jenny (phire)
LightNews LightNews
banner
phirephoenix.com
jenny (phire)
@phirephoenix.com
1.9K followers 600 following 1.1K posts
I write code for a living and words for my sins. occasional blog posts at https://phirephoenix.com, weekly newsletter for organizing/activism in Toronto at @showuptoronto.ca.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
phirephoenix.com
jenny (phire) @phirephoenix.com · Jan 6
It’s a new year and things are still bad! If you want to join folks in Toronto who are doing organizing, activism, and mutual aid work to make things less bad, I run a calendar/newsletter that tracks it all. Newsletter returns tomorrow, or use the iCal/RSS feeds! Tell your friends! showuptoronto.ca
Show Up Toronto
Show Up Toronto brings together community organizing, mutual aid, and advocacy events from around the city. Get weekly updates or subscribe to the calendar feed!
showuptoronto.ca
Reposted by jenny (phire)
legendofnerd.bsky.social
Discord is already starting to walk things back a little, so people should keep doing what they're doing (cancel Nitro, leave feedback/criticism, direct contact through support tickets/phone/email/etc)
Tl;dr: The vast majority of adults will never have to interact with our age assurance systems and their experience won't change, because we know Discord and how people use it, so we're designing to respect privacy and deliver a safer experience while minimizing friction for adults. Hey folks – I’ve been on Discord since very early 2016 and actually joined the company in 2017. Safety is one of my areas, so today’s announcement on our blog is something I’ve been pretty involved with. I’ve always cared about Discord's approach to privacy (E2EE for A/V was another of my projects here), so I figured I’d add some more context to today's news. I can say confidently that the vast majority of people will never see age verification. I say this because we launched age assurance in the UK and Australia in 2025, and we have some pretty good data on this now. The idea here is that we can pre-identify most adults based on what we already know (not including your messages!), and that looks to get us pretty far here. No face scans, no IDs, for the vast majority of adults. And if you are one of the smaller subset of folks that we can't definitively pre-identify, then still, you only have to do it if you're accessing age-restricted servers or channels, or changing certain settings. That's really not most users. (Altho... might be more Redditors, tbh.) Last, I know that there is concern about privacy and data leaks. That's a real concern. The selfie system is built purely client-side, it never leaves your device, and we did that intentionally. That'll work for a bunch of users who aren't pre-identified as adults. But if you do end up in the ID bucket, then yeah, you're right that has some risk. We're doing what we can to minimize this by working with our range of partners (who are different partners than the data leak you read about), and if it's any help, we learned a lot internally from the last issue. But I get if that doesn't necessarily inspire more confidence. Anyway, we’ll be sharing more next month as we get closer to the global roll out about the system, including the technology behind it in March. I honestly wouldn't be happy if we didn't build something good and I am excited about what we’re launching, but please let us know what you think when we share more details. And I really appreciate everybody's feedback here today. We’re definitely reading it!
February 10, 2026 at 1:43 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
histoftech.bsky.social
When AI was added to a tool for sinus surgery: “Cerebrospinal fluid leaked from one patient’s nose. In another… a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured”

www.reuters.com/investigatio...
As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts
Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient ...
www.reuters.com
February 9, 2026 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
erininthemorning.com
In an alarming development, it appears the UK Government covered up a massive spike in trans youth suicides after restrictions.

Then covered it up again when caught.

Now, after fighting for years, the data is public: trans suicide increased 5x in the country.

Subscribe to support our journalism.
Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up
A Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database reveals that 22 trans children under 18 died by suicide in England in 2021-22 alone.
www.erininthemorning.com
February 9, 2026 at 6:37 PM
phirephoenix.com
everyone should read this VERY good Rayne Fisher-Quann piece on the fundamentally limited centrist imagination of the FP instead internetprincess.substack.com/p/centrist-i...
February 9, 2026 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
jenstden.bsky.social
Our EIC Dave Beers - and also the founder of @thetyee.ca - is retiring (for real this time lol). We're looking for a new EIC - please share in your #journalism circles! thetyee.ca/Tyeenews/202...
The Tyee Is Recruiting Our Next Editor-in-Chief | The Tyee
Founding editor David Beers is passing the baton to a new leader. Is it you?
thetyee.ca
February 9, 2026 at 5:40 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
ajcousins.bsky.social
💯👇
"Our response should not be "This response to Bad Bunny's inclusion shows how divided we are, how can we stop this polarization?" Our response should be uncooperative: "The response to Bad Bunny's inclusion shows just how racist our society is. Racists are angry about the halftime show? Good! Everything about our society should make racists feel alienated. How do we make racists feel even more alienated from even more of society??"
February 9, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
sorayanadiamcdonald.com
Benito is a threat b/c he makes art so alluring and enjoyable you want to understand everything about it and then you end up learning about sugar and slavery and colonialism and the Taínos and Hawaii and then you probably have some thoughts of your own, and that's why art is powerful and dangerous
February 9, 2026 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
dexanderson.com
i just saw someone say "Kid Rock makes music for the people who have tattoos of their kids but not custody" and hol up i need a minute
February 9, 2026 at 4:22 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
chanda.blacksky.app
I really can’t watch any of these ice flip videos without thinking about how a white man is being rewarded for accomplishing what a Black woman was punished for doing 30 years ago

