I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

I once encountered an elevator in San Diego that had a button labeled “seismic.” Thought long and hard about whether to push it.

AI Use Appears to Have a "Boiling Frog" Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns A new study claims to offer the first causal link between AI dependency and cognitive erosion. Researchers warn of long-term implications.

NEW: A new pre-print study offers the first causal evidence that outsourcing reasoning tasks to AI can rapidly erode users' independent performance AND their will to persist despite difficulty.

"People’s persistence drops... they’re also not willing to try without AI.”

futurism.com/artificial-i...

Edmonton police emails, documents provide new information on Canada-first AI facial recognition bodycam pilot | CBC News Key details include a “critical fault” system outage, possible extension of pilot project and that facial recognition model was supplied by Corsight AI, a company whose technology has reportedly been ...

Idk, I don’t think police departments should pursue projects that are not clearly legal, and that have to be “crafted and framed in a way that may be legally viable.”

We Caught Up With the Viral Pacers Couple—Here’s What They’d Like the Internet to Know Meet Grace and Michael, the couple who became a meme Thursday night for their conversation caught on the Pacers’ broadcast. So, what were they talking about?

They were debating the future of liberal arts education 😂

Shortlist: Best (English-Language) Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize | Canadian Historical Association | Société historique du Canada The CHA is proud to announce the books that are shortlisted for this year’s Best (English-Language) Scholarly Book in Canadian History prize. (In alphabetical order). Cheryl Troupe, Putting Down…

We're delighted that two MQUP titles have been shortlisted for the Best (English-Language) Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize!

The Price of Gold by John Sandlos and Arn Keeling
buff.ly/0RGRD0H

The Jesuit "Relations": A Biography by Micah True
buff.ly/qMYYiLn

I'm honoured and thrilled to see my book on the shortlist, in excellent company, for the CHA's Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize! @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social

The Jesuit "Relations" The Jesuit Relations, a series of annual reports produced between 1632 and 1673 detailing the experiences of Society of Jesus missionaries in what is now Eastern Canada, have long been an influential ...

Here's the book!

I'm honoured and thrilled to see my book on the shortlist, in excellent company, for the CHA's Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize! @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social

WestJet bans bare feet on board

Saying that you're going to ban something that absolutely should be banned isn't much of a April Fool's day joke, WestJet. "We're going to disallow the use of bagpipes on board haha just kidding April Fool's!"

Yes, but I tried really hard not to, kind of.

*don't say it don't say it don't say it* FOWL PLAY

I am in the intense suffering phase of writing a paper to deliver next week. Up next: panic.

This is the correct answer.

Lectures in Catholic Experience Presents - Micah True YouTube video by St. Jerome's University

The lecture itself is here, if anyone's curious: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BKK...

Scholar delves into missionary's Wendat past The life story of François Gendron (1618-1668), a French surgeon who served the Jesuit mission to the Wendat from 1643 to 1649 utterly captivated University of Alberta professor Micah True.

Thanks to the Catholic Register for writing up my recent lecture at the University of Waterloo/@stjeromesuni.bsky.social! The French surgeon François Gendron's life story seems like the plot of a movie, even if there are many parts of it I'm still working to understand.

Three piles of books by Micah True sitting on a table covered by a black table cloth. There are two piles of “The Jesuit Relations: A Biography” separated by a pile of “Masters and Students: Jesuit Mission Ethnography in Seventeenth-Century New France.”

I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling a little thrill every time I spot my books in the wild, like at my lecture last night at St Jerome’s University/University of Waterloo, where my thoughtful hosts had a pile of them for sale. Thanks, @stjeromesuni.bsky.social ! @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social

Happening tonight!

I'm looking forward to this lecture next Thursday evening, about a French surgeon who treated Anne of Austria's breast cancer using a remedy he is rumoured to have learned about while working in the Jesuit mission to the Wendat near Lake Huron in the 1640s. Streaming and in person. Link below!

I am BLUSHING! "True’s book has the Jesuit Relations surrounded. Going forward, it is difficult to imagine anyone engaging with the Relations seriously without adding True’s biography of them to their reading list. It is a bright and readable book..." @mcgillqueensup.bsky.social

Update: it took around five months and it wasn’t the provost, it was a dean 🥴

If a pic has a book in it, I’m probably trying to figure what it is. Hadn’t heard of this one before, but it looks good…putting it on my list.

Is that Good People? Is it good?

a man in a suit and tie says challenge accepted in a restaurant ALT: a man in a suit and tie says challenge accepted in a restaurant

Oh hello airport duty free shop. I see you want me to get lost in a maze instead of taking the most direct path through this space.

Happening this week!

An event poster advertising a lecture in the St. Joseph's College Speaker Series. The title is "A Missionary, a Surgeon, and Their Overlapping Accounts of the 17th-Century Jesuit Mission to the Wendat: Who Copied Whom and Why it Matters. Thursday, Feb. 12, 2025 4-5:30 pm in St. Joseph's College Boardroom and on Zoom. The Speaker is Dr. Micah True, Professor of French and Folklore and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Alberta. At the bottom of the poster, there is a QR Code to register for the Zoom event.

I'm excited for this lecture I'm giving next Thursday, about letters from the 17th-century Jesuit mission to the Wendat written by a French surgeon named François Gendron, and how they're related to the Jesuit Relations. In person and streaming online! Zoom registration in the image below.

Just found a groaner of a pun to put at the centre of a lecture I’m giving in March. Just need 40 minutes of material to go around it. I’m doing this right, yes?

got back from the dentist to find that not only @micahtrue.bsky.social's new Jesuit "Relations": a biography had arrived, but that my mother was already reading it and discovering new ways to get at me: if you're too busy to come down soon, she said, you could always send me a message in wampum...

I’ll be curious to know what she has to say after reading the chapter about the mother who abandoned her child and moved an ocean away to hang out with the Jesuits!

I might quit my day job