Chris Holdenried
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Chris Holdenried
@chrishcdn.bsky.social
Engineer, PhD. Electoral reform advocate, including for my home province of Alberta. Tweets & likes are my own. He/him
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Book review 📚 Why the global economic system should value life on our planet, not exploit it

go.nature.com/4oj1dke
Why the global economic system should value life on our planet, not exploit it
To preserve the natural world, economists should account for forests and wetlands as much as for factories and farms.
go.nature.com
November 24, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Have you ever wondered why physicists are so excited to study the Higgs Boson at a new Higgs Factory collider?

Wonder no more!

I explain what a Higgs factory is, why we need one, and the amazing measurements the machine will make.

Check it out!

Link: youtu.be/xtJgh7yZHkk

🧪⚛️
September 8, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Haven't been on Bluesky much, but I've started a Movember fundraiser for Native Men's Residence. A small donation can go a long way for providing shelter to Indigenous men in Toronto.

Posting on Twitter has gotten me nowhere... I bet you'll be more generous 🥸
gofund.me/e7cc4a299
November 26, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Putting an atom into a hall of mirrors ("cavity") can stop it from emitting light. Now remove a mirror. How long before the atom can emit? Immediately! No matter how long the hallway. Vlatko Vedral of @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social explains this bizarre case of quantum spooky action at a distance.
It’s All (Quantum) Smoke and Mirrors
Issue #57 ~ As my readers will know, I have been advocating a picture of the universe in which the underlying reality consists of quantum waves. Quantum, meaning that the height of the wave and its ph...
vlatkovedral.substack.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:27 PM
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to game 7 victory is hard.

#BlueJays
November 25, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Service Outage

xkcd.com/3170/
November 24, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
"But the only way this creeping abuse of the Notwithstanding Clause really ends is in the court of public opinion, and with a clear and unambiguous rebuke of a government that’s trying to weaponize it." @maxfawcett.bsky.social @nationalobserver.com

www.nationalobserver.com/2025/11/20/o... #ABpoli
The use of the Notwithstanding Clause is out of control. It’s up to voters to stop it
The architects of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms thought the Notwithstanding Clause would only be used in exceptional circumstances. Conservative premiers seem determined to prove them wrong.
www.nationalobserver.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Huge moment in this interview with @frankdomenic.bsky.social.

NDP leadership candidate @avilewis.ca puts proportional representation on the national stage and makes it the non negotiable democratic reform we need.

When leadership contenders acknowledge the core issue, the national debate shifts.
November 21, 2025 at 6:19 PM
"... and Bob Holdom, a physicist emeritus at the University of Toronto, have independently noticed that it’s possible to tweak the final step in the calculation

... ghost particles to briefly skip backward in time, where they can influence particles that they otherwise couldn’t."
In a theory called quadratic gravity, “ghost” particles violate physicists’ intuition of quantum fields. This made the theory unpopular for decades. Now, it’s experiencing a resurgence.
@walkingthedot.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/old-ghost-th...
Old ‘Ghost’ Theory of Quantum Gravity Makes a Comeback | Quanta Magazine
Has the secret to understanding gravity been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years?
www.quantamagazine.org
November 18, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
November 14, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Western alienation is not inevitable.

It is what you get when millions of votes in the West elect almost no one and voters are told their communities do not count unless they back the winning side.

Proportional representation would take the heat out of the divide.
November 17, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Politicians with 30%-40% of the vote should not control 100% of your healthcare decisions.

First past the post rewards parties that ignore most voters.

Proportional representation means governments that actually serve the majority.
November 12, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Long before the binary 0s and 1s of digital computing, analog computers measured the tides, calculated the position of the planets, and predicted eclipses.
What Is Analog Computing? | Quanta Magazine
You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.
www.quantamagazine.org
November 3, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
For #MuppetMonday, let's have some monster mash (ups)! #2: BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN featuring Kermit and Piggy! Mixed media on 8.5 X 11" bristol board.
November 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Was reading Maureen Jenning's 'Heat Wave', set in 1930s Toronto.
A character in the book didn't want a horse to be whipped. She feared if the horse died, it could be "sent to the glue factory." The phrase became a common, albeit grim, idiom for an old or unwanted horse being sent to slaughter.
November 12, 2025 at 3:39 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Friends, can I ask a favour.

