Yess PP lost the run for PM and humiliatingly lost his riding, but overall the party grew in influence and in number of seats tremendously under his leadership.

I agree the Conservatives have grown in influence but I don’t believe it was because of Poilievre. It doesn’t matter who leads the conservative party, the Canadian pendulum was due to swing back to the Cons, he dropped the ball hard, and probably still would have won if it wasn’t for Trump slapping Canada in the face and waking a bunch of us up. Any influence gained was because it was “their turn”, not Poilievre’s leadership.

The question is, did the Conservatives come close to winning because of Poilievre, or did they lose a sure thing because of him? Based on what things looked like 6 months ago, I’d say the latter.

Pierre Poilievre: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since 2025

A while back on Reddit I saw a post asking about this stuff. Companies don’t need to “listen” anymore, they have much more sophisticated options now. This example will use 3 people: A (wife) B (husband) and C (wife’s old friend from school).

The question: A goes to the store without B, and runs into C, who proceeds to tell A about this cool gaming chair he just got. After the conversation, A puts the interaction aside and never mentions it to B. B later gets ads for the gaming chair. If B never had any interaction whatsoever about the chair, and A never even talked about it to B, how does B get the ads?

The answer: A goes to the store, and her phone knows this through location data. The algorithm knows A is at the store, and now picks up that C is also at the same store. The algo then finds a connection through social media that A and C know each other, and maybe even knows spending habits and sees A and C buy similar things. The odds are good that A and C will interact at the store.

C has been searching about this gaming chair for months, has just recently bought it, and talks about it constantly on socials. Odds are good that if A and C interact, C will talk about the chair.

A has no interest in gaming or tech, but B does. The algo knows A and B are married, and B would be interested in the chair C just bought. There is now a vector to send ads from the interaction of A and C directly to B, even though A never mentioned anything about the chair to B, and B has never even met C.

Nothing is free. If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product.

Privacy (different from anonymity) has become more and more important to me, and Google had access to nearly every part of my life in one way or another. I’ve cut out Musk, Zuck and Bezos, and I’m now nearly completely Google free as well.

I’ve often heard “why do I care if Google reads my emails? I’ve got nothing to hide”. 2 great answers:

1. Unlock your phone and give it to me for an hour. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn’t mean you don’t want privacy. Google does exactly that.

2. Speaking of privacy, why bother closing the stall door in a public washroom? You’re not doing anything wrong in there.

Bill Nye: “Everyone you’ll ever meet knows something you don’t”