Tyler Olsen
@tyolsen.bsky.social
7K followers 1.2K following 1.9K posts
Senior Editor at The Tyee. Reporter. Chainsaw + dekes aficionado. Probably not posting about Vancouver. 'Ain't you had enough of this stuff?'
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tyolsen.bsky.social
Yeah, but we should consider how we can speed up delivery of the benefits. Especially on schools, rec and other amenities. It's justified for a parent to point out the local school is already overcrowded. We don't have to always deliver benefits late
tyolsen.bsky.social
I'm not talking about Vancouver so much as places with much less existing traffic, light, and structures in general.
tyolsen.bsky.social
Yeah. Development does bring real and unavoidable localized drawbacks. It just is true that having more neighbours brings more noise etc. The key is to show people that new housing brings even more benefits.
leospalteholz.bsky.social
As frustrating as it is to see people railing against housing, it’s human nature to dislike change and even ardent housing activists are likely to feel unease or concern when a property next to them is redeveloped or a tree is cut down

No amount of consultation or design changes eliminates that.
leospalteholz.bsky.social
Tale as old as time.

In Victoria we have residents of the first phase of an apartment project angrily protesting against the approval of the second stage.

Our planning system needs to be built to be resilient against this predictable opposition and still produce abundant housing
Reposted by Tyler Olsen
jrobson.bsky.social
Announcement from PM Carney moments ago and this is good news. I've been working on this issue with @saulschwartz.bsky.social and @agenestgregoire.bsky.social for years. We've documented how many Canadians don't file and miss out on or loose benefits, .. 1/3
Reposted by Tyler Olsen
emmettmacfarlane.com
I will forever find the idea that you can't find equally qualified (maybe even more qualified) people for half the price in pretty much any of these positions, such as CEOs for state agencies, university presidents, etc. etc. etc., to be total bullshit. Overpaid and unjustifiably so.
Reposted by Tyler Olsen
ourworldindata.org
Over the last 60 years, the world population has more than doubled.

This has inevitably reduced the land available per person to live and grow food.

How have we managed to feed a rapidly growing population with ever-shrinking land resources?
A line chart showing the change from 1961 to 2023 in global cereal production, yield, land use, and population. All figures are indexed to 1961, which is given a value of zero.

In this time, the world population has more than doubled. And the world can now produce more than three times as much cereal from a given area of land as it did in 1961 (i.e., an increase in yield of 214%). In the same period, land used for cereal has only increased by 14%.

The data sources are the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (2025); HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); and the UN WPP (2024). The chart is licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.
tyolsen.bsky.social
The grammar isn't good enough for it to be AI, I'm pretty sure.
tyolsen.bsky.social
Even if it is "good enough" it will never be good enough. There is a reason people don't line up to see perfect copies of the Mona Lisa. Music tribute bands can make a living. Lip syncing is fine if you can get away with it. But there's limited economic value in processed shit.
tyolsen.bsky.social
I think pretty soon, we'll get to a point where photography will market itself as real and maybe label photos as such. That will seem icky at first, but the marketing will work.

People like it when performers actually sing at a concert and don't lip sync. There's real value there.
tyolsen.bsky.social
I get it. The other thing, though, is you're not only selling photos as a wedding photographer. It's also the memory of being there, having your photo taken, and the experience. AI just cannot recreate that. People will think it can. And they'll lose out.
tyolsen.bsky.social
maybe. But even lowbrow art are works of invention. It's easy to think "I'll use AI to create ads!" But when all ads start to be created by AI, they become pretty much worthless, since the idea is to standout, and the AI process is anathema to that. That's my thinking at least
tyolsen.bsky.social
I guess. But still. David Simon is not someone who I would ever imagine to be a keen embracer of brand new technology.
tyolsen.bsky.social
The other part is these folks don't really understand jobs that require creating something completely new. A piece of good art is an invention, not a product.

AI is a helicopter today.

Art is a helicopter in the time of Leonardo da Vinci.
elucidating.extradimensional.space
I see this a lot and I think a lot of folks don't understand the idea of, you know, liking what you do or enjoying your job.

I don't use AI for work because I love it. I use it for parts where I feel like I'm forced to in order to keep up.
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
Reposted by Tyler Olsen
elucidating.extradimensional.space
I see this a lot and I think a lot of folks don't understand the idea of, you know, liking what you do or enjoying your job.

I don't use AI for work because I love it. I use it for parts where I feel like I'm forced to in order to keep up.
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
tyolsen.bsky.social
Look, I'm sympathetic to interviewers but man, you've got to have never watched The Wire or read any David Simon interaction to imagine a more AI-positive response than this.
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
tyolsen.bsky.social
this is like deciding whether to buckle your seatbelt for a 30-second drive just to shut up the annoying beeping.
tyolsen.bsky.social
for instance, the circumstance you describe - the police cost squabbles, are already pretty well covered. See 90(k)
tyolsen.bsky.social
yeah, I'd worry more if the door wasn't already wide freaking open. It's already the wide in camera west out there.
tyolsen.bsky.social
(I agree that this, like every other excuse for a closed meeting, is probably ripe for abuse.)
tyolsen.bsky.social
And, sorry, we probably aren't talking about between municipalities, but between municipalities and regional districts.

So maybe something like when archeological data is related to who pays certain costs related to, say, flood management?
tyolsen.bsky.social
I agree, but my reading here is that they are saying closed meetings should be required when culturally sensitive info from a FN could be discosed as part of negotiations between municipalities. So not policing. I think it's about archaeological sites.
tyolsen.bsky.social
Just incredibly frustrating for rich people and organizations to complain about media problems when basically 90% of media problems stem from a total lack of money.