@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

mpjgregoire

@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca

ingénieur, tory canadien, citoyen du Grand Montréal

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mpjgregoire, to lotr
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

At last maybe we'll learn what happens to Gollum after The Return of the King.

renee.diresta, to random

This is an interesting interview with Dorsey in which he spills the 🫖 on his departure from Bluesky, which, for those who were on it early, was clearly a response to some moderation kerfuffles and ref-working early on.

Decentralized protocols are largely not subject to ref-working, for better or worse (forthcoming article on this!). That is true. But there are some coherence issues...

https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@renee.diresta It surprises me that Mr. Dorsey doesn't mention the Fediverse at all, given that it responds to his concerns about centralised social media and has a hundred times as many users as Nostr.

mpjgregoire, to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

"As a parent of three children, I have spent nearly two decades reading children’s poetry. So I can say with some confidence that, by and large, the stuff is terrible. Marred by incompetent metre and bad rhymes (when it bothers to rhyme at all), most children’s poetry is disposable, written to fill the space next to an illustration. This is unfortunate. Children react to catchy rhythms, clapping their hands and stamping their feet even if they don’t yet understand the meaning of the words."

1/2

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

From an article in on Alligator Pie by .

https://thewalrus.ca/alligator-pie/

2/2

mpjgregoire, to Quebec
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

"On Wednesday, Legault told reporters that the new Musee national de l’histoire du Quebec will focus specifically on the history of the French-speaking Quebecois nation. The 11 Indigenous nations in Quebec likely don’t consider themselves part of the Quebecois nation, he said, adding that their contributions will nonetheless be included in the museum."

1/2

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

“The idea is to show the history of the nation that was French-Canadian and now Quebecois, that started with Champlain,” he said in Quebec City. “But clearly we’ll talk about the Indigenous people who were there before we arrived.”"

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/francois-legault-quebecois-museum

I don't mind a museum of that focuses on the dominant culture here. But the conflation of Québécois and the French Canadians who live in Québec is frustrating: members of other nations live here too.

2/2


mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

Let me add that a museum of the history of the francophones of Québec, or of Canada, or of North America would be a worthy endeavour too; but it wouldn't be the same as museum of the history of .

mpjgregoire, to starbucks
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

"How can you lose when you’re selling an addictive substance? Even the most brain-cell-deprived stoner in your high school class eventually figured out how to deal. When did they get so clueless in Seattle? I’ve heard many explanations. Some complain that coffee got too expensive—and that’s true. [...] But the biggest problem is one Starbucks created. They turned coffee into something ridiculous."

#TedGioia

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/how-coffee-became-a-joke

(Like Mr. Gioia, I take my coffee black.)

#Starbucks #coffee

mpjgregoire, to ArtificialIntelligence
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

Lots of good points to consider in this post:
Ninety-five theses on AI
https://www.secondbest.ca/p/ninety-five-theses-on-ai

Via .

mpjgregoire, to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

FTX Customers Poised to Recover All Funds Lost in Collapse
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/ftx-customers-poised-to-recover-all-funds-lost-in-collapse.html

adds: "Here is the full NYT story, noting that account holders did not receive (significant) gains in the value of bitcoin that otherwise would have accrued."


paige, to Montreal
@paige@canadiancivil.com avatar

Happy to see investing in the fundamentals in , this series does everything right.
I listened to a few of the episodes on stuff I know about and they’re doing a pretty good job.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1419-good-question-montreal

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@paige is great; it's the TV that needs to be rethought.

Toastie, to Montana
@Toastie@journa.host avatar

"This July, I will turn 100 years old. I was born in 1924 in one of the last encampments and raised in Blacktail. When we were young girls, my sister, who was 10 at the time, and I, just 8 years old, attended a mission school for a year and a half."

---Molly Bullshoe, Blackfeet Nation matriarch, teacher, elder

Heart Butte,

https://www.hcn.org/issues/56-5/i-attended-a-mission-school-for-a-year-and-a-half/

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@Toastie Is there only a single paragraph? I'd bet she's led a very interesting life over the last 100 years.

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

How important is equality?

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan To quote Harry Frankfurt, “If everyone had enough, it would be of no moral consequence whether some had more than others.”

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@can
Is that generally true?

I mean I'm sure the inverse is true: societies where status is less important should tend to have less inequality.

But on the other hand, I can think of groups where, as the material conditions are essentially equal, the struggle for little markers of status becomes intense, e.g., small children squabbling in the daycare, or (arguably) the proverb about academic politics.

@evan

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan I'm surprised that 94% of people choose important or very important, and yet my claim that the important issue is deprivation rather than inequality didn't receive any real opposition.

mpjgregoire, to bluesky
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@mick
Does have any policy about bridging posts to ? I'm inclined to make my account available there.

See https://fosstodon.org/@WetHat/112406647160038626

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@mick Actually, you don't need to answer that. I see that Evan, Boris and Tim are already bridging, so I suppose there's no issue.

mpjgregoire, (edited ) to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

As I've written in the past, I used to dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, but I've become more open to them in the last ten years. One of theories that I think has some truth in it is the idea that are often not really spontaneous: in many cases there are hidden parties initiating or encouraging them.

1/4

mpjgregoire, (edited )
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

When I lived in Vancouver in 2000, I would sometimes walk by posters on poles alerting people to a protest against the "oil for food" sanctions regime that had been imposed upon Iraq. I wondered at the time, why that issue? Of all the suffering in the world, why was that of Iraqis drawing particular attention?

2/4

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

I think that there was probably some seed money from the government of Iraq behind it. I don't doubt that most activists genuinely cared about Iraqis, but I think someone with an expense account to pay for posters or pizzas could easily aim the general concern of people inclined to protest about the world towards a preferred goal.

I don't think most protesters are insincere. I don't think that all protests are "manufactured". But I think we should ask Why this? Why now? Cui bono?

3/4

mpjgregoire, (edited )
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

I should probably add that the the current protests about the Gaza War are more likely to be largely spontaneous than many other protests: we all know that the Israel-Palestine conflict is of great interest to many members of the public. By contrast, the suffering in Yemen or South Sudan doesn't get as much attention.

4/4

mpjgregoire, to politics
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

It's always interesting when someone whose politics you think you know supports something unexpected: the NRA member who opposes capital punishment, the socialist who favours free trade, the pro-life feminist. How often are beliefs only found in a set because of a historical coalition, not any deeper principle? Do you hold any beliefs at variance with your political in-group?

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@laimis Personally, I have some uncommon political opinions, but mostly they're what one would imagine for a Canadian Catholic tory. Perhaps my most unusual position among that group is my strong preference for free/libre software.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@bluGill @laimis
I think some useful lessons can be drawn from the Canadian experience with immigration policy.

Immigrants can integrate well into their new home, and even high levels of immigration can enjoy wide public support, but the necessary precondition is that immigration must be in accordance with a system established by law. If the public feels immigration is mostly uncontrolled, then they turn against it.

tilde, to random
@tilde@infosec.town avatar

"We abolished the inheritance of political power; why, then, should we not abolish the inheritance of economic power, too?"

insidestory.org.au/the-case-for-banning-billionaires/

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@tilde My principal political power is that of a citizen of Canada, an inheritance from my parents. Is there something wrong with hereditary citizenship?

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