drbrake.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Merely requiring that AI companies notify creators they have used their works seems to shut the door after the horse has bolted. If creators then want to refuse permission, can AI makers really make their models "forget" what they learned? Penalise the theft! Libraries have managed this for years.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

An entertainingly snarky but also revealing and thought-provoking examination of Jeff Bezos' transformation from eccentric vaguely left-wing nerd to tech bro H/T @stephena1984.bsky.social and @theobserveruk.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

If you’re wondering if US climate researchers are freaking out, yeah they’re freaking out.

submitted 3 days ago • 18 comments

Curves are pointing the right way, but absolute numbers of EVs remain worryingly small. We need to move more aggressively to promote EV purchases and take measures to boost transit and active transportation use so that the huge existing fleet of ICE vehicles is used less and retired faster!

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Greta Thunberg has been connecting the dots between climate and capitalism and their ties to imperialism, oppression and genocide for awhile now. Our world leaders could learn a thing or two from her, not to mention everyone else.

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

A HISTORIC MILESTONE: For the first time, solar power generated more electricity globally than nuclear, making it the world’s 4th largest power source. In just 5 years, solar output nearly tripled—from 79 TWh (Apr 2020) to 233 TWh (Apr 2025). The energy transition is speeding up. @ember-energy.org

submitted 3 days ago • 21 comments

The proposal seems reasonable - generous even. Doesn't require Russian leadership to face international courts for their aggression, tacitly allows for possible de-facto recognition of independence of stolen sovereign Ukrainian territory.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Normal stuff.

submitted 4 days ago • 16 comments

Worth considering when our leaders talk about building "natural" gas (methane) production in NL and elsewhere in Canada for export to lower emissions in the developing world. The numbers don't add up.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

In case you missed it in The Other Place, Liz Truss has gone properly fucking nuts.

submitted 4 days ago • 221 comments

Climate activist Greta Thunberg will try to sail to Gaza tomorrow with other ships aiming to break Israel's seige and bring food to starving kids and adults. She tried the same about a month ago and her ship was bombed in a drone strike.

submitted 4 days ago • 22 comments

Happy Pride Month to everyone who celebrates. Especially my trans friends on the front line against hateful bigotry.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

"climate realism" reading a lot like "sacrificing the global south and just shooting for 3 C" www.cfr.org/article/our-...

submitted 58 days ago • 11 comments

RIP to a legend. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/b...

submitted 5 days ago • 52 comments

We were likely years away from making HIV a thing of the past. Humanity triumphing over one of its worst diseases Instead we'll live in a world where people continue getting sick because of a greedy few who didn't want to pay their fair share of taxes

submitted 5 days ago • 50 comments

"Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts [to USAID] have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Wow - although proportionately Canada spends little, we'd be a pretty major overall contributor to a new European defence alliance. Building independent capacity does now seem vital. data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Did this months ago and it's a gamechanger.

submitted 6 days ago • 28 comments

If someone calls the left "leftists" they aren't allies. What I find most disappointing is that "my" kind of EA (EA 'classic' if you will) would already be allied with queers and the left and disgusted by rich tech fascists.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

One reason #AIPowerUse risks going through the roof - I presume this is a company randomly turning my paper with @sonialivingstone.bsky.social into a podcast because it can to monentise it somehow. Spammy indiscriminate uses of AI might far outweigh purposeful consumer-directed use!

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Amazing. Right out in the open: "universities are free to do research as long as they're sympathetic to the administration." I want to personally play this clip in the face of every fucking clown who spent the last several years pretending that the left is the "real" threat to free speech.

submitted 7 days ago • 50 comments

The UK gov should follow the EU’s lead on this and a) establish a national definition of transport poverty & transport related social exclusion, b) target reducing it, c) embed this in local transport plan guidance and d) put £s in the right place to widen access to decent transport options

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

If you’re wondering what the worst version of the bully pulpit is, it’s this. It’s using the presidency and bending the ears of millions of people to go after one single child.

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

More of this please.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Target-rich environment, this speech. 1/n

submitted 9 days ago • 13 comments

getting destroyed by a guy who looks and acts like he is playing the lead role on a beloved CW program called Teen Sherlock

submitted 9 days ago • 19 comments

Maybe Canadians will one day be able to buy normal-sized EVs? The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association is lobbying to be able to sell popular cars from elsewhere without expensive re-certification. Apparently they've discovered we still like hatchbacks! medium.com/@evirl/if-a-...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

duh duh 🎶

submitted 10 days ago • 10 comments

"U.S. marshals, sworn to protect federal judges, ultimately answer to President Trump, who has ramped up criticism of the judiciary" Further evidence one may argue that we are not witnessing a constitutional crisis in the 🇺🇸 but a rule of law breakdown

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

5 years ago: “An incalculable loss” Today: Banning masks and restricting vaccine access

submitted 10 days ago • 264 comments

Giving up instead of listening to your base sure seems like a pattern.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

shared EVs for social housing. another area where social housing can provide a buoy against energy poverty

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

It's a month on and I still can't get over taxpayers' money – our money – being used to ship 55,000 t of coal from Australia just to "symbolically" smelt iron ore in the UK. Can't everyone see how ludicrous that is? Didn't help Labour at the polls either 🤦🏻

submitted 10 days ago • 7 comments

Encouraging - for all the posturing, particularly on the right, the British seem to understand the need for drastic changes to combat climate change and, crucually, to grasp that we can't just geoengineer or carbon capture our way out of the problem.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Zenodo.org has all these citation file formats and Endnote.com can import... none of them?! (its bibtex option didn't work). *sigh. I looked for "Synthesis of evaluation studies of media literacy and digital skills interventions" in Google Scholar and imported it from there. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Just call it the Self-Inflicted Wound Era, when we took a bunch of stuff that was working largely fine (vaccines, weather monitoring, friendly relations with like 175 countries, cancer research, renewable energy credits, the FAA, global trade, etc etc) and just broke them for giggles

submitted 11 days ago • 197 comments

www.ft.com/content/8bfd... " If you want to criticise crazy policies of emerging market countries you can just go ahead and say that they’re crazy and damaging, but developed markets need tact. It’s not the done thing to start talking about an US “Moron Risk Premium”. 🤣

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 11 days ago • 44 comments

In case anyone wants some heavy reading on the topic of transport noise: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Map from that article shows Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) lost per 100,000 people/yr due to road-traffic noise exposures above 50 dB across England. Total = 97,000 DALYs/yr

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

AI power and water use is through the roof, and 80–90% is each query pivot-to-ai.com/2025/05/23/a... - text www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW67... - video

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment