Every cool animal video is now suspect. 😢

Anyone else feel like generative “AI” has sucked fun out of being online? Now if I think a video is cool, “It’s probably AI.” If someone asks for advice I could give, “It’s probably a bot.” I was already An Old, nostalgic for early www; feels like another wave of mourning online space degradation.

Pretty much! I mean, I don’t know if we have solid population data to support that at this point, but anecdotally seems sound. (My personal experience is that if it’s the flu, I not only think I might die, I feel OK with that outcome!)

Also contributing to our taking influenza lightly has been limited testing & over-attribution of “colds” to “flu.”

This has improved since more widespread access to testing, including RATs, but most of us don’t really know how many times we’ve had influenza.

We take influenza very lightly, given the impacts on health! It can absolutely spur or worsen health issue. (We just name these after the specific health condition sparked/exacerbated, not “long flu“—which I think is correct, but can obscure the link w viral infection.)

Although I am not a virologist—more an epidemiologically-trained observer of this research—I think signs at this stage seem to be pointing more to the former than the latter wrt Covid. Life expectancies are rebounding as Covid becomes endemic & part of the mix of viruses that impact us each year.

Many have the potential to do so. We know a little. However, there’s an important difference btw virally-sparked onset or worsening of a condition an individual may have been predisposed to vs gradual worsening of everyone’s health—and this difference isn’t well defined to the public, unfortunately.

I am hope the post-acute sequelae documentation being done wrt COVID-19 a) continues and is refined over time & b) extends to other infections.
So much of our post-acute viral sequelae knowledge seems currently limited to short-term, pediatric, & dramatic-onset conditions like T1D.

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

planners: our two universities will be at the end of a peninsula and at the top of a mountain

people: won't people complain about how removed they are from the city?

planners: almost immediately

people: will rapid transit be created in response?

planners: we'll talk about it for decades, but no

Just in case you were missing Chicago weather.

Trump picks qualified, normal health leader to head CDC; experts still cautious She's well qualified but will need to navigate RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine agenda.

Trump picks qualified, normal health leader to head CDC; experts still cautious arstechnica.com/health/2026/...

1. AI Is a Research Field
2. AI Is an Approach to Cognitive Science
3. AI Is a Parlor Trick
4. AI Is an Ideology
5. AI Is a Way to Hide and Devalue Human Labor
6. AI Is a Way to Shift Accountability
7. AI Is a Way to Centralize Power

>>

"The term “AI” resists definition because it is continually reappropriated by people to mean different things. This, in turn, means that discussions of AI that do not provide working definitions for the purposes at hand risk incoherence. [...]"

>>

Congratulations!

Canadian Seniors Offer to Take Less Old Age Security YouTube video by GenerationSqueeze

Financially secure seniors are telling us they don't want and don't need Old Age Security. It's time for reform! Join us in asking Canada to spend less on those who don't need it and more on those who do! www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjUb...

Yes, I recognize that right-political panic about "teen" pregnancy was almost always code for "unmarried" reproduction, not actually about the age of the people giving birth. However, there has been a modern dystopian (re)turn to certain bodies even more explicitly assigned to producing babies.

I hate that genAI has taken the fun and marvel out of online media.

I am very on the record as pro teen reproductive rights & freedom (to give birth or not, as is right for the individual), but accustomed to moral panic from the right about teens giving birth. The right-wing imperative for teens to be replacing themselves via childbearing in 2026 is quite the turn.

Screenshot of call for self-nominations page.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: The journal Surveillance & Society is seeking nominations for new Associate Editors. Please share with others and consider applying! #surveillance #openaccess

Deadline: April 30, 2026

ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...

I will be thrilled if adolescent ridicule is what finally takes the shine off the fools gold of calling everything AI.

Okay CTA. This is a good sign.

Full time Research Scientist position in Vancouver for PhD qualified *qualitative* health researcher: careers-vch.icims.com/jobs/161815/...
Looks like a great opportunity for someone who loves applied rsch & might prefer not being on the TT. C2E2 is a well-respected rsch centre here.

Canuckle - A daily Canadian word game Guess the hidden word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.

As an immigrant who didn’t grow up here, I learn a lot of Canadian trivia from Canuckle. Today was a good one: www.canucklegame.ca

They only care when it's THEIR ox being gored.

I just don’t understand the impulse to grab at a buck/headlines by using LLMs (or other “AI”) for things people are particularly good at & that aren’t bad work for humans. Why not just apply new tech to the things it’s best suited for & which suck for humans to do, instead?

We’re not lacking for good, exciting, high-quality novel manuscripts. Quickness & mimicking, where LLMs excel, are not things we particularly value or lack in fiction. I would rather pay for an actual writer to surprise me & make me feel things than have hundreds of rote series books available asap.

Someone sent me this.

Canadians, including retirees, support trimming OAS for well-off seniors: poll A new poll shows that three-quarters of Canadians, and most retirees, support scaling back Old Age Security (OAS) for high-income seniors

400,000 seniors live in poverty and young Canadians are experiencing unaffordable housing across the country. So why is Canada sending $14billion/year to seniors who live in households with incomes of $100,000+ ? nationalpost.com/news/canada/...

Oh is it finally the WWE style reckoning moment in which CPCs have to officially take a stand that they are entertainment and not sport?