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errantcanadian.com
Trystan Goetze (they/them/theirs)
@errantcanadian.com
520 followers 990 following 130 posts
Philosopher, educator, writer, game designer. Sue & Harry Bovay Assistant Teaching Professor & Director of the History & Ethics of Professional Engineering at Cornell University.
🏠 trystangoetze.ca
🏢 ethics.engineering.cornell.edu
🎲 errantcanadian.itch.io
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errantcanadian.com
Inspired by an ongoing game of #MonsterOfTheWeek, I wrote a playbook for playing two very closely bonded characters, called The Double Threat. Download it on Itch if that sounds interesting to you: errantcanadian.itch.io/double-threa...
#ttrpg #pbta #gameDesign
A playbook reference page for The Double Threat, a playbook for Monster of the Week about two closely bonded characters. A playbook reference page for The Double Threat, a playbook for Monster of the Week about two closely bonded characters.
February 17, 2025 at 11:08 PM
errantcanadian.com
If I'm not mistaken, this is literally what Popper suggests immediately after introducing the "Paradox of Intolerance."
A screengrab from page 265 of Karl Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies," vol. 1 (1963): "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or the revival of the slave trade, as criminal"
November 12, 2024 at 2:02 AM
errantcanadian.com
Novel approach to airport security: remind people that they can just leave
A Da Share Zone meme. A skeleton runs in from the right in a blue and white space. The text reads: “Just walk out! You can leave! Work, social thing, movies, home, class, dentist, clothes shoppi [sic], too fancy weed store, cops if your quick, friend ships. If it sucks… hit da bricks! Real winners quit.”
October 15, 2024 at 3:57 PM
errantcanadian.com
Altman, as usual, fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and process of writing. It’s not merely to produce a text. It’s to work through your thinking and commit to it. Or as Jane Rosenweig (Director of the Writing Center at Harvard College) put it:

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
Screenshot of text written by Jane Rosenweig: “Writing is hard because the process of getting something onto the page helps us figure out what we think — about a topic, a problem or an idea. If we turn to AI to do the writing, we’re not going to be doing the thinking either. That may not matter if you’re writing an email to set up a meeting, but it will matter if you’re writing a business plan, a policy statement or a court case.”
August 5, 2024 at 7:33 PM
errantcanadian.com
On May 7 at 4:30 PM EDT, Jon Leydens will deliver the Bovay Lecture in the History & Ethics of Engineering at Cornell. His research concerns how engineering education can contribute to social justice.

To attend virtually, register here:
cornell.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

#philsky #sts #philtech
A poster advertising the 2024 Sue and Harry Bovay Lecture in the History and Ethics of Engineering. The top is a banner in crimson with white text reading "Cornell Engineering Bovay Program in the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering". Below is a black banner with white serif text reading "2024 Sue and Harry Bovay Lecture in the History and Ethics of Engineering". The middle three-quarters of the image is a white background featuring a square photo of a light-skinned male-presenting person with greying brown hair and short beard, dressed in a white collared shirt and navy suit, and wearing frameless glasses. Below the photo is text reading "Professor Jon Leydens, Colorado School of Mines, Tuesday May 7, 4:30 PM, Kimball Hall B11". The bottom of the poster is a black banner with a QR code and white text reading "Visit bit.ly/BovayLecture24 or scan the QR code for more information".
May 3, 2024 at 6:02 PM
errantcanadian.com
A screenshot of a tweet from “Whoreganic Cop Puncher @WKDart”. It reads: “Cryptocurrency is literally like an eight-year-old's concept of an evil businessman. He just plugs his pollution machine in and gets money for it. It doesn't make anything, it just. Pollutes. And makes money. Like a fucking Captain Planet villain”. Published 25 April 2021 at 1:15 AM.
December 13, 2023 at 4:07 PM
errantcanadian.com
A BlueSky post by Ian Boudreau. It reads: ‘I think the best response I've seen to Al anything has been, "Why should I bother reading something that nobody could be bothered to write"’
December 6, 2023 at 3:29 PM
errantcanadian.com
A still from "Toy Story". Buzz Lightyear is looking to the heavens and whinging. The caption reads, "Years of UI/UX training wasted!" The phrase "UI/UX" is in a different font and has been clearly superimposed on the original caption.
November 29, 2023 at 5:30 PM
errantcanadian.com
This week I facilitated a session in a mechanical engineering course on values-sensitive stakeholder analysis. We talked about social and political challenges around renewable energy siting and how considering stakeholder values in design can improve outcomes for all. #philsky #edusky #philtech #sts
Photograph of several piles of paper on a desk. One stack is a case study about a town deciding between a wind or solar energy facility. One stack contains a set of graphics illustrating values. Two stacks, which are spread out to show individual sheets, describe ten stakeholder groups in the town, as well as discussion questions. The last stack instructs the reader to take on the role of a consulting engineering firm that is determining what to recommend.
November 17, 2023 at 2:49 PM
errantcanadian.com
Taught an ethics session in a class on engineered living materials. We read about a brick made of plant fiber, fungus, and programmable bacteria, which could make temporary structures in disaster areas. then played a game about decision-making in that context.
#philsky #STS #philtech #ttrpg #EduSky
Photograph of nine sheets of paper, four red cubical dice with pips, and a pencil on a circular wooden table. The pages are filled with text describing the rules of a roleplaying game called "Disasters and Decisions," which simulates a disaster relief scenario in which players must make decisions related to an engineered living material being used to build temporary structures. The pages are illustrated with graphics such as a piece of clip art showing an earthquake fissure with a strand of DNA twisting behind, a pencil overlaid with a DNA double helix, shaking hands, people seated around a table, and a cleaning bucket with a sponge.
October 18, 2023 at 4:43 PM
errantcanadian.com
Gender is a construct and that’s my favoured enemy
A screenshot of a custom stat block for 5e D&D. the creature’s name is “Gender” and it is a “Large construct, unaligned”
October 9, 2023 at 11:52 AM
errantcanadian.com
BlueSky welcoming new arrivals from Twitter
A still from towards the end of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). A confused young white woman (Dorothy) is lying on a bed, having just woken up from her adventure in Oz, now back in Kansas. On the right are her aunt and uncle, and the three farmhands whose likenesses appeared as the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man. Leaning in through a window above the bed is Professor Marvel, whose likeness appeared as the Wizard. Aside from Dorothy's serious-faced uncle, everyone is smiling in relief.
October 5, 2023 at 6:30 PM
errantcanadian.com
Photobash of the "Am I a joke to you?" meme. The format is a still from a TV show, showing a stern-faced man in a collared shirt saying "Am I a joke to you?" The man's head has been replaced by Joseph Weizenbaum's. In the 1960s, Weizenbaum created a chatbot called ELIZA that was made to simulate a particular kind of psychoanalytic therapy. The results of experiments with the chatbot showed that people were surprisingly open to sharing highly sensitive personal details with the bot, and frequently attributed much more sophisticated intelligence to the bot than it was capable of.
September 27, 2023 at 3:10 PM
errantcanadian.com
Reskeet with a tweet you still think about
Tweet from Hilary Agro @hilaryagro: During my research I interviewed a guy who said he was a libertarian until he did MDMA and realized that other people have feelings, and that was pretty much the best summary of libertarianism I've ever heard 5:55 PM Feb 16, 2020
September 11, 2023 at 12:36 PM
errantcanadian.com
Anecdotal of course, but my experience with web search was already declining proportionally the more Google got more excited about AI, and the explosion of junk content created by ChatGPT and similar has only made it worse.

h/t @tflynn@zirk.us
Mastodon post by Ted Flynn @tflynn: How to boil water? Pre AI Internet Search: "Put water in pan. Place the pan under high heat. Remove when larger bubbles begin to continuously erupt in the water." Post AI Internet Search: "Since the beginning of time, people have wondered how to boil water. It is an interesting question that will be answered below. Table of Contents: 1. Reasons to boil water. 2. Famous people who have boiled water. 3. A brief history of thermodynamics. 4. Five things you didn't know about Roger Waters."
September 3, 2023 at 8:55 PM
errantcanadian.com
First set of ethics lessons with the first-year engineers this week! Grateful to the Democratic Knowledge Project at Harvard for creating these engaging values cards—I'm using them to prompt discussion of how values apply to generative artificial intelligence #philsky #engineering #teaching #cornell
A box full of decks of cards on a wooden table. The decks all have a card labelled "Courage" on top; the card also has line art of a lion and the following text: "Doing something you think is important, even if it's scary or hard." A few other cards are scattered on the table: Courage, Authenticity, Safety, Courtesy, Friendship, Fairness, Wealth.
August 28, 2023 at 3:08 PM