I'm a citizen of Lexington, Kentucky, the United States, the world, and the digital sphere. Politically, I care about equality (and changing structures to support it), elections (that is, making them more fair and representative), and electronics (or, rather, their impact on society).
I am a believing agnostic in Community of Christ with a (mostly) cherished past as a (mostly) literalist Mormon.
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🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Talking about the church president over the pulpit | LDS Data Analysis'
- kudos:Some neat data analysis here—both in terms of methods and in findings. Hat tip to Jana Riess for bringing my attention to this in today’s column. link to ‘Talking about the church president over the pulpit | LDS Data Analysis’
a conservative case for a modern language edition of the Book of Mormon
- kudos:I’ve written a fair amount already on my rereading the Book of Mormon project, where I’m entertaining the idea of what a modern language edition of the book (or at least the Book of Mosiah) might look like. In my work thus far, I’ve been proceeding under the assumption that this is an inherently liberal project: In both the LDS and RLDS traditions, there has been considerable resistance to large-scale changes to the English language text of the Book of Mormon, largely because the English text is held to be translated through divine power and therefore unassailable.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Right Wingers ‘Fight’ AT&T By Embracing ‘Anti-Woke’ Cell Carrier…That’s Just Rebranded AT&T | Techdirt'
- kudos:Don’t know whether to laugh or cry. link to ‘Right Wingers ‘Fight’ AT&T By Embracing ‘Anti-Woke’ Cell Carrier…That’s Just Rebranded AT&T | Techdirt’
- kudos:
Pretty sure the sermon I heard this morning had undercurrents of British Israelism in it and 😬😬😬
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Report: Internet providers offer Louisville residents unequal speeds for similar prices – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
- kudos:I’d skipped over the story when the Markup reported it, but seeing local coverage of how it plays out locally makes it even worse. Municipal broadband ought to be more common! link to ‘Report: Internet providers offer Louisville residents unequal speeds for similar prices – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'On Choosing Each Other and Eating the Fruit | By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog'
- kudos:Fantastic post here. One of the first calm moments for me in a very messy faith transition was leaving the Louisville Temple and thinking about how central Adam and Eve’s “disobedience” is in Latter-day Saint theology. link to ‘On Choosing Each Other and Eating the Fruit | By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images - WSJ'
- kudos:I don’t like Paxton, and I can’t imagine this is much more than performative railing against a strawman version of Big Tech, but this is a real issue, so I’m interested to see where it goes. link to ‘Texas Sues Google Over Use of Facial Images - WSJ’
gratitude for models of being imperfect but 'good enough'
- kudos:Yesterday, I listened to a new episode of the Project: Zion podcast, the semi-official podcast of Community of Christ. This episode was an interview with Shandra Newcom, one of two apostles-designate who will begin their service after the April 2023 World Conference of the church. It was a delightful episode, and I posted something to the Community of Christ subreddit that I wanted to repeat here: What a great episode!
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Ye’s ‘Buyout’ Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy | Techdirt'
- kudos:Insightful speculation by Masnick. Ye’s said some horrible things recently, but that doesn’t mean Parlement can’t be taking advantage of him. link to ‘Ye’s ‘Buyout’ Of Parler Looks Very Much Like A Failed Company Taking Advantage Of Troubled Rich Guy | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Trump Is Already Boosting Election Conspiracies Ahead of the Midterms'
- kudos:I’ve been worrying about 2024, but 2022 is going to be bad enough. GOP needs to do something about this. link to ‘Trump Is Already Boosting Election Conspiracies Ahead of the Midterms’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Kentucky’s county clerks deal with misinformation as election approaches – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
- kudos:We’ve had it better than some states, so it’s disappointing to hear all of this. link to ‘Kentucky’s county clerks deal with misinformation as election approaches – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Kanye West is buying ‘free speech platform’ Parler - The Verge'
- kudos:Oh no. This can’t be good. link to ‘Kanye West is buying ‘free speech platform’ Parler - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Meta’s VR Headset Harvests Personal Data Right Off Your Face | WIRED'
- kudos:I had not thought this much about the privacy implications of VR, and ooooof. link to ‘Meta’s VR Headset Harvests Personal Data Right Off Your Face | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Watch the Disturbing Kanye Interview Clips That Tucker Carlson Didn’t Put on Air'
- kudos:Wild story, and heck of a scoop. Says far more about Tucker Carlson than about Ye. link to ‘Watch the Disturbing Kanye Interview Clips That Tucker Carlson Didn’t Put on Air’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed | Techdirt'
- kudos:Politicians need to better understand the internet. This is just as dumb (and perhaps more devious) than the nonsense the governor of Missouri was up to. link to ‘Arizona GOP Secretary Of State Candidate Insists ‘Deep State’ Google Is Blocking His Website; Turns Out He Requested It Not Be Indexed | Techdirt’
thoughts on recent Mormon Land podcast
- kudos:The Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land podcast is one of my favorites—I’ve gone so far as to support it on Patreon so that I can get all the Tribune’s religion coverage without having to subscribe to the entire newspaper. Mormon news interests me a lot, but Utah news doesn’t interest me at all. Yesterday’s episode on age and Latter-day Saint leadership was one of the most interesting episodes that I’ve listened to.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Who is ready for a fleet of cubesats flying over cities, displaying ads? | Ars Technica'
- kudos:This is a terrible idea, and it is wildly irresponsible to do research like this. link to ‘Who is ready for a fleet of cubesats flying over cities, displaying ads? | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Talk of ‘Civil War,’ Ignited by Mar-a-Lago Search, Is Flaring Online - The New York Times'
- kudos:I am growing more and more nervous about our future. link to ‘Talk of ‘Civil War,’ Ignited by Mar-a-Lago Search, Is Flaring Online - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Onion Files Hilarious Amicus Brief In An Important Case, And Actually Makes A Key Point In The Best Way Possible | Techdirt'
- kudos:Amazing stuff here. link to ‘The Onion Files Hilarious Amicus Brief In An Important Case, And Actually Makes A Key Point In The Best Way Possible | Techdirt’
on distinctions between 'church' and gospel'
- kudos:During the last few years I spent as a practicing Latter-day Saint, one recurring pet peeve that I had was the overbroad use of the term “gospel” to refer to all Latter-day Saint doctrines, teachings, and beliefs. In hindsight, learning to separate the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ from everything that I believed was a major part of my faith transition—and my ability to continue in Christianity even when the version that I was used to started to no longer work for me.
