Bars and restaurants are returning to normal after the frenzy of the Canadiens playoffs.
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Kate
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Kate
Quebec is planning a database of cultural stuff to train AIs with.
EmilyG
The article says, “The project aims to address concerns that major generative AI systems often struggle to provide reliable information about Quebec society, economy and culture because of the limited amount of Quebec-related data available to them.”
But generative AI often doesn’t give reliable information on various things, in various languages and cultures.
I don’t know if gen-AI is a good idea in any language.
Kate
No, but that ship has sailed.
Kevin
AI is a bubble. Everyone knows it but they’ve already made money from crypto and NFTs so why not treat more people like suckers.
Joey
A colleague of mind has a helpful way to think about LLMs – you have three fundamental elements: a model, which is essentially how the LLM processes information; a data set that it uses for its “knowledge”; and a user interface. If LLMs are going to be a source of information, and they already are, it makes sense to have models that are trained on a relatively small/contained set of accurate information about Quebec culture.
SMD
Long breakdown of the current AI bubble in the US It would be interesting to have a similar analysis of Canadians’ exposure, through pension funds and tax breaks and direct government support. The technology might have some interesting uses, but the finance side is a house of cards.
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Kate
Radio-Canada says nearly 20,000 cyclists are out in the Tour de l’Île Sunday, while TVA says it’s 15,000 cyclists “despite the potholes” – which seems like an odd observation, as potholes, while unpleasant and sometimes dangerous, don’t keep cyclists off the road any more than they do motorists.
Chris
Also, the entire route had all potholes filled (as they do every year).
Joey
There are many streets I would currently drive on that I wouldn’t bike on…
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Kate
Steven Guilbeault abandoning the federal Liberals was a theme this week, Côté making him into a sort of St Francis of Assisi figure, Chapleau calling back to Guilbeault’s famous 2001 scaling of the CN tower to hang a banner, Godin with a symbolic drawing and Ygreck using an oil pipeline gag. Chapleau also dips into oil in another Guilbeault cartoon.Christine Fréchette’s cut to a few sales taxes is mocked by Godin and Ygreck – and her source of spare cash by Godin. Fréchette’s growing burden on Éric Girard amuses Côté; on the other hand, Ygreck sees her weighed down by the legacy of Legault.
Trump only stepped in for a couple of mild gags this week.
Côté asks are you followed by a family doctor? He also does a masterful drawing of job responsibilities in institutional settings.
MarcG
A small bit of unintentional local content in Côté’s Trump comic: the January 6th defendant has a Proud Boys logo on their shirt, a group founded by Gavin McInnes who’s best known in Montreal as the guy who wrote the Do’s and Don’ts column in Vice magazine back in the day but is now a tiresome edgelord.
Kate
It might well have been intentional. Côté’s pretty sharp.
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Kate
The Tour de l’Île route this Sunday encircles Mount Royal and encloses several pieces of the central city. Le Devoir asks how to get around. The forecast speaks of a possible thunderstorm this afternoon.
ottawaowl
Should be fun even with a bit of rain. Highlight of 2021 for me was cycling through the Big Owe and the Tour la Nuit was AWESOME https://youtu.be/Lvln41beEis
Kate
I have good memories of Tours la Nuit – riding through the Botanical Garden in silence and almost total darkness (no clowns or acrobats), also riding up the Olmsted Trail, with nervous volunteers positioned along the cliff edge calling out to keep us from getting too close. I don’t know whether they’ve routed the ride up there since, once they realized how difficult it is to perceive the edge of the trail in the dark.
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Kate
La Presse continues its exploration of Australian cities with a dossier on Sydney, focusing on how it uses technology.
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Kate
A crowd of thousands hailed the Victoire Saturday afternoon downtown. Radio‑Canada calls it a consecration of women’s sports.
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Kate
Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, who threatened to bomb public transit in Montreal, pleaded guilty this week, but his lawyer says he’s homeless and mentally ill.
Whether Warsame ever joined al‑Qaida or met Osama bin Laden, or has the capacity to cause the carnage he has threatened, is moot. A dangerous nutbar can still be very dangerous.
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Kate
The office of the French language commissioner says there’s too much English on Quebec’s official websites, and that people should have to prove they’re eligible (ayant droit) before they can access it. But French language minister Jean‑François Roberge says the English that’s there can stay.
As it is, I have to attest on my honour that I’m entitled before I can even buy a lottery ticket online in English, let alone pay my Hydro bill.
RE
Or use the library…
(I saw the signs at BANQ at one point but not sure how much they’re enforcing).
Uatu
Google translate automatically translates my email so the subject is kinda moot
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Kate
The Consignaction system may have simplified the return of empty cans for some – and there are grocery stores and deps which no longer have to process bags of sticky half‑empty beer cans – but it’s making things more difficult for some of the folks who scavenge for empties because they need the cash.
Nicholas
I had high hopes for this, but who did it simplify things for? The island has 25 Consignaction locations, which is like one per borough/city. Previously every grocery store was a return location. You used to be able to go to the store, return your bottles and cans, and then buy more. Now you have to make two trips in one. I went to a Cosignaction the other day and there were seven people in line, mostly scavengers, and there were two machines, the same number as a single grocery stores had, except they’re also not open evenings. If they were the fancy machines where you empty your bag into a drum and then it counts everything in seconds that would have been great, but no, those machines are only available at Consignaction+ locations, of which there are just four on the island, mostly in car-oriented locations scavengers will never go to. Maybe it’s a jobs program, as there were three clerks just standing around chatting with the scavengers like they knew them, there to take some but not all bottles and fix the machines if they break.
So now we have a new system with fewer locations, slower service, more employees and costlier rents. If this is what passes for success, what does failure look like?
Jim
The new Consignaction system is in my opinion an improvement over the old system, but it still has a long way to go.
I’m lucky to have a Consignaction+ fairly close and I can use a car. With the app, drop-off works great: barcode on the bag, direct deposit, usually same day. I’m actually surprised I hardly see anyone using the express system with the app, although it does not really help if you have glass bottles.
But many locations are still not practical without a car, and lineups can be long if you don’t use the app. So I still see it as an improvement, but not yet a real success. More reachable locations and more capacity are needed.
mare
I wasn’t aware there were so few Consignaction since the one nearby is one block away and even closer than the nearest grocery store. I don’t use many refund containers so I collect them in a large clear bag on my balcony and put them at the street on recycling day when it’s full after 6 months or so.
EmilyG
Maybe if the Consignaction places’ equipment always worked, I’d find it more useful. Today I dragged two bags of cans to the nearest place, only to find out that their machines were out of order. So I had to drag two big bags of dirty cans onto a crowded bus (the 470, which was a small bus instead of an articulated bus because a bunch of the articulated buses are out of service) to the next-nearest Consignaction place.
I don’t know if I was just having an unlucky day, or if the city or whoever is in charge needs to get its act together and have basic services such as buses and can returns work better.
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Kate
La Presse went to Australia to study how Melbourne is using technology to make that city more livable.
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Kate
Friday evening’s thunderstorm and the understandable defection of many of the volunteers who would normally be manning the route and ensuring its safety caused the last‑minute cancellation of the Tour la Nuit.
Chris
Seems Friday’s bibs will be honoured for Sunday’s ride.
Nicholas
Chris I wondered if that would be the case, but it’s always tough squeezing as many people as they do into the course. Adding thousands more will be a challenge. But the weather looks similarly dreary tomorrow, so maybe it’ll balance out.
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Kate
The Union des municipalités du Québec is asking the province to provide more funding for public transit, and stable, predictable, and sustainable funding instead of the unreliable games played in recent years.
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Kate
So much for dreams of the Cup.
But the Victoire will have a hockey celebration Saturday.
Nicholas
Does anyone think a Cup celebration for the Habs would be three measly blocks long on an already pedestrianized street?
Kate
It would obviously be much bigger but possibly also cause more damage.
Chris
Of course a Habs parade would be bigger, why wouldn’t it be? They have more fans, more history, and are better players. Remember the NHL is not a men-only league, there just aren’t any women good enough. If the Victoire players were, they should surely prefer the salary boost being with the NHL.
Kate
Chris, you’re usually better at trolling than this.
The reason we separate many sports into men’s and women’s formats is because men are, on the whole, larger, they benefit from the effects of testosterone on their musculature, and their mature structure differs in that – again, on the whole, this is speaking of generalities – women’s pelvises are shaped for childbirth, not so much for strength and speed. See Wikipedia on sex differences in human physiology for more on all of this.
We don’t pit men and women against each other in most sports because it’s apples and oranges. The best apple will never be an orange. This is also why there’s still debate about allowing trans women to compete as women in sports. Anyone with a Y chromosome who has matured as a male is going to have – on the average, again – a natural advantage over a similarly average XX person born as a woman.
Chris
Trolling!? I’m of course well aware of everything you said, and agree with it, and it doesn’t contradict anything I said.
Kate
They are “better players”? Women are not “good enough”?
The Habs collapsed, and the Victoire did not.
mare
*”This is also why there’s still debate about allowing trans women to compete as women in sports.”*
Trans women don’t compete *as* women, they *are* women.
(I won’t go into the whole trans sport ‘debate’ since this is a blog about Montreal. But the difference between trans women’s bodies after a few years of HRT, and cis women’s bodies is not as cookie-cutter clear as you state in the rest of your comment.)
jeather
There are sports where women will regularly beat men — there was some mixed shooting sport in an Olympics where a woman won so suddenly there was only men’s shooting, ultra distance runs and swims, climbing routes that are about flexibility or balance vs brute strength. If we dealt with sports that required flexibility and endurance more than strength and speed, we’d see women winning, but for various reasons we don’t.
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Kate
City hall is putting aside $3.4 million to help people left homeless on Moving Day. But then you read that it’s $1.1 million per year for 3 years, and that will get thinned out by incidental expenses.
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