Surya Bonaly was an incredible athlete and she was treated like shit for it
February 9, 2026 at 3:01 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
lookitup.baby
Bless
Raphal de la Ghetto @ilovesmick All these white people mad about Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance... I hope next year they get Bad Bunny performing the whole set in Spanish. 5:32 PM • 2/11/25 • 6.7M Views
October 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
marisakabas.bsky.social
A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:
Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.
February 8, 2026 at 5:06 AM
phirephoenix.com
a gar is a fuel that goes in a flar
photo of an aquarium sign about an endangered fish in Ontario called a spotted gar
February 8, 2026 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
catacalypto.bsky.social
me: I’m not going to log back on. I’m going to go to bed

my brain: remember: there are grimdark neopets ttrpg posts

me: im on my way
February 7, 2026 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
mcs212.bsky.social
Breaking: Tragedy at the Winter Olympics
Image of the Yeti in the skiing Windows game SkiFree eating the player
February 7, 2026 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
marisakabas.bsky.social
HELL yea
Byhalia ICE Facility Plans Ditched Amid Mississippi Opposition, Wicker Says
A proposed ICE detention facility that would have held 8,500 immigrants in a warehouse in Byhalia, Mississippi, won’t happen, Sen. Roger Wicker says.
www.mississippifreepress.org
February 7, 2026 at 1:13 AM
phirephoenix.com
I’m going to [redacted]
neimanmarxist.bsky.social Scott Patrick, PhD @neimanmarxist.bsky.social · 3d
This is bleak: Jes Staley, currently CEO of Barclays, reassuring Epstein that popular revolt against financial elites is unlikely because capitalism and pop culture have defanged social movements, leaving people more invested in consumption than justice.
February 6, 2026 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
glonzo-in-exile.bsky.social
This type of thing where voters think their vote is just a nice little I'm mad button they can press instead of an actual serious responsibility they have infuriates me
drunkorsonwelles.bsky.social Trev @drunkorsonwelles.bsky.social · 4d
Just saw a lady quoted in a local small town paper say she signed the separatist petition even though she doesn’t want to separate but wants to “send a message” and I’m just beside myself

Like this isn’t a fucking joke lady
February 6, 2026 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
jasonli.bsky.social
Powerful photo series on display at Native Arts Society (photos by @joshuabest.bsky.social) about their Indigenous Led Winter Night Outreach initiative.

Support them by going to torontoindigenoushr.com and tapping donate.
The first two photos are of outreach workers with neon vests walking down a wintry Toronto street and squatting down to talk to a person on the ground, while the narration says, "Met 15 people outside tonight. It's brutally cold. The buildings downtown are wind tunnels pummeling people with cold wet wind and snow from the lake. The city has zero options. A photo of two outreach workers checking in on a tent pitch in the middle of a brightly-light downtown road, everything blanketed in snow. The narration: "No shelter space and warning centres at capacity. City run warming centres were contacting us for sleeping bags for the people in their lobby they had to turn away." Then two photos of outreach workers checking in on a seated person on a sidewalk and walking towards a big red building. The narration says, "As Indigenous people of this territory, we saw a need that existed in our community and we are doing our best to meet that need."
February 6, 2026 at 8:36 PM
phirephoenix.com
instead of getting mad at the main character du jour I think you should read my essay about choosing friction instead. I mean you can do both but I feel like the second one is more pleasant phirephoenix.com/blog/2025-10...
The thing that makes art interesting is that it was created by people who could have chosen to spend their time doing literally anything else. Do you know how long it takes to write a novel? Isn't it amazing how many people have done it anyway? Every human-authored book in the world, even the ones I think are absolute trash and not worth the paper they're printed on, is the culmination of hundreds or maybe thousands of hours of work by someone who had something they really, really wanted to say. Those are hundreds or maybe thousands of hours they could have chosen to spend hiking or cuddling their pets or socializing with their loved ones or playing Hades, but this thing they had to say was too important to ignore. I just think that's neat. The problem with AI output masquerading as art is not that it's technically inept, or even uncanny. Al media generation has come a long way in the last five years and might well continue to improve technically. The problem with AI "art" is that it was not the expression of a mortal being choosing to spend its one wild and precious life clawing its way through mediocrity to try and imperfectly communicate a feeling with other mortal beings who, by definition, can never fully comprehend it, and therefore it is fundamentally uninteresting to me.
February 6, 2026 at 8:19 PM
phirephoenix.com
I want recommendations for a certain vibe of nonfiction book: not essays or memoir, nor a specific Thesis™, but a mix of personal narrative and philosophy and deep considerations of one specific theme. I am thinking of books like On Immunity by Eula Biss or How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. Ideas?
February 6, 2026 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
justinling.ca
As America weaponizes its post-9/11 security state to terrorize migrants and target dissidents, her (former) allies need to unplug from it ASAP. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...
Justin Ling: For years, Canada has used a secret U.S.-run terror watchlist. Now Trump could use it against us
It's called TUSCAN, and it's a nightmare for civil liberties. We need to put a stop to it.
www.thestar.com
February 6, 2026 at 12:47 PM
phirephoenix.com
I am as delighted about the crypto crash as anyone but I gotta say finance bros selling off bitcoin because they’re aghast at the associations with Epstein are acting with significantly more integrity than, like, 99% of the ruling class and cultural elite. was not expecting to hand this one to them
February 6, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
iwriteok.bsky.social
jeffrey epstein being the first domino for the financial crash, video game micro transactions, and Gamergate is making me lose my mind
segyges.bsky.social SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 4d
what the fuck man
February 6, 2026 at 3:57 AM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
evacide.bsky.social
Hey, remember that time I said that pointing out that AI is giving bad data to ICE is missing the point because ICE doesn't actually care if the data is good? Check out how right I am.
dell.bsky.social dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 4d
NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.
ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are
ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that—and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy r...
www.wired.com
February 5, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by jenny (phire)
currentaffairs.bsky.social
Washington Post is shuttering its book section, part of the ongoing war against literacy & knowledge.

We at Current Affairs want to pick up the slack by expanding book reviews. Writers: pitch us anytime! And if you subscribe/donate we'll use the funding to commission book coverage.
February 4, 2026 at 8:58 PM