What is Instructure doing with user data?

On April 17, 2026, this "Usage Data" section had language added saying Instructure can use this data for "any lawful purpose". It prohibits customers from using their data to train AI, while allowing themselves to do so.

https://web.archive.org/web/20260513021744/https://www.instructure.com/policies/mastertermsconditions

I won an astronomy communication and public education award from the Canadian Astronomical Society, for yelling about satellite pollution! I'm quite honoured, and now obligated to continue yelling.

Which I was going to do anyway, but it's extremely nice to know that my university (who gave me a public education award last year) and my professional society both think I am good at yelling about this and should keep doing it.

Wow, meteorologist Matt Lanza is leaving Houston — mostly to be closer to aging parents, but not entirely. Fortunately, he'll continue reporting for Space City Weather (and The Eyewall). I've been reading his stuff for ages.

Matt: "At a certain point I was like, is it better for me to be doing this job from somewhere else rather than constantly having to juggle both informing people and worrying about my family?"

And a great analogy: "The reality is that climate change is happening. ... It acts as a kind of force multiplier, which is to say that if you have an extreme event, climate change makes it a little bit worse.

"The best analogy I’ve heard is, you’ve got a baseball player that is taking performance-enhancing drugs, and maybe they hit 68 home runs. Without the drugs, maybe they would have hit 55. Climate change is the performance-enhancing drug of weather."

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/matt-lanza-leaving-houston/

h/t @bich

#TXwx #ClimateChange #Texas

B.C. has quietly eliminated its Climate Action Secretariat, the long-running agency that produced and implemented climate policy across government ministries. Zoë Yunker reports. #bcpoli

https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/03/25/BC-Cuts-Climate-Agency/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial

Honestly, this historic heat dome across the West is really hard to put into words for me. Temperatures over 110°F (43°C) in March, shattering all-time monthly records on multiple consecutive days, and not just by a little.

➡️ I can confirm this is human-caused climate change.

Graphic by https://polarwx.com/models/.