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May 14 2023

Courage cash. Anarchy in the UK. Universal translator.

May 14, 2023
David Akin's Roundup
Clippings of #cdnpoli, #media, and #tech content aimed at those with an interest in Canadian politics and policy. And sometimes Canadian postage stamps.
Canada
In the House of Commons Daniel Blaikie debated his proposal that would impose sanctions on PMs who make some motions confidence votes. [National Post]

John Ibbitson: A new poll shows the Conservative Party and its leader have a healthy lead over the Liberal Party and Justin Trudeau. [Globe and Mail]
From the provinces
His government tabled a bill this week that would raise the base pay for elected officials from $101,561 to $131,766, making it the highest among Canadian provincial politicians. [Global]
Analysis of the Alberta election landscape in Lethbridge
Here's my take on the Lethbridge seats in the Alberta election, one of which was the closest race in the entire province in 2019, and why the Windy City is going to get a lot of attention in this 2023 campaign - DA [Global]
Fire officials said that as temperatures rise as expected through the weekend, fire activity and behaviour will increase. [Global
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Elsewhere
Tory anarchy breaks out as revolt looms on Brexit laws
Ex-ministers attack Rishi Sunak’s leadership as pro-Johnson wing calls for lower taxes. [The Guardian]

The “sisterhood” of Democratic power brokers was thrilled: President Biden had just tapped one of their own, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, to run his 2024 campaign. [NBC]

About two-thirds of Americans have a positive view of Ukraine amid the ongoing war there, while 64% view Russia as an enemy of the U.S. rather than as a competitor or partner. At the same time, a growing share – especially among Republicans – say the U.S. should pay less attention to problems overseas and focus on concerns at home. 91% of Americans have unfavorable views of Russia and 83% have unfavorable views of China. [Pew]

Blue State's William Tomasko, Principal, Editorial, explores and dives into the landscape of AI ChatBots to capture why writers shouldn't be afraid. [Blue State]
Media
How to Vet Industry PR Claims
Journalists are constantly inundated with pitches from people in media relations. But how do you draw the line between industry hype and accuracy? What steps do you need to take to weigh proprietary claims? Four science writers share their thoughts on evaluating industry information when peer-reviewed, published data are unavailable. [The Open Notebook]
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Tech
'Universal translator' dubs and lip-syncs speakers - but Google warns against misuse
Google's experimental translation tool redubs video in a new language while syncing the speaker's lips — and they know that could be trouble. [Tech Crunch]
Apple's custom silicon is expected to leap to 3nm, a next-generation manufacturing technique, later this year, but what exactly does the enhanced process mean for the company's next generation chips? [MacRumors]
At the BBC data team, we have developed an R package and an R cookbook to make the process of creating publication-ready graphics in our in-house style using R’s ggplot2 library a more reproducible process, as well as making it easier for people new to R to create graphics. The cookbook below should hopefully help anyone who wants to make graphics like these . . . [BBC]

Slash commands can help make Slack less of a time suck. Here's how. [ZDNet]
Issued this day ...
...in 2013: Scott # 2645: Big Brothers and Sisters centennial. Design: Dennis Page, Oliver Hill.

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