The provincial government has just imposed the largest property tax increase on Calgarians in history.
In 2026, Alberta is increasing its share of your property tax bill by 21.05%. Nearly 42% of every residential property tax dollar now goes to Province.
Data and privacy nerds - you may be quite interested in the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee’s new report on Bill C-4. Some very strong recommendations from re privacy protection for Canadian voters. #SenateofCanada #lcjc #cdnpoli #Canada
Calgary has just come through an extraordinarily warm and dry January.
The average temperature (-2.8) was 4.8 degrees above the long term mean. Precipitation (6.5 mm) was only 65 percent of the long term average. Temperature graph courtesy NOAA Climate Prediction Center.
Java 1.0 was released on this day 30 years ago www.java.com/releases/ web.archive.org/web/20070310... #java #onthisday
It's more than a replacement line. Clearly the current one is at end-of-life so needs to be replaced but in addition to replacement we need additional redundant line capacity.
The best option is to add redundancy to the system via separated feeder pipes. This is something that is in the works.
Black and white portrait photograph of an elderly bald man with a serious expression, wearing round wire-framed glasses, a white collared shirt, a patterned tie, and a dark suit jacket. The image is formal, closely cropped on his face and upper torso, with a plain dark background.
As Premier of Alberta, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart attempted to limit press freedoms, jailed a reporter and cut off the heat and power to the Lt. Governor's home.
When his constituents tried to recall him, he repealed the recall legislation.
This is his story.
🧵 1/12
Danielle Smith has just increased the buy in on a citizen initiated referendum from $500 to $25,000 and massively clamped down on fundraising to do so.
#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli
Three yellow cartons of Beep fruit drink lined up side by side on a store shelf. Each carton features bold red "Beep" branding with a small cartoon bird saying "beep" above it, "Fruit Drink" in smaller red text below, and a white label reading "FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY" near the bottom. The cartons have white screw caps, and the top edges show some printed text including "BEST BEFORE" dates. The background is a blurred store shelf.
For five decades, Beep Fruit Drink was a lunchbox staple for many.
Created and manufactured in Nova Scotia, the drink was very popular.
Eventually though, sales started to decline leading to its discontinuation (TWICE!).
This is the story of Beep Juice!
🧵 1/5
Cool! This is something I've been wanting to build as well. There's another similar project that uses sandbox-exec on macOS and bubblewrap on Linux for a lighterweight solution to sandboxing: github.com/nikvdp/cco
Lethbridge-East residents frustrated in attempts to help with Nathan Neudorf recall petition
calgaryherald.com/news/politic...
...and in one stroke wiping out the homes of motocross, RC and BMX race tracks? Has the city found practical homes for these? None of this is mentioned on the development pages?
This week: Snow in the north. Dry in the south. This week's prairie weather update is at Rural Roots Canada. Most importantly....will the kids need to wear coats over their Halloween costumes? Is the forecast a trick or a treat? www.ruralrootscanada.com/prairie-weat...
ICYMI!
#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli
open.substack.com/pub/thebreak...
Alberta Public Service update: Interim Hybrid Work Policy October 24, 2025 Media inquiries Deputy Ministers’ Council has issued the following statement regarding changes to the Alberta Public Service Interim Hybrid Work Policy: “Today, the Alberta Public Service (APS) has announced changes to the Interim Hybrid Work Policy. The policy will be discontinued, requiring all APS employees to return full-time, in-office. This means the APS will return to a five day per-week in-office standard, starting February 1, 2026. “The Interim Hybrid Work Policy was introduced in March 2022, following the lifting of the Government of Alberta’s public health work-from-home order. The Interim Hybrid Work Policy was implemented to allow eligible APS employees to work from home up to two days per week. As of August 2025, nearly 12,600 APS employees, or approximately 44 per cent of the workforce, participated in hybrid arrangements. “The policy was originally implemented in response to the public health crisis and will now be discontinued due to changing circumstances and sector trends. The Deputy Ministers’ Human Resource Integration Committee decision reflects similar actions taken by other organizations, including the Government of Ontario. “The APS remains committed to flexibility through other policies which employees can still access based on operational needs, such as hours of work averaging arrangements, flexible hours arrangements and modified work schedules. Medical accommodations will continue to be considered under the Duty to Accommodate Policy. “APS employees with additional questions are encouraged to contact their supervisor or Human Resource Business Partners for further information.”
Alberta ordering about 12,000 public service employees to stop doing hybrid work and "return to a five day per week in-office standard" as of Feb. 1.
ConocoPhillips earned $2 billion in Q2.
“We delivered strong results financially, operationally and strategically," its CEO said. “And we aren’t stopping there. We are leveraging our scale and technologies to drive a further $1 billion-plus in company-wide cost reductions..."
The cost reductions:
As we're still grappling with recent changes to municipal elections underway TODAY, the Alberta government announced changes to the NEXT elections.
They are to include a provision that "only those who truly care and are serious about representing a community or riding are allowed on the ballot."
Some of the most unexpected fallouts of an AWS outage:
1. Postman stopped working: an API development tool built to be an alternative to simple tools like curl.
2. Eight Sleep customers couldn’t use their beds to change positions / set or keep temperature
Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop
Braid: Lavish private-school funding infuriates teachers, spooks government
Never been a fan of quoting weather models in a forecast. The models say this, the models say that, blah blah blah. But this week, there was no way around it. The weekly weather outlook for the prairies at Rural Roots Canada: www.ruralrootscanada.com/prairie-weat...
wake up babe, a new (old) paper on "artificial intelligence" just dropped!
it's got that extra tasty vintage typography too (1976)
fulltext: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian
Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI
Join me at Star Night at Fish Creek Park, Sat. Oct. 4. #astronomy meetu.ps/e/Pz3P1/1SXn...
Big deal for Calgary
How is this not front page news?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Cover of the classic 1940s children's adventure story "Brendon Chase" by 'B.B.'
Picture of my feet in a bivvy-bag first thing in the morning by the side of a river in Northumberland.
Memory is such an odd thing. A few years ago, after a growing ten-year obsession with sleeping outdoors (on beaches, in forests etc.) that started in my late 30s "out of nowhere," I recently remembered a book I loved when I was a kid...
Guess what it's about.
1/
This is beautiful. Well done, Edmonton. edmontonjournal.com/news/local-n...
RIP. He was a good man.
cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/edmonton...
@drdagly.bsky.social
#Alberta #Edmonton
