What Fresh Hell Is This?

Enshittification
OverdriveVille


Happy New Year.

Which means that it is now the year that the worsening of all things online will continue at warped speed:

Meta is betting that characters generated by artificial intelligence will fill its social media platforms in the next few years as it looks to the fast-developing technology to drive engagement with its 3bn users.

“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” said Connor Hayes, vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta. 

“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform . . . that’s where we see all of this going,” he added.

Hayes said a “priority” for Meta over the next two years was to make its apps “more entertaining and engaging”, which included considering how to make the interaction with AI more social...

Now.

I know that Norm Farrell, NVG, DS, and Dr. Beer 'N Hockey are on the level because I've actually met them, in person, in real life.

And I think I met GarFish in a past life.

And I've known Danneau, and Graham, and eaf, and EE, and TB, and Scotty on Denman, and Lew E, and Chuckstraight, and JP, and Keith, and Grant G, and just about all the rest of you who have been stopping by here occasionally since the days when AI grifterians like Sam Altman were still in short pants and/or were about to quit Stanford. Thus, I'm pretty sure you all are real as well.

But what do we do when a new commenter shows up now? 

Do we have them to send us imprints of their retinas and, maybe, cheek swabs just to be sure they're something more than neural-networked gobs of goo in the machine?


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Image at the top of the post?...Header originator Dorothy Parker working her typewriter far from the madding Algonquin Roundtable crowd at her farmhouse in Bucks County PA...The guy sitting by the window is not Paul Newman. Instead, it's her then husband Alan Campbell... The photo was taken in 1937, the year the two of them worked with collaborator Robert Carson to write the screenplay to 'A Star Is Born'.

Subheader?...This!...Courtesy the brilliant Cory Doctorow.


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Political Man Yells At Clouds...And Wind And Rain.

MayNoneOfYourWishes

ComeTrueVille


Just catching up on any and all Kevin O'Leary-free year end dumbness...

The following is from the BC Conservative Party's Transportation 'Critic':

Gosh.

Given that he does not appear to have the courage of his bridge convictions, what is the good Mr. Bhangu actually suggesting - a big, beautiful weather wall paid for by the left-sided ferry takers from the Republic of Van Isle, perhaps?


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T'was The Night Of Christmas, And All Through The House...

NotAStudentWasStirring
NotEvenAnExamMouseVille


Took the picture, above, looking down on the empty study area in the place of my day job just after the last final exam on the last weekend before the holiday break started.

I was in the lab that day culling vials old cell lines from the liquid nitrogen tanks. That's my job these days, doing the gardening when new cells come and the pruning when we're done with them.

Truth be told, the star kids doing the real work, the intricate stuff, don't want me getting in the way gumming up the works.

Anyway.

Now that the night before has past, here's a fantastic, tree- and bauble-free,  Christmas story for the ages by Paul Auster, one of my most favourite of all authors who passed away a year ago last spring:





We're on The Republic of (South) Vancouver Island for the holidays...Have the best time possible everybody and talk to you all soon!


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Rail Hoppin' Pipe Dream On Tracks That Don't Even Exist.

CascadiaCalling

NotMackinVille


Keep on dropping those drips into a massive $100 billion budget bucket and pretty soon you will be talking about real money:

The dream of high-speed passenger rail connecting Vancouver to cities in the Pacific Northwest inched a little closer on Thursday, with the announcement of millions of dollars in new U.S. government funding.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration announced $US49.7 million for planning on a proposed Cascadia High-Speed Rail project. Washington state has kicked in a further US$5.6 million...

And then there is British Columbia's micro-drippage:

Since discussions began in 2018 on proposed high-speed rail service through Cascadia corridor, B.C. has provided $900,000 in development funding to explore this connection between Portland and Vancouver...

Now.

While they do play a half-dozen or so big time college football games a year there, why the heckfire would anyone want to lay out an additional ten or twenty billion to push the line all the way south to Eugene anyway?



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Speaking of trains and tracks and all that...Meanwhile, very sadly, in Stanley Park...


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Hat Day!

RowUpon

RowVille


Littler (but now pretty much fully big), e. started her project a little over a week ago.

In fact, last weekend when the two E's and me went out for our traditional mad scramble shopping day, e. was dragging a huge bag of yarn along with her.

And then, on Wednesday, she sent us the picture above.

