@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

mpjgregoire

@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca

ingénieur, tory canadien, citoyen du Grand Montréal

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wjmaggos, to iran
@wjmaggos@liberal.city avatar

I didn't think the death of the president of was that big of a deal since he didn't have much power, especially compared to the prime minister and supreme leader. but this guy was the assumed next supreme leader, the most powerful person in that country. the current supreme leader had been president previously. ugh.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@wjmaggos Is there reason to suspect that it was an assassination rather than a genuine accident?

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

"International law should apply equally for all people and for all countries."

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@evan There's an article by Prof. @yuanyi_z on at https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-january-2024/on-international-law/

"International law tends to be poorly understood, even among lawyers. But it retains an aura among laymen which frequently leads to its invocation as a form of higher law, though often in a severely mangled form. Recent events such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have made the problem even more acute, so that it may be useful to provide here a short primer of some of its salient features."

johannab, to random
@johannab@cosocial.ca avatar

Well hell. I made it 4.5 years and 8 vax doses, still masking in stores, masked except when eating when in airports, and the public health signals actually are LOW right now.

Craptastic.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@johannab I hope you feel better soon, and that the others in your circle don't catch it.

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

Your reaction to the AI buzz:

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@timbray Somewhat concerned.

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

@timbray The odds of a Judgement Day type event are small, though since the consequences would be extremely grave, it deserves a little concern.

What worries me more is the high likelihood that information on the Internet will become even less trustworthy, and that grave errors will occur because people rely on plausible-looking results from LLMs that make important errors — diseases mistreated, bridges collapsed, innocents jailed.

mike, to random
@mike@thecanadian.social avatar

I honestly don't understand the anti vax movement. My cynical mind is thinking some group must have something to gain from convincing people to harm themselves and others, but I can't find any logical upside for anyone.

Is it simply to watch the world burn? Is it to discredit medical expertise in general? Or is it some stubborn misplaced sense of independence? Surely it can't simply be to thumb their noses at the "Woke"?

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@mike
There are two different things people mean by anti-vax:

  1. People shouldn't be forced to get vaccinated.
  2. People shouldn't get vaccinated at all.

The second position is just crazy (except for a few people with special medical conditions). Some people have poisoned their minds from too much time on the Internet.

1/2

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@mike
The first position is more reasonable: the general liberal position is that people shouldn't be forced into medical interventions, unless there is a serious risk of harm to others. Based upon the different risks, Ontario doesn't let children go to school unless they've gotten a measles shot, but flu shots are voluntary.

2/2

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!

Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@ZebKing
François-Philippe Champagne, no?

@sundogplanets

mpjgregoire, to internet
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

Réseaux sociaux interdits avant 16 ans, envisage Québec: https://lp.ca/sDSOsD?sharing=true


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

"Menzies said the fundamental problem with the CBC is that it’s not so much a public broadcaster as it is a publicly funded commercial broadcaster that is competing with private news organizations for eyeballs and advertising dollars."

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/liberals-cbc-advisory-panel-may-be-too-late

Here's my plan for the in the age of streaming. Keep as is. Keep the news. becomes the home for funding new video; the produces videos in house and CBC TV becomes the distributer.

1/4

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

Take away advertising from TV, but also stop making video shows in house (other than news) and stop paying for new shows. Make Telefilm funding conditional on the right for CBC to screen shows after a certain period of time. CBC TV and Internet then become places where you can watch episodes of old CBC shows like the Beachcombers, but also three year old episodes of shows created for CTV (for instance).

2/4

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

Do the OSM, the ROM or UBC want to produce videos? They can apply to Telefilm for funding and stream the videos on their own websites, but ultimately the CBC will have the right to broadcast or stream those videos as well.

A Hollywood studio or an independent wants some money from Telefilm? They can apply, but they get no money unless the CBC will have the right to stream what they make in ten years.

The new CBC wouldn't care so much about ratings, but it wouldn't cost so much either.

3/4

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

as is; as is; CBC News as is [0]; TV as a repertory broadcaster, more like ; CBC Internet as a repository of Canadian taxpayer-subsidised videos.

No more direct competition with private networks for viewers and advertising; no more US game shows; no more CBC Sports; no quest to create a new hit show that also vaunts the Canadian identity.

[0] Maybe a few minutes on the hour every hour on CBC TV, similar to CBC Radio?

4/4

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

"The consensus opinion on the fediverse is more representative of public opinion than the consensus on siloed social networks."

#EvanPoll #poll

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

@wjmaggos @evan
There was a poll on Fedi a year ago in which (as I recall) around 5% of the respondents said they were conservative and 1% very conservative. In the US, about a third of the public identifies as conservative https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx . [0]

Thus politics on Fedi is highly out of sync with public opinion.

