Sam Ladner
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sladner.bsky.social
Sam Ladner
@sladner.bsky.social
2.2K followers 2.4K following 1K posts
Industry-based sociologist. UX Strategy and Research. Enterprise Software. Future of work. Foresight. Also photography. 🇨🇦 living SF Bay Area. Working on a book on strategic foresight to be published by Routledge. More: https://www.samladner.com/
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sladner.bsky.social
Toronto is feckin cold, eh. - 23 C
January 31, 2026 at 1:49 AM
sladner.bsky.social
-19C on the balmy banks of Lake Ontario. #photography #blackandwhite #winter #fujiX100V #fujifilm
January 30, 2026 at 3:37 AM
sladner.bsky.social
So what about this guy?
January 25, 2026 at 5:22 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Carney’s speech, basically
January 21, 2026 at 1:07 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Citing Vaclav Havel, Canadian PM Mark Carney gives us the resolve we need to navigate these times. Full text in link paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...
The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.
January 20, 2026 at 7:24 PM
sladner.bsky.social
“The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social-media post Wednesday. Oh really?
January 14, 2026 at 5:29 PM
sladner.bsky.social
I'm so happy to have moved back to Toronto. Feels so good to be home! Yeah, sure, it's minus 7 right now but hell, it's Canada. Beautiful, cold, safe Canada.
January 5, 2026 at 4:27 PM
sladner.bsky.social
And she paid for it...hold them accountable but don't expect them to ever be ashamed. 3/
"That the entire obsequious performance backfired was a plus for quality — and a later ordeal for me. The Nixon White House did not forget my effrontery. Although I did not have the honor of making the infamous “enemies list,” I was punished for what I wrote. For the next few years, my tax returns were audited with a ferocity and tenaciousness rivaling that expended on the financial records of Al Capone" (Katharine Kuh, My Love Affair With Modern Art)
December 31, 2025 at 8:19 PM
sladner.bsky.social
In fact, her disgust at Nixon's 'donation' to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts made national news. 2/
"Two small enamel cloisonné Chinese vases (vintage twentieth century) were reverently labeled as purchased by President and Mrs. Nixon during their recent trip to China and subsequently given to their daughter and son-in-law, the Edward Coxes. It seems that during late June, Tricia lent the vases to the museum in a ceremony honoring the institution’s reinstallation of its splendid Chinese collection. All the more reason to be shocked at finding these shoddy little tourist items on exhibition there and all the more reason to question the relationship of art and politics" (Katharine Kuh, My Love Affair With Modern Art)
December 31, 2025 at 8:19 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Katherine Kuh, longtime curator at The Art Institute of Chicago, reminds us Trump's affront to art is not new. 1/
"Some of the most perceptive connoisseurs of art have been autocrats, most conspicuously the Italian Renaissance popes and the princely families from which they came." (Katharine Kuh, My Love Affair With Modern Art)
December 31, 2025 at 8:19 PM
sladner.bsky.social
If you're feeling increasingly socially isolated, it's not just a feeling - new research confirms we are spending less time with friends and family, even before the pandemic. I've studied time use for 165 years and this is the most depressing study I've read www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 18, 2025 at 8:11 PM
sladner.bsky.social
If I didn’t know that Doug Ford was Canadian, for some reason, this quote would absolutely confirm it. globalnews.ca/news/1150012...
October 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Oh yes, the old "passive usage data" attempt. Not new, I'm afraid. This is from 2008
October 8, 2025 at 8:59 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Chicago Pastor Sues Trump Admin After **Allegedly** Being Shot by ICE Agents

www.newsweek.com/chicago-past...
October 8, 2025 at 5:20 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Every system has a breaking point nemiksmanifesto.wordpress.com
September 19, 2025 at 4:41 AM
sladner.bsky.social
🎶🎵This is a public service announcement! With guitars.
September 13, 2025 at 8:20 PM
sladner.bsky.social
Not just a belief but actually true. digitaleconomy.stanford.edu/wp-content/u...
September 2, 2025 at 3:25 PM
sladner.bsky.social
What do Californians think about AI? They're more concerned than you might expect. TechEquity did a study and found that qualitatively and quantitatively, Californians are worried about AI techequity.us/2025/08/19/h...
Almost half (48%) of Californians think AI is advancing too fast, whilejust one third (32% ) think it’s advancing at just the right speed, andanother 15% aren’t sure.59% are concerned that the benefits of AI will accrue only to thewealthiest households and corporations, not working people and themiddle class. This is true across Democrats and Republicans alike.
August 20, 2025 at 10:21 PM
sladner.bsky.social
So, what you're saying is "it's about rewriting the past." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...
Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, the parent agency of the Park Service, said the Trump administration’s move “is not about rewriting the past.”
July 22, 2025 at 8:43 PM
sladner.bsky.social
I am also doubtful that AI is already causing entry-level unemployment. This Bloomberg article suggests it’s just low hiring, in general, like this chart suggests. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
A chart indicating that internship jobs are declining
July 17, 2025 at 3:39 PM
sladner.bsky.social
"When the blowoff comes, the mark finds he has no defense for not being a shrewd man." <-- Every QAnon adherent today, realizing they'll never see the Epstein Files
A mark's participation in a play, and his investment in it, clearly commit him in his own eyes to the proposition that he is a smart man. The process by which he comes to believe that he cannot lose is also the process by which he drops the de­‐ fenses and compensations that previously protected him from defeats. When the blowoff comes, the mark finds that he has no defense for not being a shrewd man. He has defined himself as a shrewd man and must face the fact that he is only an­other easy mark. He has defined himself as possessing a certain set of qualities and then proven to himself that he is miser­ ably lacking in them. This is a process of self‑destruction of the self. It is no won­der that the mark needs to be cooled out and that it is good business policy for one of the operators to stay with the mark in order to talk him into a point of view from which it is possible to accept a loss.
July 16, 2025 at 10:27 PM
sladner.bsky.social
What actor’s expression in a movie will stay with you for the rest of your life?
Sidney Poitier in The Heat of The Night
June 24, 2025 at 5:24 AM
sladner.bsky.social
I keep seeing that skeet about the yougov poll without a link or context. This is the real opinion data on bombing Iran;
46% disapprove
35% approve
19% aren’t sure today.yougov.com/topics/inter...
46% disapprove of bombing Iran 35% approve of bombing Iran 19% aren’t sure of bombing Iran
June 23, 2025 at 5:36 AM
sladner.bsky.social
I happened upon an honest to god punk show in Seattle.
June 21, 2025 at 6:06 AM
sladner.bsky.social
Finally getting around to watching Tarkovsky’s Solaris. I put it off for years but it’s so much better than I thought.
June 16, 2025 at 2:33 AM