Paul R. Pival he/him
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ppival.bsky.social
Paul R. Pival he/him
@ppival.bsky.social
570 followers 380 following 950 posts
YYC, cyclist, mostly road but some gravel and CX too.
Librarian at UCalgary.
Husband of a knitter.
Father of 2 + 2 dogs.
Feeling kinda old these days.
Posts Replies Media Videos
ppival.bsky.social
Released today: 2025 Canadian Cancer Statistics cancer.ca/en/research/...

#FuckCancer
November 17, 2025 at 6:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Now that is cool!

Air Loom: The 3D Flight Tracker googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...

But what if you could actually see those planes move through the air in three dimensions, gliding and flying around each other in 3D space? - That’s exactly what Air Loom offers.

#DataViz
Screenshot of Air Loom, showing flights around London Heathrow
November 6, 2025 at 8:03 PM
ppival.bsky.social
OMG! From the other place: x.com/ab_md_warroo...

#Alberta #ABPolitics #ABLeg
October 29, 2025 at 3:46 AM
ppival.bsky.social
New blog post: Are you getting your news from AI? You might want to reconsider that… – The Distant Librarian distlib.pival.me/are-you-gett...

#distlib #AI #News #MisInformation
October 27, 2025 at 5:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
One of these things is not like the other. What an interesting site description offered by #Perplexity for Google Earth.
A screenshot showing 4 citations from Perplexity. For Google Earth, the snippet appears to be an advertisement for body odour!
September 2, 2025 at 4:52 AM
ppival.bsky.social
One of these things is not like the other. What an interesting site description offered by #Perplexity for Google Earth.
A screenshot showing 4 citations from Perplexity. For Google Earth, the snippet appears to be an advertisement for body odour!
September 1, 2025 at 10:59 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Money is so weird.

"Advertisement." The Times Literary Supplement, no. 3020, 15 Jan. 1960, p. 40. The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EX1200317218/DSLAB?u=ucalgary&sid=bookmark-DSLAB&pg=16&xid=f60fd924. Accessed 26 Aug. 2025.

#economics #inflation
August 27, 2025 at 5:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
UMaine unveils app to gauge AI's environmental cost - UMaine News - University of Maine umaine.edu/news/blog/20...

This looks very much in line with everything else I've been reading of late...
Screenshot showing amount of energy used by generating a paragraph of AI text vs watching a 1-hour Netflix movie.
August 12, 2025 at 3:08 PM
ppival.bsky.social
New blog post: I'm no longer concerned about energy use and ChatGPT distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025...

#distlib #ai #energy #water
Graphic showing how many litres of water are used by data centres for various online activities.
May 1, 2025 at 5:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Some interesting, though not very surprising, findings.

Who is most likely to fall for fake news? - UBC News news.ubc.ca/2025/04/misi...

#misinformation #disinformation
Although the observed effect sizes of the current study may not seem large at first glance (e.g., the average performance gap between Gen Zs and Millennials is 0.25 standard deviations, equivalent to approximately 0.6 points on the MIST, or 3 percentage points) – given how much time most people spend on the internet, how much misinformation circulates online, how easily it spreads (Vosoughi et al., 2018), and how consequential it may be – from decisions regarding vaccinations to decisions at the ballot box – the real-world impact of these differences may be non-trivial (Götz et al., 2024).
April 23, 2025 at 3:08 PM
ppival.bsky.social
New blog post

Librarians and teachers amongst the heaviest users of AI - The 2025 AI Index Report distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025...

#distlib #ai
Occupational representation in Claude usage data vs US workforce distribution
April 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
New blog post: Using ChatGPT to keep up on the news is like using a potato to commute to work. distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2025...

bsky.app/profile/down...

#distlib #AI #SearchEngines #News
An AI-generated hyperrealistic image of an office worker commuting inside a giant potato, modified as a vehicle. The potato has wheels, headlights, and a small windshield
March 18, 2025 at 9:43 PM
ppival.bsky.social
They're alive!

#Solar
Alt text: A mobile app screenshot displaying energy data for February 20, 2025. The section shows a bar graph representing energy usage in kWh over a 30-day period, with higher usage between days 22 and 03, and lower usage from 03 onwards. The bottom section shows total energy at 140.3 kWh and average daily energy at 4.68 kWh. Navigation tabs at the bottom include Home, Module, Data (highlighted), and Settings. The top section shows the time as 9:14 with an orange gradient background labeled "Data."
February 21, 2025 at 6:12 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Don't ever change, ChatGPT!

#Owls #AIisSoDumb
A screenshot of an image generated by ChatGPT showing a whimsical scene of human miners, librarians, and scientists "data mining" along with many owls, even though I explicitly asked for zero owls.
February 15, 2025 at 4:08 PM
ppival.bsky.social
The shadow war on Canadian libraries over 2SLGBTQ+ books https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6639485

ht https://bsky.app/profile/badlibrarian.bsky.social
Screenshot showing the rise in book challenges in Canadian libraries from 2015-2023
February 7, 2025 at 11:48 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Missing from the screenshot is the animation of the mouse shaking his head.
Picture of a mouse shaking its head underneat the word "No".
February 4, 2025 at 11:48 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Finally got off my butt and officially checked out.
Screenshot showing the deactivation of my Xitter account.
January 17, 2025 at 11:48 PM
ppival.bsky.social
As if @trevortombe.bsky.social didn't already have enough to do!
Screenshot of a news article about blood infection diagnosis technology at the University of Calgary that includes a person who LOOKS like Trevor Tombe.
January 17, 2025 at 4:59 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Awesomesauce! I wish OpenAI allowed us to more easily share the results.
Screenshot showing that ChatGPT won't allow the sharing of conversations with user uploaded images.
January 8, 2025 at 9:37 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Gen AI strategies for Australian higher education: Emerging practice | Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency https://piv.al/4go0j29
The provided text does not contain the words "library" or "librarian".
December 7, 2024 at 8:03 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Not generating a whole lot of solar this week :-(
Picture of a lot of snow outside my kitchen window
November 23, 2024 at 11:48 PM
ppival.bsky.social
New blog post: Bluesky Mapping Canadian Skeets https://piv.al/3AUH1T0

#distlib #Bluesky
Screenshot showing locations of Skeets in Canada
November 23, 2024 at 4:08 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Anyone else a fan of Letterpress? Years ago I got matched against a random person and we've been neck and neck ever since!

#Words
Screenshot of an evenly-matched Letterpress opponent
November 22, 2024 at 4:08 PM
ppival.bsky.social
I've got one of those, too! 💕
Lapdog
November 17, 2024 at 7:22 PM
ppival.bsky.social
Thanks for the excellent work creating a custom map showing the location of Calgary with the specific image I uploaded, @ChatGPT!

#AIWillTakeOurJobs
A crappy map created by ChatGPT that most definitely does not show the location of Calgary.
November 12, 2024 at 8:03 PM