As for Twitter, I don't think there is a consensus at all. People stay in their own silos.

[0] In Canada, polling for "Conservative" makes search for similar data difficult.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

Here's my interview from this morning on my local CBC radio station talking about SpaceX space junk discovered by a farmer in his field in Saskatchewan: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-66-the-morning-edition-sask/clip/16067265-sask.-farmer-finds-space-junk-field

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@sundogplanets I heard you on "Your World Tonight", the six o'clock news. Good work!

tinfoiling, to random
@tinfoiling@cosocial.ca avatar

Not a big fan of the NY Times but they have some good ongoing features. Subscriber replies to articles are sometimes numerous and pretty good.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@wjmaggos @tinfoiling I enjoy the crossword puzzle. Also .

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@wjmaggos Unfortunately so. Not a heavy poster either.

cogdog, to random
@cogdog@cosocial.ca avatar

Hey, this tech is cool! Unicodeit https://github.com/svenkreiss/unicodeit/blob/main/README.md

From my stuff tagged "cooltech" bookmarked in pinboard https://pinboard.in/u:cogdog/t:cooltech/

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@dnorman @cogdog This is interesting, but the best solution — as usual — is .

😉

mpjgregoire, to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

Canada Post loses $750M. Taxpayers may be on the hook
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-post-bleeding-money-will-need-big-change

"During the 2015 election, the Liberals promised to end a Canada Post program, which was then underway, converting addresses from door-to-door home delivery to community mailboxes." A bad — but politically popular — decision of the Trudeau ministry.

For more radical change, @acoyne proposed many years ago that we give #CanadaPost to the postal union and let them find solutions.

#CanPol #cdnpoli
#NationalPost

mpjgregoire, to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

Canada's 100 Best Restaurants list 2024
https://nationalpost.com/life/food/canadas-100-best-restaurants-2024

mpjgregoire, to random
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

If you oppose stock buybacks, how do you feel about dividends?

Stock buybacks and dividends are essentially the same thing, methods for corporations to transfer money to their shareholders.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@wjmaggos People buy and sell stocks; making all issued stocks more valuable by reducing the number that have been issued puts more money in the pockets of shareholders just as dividends do, but as capital gains (which normally are treated differently by taxes).

As for your article, I think its major point is that corporations borrowing money to send to shareholders is a bad idea. I agree.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@tobiaspatton Well, accumulating the money for a buyback is a sign the company's done something right in the past.

serge, to news
@serge@babka.social avatar

I'm quite frustrated with the liberal news agencies.

I went to check on the report about the UN reducing the number of reported Gazan casualties. They reduced the number by half, half, and yet I only see this reported in Conservative news sources.... From a UN report!

Any casualty is tragic, but the idea that the number of women and children who have died is half the number they previously released is a huge deal, and brings the number of casualties to be much lower than we've seen discussed in this unprecedented, highly urban war.

I complained about Conservatives courting Jews, but I must emphasize once again that this is not on Jews to be courted, it's on Liberals and the Left to court Jews, and if they lose a generation or two of Jews to the right, I will be sad but it will be obvious why...

Left, DO BETTER. Report the news even if it challenges your narrative.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@serge I understand why you complain about the Left being unfair to the Israeli side in the war with Hamas, but I don't see why you're complaining about conservatives courting Jews — fine, you don't share other conservative values, so you shouldn't support conservative parties or policies then. But it's not a bad thing if conservatives would like to have more Jewish support, or if they oppose Hamas out of general principle.

paige, to Signal
@paige@canadiancivil.com avatar

WhatsApp has blocked me "due to spam" which (needless to say) is nonsense or some glitch on their end.
I know people will find it annoying/pretentious if I fully switch over to but can you blame me after losing my primary means of communication? This fucking sucks and if it doesn't get resolved is going to mess up the next few months like i lost a wallet.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@paige Fifteen years ago I had a local phone number through a VoIP service called Gizmo. Google bought the company, then shut down its services. My lesson was to stick to free software whenever possible.

EU_Commission, to random
@EU_Commission@social.network.europa.eu avatar

Our commitment to the fediverse is here to stay.

We are working on a solution to ensure our continued presence on your feeds, taking full advantage of Mastodon's identity portability.

And we are even growing the team behind our Mastodon presence, increasing efforts to engage with your comments on our posts.

We are fully committed to being a real part of the conversation in the fediverse.

Interested in our next steps? Follow us as we take on this new chapter.

mpjgregoire,
@mpjgregoire@cosocial.ca avatar

@EU_Commission Vous devriez publier en français aussi.

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