Started The AI Mirror by Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social 📚
GenAI shows us what we already are. A mirror can be useful, showing us what we cannot normally see, but it can occlude and distort.
Also re-reading her Technology and the Virtues which I used teaching Digital Ethics at UBC
Photos from around my city today
Me: Look! Here is a picture of me in 1995! 🎞️
My 16 year old daughter: OMG when you said that the first thing that popped into my mind was World War 1. 🪖
💀💀💀
But you don’t remember that you wrote it… and that is what makes life fun
Started Stillness Flowing: The Life and Teachings of Ajahn Chah by Ajahn Jayasaro 📚
#Buddhism
Currently reading: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien 📚
Started the Andy Serkis narrated version. Already 10% in but is it only Ch2! There have already been about 8 prologues and prefaces and various philological treatises. I just wanted to get to the bloomin’ party! 🍖🎇
Going through some old photos. Here’s the Lions Gate Bridge in 1959
#vancouver #history
Sound on. Let’s chant together:
#jomo #jomo #jomo 🧘 😂
Happy Diwali! 🪔
Last year it fell on Halloween which was lots of fun. All the kids would say “Trick-or-treat! Happy Diwali!” 🎃 🪔
This year it falls on the anniversary of us viewing and putting an offer on our house 🏡
And Bandi Chhor Divas is when the offer was accepted 🤝 🥰
Light to you all!
A slip of the tongue talking about social issues in Canada and USA gave me a particularly useful new word: 北米人 → 白米人 😜
The existence of hakubeijin implies the existence of 玄米人 🙃
Who is the Robert Moses of Vancouver?
🌧️ Raining in Vancouver. Man comes out of a shop with a very large format book 📕 I watch aghast 😮 as he walks slowly towards his car 🚗 with the book open in both hands, reading 💦 📖
He gets to his vehicle and closes the book to get in and I catch a glimpse of the title:
Weather
SMDH ☠️
What is a “moment”?
What is it like to be in one? What are we experiencing when we realize we are having one?
Moments are periods of dis-alienation.
(I think this is from Henri Lefebvre 🤔)
Knowing this makes me want to experience even more moments. Let’s get together!
Lewis Gordon on Frantz Fanon This is a beautiful interview with Lewis Gordon, scholar of the work of Franz Fanon. Gordon contends that many people mis-interpret Fanon, especially around his views of political violence. Gordon’s reframing of Fanon is succinct and captures a side I didn’t get before. Here are couple of choice quotes, but the episode is short and I encourage you to listen tot he whole thing. Dr Gordon is a great speaker.
Went for a walk in the forest with one of my oldest friends and his dog. Very content. 📸
These leaves are sooooo red! 🍁🇨🇦📸
These and a few more fall photos uploaded to www.flickr.com/photos/sa…
Every year I post a list of cool conferences that I want to go to. I have already gotten started on my 2026 list. Take a look, let me know if I will see you somewhere, and if you know of anything else interested please suggest! (oh and also share me your list and I will link it)
Good morning.
Looking out the window.
Contemplating impermanence.
Generative AI and news report from Reuters Institute:
A significant ‘comfort gap’ exists between AI- and human-led news production, with only 12% of respondents comfortable with fully AI-generated news compared to 62% for entirely human-made content
#ProtocolsForPublishers
Started listening to The Hobbit as narrated by Andy Serkis 📚
After one chapter it is delightful.
I am going to do a reread of the main four books and then expand into the full Tolkienverse over the next few years.
