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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒

@plantarum@ottawa.place

hometown 4.5.10+hometown-1.2.1

I'm a botanist and conservation biologist in Ottawa. My work focuses on crop wild relatives and wild-harvested species, particularly berries; and invasive plants. I am trained as a plant taxonomist and community ecologist.

All opinions expressed are my own, and do not reflect those any of my employer(s) past, present or future.

My interests include photography, woodworking, kayaking, swimming, hiking and natural history.

1094 Followers

1425 Following

29 Posts

Joined December 03, 2022

Website:

https://plantarum.ca

Photos:

https://www.flickr.com/people/carex/

orcid:

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7683-2653

🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 2mo ago

This is something I've suspected from the early days of the AI boom. If this stuff was as good as they claim, it would be a closely guarded industrial secret. The fact they're so eager to get us to use it tells me it's primary value isn't what it can do, but what it can be sold for. Or, as Cory says, "Go Meta!". If you think about it, this is coming from a group of people who famously fetishize disruption. The fact that they aren't using their own #AI to disrupt & take over the sectors they are so keen to sell their product to is a huge red flag. @pluralistic@mamot.fr Why aren't #AI companies competing directly with their customers? (13 Jul 2026) https://pluralistic.net/2026/07/13/go-meta-meta/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Why aren’t AI companies competing directly with their customers? (13 Jul 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 3mo ago

"Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. This nightmare is the surveillance advertising industry's fondest dream, a world where it's literally illegal to avoid their tracking, all in the name of saving kids…from them!

@pluralistic@mamot.fr Spying on kids to save kids from spying is very, very stupid (23 Jun 2026) https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/23/destroy-the-village/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Spying on kids to save kids from spying is very, very stupid (23 Jun 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

I hadn't thought of #AI as an attempt to enclose and commodify intelligence, but it's a framing that makes a lot of sense

Make ‘em dumb, sell ‘em smarts, from @parismarx@mastodon.online

https://disconnect.blog/make-em-dumb-sell-em-smarts/

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 3mo ago

Boosted by @trending@homestead.social

The tiny blooms of Diapensia laponica are a special treat for fieldwork in #Labrador. The stems are only 1-3cm tall. The little flowers look robust, but I've learned they only last a few days in the short northern summer. #botany #photography #Makkovik

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Spring has finally sprung in #Ottawa

#botany #photography #bloodroot

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 6mo ago

Are #AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research?

tl;dr: no, they are not.

First, because they are simply not good at it, with testing indicating the latest models achieve at most 66% accuracy, with a tendency to over-generalize findings.

Second, and more importantly, offloading summarization to an AI robs researchers of an important step in the learning process. Struggling with the literature makes us better at what we do - that's the point, the summaries we create are just the residue of that process.

https://www.tue.nl/en/our-university/library/library-news/24-02-2026-are-ai-generated-summaries-suitable-for-studying-and-research

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 6mo ago

"We did this with #AI" has become a synonym for "We don't care if this is done well":

@pluralistic@mamot.fr : Understaffing as a form of enshittification (23 Mar 2026)
https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/22/nobodys-home/

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@pluralistic When the endangered species people, the pollution people, the urban sprawl people, etc, all united under the banner of environmentalism, their individual movements grew in influence. We need to do that again.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@pluralistic Cory also argues, in other posts, that an open internet isn't the single defining issue of our time. But if we lose it, we lose our ability to fight the many other problems we face. Which I think is entirely consistent with Naomi Klein's (I think, and doubtless others) position that all struggle for justice is rooted in climate action. (or maybe it was the other way around). The oligarchs are counting on us acting as individuals whose only agency is choosing what to buy. And failing that, that they can partition our resistance into silos of limited scope (and ideally opposing goals): surveillance capitalism, racial equity, gender equity, climate action.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

#Ontario #NDP is now pushing to #BanPredatoryPricing:

https://banpredatorypricing.ca/

Following up on Wab Kinew doing this in Manitoba, and the Avi Lewis pushing this federally:

https://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-moves-ban-surveillance-pricing-gouging-canadians

Here's hoping this leads to more momentum for the NDP!

