Alexander Panetta

My dailyaidigest.net today: --> Highlights of the pope's effort to reshape the global AI conversation with a 42,000-word manifesto. --> Plus several studies on the trouble of using desktop LLMs at institutional scale.

There's a ton of confusion on the new US immigration policy. Here's an immigration lawyer's analysis, and how it actually affects every current US visa holder.

/ Who knows what the exclusions will look like. Still unclear

People not familiar with the intricacies of the US immigration system will struggle to grasp how wild this policy is. I'm assuming some smart embassies in Washington today are sending dispatches back to their capitals urging moves to attract all the scientists and others on the US genius (O) visa who just got told to leave

@Roxanneaff Yes. Like middle-class people being able to afford a hockey game, which is currently close to impossible in Montreal.

@Alex_Panetta Some things are more important than how many tickets you can sell

One other takeaway from the Habs selling out multiple arenas in different cities for people to watch their playoff games on TV: the Bell Centre is too small. Makes no sense for this team to be playing in front of only 21,000 people, at 10x ticket price of a decade ago. They could be selling out the Olympic stadium or something of its size, with higher profits and cheaper tickets for regular fans.

NEW: Read the full AI exec. order that was supposed to go out yesterday 1/

@j_bertho OK, I give you the last word. We end with: The Montreal Canadiens could not turn a larger profit in a 40,000+ seat venue.

@Alex_Panetta You're basically asking to double the size of paid games when the economy is getting worse every years, mass layoffs are happening, and no suitable replacement exists for such a venue. And while games did sell out, there were many no shows when the team was struggling

@j_bertho We'll have to agree to disagree. Lived there most of my life and seen them sellout when they were a boring defensive team bereft of talent and dependent on the miracle-making of Carey Price. They'd sell 40,000 year in, year out.

@Alex_Panetta Fans will not sell out when this team does poorly in a much larger venue. I live here and we should not make long-term logistical decisions based on playoff run fevers.

@DimitrisSoudas Anybody complaining about the clarity act is hereby sentenced to stare at that sentence for eight consecutive hours.

The 1980 Quebec referendum question read as follows: (now that’s a word salad) “The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad — in other words, sovereignty — and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?”

@j_bertho I don't know -- I think that particular team is unique. It stank for 4 years and constantly sold out at eye-watering prices. I'd be shocked if they couldn't consistently sell 35,000 tickets even as a last-place team. And I would expect that's the floor, not the ceiling.

@Alex_Panetta There's no way *any* NHL team could sell out stadiums consistently. Playoff runs always do well, but what happens when the team is doing poorly?

@kernhofer People pay to sit in an empty arena and watch it on TV! I'm pretty sure they'd be willing to shell out 25 bucks to sit in the upper bowl, especially if there's a jumbotron!

@Alex_Panetta Problem is you might never see the puck plus renovations to the Big Owe are not yet finished!!

this was so sweet. Stephen Colbert just ended his final episode of The Late Show while singing "Hello, Goodbye" with Paul McCartney. his family and the show's crew then joined them on stage before Paul turned off the lights to the Ed Sullivan Theater

What a wonderful story from a wonderful person. My friend Susan returns to the pages of the New York Times to piece together an old family mystery: What happened to the branch of the family that left the South and passed itself off as white? nytimes.com/2026/05/15/us/…

Hurricanes player William Carrier, who grew up in Pierrefonds, QC, on the Habs: “All my friends (back home) are rooting for Montreal. My wife is rooting for Montreal too.”

That's very kind, thank you. And I appreciate the feedback. I got a ping from a friend in Japan who told me that Kyoto, a famously tourist-packed place, was inexplicably on my list. Turned out to have been a glitch in the ID number. So this feedback really really helps. Thank you.

@Alex_Panetta As an Inn owner in a soon to be over-touristic town, this is brilliant. And as an offseason traveller that seeks escape I will use this website. You’re on to something fascinating. Let me know if you’re ever in Nova Scotia and I’ll buy you a beer.

My latest....

One of my greatest thrills as a kid was getting a kind letter from him in response to my fan mail telling him I admired him and wanted to be a journalist someday. Got a chance to thank him in person, two decades later, in the press box covering a MLB game. A class act -- and a wizard with a keyboard.