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alexo.bsky.social
Alex
@alexo.bsky.social
100 followers 310 following 32 posts
AI-skeptic AI researcher at the University of Toronto
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alexo.bsky.social
Now we just have to hope it never gets hot in May!
toronto.ca City of Toronto @toronto.ca · Jun 19
Warmer weather is here🌡️☀️

We've updated the bylaws for temperature in rental units. Landlords who provide air conditioning must turn it on from June 1 to September 30 (instead of June 2 to September 14).

Learn more at www.toronto.ca/community-pe...
A digital thermostat displaying the words “Too hot.”
June 19, 2025 at 8:22 PM
alexo.bsky.social
I asked @juliedzerowicz.bsky.social before the election whether the feds approve U.S. military participation in the Toronto Airshow. Her office just replied saying they can’t answer because Cabinet hasn’t been named, and to ask again “in a few months” (after the airshow?)
May 8, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Reposted by Alex
shutupmikeginn.bsky.social
its amazing how chatgpt knows everything about subjects I know nothing about, but is wrong like 40% of the time in things im an expert on. not going to think about this any further
March 8, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Next Tuesday, see @philipmai.com talk about PoliDashboard!

Discover how political advertisers in Canada are chasing your clicks on Facebook and Instagram, and how political ads can be weaponized to manipulate, or interfere in an election.

8 April 7pm, in person/online

guild.host/events/civic...
Philip Mai PoliDashboard Making the Invisible Visible Civic Tech TORONTO Hacknight #488 IN PERSON AND ONLINE Tues April 8 → 7pm
April 2, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
From News to Action: How The Green Line's Documenters Are Changing Civic Engagement.

Anita Li and Sebastian Tansil discuss how local news can empower communities to take action.

Plus our usual breakouts for projects and discussions!

March 18th 7pm: in person and online

guild.host/events/civic...
March 13, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Alex
christyceeck.bsky.social
Documents unearthed as part of a legal challenge show the Doug Ford government received expert evidence that planned bike lane removals could worsen traffic congestion in Toronto and lead to injuries.

#BikeTO #ToPoli #OnPoli
Removing bike lanes will likely worsen gridlock, lead to more collisions: government documents
Engineering report prepared for province estimates Queen's Park's plan to remove Toronto bike lanes could increase collisions by 54 per cent
www.torontotoday.ca
March 11, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Great to be mentioned in the Toronto Star this morning - thanks @graphicmatt.com!

www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
There is also an incredible amount of talent specifically focused on civic tech — technology that seeks to make the city work better — with a Civic Tech Toronto group meeting weekly to show off cool independent projects, often built using city hall’s generally unheralded but very useful Open Data department.
March 11, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Alex
byelacey.bsky.social
hey if you aren't american i'd strongly reconsider traveling to the US for any sort of convention
gleemie.bsky.social Lilly Irani @gleemie.bsky.social · Mar 1
CBP is detaining german tourist for over 1 mo because they accused her of intending to tattoo for $$ while in US. In jailing her to deport, they held her in solitary for 9 days, also kept her from her return flight Feb 15. She's still jailed.

CoreCivic+CBP ⬆️ 💵

www.kpbs.org/news/border-...
German tourist held indefinitely in San Diego area immigrant detention facility
The young woman had planned to spend a month with a friend in Los Angeles and then fly home to Berlin. But she’s been in federal custody since late January.
www.kpbs.org
March 2, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Alex
shawnmicallef.bsky.social
Hogarth was an explicit anti bike lane candidate, there at the Bloor west announcements to kill them, quite visible. And she lost. Bike lanes are a settled issue in Toronto. In the last mayoral election the anti bike lane candidates lost.

www.thestar.com/politics/ele...
Etobicoke-Lakeshore live Ontario election results
Etobicoke-Lakeshore live Ontario election results
www.thestar.com
February 28, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Alex
thebikinglawyer.bsky.social
Got my votin' shirt on, thanks @jameskingsley!

Leave work early, do whatever you have to to get to the polling station and send as many of these goons packing as we can.
person with black hat and shirt photographed from behind with raised fist.
February 27, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Alex
mdruker.app
What are you doing on your Sunday evening? I'm emailing my local elected officials to get our local governments off the Musk/Trump platform
Email screenshot Why is the Region of Waterloo still posting to X? Dear Regional Councillors, I don't need to tell you that Canada is facing unprecedented and unprovoked economic aggression from our southern neighbours. So it is so jarring to see my Regional government still sharing its updates on X (formerly Twitter). That platform is not just owned by Elon Musk — one of Trump's most active lieutenants — but as a platform it is being used to advance Trump's political interests. Even before the election, the algorithms on X were tuned to boost some of the vilest and most hateful content (racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.), and the site now feeds on fighting. It has long ceased to be a relatively neutral platform to share information. It's also not a platform that has much reach for an organization like yours. Governments want to share information usually via links to their own sites — but the algorithms on X (and Facebook for that matter) are designed to keep users in a walled garden. Many readers have left, but the ones that are still there largely see the content from the algorithm, which generally skips over posts with links. And for X, Facebook, and Instagram, people need to have an account and be logged in to see your updates. Please consider asking staff to wind down their presence on X for the various accounts of the Region of Waterloo. Fortunately, there is a good and growing alternative in Bluesky, which is a quite neutral platform, is open in the way it's built, is publicly accessible without an account, does not penalize links, and has useful curation features. E.g. the Region of Waterloo could have a starter pack of all official accounts, or it could have topical feeds (to which people can subscribe) sharing content from multiple accounts or from an event. But even if you're not setting up a presence elsewhere, I implore you to do what you can to reduce or end the Region's presence on X. With appreciation, Michael Druker Kitchener
February 2, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Reposted by Alex
therundowntvo.bsky.social
"That’s $612 million in additional costs to accelerate the roll-out of corner store beer and wine by 483 days, or $1.2 million per day." — @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social #onpoli
ANALYSIS: The government just got a pile of bad booze news. Will voters care? | TVO Today
The Financial Accountability Office reported the cost of expanded alcohol sales could reach nearly $2 billion.
amp.tvo.org
January 28, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
For those who missed this great presentation by @mbonsma.bsky.social - it's now on our Youtube channel. Enjoy!