Why 18 different hats?

Because that is precisely how many kids e. is working with these days.

As you can imagine, when I saw the videos her charges joyously receiving their hats, one by one, with explanations of why their particular design and colour scheme had been chosen for them alone, I became extremely verklempt in the best of all possible ways

Here are all the hats in a stack, which I also get an immense kick out of:

****

It turns out that e.'s project was inspired by a teacher, Madame T, who did a similar thing for the entire class when she was a little kid.

Speaking of which, here is the actual littler version of said kid of mine, which was recorded not long after the seed was planted by that most ingenious of memory makers, Madame T...

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Who Goes Quisling?

TheCaving
ClassVille

A few days ago, we noted that ABC News turtled when it settled a frivolous lawsuit from an authoritarian politician bent on running the free world by the 'rules' of professional wrestling.

That settlement was first reported last Saturday, Dec 14th.

And here's what happened five days earlier:

...Debra O'Connell, the Disney executive who directly oversees ABC News, dined with Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in Palm Beach last Monday, according to two people briefed on their interaction. The dinner was part of a visit by several ABC News executives to Florida to meet with Mr. Trump’s transition team...

Now.

As Charlie Angus recently noted, quislings can never be trusted to act in the public's interest when the going gets tough.

OK?


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The post's title comes from a very famous, and still highly relevant, essay by Dorothy Thompson for Harper's in August of 1941...And, yes, you got that date right.

Image at to top comes from this historical perspective piece by the late, great Joe Schlesinger of the CBC.



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Speaking Truth To Disinformation.

MemoryIsADangerous
ThingVille


Charlie Angus, above, in a not surprisingly empty House of Commons, pointing out how and why quislings do not stand up for Canada.

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Tip 'O The Toque to reader EE for the heads-up...



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Too Big To .... Fight?

TheMouseThatDidn't

RoarVille


You often hear about gargantuan corporate behemoths that are deemed to be, rightly or (often) wrongly...

...Too big to fail.

Think of, for example, Wall Street banks during the financial crisis of 2008.

But another thought popped into my head when I saw the following item over the weekend:

ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.

{snip}

Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March...

Now.

Given that ABC is owned by Disney, and given that the House of Mouse is likely worried that the incoming Trump administration could make its life difficult in all sorts of realms, regulatory or otherwise, one can only wonder if the massive company decided that it is just too big to risk any fight whatsoever with Mr. Trump.

Just like Mr. Bezos' Washington Post and Mr. Soon-Shiong's Los Angeles Times before them.

Not to mention MSNBC and Joe Scarborough schlepping on down to Palm Beach recently.

It seems to me that all of this is much, much worse than this thing that has been dubbed to be 'sane washing'.

Because, essentially, it is becoming increasingly clear that these conflicted corporate giants are scared to do anything that will upset the new king.

And that is very scary, indeed, for anyone working for those teetering giants that is still trying to actually speak truth to power.

If you get my drift.


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This idea was crystallized for me when I listened to the usually pugnacious Anne Applebaum speak with former WaPo columnist Greg Sargent this morning...I must confess that I was very surprised by Ms. Applebaum's somewhat conciliatory 'this is not that really all that different than business-as-usual' tone.

While I beat her to pixel punch by a few minutes, Marcy Wheeler does a much better job of explaining what is really scary for a democracy in all of this, including Mr. Trump's making made men out of the tech bros...MW also gives Ms. Applebaum a bit of a hard time as well, mostly given that it has been apparent for some time now that Trump is following the press-cowing strategy of Victor Orban...
Finally....I realize that the drama involving Mr. Trudeau and his caucus will likely be pretty much done by the time you read this, but..Just in case...The most insightful live blogging I've seen on this is being done by Evan Scrimshaw.

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Soccer Party Revisited: The Zero Point Two Percent Solution.

HaveTheyNo

ShameVille


By now you may have heard that the BC United Party sent an Email to its 'supporters' last Thursday begging for money:

...“The need is substantial — we must raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming weeks to fulfill our obligations and ensure the party remains registered so that the membership will have the opportunity to decide what is next,” BC United wrote.

“Together, we have raised this amount of money before and we believe we can come together to do it again and make sure our community is made whole. There is no alternative. Either we raise the funds required to meet our commitments, or BC United will be unable to continue.”...

Gosh.

