Gordon Ross 🇨🇦
@gordonr.ca
VP & Partner, OXD: Vancouver-based digital services firm. I work with government to afford better citizen outcomes. 🇨🇦 Spem Successus Alit | success nourishes hope.
Lovely to see Chris Murphy of Sloan perform an intimate and funny acoustic set in Vancouver. Teenage angst for the middle aged soul, slowed down and played with care and wisdom. Feeling the years.
"An $800-million digital system to collect duties on commercial imports has so many problems that customs agents are relying on manual workarounds two years after it launched, including by using the aging technology the new platform was designed to replace." thelogic.co/news/canada-...
Canada’s new $800M customs tool is so glitchy that agents are using the old one - The Logic
Two years after the online system launched, CBSA workers are losing 92,000 hours a year on manual workarounds, the federal auditor general found
thelogic.co
It's an honour to receive this recognition for our third time. Three cheers for the wonderful people I get to work with every day. Grateful for the smart, kind, curious, funny, and hard-working people of @oxd.bsky.social.
OXD@oxd.bsky.social · 4d agoOXD is one of BC’s #BestWorkplaces™ for 2026 for three years running! This recognition is based on confidential employee surveys. Here’s what our team told us they love: • An inclusive culture • Flexibility and strong wellness benefits • The fun we have together A huge thanks to our amazing team.
On the Caltrain headed up the peninsula to SF and the comedic/hostile nature of transpo here (and in the rain!) sent me back to @annaleen.bsky.social’s “A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI” www.coyotemedia.org/funding-bay-...
A Modest Proposal for Funding Transit Instead of AI
In the ’60s, the Bay Area almost got a high-speed train from Marin to San Jose. What could happen if we dreamed big again?
coyotemedia.org
Feeling very fortunate to have seen the hard work of my super talented friend Ian Kerr on the big screen at VIFF last night. Sundance-winner, Nuisance Bear, was beautiful to watch and the story is powerful. So many layers. Sounds like it’s back in Vancouver in November for another screening.
Postman! Ong! McLuhan! This felt like time travel back to undergrad, but updated by 30 years. A great read/listen. Postliteracy: an idea worth engaging. That Daily Brain Rot Break Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/o...
Opinion | That Daily Brain Rot Break Is Taking Us Back to the Dark Ages
Welcome to the postliterate era.
nytimes.com
Feels like a solid example to be included in the next intro to Wardley Mapping on the commoditization of components and their respective costs. cc @swardley.bsky.social
👻 Dead Chachra 💀@debcha.bsky.social · 4w agoScience: *invents artificial light* Science: *price per lumen of artificial light drops to 1/10,000th of the cost* Science: *figures out how to get artificial light without setting anything on fire* *https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-price-of-lighting-has-dropped-over-999-since-1700
Petition to replace “wrote” with “prompted” in any discussion about the use of AI in generating papers. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
Using AI, a professor wrote 200 papers this year. Researchers are alarmed.
An online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.
washingtonpost.com
I'm starting to pull a set of posts that define anthro-complexity & position it against other approaches. This one on Practice Theory also links to the whole series, which I will soon consolidate into a booklet: the provisional section two of 'The Book'. thecynefin.co/practice-the...
Practice Theory and Anthro-complexity: - The Cynefin Co
Leopards break into the temple and drink dry the sacrificial vessels; this happens again and again; in the end it can be predicted, and it becomes part of
thecynefin.co
1/As @pkrugman.bsky.social says, Weaponized Interdependence is now everywhere. But where did it come from? US-China is all over the news, but its origins go back 25 years. 9/11 transformed the world and we are still grappling with its repercussions. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/weaponized...
Weaponized Interdependence
Who has the power in a trading world?
paulkrugman.substack.com
Just wrote 5800 words about sovereignty, starting with a blank page and a lot of thoughts this morning. Feeling oddly satisfied that I can still do something like that. Unclear as to its quality, but feels good to get that out of my head.
Thanks, but actually my favorite line didn't make it to the piece. Does Odysseus feel guilty about the Trojan war? Lots of discourse on this question even though he doesn't exist! Is he conscious? AI agents are fictive characters abstracted from text - like Odysseus.
SJ Brison@brison.bsky.social · 2mo agoLove the quote from Alison Gopnik: “We don’t know if toasters are conscious or not,” Dr. Gopnik said. “But no one is asking about that in the pages of The New York Times.”
Along the Coastal Shores of the Salish Seas Traditional Native Territories Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun ~ Hul’q’umi’num Coast Salish, Syilx 2023
As @swardley.bsky.social once said, "GPTs / LLMs are a non kinetic form of warfare designed to embed its makers values into the decision making processes of a wider community." www.economist.com/briefing/202...
AI models’ values are very different from most people’s
They are more secular and more liberal—unless they’re made in China
economist.com
Cathal Kelly: Now is the moment of real danger – before the big game, with many days of airtime left to fill. Clusters of politicians will be launching themselves from a great distance at the bandwagon." Doug McCallum: "Hold my beer" www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/socce...
Politicians pounce at the opportunity to use the World Cup to be seen and heard
We don’t need our politicians to be cheerleaders to the latest sports moment
theglobeandmail.com
Justin McElroy 🇨🇦@jmcelroy.bsky.social · 4mo agoI love that this is a real campaign post by a real former mayor of BC’s second largest city who is running again this October
I'm in the grip of about 10000 massive deadlines, so I've obviously spent this morning writing a newsletter about a topic that is completely and utterly tangential buttondown.com/justenoughin...
The Sports Car Theory of LLM Adoption
If LLMs make decision makers feel stupid, maybe they'll stop using them?
buttondown.com
OXD and sister company ThoughtFarmer turned 30, and we threw a party to celebrate! Along with great food, rooftop vibes, and epic karaoke, @darrengibbons.bsky.social and @gordonr shared 9 lessons they‘d tell their 1996 selves. Read the lessons and see photos from the night: oxd.com/blog/2026/06...
NEW: Alphonso Davies knows BC Place — and 29 days short of the decade mark of his 2016 Whitecaps debut, he could make that that stadium buzz again. How might the #CanMNT use the biggest star? ✍️On his journey and today for SI www.si.com/soccer/canad...
Canada Must Still Decide How to Use Alphonso Davies in First Appearance for 15 Months
Davies made his MLS debut at BC Place, where Canada will play Qatar on Thursday.
si.com
Seen a lot of soccer matches at BC Place over the years. Today feels different. Not long now… Allez les rouges! 🇨🇦⚽️ #CanMNT
30 years of OpenRoad + @oxd.bsky.social + ThoughtFarmer. Had the privilege to reflect and celebrate the milestone with staff, clients, and friends recently. Still trying to sense-make three decades of it all. Captured a few things for our celebration speech, summary here: oxd.com/blog/2026/06...
Nine things we learned in thirty years | oxd.com
OXD and ThoughtFarmer (formerly OpenRoad) turned 30 this year. Read what we’d tell our 1996 selves and check out photos from our celebration.
oxd.com