Geoffrey Ryan
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thegeoffryan.bsky.social
Geoffrey Ryan
@thegeoffryan.bsky.social
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Canadian astrophysicist back on the north side of the border. Learning how to be a radio astronomer. Research scientist at the Perimeter Institute. Does math on trains. (He/him/his)
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Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
karlbode.com
fifteen years of DSL Reports dot com writing archives destroyed because the affluent Australian owner got bored and quit to go drive race cars

but the LLM will have ample corporate agitprop to train on when some kid in 2030 asks Google about the history of U.S. telecom and media
December 22, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
ubiquity75.xyz
“Once, universities saw their computational power exploited by researchers working for the DoD. Today, universities are being infiltrated by a commercial industry that exploits students and faculty as data mines, test subjects, and a perpetual supply depot of future users, all for their own profit.”
Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books
We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.
www.publicbooks.org
December 21, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
bayesianboy.bsky.social
If you have to read anything about the prospect of “automating scientific discovery,” “agents for science,” or integrating LLMs into scientific pipelines, please let it be this essay by Kevin T. Baker: artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/context-wi...
December 14, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
drugdatadecoded.ca
The news that Lethbridge police got away with stalking, harassing and threatening Phillips because the chance of conviction was too low is an indictment of the entire justice system in Alberta.
November 9, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
nolore.bsky.social
It's actually insane that the feds are promising to put more than double the amount of money they're putting into childcare, into AI.

Why not just set it on fire and dance around it hoping to sway the gods to our favour?
November 5, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
python.org
TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-...
🧵
The official home of the Python Programming Language
www.python.org
October 27, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
alexarrelia.bsky.social
Doug Ford’s office has already received over ten thousand emails in the last 24 hours, saying no Bill 60, which would enable landlords to renegotiate leases every year, and refuse to renew without cause.

Acorn Ontario is calling this proposal “Ford’s most dangerous act” and they’re right #onpoli
October 25, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)
For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky. Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation. Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy. A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.
October 12, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social
The first time an Alberta government invoked the notwithstanding clause, public outrage forced a reversal in less than 24 hours. I wish to God Albertans would show the same moral fury now, when school children are outed & bullied by the government that is supposed to protect them. #ableg #abpoli
Stripping Away Rights Using the Notwithstanding Clause. - Alberta Views
After a week of rancorous debate, Klein announced he would not invoke the notwithstanding clause on the landmark gay rights decision...
albertaviews.ca
September 19, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
racheline.bsky.social
Trans rights are not the rights of a tiny minority, trans rights are everyone’s rights to self-determination, control of our bodies, and a society where opportunity and aesthetics are not restricted by sex assigned at birth

You should support and defend trans people because trans people are people
September 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
phillewis.bsky.social
"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys
September 15, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
swordsjew.bsky.social
to my mind the woman who dies of sepsis because of antiabortion laws, or the person who dies because they can't afford insulin -- these are just as much victims of political violence as the man shot through the throat while making a racist speech
September 11, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
thebeaverton.com
Mark Carney celebrates Labour Day by ordering labourers back to work
Mark Carney celebrates Labour Day by ordering labourers back to work
"Now get back to work, you lazy bums!"
www.thebeaverton.com
September 1, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
bcmerchant.bsky.social
Since 2023, translators and interpreters have seen work dry up, rates plummet and their jobs reduced to editing AI-generated output. Some are leaving the field, others are considering bankruptcy. All despite any major upgrade in translation quality.

This is how AI is killing translation work:
AI Killed My Job: Translators
Few industries have been hit by AI as hard as translation. Rates are plummeting. Work is drying up. Translators are considering abandoning the field, or bankruptcy. These are their stories.
www.bloodinthemachine.com
August 21, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
nolore.bsky.social
What we are witnessing with air Canada is a complete breakdown in Canada's industrial relations regime.

It's part of a trend that should be scaring the hell out of average people.
August 17, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
fiofirefox.com
Oh, good…

Nice to see how the “new” Bluesky Moderation is being handled.
A screenshot of a Community post from Jessie Gender. “Gotta laugh to keep from being pissed - my Bluesky account got suspended - presumably because I did a post saying "I also wish ill to JK Rowling" in response to and solidarity with another trans person getting her account suspended for saying the same. So that's the state of things on Bluesky nowadays. It's ok though, JK Rowling can still actively use her money to harm trans people and also get a multibillion dollar tv series, don't worry!” Below her text is a partial screencap from BlueSky moderation which reads: Hi there, A Bluesky account you control (@jessiegender.bsky.social) has engaged in activity that violates our community guidelines for violent or threatening speech. This includes, but is not limited to, the following: • Threats of violence or physical harm: This includes threats or encouragement of violence against individuals, groups, institutions, or the general public. • Incitement of self-harm or suicide: Content that encourages self-harm or suicide. • Wishes of harm: Expressions of a desire for harm directed at a specific person or group. In addition, users may not use Bluesky to break the law or cause harm to others. All users must be treated with respect.
August 16, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
clairewillett.bsky.social
it appears that @bsky.app have suspended the account of @jessiegender because a trans person saying "I wish ill on JK Rowling" is against the rules, so let me say with my loud cis voice that I too wish ill on all perpetrators of hate speech against trans people

reinstate Jessie, this is ridiculous
August 16, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
scumbelievable.bsky.social
Mods can you pull your heads out of your asses and unban Jessie Gender?
August 16, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
zachweinersmith.bsky.social
Max Born, writing in 1945
August 12, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
alexarrelia.bsky.social
If techno fascists are trying to convince you to abdicate your decision making and imaginative processes to them and their machines, that is reason enough to resist generated art. They do not have your interests in mind.

They are attacking creatives as a class, and using that tech makes you a scab.
May 21, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
wck.org
After a five-day halt due to a lack of supplies, our team at WCK’s Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen has resumed limited hot meal service in Gaza. #ChefsForGaza (1/3)
World Central Kitchen | WCK Resumes Limited Hot Meal Service in Gaza After 5-Day Pause
After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.  This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been force...
wck.org
July 25, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
kevinmgill.bsky.social
Icy moons Enceladus and Dione, respectively, out in front of Saturn. Imaged by Cassini in 2007 and 2005.

flic.kr/p/2qAvjKN
flic.kr/p/2qzJeML
A nearly fully illuminated Enceladus with a limb of Saturn in the background. Because the rings are made up of many smaller ringlets, the shadows on Saturn appear as dark and light bands. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill A nearly fully illuminated Dione with a limb of Saturn in the background. Because the rings are made up of many smaller ringlets, the shadows on Saturn appear as dark and light bands. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill
July 25, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
drkristopherwells.bsky.social
BREAKING NEWS. Alberta Court of King’s Bench grants injunction preventing Alberta Government from banning gender-affirmative care for minors citing “irreparable harm will be caused if the Ban comes into force.”

A victory for human rights and trans youth! 🏳️‍⚧️
June 27, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
melhogan.bsky.social
We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...
We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.
The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.
www.technologyreview.com
May 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Geoffrey Ryan
astrokatie.com
It would be fantastic if major federal institutions would acknowledge that the executive branch cannot legally unilaterally cancel or redistribute congressionally appropriated funding on ideological grounds and thus they have no legal obligation to comply with such directives
Trump funding freeze a blatant violation of Constitution, federal law: Legal experts
The Constitution, federal law and court decisions make it clear: President Donald Trump's order to pause federal funding is against the law, legal experts tell ABC News.
abcnews.go.com
January 31, 2025 at 4:54 AM