And if you were there - enjoy it again!

youtu.be/peqhxVXKfps?...
January 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Alex
westendphoenix.bsky.social
Think about what a $200 cheque from Doug Ford could do.

www.200cheque.ca
Redistribute the $200
www.200cheque.ca
January 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Yumi Numata and Kelsi-Leigh Balaban present The Yellowhead Treaty Map - an accessible introduction to Indigenous perspectives on treaties.

🚀 Tues Jan 21st at 7pm, online and in person: Civic Hacknight #477

guild.host/events/civic...

#civictech
January 17, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Come see the fabulous @mbonsma.bsky.social talk about advocacy, citizen science, and the latest research on cycling in Toronto. Online and in person.

🚀 Jan 14th at 7PM: Civic Hacknight #476: From Bacteria to Bikes – Quantitative Cycling Research in Toronto

Check it out 👉 guild.host/events/civic...
January 8, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
🚀 New year, new Youtube uploads of Canadian parliamentary proceedings!

Jan 7th 7pm, in person and online – Matt Malone introduces HansardTube, to automatically upload Canadian parliamentary videos to YouTube, so people can use its language and accessibility features.

👉 guild.host/events/civic...
January 2, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Alex
maritstilesndp.bsky.social
A family in Sudbury is paying $400 to build a luxury spa in downtown Toronto. That's the Cost of Doug, and it’s been the same pattern all year long. Things have got to change in this province, and fast.
December 22, 2024 at 4:47 PM
alexo.bsky.social
Ontario has made public comments on Bill 212 (the bike lane bill) publicly available. I wrote some code to automatically classify the ~15,000 comments by whether they are in support, or against. I found that 97.1% of comments were against, and only 2.9% in favour

github.com/alexwolson/c...
GitHub - alexwolson/classify_212_comments
Contribute to alexwolson/classify_212_comments development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
December 19, 2024 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
🚀 Jan 7th at 7PM: Civic Hacknight #475: Introducing HansardTube

Check it out 👉 https://guild.host/e/isml0l
Civic Hacknight #475: Introducing HansardTube
Topic: Introducing HansardTube Matt Malone will introduce the HansardTube project, aiming to automatically upload Canadian parliamentary videos to YouTube, so people can make use of its built-in language and accessibility features. Speaker: Matt Malone is Assistant Professor and Director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, uOttawa Faculty of Law. Agenda: 7:00-7:20 Welcome and Introductions 7:20-7:50 Presentation and Q\&A/discussion 7:50-9:00 Breakout groups Code of Conduct: https://civictech.ca/about-us Check in with us on the Civic Tech Toronto Slack: https://link.civictech.ca/chat About Us: Our weekly civic tech hacknights bring together Torontonians (designers, coders, urban planners, government staff, mappers, policy-makers, students, communications strategists, community organizers, and more) who share an interest in making Toronto more responsive, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable through design, tech, and data. Come and be part of it! For more info: https://civictech.ca
guild.host
December 18, 2024 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Alex
megancarpentier.bsky.social
This is one of the most well-written explanations of certain kinds of AI errors I’ve seen to date. (The whole article is great too.)

www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...
When you pose the question to a language model, what you are really asking is, “Given the statistical distribution of words in the vast public corpus of text, what are the words most likely to follow the sequence ‘what country is to the south of Rwanda?’” Even if the system responds with the word “Burundi,” this is a different sort of assertion with a different relationship to reality than the human’s answer, and to say the AI “knows” or “believes” Burundi to be south of Rwanda is a category mistake that will lead to errors and confusion.
December 5, 2024 at 3:50 AM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Dec 3rd, in-person and online: Civic Hacknight #472: Empowering Climate Action in Every Language, with Helena Yu, Luis Ticas and Maryam Tavakoli. #civictech
Civic Hacknight #472: Empowering Climate Action in Every Language | Guild
Dec 3rd 7:00PM: Topic: Empowering Climate Action in Every Language This presentation introduces a powerful Multilingual Climate Chatbot, de
guild.host
November 29, 2024 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Alex
jackhauen.bsky.social
NEW: The Ford government is working to amend its bike lane bill to block lawsuits that could otherwise arise from the removal of bike lanes.

#onpoli #topoli

www.thetrillium.ca/news/municip...
Ford government moves to block bike-lane removal lawsuits
A proposed amendment to the bike lane bill aims to block lawsuits that could arise if cyclists are struck: biking lawyer
www.thetrillium.ca
November 21, 2024 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Alex
civictechto.bsky.social
Nov 26th, in-person and online. Civic Hacknight #471: Crowdsourcing care: Solving healthcare service gaps with open data and civic tech, with Sidra Mahmood. #civictech guild.host/events/civic...
November 20, 2024 at 3:00 PM