Maybe I missed it but...

When Mr. Falcon abruptly pulled his team from the field back in August, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the 'membership' who decided anything whatsoever.

And besides, it is very likely that the 'membership' is now wondering what it is, exactly, that the current Soccer Party braintrust would like to 'continue' to do with their money.

Especially given that it would appear that approximately 19, 953 of the 20,000 party members had already decided that they did not wish to 'continue' to have anything to do with the party by the time Election Day rolled around back in the fall:

...(On election night) the party hosted a fundraiser featuring former premier Gordon Campbell at Vancouver’s Sutton Hotel. Invitations were issued to 20,000 party members, and it was billed as an election watch party. Inside, the mood was anything but celebratory, as Mr. Campbell addressed just 47 seated guests who bought tickets to the event...

Imagine that!


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Quoted passage 1, above, is from a solid piece by Mike Vanden Bosch in the Fraser Valley Today.

Quoted passage 2, above, is from just the kind of insider access, clout club-type piece you would expect from Ms. Hunter in the Globe...I must admit, however, that I laughed out loud on the bus this morning when I read that only 47 of the former faithful were willing to pony up to attend the attempted resurrection of GordCo, 2.0...I quickly settled down when it became apparent that I was freaking out a number of the over-caffeinated kids nearby who were on their way to campus to study and/or write a final or three.

Image at the top of the post?...Why that's Mr. Campbell in the middle with Kevin Falcon grinning over the boss' left shoulder back in the spring of 2009 (i.e. the last of the post-BC Rail glory days of GordCo 1.0)...As for the venue?...Well, I figured EE might have a thing or two to say about that...

Off topic, but...If the context-free stories about recent events in South Korea have left you scratching your head, this piece in Foreign Policy by academic Lami Kim, will help clear things up for you...Essentially, the current leader Yoon Suk-yeol, the guy lawmakers have just impeached, tried to hold on to  power by initiating a self-coup involving martial law that pulled the military back into things - which has happened before there with devastating consequences...

Finally, I was sad to learn that Owen Gray has decided to shutter his CanPoli blog 'Northern Reflections' due to health and other issues...Northern Reflections has  been around just about as long as this little F-Troop blog and I've always admired, and have often tried to emulate, how Owen responded to and engaged with readers in the comment threads...

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Is East Still East In Bitcoinland?

Monetize
EverythingVille


Former Spam-A-Lot-Teer from the old Smilin' Sammy days, Mike Klassen, put forward the other Vancouver council motion of note that was approved this week.

Which is to have city staff seriously look into moving the VanEast cross that sits high on the hill above the wrong (i.e. right) side of the False Creek Flats Railroad Tracks, to somewhere more appropriate because:

..."This is a really important piece that people should be able to see better," said Klassen, speaking on the CBC's The Early Edition. "It's become really almost symbolic of the working class east side of the city and a lot of people love it."...

{snip}

..."Wouldn't it be nice to go visit the [Cross], sit and watch the sun go down and have that experience of being there whether you're a visitor or local."...

But.

As you might expect from a councillor seeking favour from our Bitcoin Bro Mayor of the Moment, it turns out there is an end times capitalist commercialization razor in Mr. Klassen's idyllic Eastside apple:

...(The motion) goes on to say a relocation plan should include "opportunities for revenue generation, such as branded merchandise and on-site food and beverage service that support the monument's upkeep and enhance community engagement."...

Surprised?

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The quotes from neospam-land, above, come courtesy a solid piece on the subject by Karin Larsen of the CBC.


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Nevermind The Lotus... Bring On BitcoinLand!

VancouverNeverReallyWasVegas

BiggerCasinoVille


In case you missed it amongst all the superficial 'Make Vancouver Crypto Friendly!' headlines, the recent blather from Vancouver mayor Ken Sim is about more than becoming best bud's with the bitcoin bros.

To wit, the following is taken directly from Mr, Sim's council resolution (see point #13):

"...It would be irresponsible for the City of Vancouver to not look at the merits of adding Bitcoin to the City’s strategic assets to preserve the City’s financial stability..."

Yes.

You've got that right.

Mr. Sim is doing his best to shame/scare our fair city's citizenry into seriously considering speculating with their own tax dollars.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Update Thursday December 12th...The resolution passed...Only the two Green Party councillors voted against.

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Manifest Destiny's Child Mind.

