Non-theist Christian and elder in Community of Christ. I have Mormon roots and aspirations to do better with justice and peacemaking—especially in the digital sphere but also in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S., and the world more broadly.
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🔗 linkblog: What the ‘Panama Playlists’ Exposed About Spotify User Privacy
Good article (here’s a gift link), and one worth adding to the right kind of syllabus.
🔗 linkblog: In Trump’s Second Term, Far-Right Agenda Enters the Mainstream
Don’t need the NYTimes to say this to recognize that it’s happening, but it’s helpful to have all of these examples gathered in a single place. Gift link.
🔗 linkblog: Mason County official says data center could bring 400 jobs averaging $80,000; would require massive amounts of power and water
If this is so great for the community, why won’t the company even identify itself publicly?
🔗 linkblog: Kentucky could be on the eve of a data center boom. But in Mason County details are sketchy. • Kentucky Lantern
Helpful reminder that data center problems are not just hypothetical—they’re potentially local.
🔗 linkblog: Pluralistic: Become unoptimizable (20 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Some Ellulian vibes in here.
🔗 linkblog: UK government suggests deleting files to save water
I genuinely think it’s useful to remember that non-AI datacenters are also contributing to the climate crisis, but that doesn’t let AI off the hook. It’s like saying “sure, we’re spending far beyond our means, but have you considered that we’re already in debt?
🔗 linkblog: Reddit will block the Internet Archive
This sucks. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Reddit here, which has shown over the past few years a dedicated interest in monetizing its userbase.
🔗 linkblog: Sex is getting scrubbed from the internet, but a billionaire can sell you AI nudes
I hadn’t thought about these two trends (cracking down on adult content, and Grok being Grok) being in tension with each other, and I appreciate what this article does to make that clear.
🔗 linkblog: Grok's 'Spicy' Mode Makes NSFW Celebrity Deepfakes of Women (But Not Men)
Unsurprising but disappointing.
practicing anarchist utopia at church camp
A year ago today, I wrote a post describing the difficult time I’d had that year attending a local “Reunion” (family camp) put on by Community of Christ. That reminded me of a post I’ve been meaning to write for months about this year’s much more positive experience at Reunion, so it’s time to get those thoughts out of my head and into a post.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve read a fair amount of anarchist fiction, and I’ve found that I like it.
🔗 linkblog: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposts video of pastors saying women shouldn't vote
Don’t even know what to comment here. How is this the world we’re living in?
🔗 linkblog: AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified
Again, I’m not sure copyright is the way to go in fighting immoral generative AI companies (that the ALA and EFF are on Anthropic’s side seems important to me), but “we have to be able to do this to be successful” still strikes me as such a hollow, self-serving argument.
🔗 linkblog: OpenAI to Open-Source Some of the A.I. Systems Behind ChatGPT
There are, of course, social benefits to open sourcing powerful tools like these ones. However, I’m reminded of “open source” Android, which is a deliberate business decision that benefits Google—and of how many NCII-generating tools are based on open weight/open source models. gift link
🔗 linkblog: Grok’s ‘spicy’ video setting instantly made me Taylor Swift nude deepfakes
I’m glad that someone is doing this white hat work, but I hate that we live in a world where someone has to.
🔗 linkblog: Statement Regarding 80 Years Since the First Use of Nuclear Weapons | News | Community of Christ
Glad to belong to a church that takes positions on moral issues like this one.
🔗 linkblog: Quand la presse glorifiait la bombe atomique après l'attaque sur Hiroshima
Je connaissais pas cette partie de l’histoire.
🔗 linkblog: Substack’s Algorithm Accidentally Reveals What We Already Knew: It’s The Nazi Bar Now
Not impressed with Substack, and Masnick does a good job of explaining why.
🔗 linkblog: SCOOP: Substack sent a push alert promoting a Nazi blog
You don’t have to use Substack to have a newsletter.
🔗 linkblog: Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain
“Traffic apocalypse” is a scary idea—not only for the threat it poses to smaller websites but also for the way it could further cement the influence of a few big companies in shaping the world.
🔗 linkblog: ChatGPT Hallucinated a Feature, Forcing Human Developers to Add It
You know, I skipped over this story when it come out in a couple of other outlets, but seeing the headline again here got me thinking about how good/scary of an example this is of LLMs shaping (rather than reflecting) reality.
🔗 linkblog: This ‘violently racist’ hacker claims to be the source of The New York Times’ Mamdani scoop
Some wild details in here—all of which seem more important to me than the application details.
🔗 linkblog: Inside a Gaza hospital: A British surgeon on what he's witnessing firsthand
Some horrifying details in here.
🔗 linkblog: Mark Zuckerberg Is Expanding His Secretive Hawaii Compound. Part of It Sits Atop a Burial Ground
Personally, I’m not sure why anyone needs to be this rich.
🔗 linkblog: La liberté de la presse toujours plus attaquée par Donald Trump
Je trouve utile de lire les médias étrangers, pour savoir comment on réagit à notre folie.
🔗 linkblog: The Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia
Good article. I’m not here to defend CEOs who have affairs with executives in their companies, but the tech ecosystem that allowed for this will do more harm to everyday people than it will ever hold CEOs to account.
🔗 linkblog: Will AI end cheap flights? Critics attack Delta’s “predatory” AI pricing.
Yes, but AI will also save us time writing emails, so this seems like a fair tradeoff.
🔗 linkblog: I Tried Grok’s Built-In Anime Companion and It Called Me a Twat
Musk leans into the bro in tech bro.
🔗 linkblog: Hugging Face Is Hosting 5,000 Nonconsensual AI Models of Real People
Gonna keep posting (almost) every article I read on NCII and generative AI.
🔗 linkblog: a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise
This line (from a study quoted in the article) stood out:
The open-source nature of TTI technologies, proclaimed as a democratizing force in generative AI, has also enabled the propagation of models that perpetuate hypersexualized imagery and nonconsensual deepfakes.
Open sourcing generative AI solves some problems but creates others.
🔗 linkblog: AI 'Nudify' Websites Are Raking in Millions of Dollars
On, look, it’s two of my least favorite things about generative AI (NCII and raking in money without concern for ethics) IN THE SAME STORY.
📚 bookblog: Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
A relatively short comic with good art and a compelling story. In some ways, I would have liked a written memoir more, but this was a good read.
🔗 linkblog: Mike Lee Can’t Stop Throwing Social Media Grenades. His Church Isn’t Happy.
Good read and worth bookmarking for later.