Our latest Honest Government out is a serious warning to Canada from Australia, which acts as a cautionary tail about the harms of the gas (LNG) export industry... Hence the cameo (spoiler alert) from our own aussie climate criminals, Woodside Energy

1/🧵
November 10, 2025 at 5:28 AM
A great read, I'd highly recommend The World of After!
#Books
Very pleased to receive a visit from my MP @orourkeguelph.bsky.social to help me promote my novel *The World of After* ( @cormorantbooks.bsky.social) --my bestselling title of the day-- at today's Book Bash in #Guelph, @downtownguelph.bsky.social.
November 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Very pleased to receive a visit from my MP @orourkeguelph.bsky.social to help me promote my novel *The World of After* ( @cormorantbooks.bsky.social) --my bestselling title of the day-- at today's Book Bash in #Guelph, @downtownguelph.bsky.social.
November 9, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
The Fraser Institute published a study on the fiscal cost of Canada’s low-carbon economy -- one that (shocker!) found lots of money spent on relatively few jobs.

I fact checked it for them. It didn't go well.

maxfawcett.substack.com/p/lies-damn-...
Lies, damn lies, and Fraser Institute studies
Maybe they didn't expect anyone to fact check their work. I did it anyways.
maxfawcett.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
We know Mark Carney is trying to drive a "grand bargain" on climate and energy. It's time for him to lay out his side of the arrangement -- and learn from the communications mistakes of his predecessor. #cdnpoli

www.nationalobserver.com/2025/10/30/o...
Mark Carney needs to come clean on climate
The prime minister has been conspicuously quiet about an issue that seemed to define his politics before he entered the partisan arena. That needs to change.
www.nationalobserver.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
This might be my favorite JWST image from the nearby Universe so far. You’re seeing the late stages of evolution of a star like the Sun, after it’s exhausted its nuclear fuel. This is a transient phase where it’s ejected its outer gas layers, which are then irradiated by the hot stellar remnant.
Another STUNNING image from JWST, this time of the Red Spider Nebula—the vast, wispy, gaseous remains of a now-dead star, the white dwarf core still glowing in the centre.
October 29, 2025 at 4:07 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Hey Edmonton and area friends! Are you tired of government that creates one-sided policy (cough cough *refusing to negotiate class sizes)? Come on down to Dewey's and see an alternative in action. #abpoli
October 24, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
The region of #Spain where *Don Quijote* is set no longer has shepherds due to population decline. Spain is seeking foreign shepherds, showing why Europe needs immigration!

Ya no hay pastores en La Mancha. España llama a inmigrants para cuidar sus ovejas.
www.libertatea.ro/stiri/meseri...
Meseria pe care spaniolii nu mai vor să o facă
Los Cortijos se numără printre sutele de sate și orașe din câmpiile Castilei-La Mancha, regiunea din centrul Spaniei devenită celebră datorită clasicului „Don Quijote”, care se confruntă cu depopularea. Aceasta a făcut dificilă găsirea de păstori, o meserie care există încă din timpuri biblice.
www.libertatea.ro
October 25, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Chris Holdenried
Here's a handy link to bookmark and share with others outside of Bluesky that is my entire pinned mega-thread about universal basic income study results, all on one page.

skyview.social?url=https://...
I've been researching the idea of Unconditional Universal Basic Income since 2013. Here's a collection of findings I've compiled from various UBI experiments and studies of cash transfer programs around the world.

This will be a VERY LONG and ongoing thread focused entirely on empirical evidence. 🧵
October 24, 2025 at 9:11 PM