the problem with Gadianton robber rhetoric
- kudos:After recently finishing an excellent biography on Brigham Young, I’m starting to make my way through some other Mormon Studies books that I own but have not yet read. This has brought me to Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. It’s very good so far, and I regret having waited until now to read it. I’m currently working through Reeve’s chapters describing Mormons’ relationship with American Indians, and I just now read a paragraph that really surprised me.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'In Washington, Putin’s Nuclear Threats Stir Growing Alarm - The New York Times'
- kudos:Russia is currently demonstrating just how powerful and dangerous nuclear weapons are—and, unfortunately, how complicated disarmament is. link to ‘In Washington, Putin’s Nuclear Threats Stir Growing Alarm - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Rand Paul declines to debate Charles Booker on KET – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
- kudos:Unsurprising but disappointing. link to ‘Rand Paul declines to debate Charles Booker on KET – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellites Won’t Fix Iran Internet Censorship'
- kudos:Good read on the emptiness of recent Musk bluster. link to ‘Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellites Won’t Fix Iran Internet Censorship’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Gab Founder Andrew Torba Wants to Build a Christian Nationalist Internet'
- kudos:Good reporting on a scary but important subject. I’ve been collecting Gab blog posts to eventually study some of this Christian nationalism. link to ‘Gab Founder Andrew Torba Wants to Build a Christian Nationalist Internet’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How ‘Lord of the Rings’ Inspires Italy’s Giorgia Meloni - The New York Times'
- kudos:Very interesting article on how Tolkien can inspire far right thinking. [link to ‘How ‘Lord of the Rings’ Inspires Italy’s Giorgia Meloni - The New York Times’](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/world/europe/giorgia-meloni-lord-of-the-rings.html?action=click
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/26/subreddit-discriminates-against-anyone-who-doesnt-call-texas-gov'
- kudos:This is juvenile enough that I feel guilty finding it funny, but it’s a good demonstration of the problems with this backlash against content moderation. link to ‘https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/26/subreddit-discriminates-against-anyone-who-doesnt-call-texas-gov’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI Is Probably Using Your Images and It's Not Easy to Opt Out'
- kudos:Ooof. AI-generated art is fun, but it comes at a price, and we can’t afford to forget it. link to ‘AI Is Probably Using Your Images and It’s Not Easy to Opt Out’
being present and « Les Cowboys Fringants »
- kudos:A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to preprare a “focus moment” for today’s worship service in my Community of Christ congregation. There are some things I might change for a different audience (putting more nuance into my current view of God, for example), but I’m still pretty happy with what I came up with. I’m particularly happy about the translation of the song—I didn’t bring it up when sharing, but this is a French Canadian song that I translated for today’s purpose.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Transgender religious leaders use the Bible to make churches more inclusive : NPR'
- kudos:Lots to love in this article, but I especially appreciate the point that God and Creation resist binaries. link to ‘Transgender religious leaders use the Bible to make churches more inclusive : NPR’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Most Famous Blunder Of Content Moderation: Do NOT Quote The Princess Bride | Techdirt'
- kudos:Great movie, great example of the difficulty of content moderation. link to ‘The Most Famous Blunder Of Content Moderation: Do NOT Quote The Princess Bride | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps | WIRED'
- kudos:I had heard about this kind of software at a conference last year, but reading about it just makes it scarier. link to ‘The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Asian American council candidate fights Communist rumors | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:What a dumb allegation. Just makes me want to vote for Wu even more. link to ‘Asian American council candidate fights Communist rumors | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Too much trust in machine translation could have deadly consequences.'
- kudos:This article provides good examples of how the efficacy and efficiency of a given technology is often less important than deeper questions of reliance and roles. link to ‘Too much trust in machine translation could have deadly consequences.’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘Ring Nation’ Is a Terrible Idea That’s Unstoppable Because Amazon Owns Everything'
- kudos:I missed the vertical integration aspect of this in earlier reporting I’ve read. It makes this story even worse. link to ‘‘Ring Nation’ Is a Terrible Idea That’s Unstoppable Because Amazon Owns Everything’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Texas has teed up a Supreme Court fight for the future of the internet - The Verge'
- kudos:We need to do more work to divorce free speech from content moderation. The world without content moderation would be a much worse world, and we don’t want to live in it. Sure, social media platforms are too powerful, but this is not the answer. link to ‘Texas has teed up a Supreme Court fight for the future of the internet - The Verge’