Samantha Thompson

@duncanreyburn Talent!

Quick new brush pen test.

@nickwallis Not to me

This is very funny.

@KurtSupeCPA Oh the humanity

Client was a VP at a large company. 62 years old. Was going to work until 65. January: called into HR. Severance package. Sign by Friday. He called me that afternoon. "I think I just got retired." No transition. No goodbye lunch. No plan. His whole identity was that job. His social life was those people. His purpose showed up every morning at 7:45am. The money was fine. We figured out the money in two meetings. The identity took a few years. He told me recently: "The hardest part wasn't losing the job. It was realizing I'd built my whole life inside someone else's building." Retirement that happens to you hits completely differently than retirement you choose. Millions of people in their 60s are navigating this right now and nobody is talking about it.

Excellent reading suggestions. The long perspective is always salutary. I'd add Hard Times by Dickens.

@CompletedStreet In Toronto it'd be a condo.

Actually, the American era would have demolished the whole thing for a parking lot.

@DrDominicNg @add_hawk Anyone who works in a corporation knows this reductionism is ruining everything.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. The core problem C Thi Nguyen nails: we've handed our lives over to metrics. The issue is that any metric is a compression of something richer, and once the metric exists, we end up optimising for the metric instead of the thing it was supposed to measure. Examples: Step counts. Likes. School rankings. Citation counts. Calorie counts. Sleep scores. These numbers are so clear and easy to track, we start optimising for them. - A teacher starts teaching to the test because that's what the ranking measures. - A researcher picks safe topics because those get cited. - You post something you love, it gets 12 likes, and you feel like it wasn't worth sharing - because the number has become your sense of value. He calls it value capture - when a simplified score replaces the rich, complex thing it was supposed to represent. So what's the solution? He finds it in an unlikely place: games. In a game, simple goals are fine because you put it down when it's over. A gamified life has no "put it down" moment. But games also prove we have an ability most of us forget about: we can fully buy into a set of values and then choose to step back out. You do it every time you finish Monopoly and stop caring about plastic hotels. The fix then isn't abandoning metrics - it's noticing when a useful shorthand has become the thing you're living for. Seriously, read this book (it'll also bump your Goodreads number up by one if you need a reason.)

@goinggodward How do I get this?

Will never take for granted that I can look up from my work and out my office window and see a deer grazing or running through the pasture.

@donnelly_b It's a Toronto thing

Truthfully, I didn't think so many people would be this offended by my unwavering hometown love.

@CapelLofft Weirdo *(sarcasm)

When I get cognitive dissonance - when I can't fit things I know to be true into my mental framework - I try to amend the framework. Or if the dissonance reaches a certain point, I discard the framework. I do not ignore the truths to defend the framework at all costs

@urbanponds101 It's illegal to do that here.

Three gardens lost. Two trashed and one paved over. I’ve shared picture of these lovely gardens in the past. I appreciate people’s circumstances/needs change, but still, so depressing

@DamonLinker You did it to the rest of us too. Thanks a lot.

We've done this to ourselves, America. The 4-hour lines at the airport. The surging gas prices, and other rising prices to follow. The $200 billion and counting tab for our latest Middle Eastern adventure, piled on to of the $39 trillion in debt. Amazing national self-sabotage.

@malonebarry It hurts

In honour of the closure of the metaverse, I would like to re-up one of the worst videos ever recorded.

@CalumRaasay Worth 50p in today's money anyway.

@harchivist haha there was also a scratch card for 50k! Not a winner however

Can’t quite believe this. The kids at the island primary school were doing a beach clean and found a message in a bottle. From me. From 25 years ago!!

@duncanrobinson They'll need to. x.com/i/status/20342…

Just do it. Students can spend the first year relearning how to write

@Joe___Allen @si_rubinstein We've had student interns who could barely write. And by that I mean form letters with a stick-shaped writing implement.

Remarkable that universities are resisting a return to pen and paper assessments. Seems like a total denial of reality.

@Thelifekey @Nithya_Shrii Ah but then you'd be overqualified.

I miss the days where you could walk in a business and ask for a job.

@London_W4 @AudreySuffolk Wonderful unified colour palette amd atmosphere. She must be over the moon.

This lady is an opera singer and needed up to date professional photos for publicity material and her website etc. We discussed what she was looking for before the shoot and I suggested this location. Some people think that I only photograph twenty something year olds. Well, I don’t and I think this lady looked absolutely fabulous.

@sockmoments Yeah it's bizarre.

this fucker is all booze booze booze, booze here, booze that like holy fuck is it such a priority????

@cairox100v Yes and then it's 30 degrees and humid a week later.

does winter in toronto ever end