Sandy Cameron

Father, Husband, Skier, Motorcyclist, Proud 🇨🇦, Whisky Lover, Geek, n00b Amature Astronomer, Climate Change Solution Seeker

[Sandy Cameron @SandyAlexC]

The line that came to mind was "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;". Wow - what a great poem - describes our current mess pretty well
https://t.co/CzHDsWuPlN

[Prof. Katharine Hayhoe @KHayhoe]

This article says climate change is “believed to have played a role” in the UK's extreme heat this week.

As a climate scientist, let me fact-check that.

First, climate change is not a religion. No belief is required. It is about evidence.

And the evidence has been crystal clear for more than two decades: climate change is making heat waves hotter, longer, more frequent and more dangerous.

In fact, science has advanced far beyond saying climate change merely “played a role.” Today, we can quantify how much more likely and how much hotter climate change made a specific event.

Here's the bottom line:

Climate is changing. Humans are responsible. And we are experiencing the impacts now. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that solutions already exist, and the majority of people care - 89%, around the world!

But meaningful action depends on helping people understand not just what is happening: we need to know how it affects our lives (this heat wave being example A today) and what we can do about it.

That’s the opportunity this reporting missed.

https://t.co/vYfPDKcWWf

[Reid Wiseman @astro_reid]

Only one chance in this lifetime…

Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as @Astro_Christina is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those exceptional Earthset photos through the 400mm lens. @AstroVicGlover was in window 3 watching with @Astro_Jeremy next to him.

I could barely see the Moon through the docking hatch window but the iPhone was the perfect size to catch the view…this is uncropped, uncut with 8x zoom which is quite comparable to the view of the human eye. Enjoy.

[Amock_ @Amockx2022]

BREAKING : This is absolute cinema 🍿

Journalist : Trump wants help from Europe to open Strait of Hormuz

French Gen. Richoux 🇫🇷 : "He can go Fúck himself" 🔥😂

"He wanted to invade Greenland and now he is begging for help from Europe" 🤣

This war is now isolating Trump 🗿

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

Trump argues the US has been abandoned by its allies, but allies are dying to help. Also, the US needs help, but the US does not need anyone. All in one speech.

[Sandy Cameron @SandyAlexC]

"It’s incoherent that Canada would be elbows-up to Mr. Trump, but arms-out to Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi. We should have our eyebrows cocked at everyone. Canadians are grown-ups; they are capable of understanding multiple messages at once." @RobynUrback
https://t.co/WrlCTe2EiZ

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

A funny and true story about the Queen:
Around 2005, the Queen and her Personal Protection Officer, Dick Griffin, were walking alone one afternoon in the hills near the Scottish royal castle, Balmoral.
Two tourists approached them, and engaged in conversation. Griffin recalls:
"There were two hikers coming towards us, and the Queen would always stop and say hello.
"They were two Americans on a walking holiday.
"It was clear from the moment we stopped that they hadn't recognised the Queen, which was fine.
"The American gentleman was telling the Queen where they came from, where they were going next, and where they'd been in Britain.
"I could see it coming, and sure enough, he said to Her Majesty: 'And where do you live?'
"She replied: 'Well I live in London, but I've got a holiday home just the other side of the hills.'
"He said: 'How long have you been coming up here?'
"She replied: 'I've been coming up here ever since I was a little girl, so over 80 years.'
"You could see the cogs whirring, so he said: 'Well, if you've been coming up here for over 80 years, you must have met the Queen.'
"Quick as a flash, she said: 'I haven't, but Dick here meets her regularly.'
The hiker then asked Griffin what the monarch was like in person.
"Because I was with her a long time, and I knew I could pull her leg, I said: 'Oh, she can be very cantankerous at times, but she's got a lovely sense of humour.'
"The next thing I knew, this guy comes round, puts his arm around my shoulder, and before I could see what was happening, he gets his camera, GIVES IT TO THE QUEEN, and says: 'Can you take a picture of the two of us?'
"Then we swapped places, and I TOOK A PICTURE OF THEM WITH THE QUEEN.
"And we never let on, and we waved goodbye.
"Afterwards, Her Majesty said to me: 'I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he shows those photographs to his friends in America, and hopefully someone tells him who I am'."
RIP, Your Majesty

[Sandy Cameron @SandyAlexC]

@TeamBradJacobs well done! Congratulations

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

The Pentagon just threatened to BLACKLIST one of America's most valuable AI companies.

Not Huawei or some Chinese chip maker...

It's ANTHROPIC. The company behind Claude. $380 billion valuation.

And the reason is genuinely insane:

For months, the Pentagon has been pushing every major AI lab to remove their safety restrictions for military use.

The ask is simple: let us use your models for anything that's technically legal.