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

We've moved to a new purchasing system. Currently 800 orders in a queue that isn't moving and no one knows how the new system works, or if it will work at all.

But we have a trade deal with India, and Modi made a pinky-promise to probably not assassinate any more Canadian citizens, so I guess it all balances out.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 6mo ago

Today's #Bash lesson:

`basename` doesn't accept `stdin`, so you can't use it in a pipe (without resorting to `xargs`). This doesn't work:

ls path/to/*fq.gz | basename

But with the `-a` flag, `basename` will accept multiple arguments:

basename -a path/to/*fq.gz

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@d1@autistics.life @pluralistic@mamot.fr @teqo@mastodon.social Yes, this kind of makes sense: spend a year or two offering your tools as a service, while hoovering up all your clients' data. Then you can turn on them. That would follow Amazon's playbook wrt vendors on its marketplace.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Is #substack really the only option for #IndependentJournalists? It seems pretty horrible, but there are a lot of people I'd like to support that use it as their main/only web presence

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

> You have read 24 articles so far this year

ok, fair enough #TheGuardian, take my money!

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@futurebird@sauropods.win @CStamp@mastodon.social motion detection at macro range is tricky in my experience. if you're focused on small enough objects, like mosses, every faint breath of wind will create a lot of motion on the screen as the tiny stems wave about.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 6mo ago

@pluralistic@mamot.fr Your boss wants to use surveillance data to cut your wages (06 Apr 2026)
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Your boss wants to use surveillance data to cut your wages (06 Apr 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@typotheque Cool, but what does "expressive" mean in this context? Do we have a shared understanding of what that means? It's easy enough to pick my favourite from each font pair, is that what you're looking for? Or which would be most eye-catching as a heading, or pleasing to read as body text, or do you want to know which font looks more unusual?

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@ShaulaEvans Richard Wagamese is one of my favourite authors. I've read four or five of his novels, all amazing.

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Canadian Federal transparency law changes could shield government emails, text messages | #TheNarwhal
https://thenarwhal.ca/canada-access-to-information-changes/

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@veronica I was just watching some of your videos on tinkerbetter yesterday, and was sad to see your fediverse accounts looked inactive. Super happy you're back!

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@CA7746@masto.ai @reynir@social.data.coop @sarahtaber@mastodon.online Yeah, the problem it might be at my end. Twice it took me to a random YouTube page, and the third time it took me to Sarah's video. It's a mystery!

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@matbury@mastodon.online @pluralistic@mamot.fr did you read the linked article? It includes a link to another article by @pluralistic@mamot.fr : https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers In that one he summarizes technical impossibilities in implementing privacy-respecting age verification, with links to the primary literature on the topic. In that case it is the method proposed for the UK specifically, but the underlying issues seem general. (you will have to skip a fair way down to get to that info) As I understand it the issue isn't so much that the process will be given over to multiple private companies to manage, but rather that the technical requirements to verify age can't be realized without *someone* developing & maintaining infrastructure that can't be guaranteed not to leak private information.

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: “Privacy preserving age verification” is bullshit (14 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@sarahtaber@mastodon.online There's something funny with this link, it doesn't take me to your video

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@EmmettMacfarlane@mastodon.social interesting article on how #Carney's returning the senate to its traditional role as a sinecure for political insiders fits in with his broader program of rolling back any of the previous governments progressive policies. Also interesting to find the comments include a number of liberal supporters who still cling to the faint hope that Carney is playing a "long game", and isn't just another politician who will say whatever it takes to get elected

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@the5thColumnist@ottawa.place maybe "spite" isn't such a great principle for managing workers after all

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@futurebird@sauropods.win i did this: https://flic.kr/p/2raBD2Q not quite what you want, but close

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🫐 Tyler Smith 🫒 @plantarum@ottawa.place

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@reynir@social.data.coop @sarahtaber@mastodon.online EDIT: nope, the YouTube link appears to be broken, takes me to an unrelated page! the YouTube link in the first post should be public. The patreon link is supporters-only

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