HockeyIsNoLongerOurTopExport

CanuckistanmikitaVille


From the transcript of Mr. Trump's appearance on NBC's Meet The Press, yesterday:

..."We’re subsidizing Canada to the tune over $100 billion a year. We’re subsidizing Mexico for almost $300 billion. We shouldn’t be — why are we subsidizing these countries? If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state."...


Of course, as you may have already guessed, it appears that Mr. Trump wrongly assumes that an export trade surplus is a subsidy.

And our top subsidy...errrrrr...trade export to his fine country?

Oil.

Gosh. 

I wonder what the super fine folks currently running the Albertalands think of these latest developments?


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It is very likely almost certain that, beyond tariffs, Mr. Trump has no current plans to push annexation forward at this time...After all, developing such plans would actually take work and coordination...However, Trump's statement yesterday certainly puts the lie to claims that his raising of the 51st state concept during his meeting with Mr. Trudeau a week or so ago was just a joke in the multilateral machine.


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The Currency Of The Swiftie.

WorkingForTheManEveryNight
AndNotDayVille


A certain busker I know did very well, indeed, during the Grey Cup Sunday just past.

So much so that, at the end of the night, the guitar case was filled to bursting with all manner of bills, many of which ended in zeros.

All of which totalled up to something approaching the second of the four words in the title of what some consider to be Wes Anderson's best Hungarian movie.

So.

Given all that, I, for one, had been very keen to see how things would go during the Swiftian invasion of downtown Lotusland this weekend.

Alas, the take from the first of the three nights that will finally end the interminable era was much reduced compared to that generated by those who revere a game with just three downs and the ghost of Annis Stukus.

Why?

Well, one credible hypothesis put forward by said busker is that, unlike Grey Cup fans, the Swifties were not bombed out of their minds when they exited the venue and poured into the train station.

It also turns out that a great many of Ms. Swift's fans prefer to spread joy and prosperity by dropping friendship bracelets into the proverbial hat rather than cold, hard cash.

Go figure.

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Earworm in the subheader?...The transit cops in the station where the busker was working last night said that they hoped to see her again tonight as they think her singing helps calm the madding crowd...Which brings us, of course, to...This!

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The Gzowski Method, Man.

YourMornings
HisSidesVille

How much of (Peter) Gzowski’s interest in people is an act? 

“I would say none,” he replies. “Some people would say a lot. A certain amount of feigning has to be involved, but if you feign long enough, anything eventually becomes interesting.”

Dave Cameron, 'The Dark Side of Saint Peter'

Ryerson Review Of Journalism, 1997

Invoking the methodological secrets of long gone CBC radio morning man Peter Gzowski?

What am I on about this time?

Well.

All is explained in the SongPod below (words first this time, followed by an old Tom Waits cover at the end)...

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Word worm in the header?...It's a rip-off of the title of an early John Irving book...Although, to be completely honest, I argued with myself for quite some time about whether or not the comma in my version belonged.

For those interested,  here's a bit of an oral history of the lives and shortish intertwined times of Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones and Chuck E. Weiss.


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Florida Man Dines With Bilingual Guy.

JupiterIsNotAPlanet

InThisStateOfAffairsVille


Sheesh:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP), Nov 29th, 4:50pm EST — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has flown to Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club after Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products.

A person familiar with the matter said Trudeau will have dinner with Trump. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity...

By now there are at least eleventy billion hot takes out there on what Mr. Trump's tariff threats actually mean.

And if any puffed-up pro-media pundit pretends that they know what will happen, their mouth is very likely filled to bursting with mouldy lima beans because no one, including he who originally 'truthed' it, has any idea what the ultimate outcome will be.

But one thing we do know for sure, based purely on past performance....

The US'ian president re-elect loves any and all fawning he receives in the wake of a good punching down against those he perceives to be in a position of weakness. 

Which is precisely what he will get tonight, regardless the grade of rubber in the chicken simmering in the Mar-a-Lago kitchen.

Because, just by flying south, Mr. Trudeau has painted white spots all over his back, sans antlers.

****

Having said all that, I will offer a take on why Mr. Trump went full metal tariff-a-palooza on Canada and Mexico in the first place.

Which is that it was an exercise in deflector spike spin jamming against a tiger that could really bite in a future trade war.

Put another way...

Who's talking about China now? 

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