Weapons development, intelligence collection, battlefield operations, mass surveillance of American citizens.

OpenAI said yes.

Google said yes.

xAI said yes.

Anthropic said no.

Not to everything tho. They were willing to negotiate.

But they held firm on two things:

They don't want Claude used to build fully autonomous weapons that fire without a human in the loop, and they don't want it used to mass surveil American citizens.

That's it. That's the line they drew.

But Pete Hegseth's response was to threaten to designate Anthropic a "supply chain risk."

Here's why that matters:

That label isn't a contract cancellation. It's not a fine. It's not a strongly worded letter...

It means every single company that wants to do business with the US military has to certify they don't use Claude anywhere in their operations.

8 of the 10 largest companies in America use Claude.

Defense contractors, government suppliers, enterprise companies with any federal exposure...

ALL of them would have to cut ties with Anthropic overnight or lose their government contracts.

A senior Pentagon official told Axios:

"It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this."

That's a US government official threatening to financially destroy an American company because it doesn't want its AI used to spy on American people.

And it gets WORSE.

Last week, Anthropic's head of safeguards research resigned.

His parting message: "the world is in peril."

Elon Musk - whose xAI already handed the Pentagon a blank check - is now publicly attacking Anthropic calling Claude anti-human.

And the Pentagon official told Axios they're "confident" OpenAI, Google, and xAI will all agree to the "all lawful purposes" standard.

So what you're actually watching right now is every major AI company in America quietly handing the government unlimited access to the most powerful technology ever built.

With no guardrails.

No limits.

No company-imposed restrictions on what it can be used for.

One company tried to hold a line.

But the government is about to make an example out of them.

If Anthropic folds, it's over.

Every lab just learned what happens when you push back.

And every restriction, every safety policy, every ethical guardrail these companies spent years building gets negotiated away behind closed doors the second the government asks.

If they don't fold, a $380 billion company gets made radioactive in its OWN country.

Watch what happens next.

Because whatever Anthropic decides in the next few weeks, it sets the precedent for how much control AI companies actually have over their own technology.

Turns out the answer might be: none.

[Sandy Cameron @SandyAlexC]

@acoyne I read your G&M column earlier ("The post-Poilievre leadership race has begun"), and was tempted to bet you Oysters at Rodney's that no such race within one year. I am still willing to place that bet, but if we do, I will be much more cautious to place a max loss on the bet.

[CBC Olympics @CBCOlympics]

There were EIGHT (!!!) Czech players on the ice when they score the go-ahead goal in the third period vs. Canada 😳

[Angelica Shalagina🇺🇦 @angelshalagina]

russians say:
“We’re fighting NATO.”

Reality?
You’re fighting farmers with homemade drones.
Grandmas spotting targets with binoculars.
And a nation that still cracks jokes during blackouts.

Spoiler:
You’re not losing to NATO.
You’re losing to Ukrainians.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Yes it does.

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

The arrest of Don Lemon is textbook fascism—a brazen attempt to silence reporting on a criminal regime. Stand up for Don, because our rights stand and fall with those of courageous journalists throughout this country.

[Elizabeth Warren @SenWarren]

I just left the Venezuela briefing.

It's worse than you thought.

Oil company executives seem to know more about Trump's secret plan to "run" Venezuela than the American people.

We need public Senate hearings NOW.

[Robyn Urback @RobynUrback]

More U.S. leaders need to call bullshit, bullshit

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it "digital transformation."

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would "10x productivity."

That's not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.

I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a "pilot success."

Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured "AI enablement."

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We're "AI-enabled" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."

He asked what that meant.

I said "compliance."

He asked which compliance.

I said "all of them."

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn't verify it.

They never do.

Now we're on Microsoft's website.

"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He's never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I'm requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven't used the first 4,000.

But this time we'll "drive adoption."

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I'll be SVP by Q3.

I still don't know what Copilot does.

But I know what it's for.

It's for showing we're "investing in AI."

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we're serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired – which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.

In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.

Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.

If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.

[Oversight Dems @OversightDems]

🚨BREAKING: Oversight Dems have received new emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes.

Read them for yourself. It’s time to end this cover-up and RELEASE THE FILES.

[Prof Michael E. Mann @MichaelEMann]

"You can’t reboot the planet if you crash it" | My commentary on @BillGates' flawed new climate missive for @BulletinAtomic: https://t.co/Rklj1TzYay

[François-Philippe Champagne (FPC) 🇨🇦 @FP_Champagne]

Canadians deserve reliable service, and the current difficulties at Canada Revenue Agency call centres are unacceptable. I’ve therefore directed the Agency to implement a 100-day action plan.

Here’s my letter to the FINA Committee: