt Levine had a newsletter yesterday where he suggested that AI labs could "publish papers about how important it is to slow down" to coordinate an effective cartel. I have a Modest Proposal that goes one better.
bloomberg.com
AI Labs Want Someone to Stop Them
AI and antitrust, lockups and indexes, annuities, Montessori and sudden wealth syndrome.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 14/09/2026
Step 1: Let's use "bnb" in our name to show that we are part of the tradition of friendly, personal, hospitality brought into the 21st century. Step 2: Let's sue anybody else who uses "bnb". Not a good look, Airbnb. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
‘We’re not going to back down’: tiny Dorset B&B stands up to Airbnb’s legal bid to ‘monopolise’ letters ‘bnb’
Three little letters - bnb-side’s name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brand
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Stephanie Carvin @stephaniecarvin.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Interesting from commentator Paul Wells. I would have bet the farm it was bored Canadians.
My best information from Carney’s office, after the last WSJ story about Carney, is that they find the WSJ prone to collecting torqued stuff from European sources who wish their lives were more exciting, and running it as gospel. Today some anonymous sources were telling other news organizations the new WSJ story is more of the same
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 14/09/2026
Survivor bias
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 13/09/2026
Seems like impressive thinking about the economics of open source here.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 12/09/2026
We are now in the "polling people's opinions about polls of people's opinions" level of political coverage (in this case, Alberta's referendum). www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Alberta separatists expect a win, regardless of numbers that say otherwise, poll suggests | CBC News
A political scientist and pollster say that mismatch of expectations has consequences for what comes next and Albertans shouldn’t expect this issue to be put to rest with this one vote.
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 12/09/2026
Wow, there is a lot of talk about AI and repetitive strain injury right now.
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Tristan A.F. Long @thelonglab.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Made up a mini-zine based on my #BI393 syllabus #SciArt #LaurierBiology
An unfolded zine with two folded zones on top.Overhead photo of an unfolded mini zineClose up of two folded zines
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 10/09/2026
In light of "The Uprising" massacring English history, I'm going to continue recommending the wonderful Roy Bailey's song until (checks status) someone likes it. + add an extra song each time. This time, "Roses of Eyam". www.youtube.com/watch?v=drD0...
youtube.com
Roses of Eyam
YouTube video by Roy Bailey - Topic
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 09/09/2026
"The Uprising" seems like it's a Hollywood-imperialist version of the Peasants' Revolt, so instead please listen to "Song of the Leaders" by the late, great Roy Bailey. A great voice and (I met him once, in embarrassing circumstances) a gracious person too. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL29...
youtube.com
Song of the Leaders
YouTube video by Roy Bailey - Topic
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 09/09/2026
Navier-Stokes: one person or two?
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 08/09/2026
These survey results are absolutely appalling. Over half the respondents "are not sure who Liz Lemon is".
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Tom Slee 🇨🇦 @tomslee.net · 08/09/2026
Oh come on now, BBC. You don't really think the counter-tariffs are what's "jeopardising the stability of the world's largest bilateral trading relationship".
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
As my review of Graham Farmelo's biography of Stephen Hawking in the Guardian seems to be drawing attention, I figured I'd post the review that I mention therein of Hawking's last book, in its original form before being bowdlerized by New Scientist. homunculusmusic.wordpress.com/2026/09/07/h...
homunculusmusic.wordpress.com
Hawking’s last book
This is my review of Stephen Hawking’s last book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions (2018). I’m posting it here now because I mention it in my review of the new biography of Hawking by…
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