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jaycockburn.bsky.social
I write and make podcasts about cities and the people in them. Producer: Lately & City Space at the Globe and Mail Write for The Green Line, The Local, Toronto Star, The Breach. Former BBC News. He/him.
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Posts 33 Comments 17

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

On the plus side, Trump made sure fewer nations than ever will be willing to entire war on behalf of the US.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Cars should have bells not horns. Someone commission me to write this piece.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

More evidence that relying on AI leads to cognitive decline.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

When I joined the BBC my training included the distinction between "neutrality" and "due impartiality". The "due" is important -- climate change, for example, is not something the BBC is impartial on because there is overwhelming scientific consensus. Impartiality wasn't supposed to trump fact.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

According to this person we should force people to drive for their groceries in order to protect the environment

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Saw a CTV journalist shooting video of the Bloor bike lane today so I can only assume that means they're covering this.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition reports that during evening rush hours, bikes outnumber motor vehicles on Bloor. So much "hidden" people in Toronto when some parties just focus on car drivers. The Bloor BIA has been courageous (politically) in defending the bike lanes. 1/2

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Somehow the BBC has published a piece on tanking ticket sales at the FIFA Club World Cup without a single mention of the threats from DHS that ICE would be present "suited and booted" at the games. www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

The Onion's been killing it for so long now that the punchline is the date on the article

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The Bentway is one of the coolest spaces and projects in Toronto -- the rest of the city can and should learn from them!

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Toronto's finest, eating shwarma in the bike lane.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

We may not have won this one, but I'm still so proud of the City Space team for the DPA nomination (and the other awards we've already won)

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Welcome to the US, carry ID or face violent anonymous kidnapping.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Well that feels weird.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

These people are the best of us.

submitted 15 days ago • 4 comments

I have, perhaps unwisely, been listening to a podcast about the Nazis rise to power, so I feel the need to say today that Hitler encouraged his SA to start fights and riots in the street as a pretext for police crackdowns and martial law.

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

Love to replace food production with the chatbot that tells lies

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Screw the club, meet me at the Sick Kids DJ tent.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Amazing that Therme are presumably paying @adamvaughan.bsky.social quite a lot of money to be their comms guy and this is how the press coverage comes out.

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

I just realised the book proposal I am working on right now would enable me to purchase video games as a business expense. I am more motivated than ever.

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Anyway sorry for going all consumer rights on you, but dealing with Telcan was actually one of the worst parts of cancer treatment.

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Petty post incoming: Last year I changed ISPs to Telcan. Shortly after that I received a cancer diagnosis (I'm fine now). They mailed me three broken modems in a row. There was a long back-and-forth where they kept threatening charges if I didn't return the broken ones promptly (thread)...

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

I was reading books with the N word in them at 11 in school. Being taught the impact and context of that word was important and formative to my understanding of the power of words. Give kids some credit. Of course we know what Alberta *actually* wants to stop kids reading about.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

I fancied a snack myself so I popped in and asked the restaurant what these bike lane parked @tps.ca officers were doing. "Ordering food". Is picking up Shawarma an emergency response now?

submitted 23 days ago • 1 comment

The saddest part is that AI is objectively worse at most of these things than humans and when it's not it still needs constant supervision. We're getting a worse world because humans are an "expense"

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

This makes me sad.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Are risk assessments not a thing in Canada? If you zoom in you'll even see what appears to be string placed at roughly tripping height in front of a big hole.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

I dunno maybe I'm just a woke hippie but I'm more bothered about the nazi stuff.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Still can't get over how bad this is. No warning at all. Someone with vision problems could easily just fall in that hole -- other houses have much deeper trenches outside too. I know at least one person on my street uses a wheelchair. We don't have an alternative exit. Just a plank.

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

Went out for a couple of hours. Came home to find the city has replaced my entrance with a plank Good thing I'm not a wheelchair user, I guess.

submitted 25 days ago • 2 comments

Iykyk. Today is a good day.

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

It baffles me that management in news organisations seem so willing to try to get AI to do the thing that they can do and AI can't: produce factually accurate information. AI is good at some things, but it's key weakness right now is that it's completely truth agnostic.

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments