Yes. I obtained my Canadian citizenship through my mom last year, and the December 2025 law made my daughters eligible too. I submitted their application in March. Not surprisingly, they are swamped with applications right now so we will have quite a wait.
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Interesting. I’d always thought my grandfather (who died when I was 11) had been born in Canada until I mentioned that to my older brother last year and he insisted he’d been born in Massachusetts. I researched to prove my brother wrong, and found out he was right. Although great grandparents moved to US not long before he was born and I think they or he moved back to Canada for a while. That made me ineligible. But now I may look into the citizenship application.
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‘If you’re boring, it’s good to know that you’re being boring.’ — Harvard Gazette
Chatbots are “the ultimate bullshitters because they don’t care about anything, they’re not truth tracking, and they will say whatever human beings prefer.” The “empathy” as a design feature lulls users into thinking the chatbot understands them and has their best interests at heart when it does not, she said.
“There is no one there on the other side of the screen, there’s no one who cares about you,” said Véliz. “And even to call it empathic, I think, is a mistake. It’s a kind of simulation of empathy, which is very different.”
The potential for distorted social and cognitive effects from chatbot use, particularly among children and teenagers, is worrisome, she said.
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There’s so much bad news these days that this made me smile. An act of kindness by employees and their corporation.
From CNBC in article about the Spirit Airlines shutdown:
“Crews scrambled to get home.
Jon Jackson, a Spirit Airlines captain, was supposed to fly his retirement flight on Saturday, but his airline shut down before he could.
He hopped on a Southwest flight to get back to Baltimore from Fort Lauderdale. While on board, “we casually mentioned it to the crew,” his son, Chris, a Southwest pilot, said in a Facebook post. Southwest staff organized a water cannon salute when the aircraft arrived and he was met with applause and a reception when he walked off the jet bridge, according to the post, which was confirmed to CNBC by Southwest.”
Excerpt From
““Godspeed my friend”: inside the final hours of Spirit Airlines”
Leslie Josephs
CNBC
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Southwest posted some videos and photos of Jon Jackson’s retirement on its social media accounts.
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“Am I allowed to stand here?” Blocking the university president’s vehicle.
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I suppose that’s one way to stay on the emperor’s good side. I do hope that it was accidental.
Is Loving Food the Secret to Eating Less of It?
The case for ditching self-denial and embracing enjoyment.
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No, it appears Cornell’s president intentionally moved his car without caring that the student did not move. Then, sent a campus wide e-mail with his version of events. He did not reveal that he hit one person and ran over the foot of another.
From the student editorial:
“ This incident is emblematic of a deeper problem at Cornell: an administration that protects itself, not its students. An administration that has consistently moved to protect itself before it moves to understand, or even to check on, the students in its care. With such factual inaccuracies, omitted information and misuse of the president’s platform, the discrepancy between the footage and Kotlikoff’s account of events is frightening. This disparity is demonstrative of Kotlikoff’s attempts to reframe as a means to prioritize himself over the very students he is meant to serve.
Words are permanent and powerful, and there is no one who understands that better than journalists and our editorial board. When the words belong to the president of a university and reach tens of thousands of readers, the standard for issuing them has to be much higher than it was here. Once the first account is wrong, every subsequent ‘fact’ is suspect. The administration has spent considerable credibility on a statement it should not have sent in its present form; the burden now falls on Cornell to explain why its word should be trusted in the next incident, and the one after that.”
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https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/polymarket-kalshi-betting-profits-prediction-markets-eb23ac11
Very timely article, given the rising popularity (and abuse) of production markets.
I’m able to read this article without a subscription. My apologies if it’s paywalled for others. If it is, here’s a summary:
————
The article’s main takeaway is that prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi largely concentrate profits among a tiny group of highly sophisticated traders, while most participants lose money. Despite being marketed as accessible ways to “bet on outcomes” or even (misleadingly) to make easy money, experienced players (including trading firms) using data-driven strategies consistently outperform casual users, who effectively supply the losses that drive those gains.
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Hackers who have stolen data from Ticketmaster, Google and several high-profile universities kicked off the month of May by breaching Instructure; the education technology company owns the nation’s most popular learning management system, Canvas, which is used by 41 percent of higher education institutions across North America to deliver courses.
The criminal extortion group ShinyHunters—which has also been linked to recent data breaches at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton and Harvard Universities—claimed its attack on Instructure affected nearly 9,000 schools worldwide (including a mix of K–12 and higher education institutions) and compromised the personal identifying information of 275 million people, including students, teachers and staff.
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Fascinating.
When My Father’s Canary Flew Away
In the final stages of his dementia, a long-lost memory from childhood returned, perfectly formed. What was going on in his brain?
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Way to go, Connecticut! Who said only the feathered kind of a bird can be a state bird? 
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With Just One Word, Brandeis Is Trying to Change College Shopping
A new tool on the university’s website tells you what the first year “will” cost if you get in.
sorry, no gift link
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/your-money/brandeis-college-cost-faye.html
Based on the linked page, they are trying to make a net price calculator with stronger assurances of accuracy, although still with the asterisks about being only as reliable as the data put in and such.
Perhaps create a thread in the Paying for College section?
Created a thread on the subject, including a link to Brandeis’ “Faye” web page on the subject:
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