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 '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’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Dozens of civil rights groups are calling on Amazon and MGM to cancel Ring Nation reality show - The Verge'
- kudos:This is a gross idea for a TV show, and I’m glad people are pushing back against it. link to ‘Dozens of civil rights groups are calling on Amazon and MGM to cancel Ring Nation reality show - The Verge’
standing the wrong way in the elevator: a response to Oaks and Gilbert
- kudos:I ride an e-bike into work, and because an e-bike is expensive, I bring it into my office rather than lock it up at one of the bike racks on University of Kentucky campus. Because an e-bike is heavy, I also take it up the elevator to get up to the third floor, where my office is. My e-bike takes up a lot of space, but I’ve figured out how to share the elevator with others as I make my way up to my office.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Trump Rally Plays Music Resembling QAnon Song, and Crowds React - The New York Times'
- kudos:Trump’s leaning into Q is not a good sign for the future. link to ‘Trump Rally Plays Music Resembling QAnon Song, and Crowds React - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Social Network Parler Restructures, Focuses on ‘Uncancellable Economy’ - WSJ'
- kudos:Look, Parler isn’t as bad as Gab, but this kind of softball, uncritical approach to the platform is not helpful. WSJ should know better. link to ‘Social Network Parler Restructures, Focuses on ‘Uncancellable Economy’ - WSJ’
sticking with the Book of Mormon
- kudos:I am a big fan of the Book of Mormon. It’s one of the reasons that I stuck with Community of Christ when transitioning out of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know the book is problematic, and I doubt its historicity, but I’m still an advocate for making some religious meaning out of it. There are diverse opinions about the Book of Mormon in Community of Christ, and while there’s plenty of room to believe lots of different things, the default institutional view tends to be either indifferent or suspicious of the text.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Right After Primary Win, Bolduc Reverses Support for Election Lies - The New York Times'
- kudos:What a cheap, cynical about-face. The fact that candidates think this is something they can do to drum up voters and then change strategy is worrying. link to ‘Right After Primary Win, Bolduc Reverses Support for Election Lies - The New York Times’
Oaks and Benson on love of God and neighbor
- kudos:Dallin Oaks, the second highest-ranking apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a speech at Brigham Young University yesterday where he touched on the “two great commandments” identified by Jesus in the Book of Mark. Unsurprisingly for anyone who’s been following recent signals of retrenchment at BYU (or anyone familiar with the apostle for that matter), Oaks put the two commandments in a particular order. Here’s how the Salt Lake Tribune quotes him:
- kudos:
Currently reading John Turner’s excellent biography of Brigham Young, and I keep wanting to highlight passages and then send them to Brad Wilcox.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Everyone should join the “cult of privacy.”'
- kudos:Caring about privacy ought to be common sense. It’s difficult to push back, but that doesn’t mean those of us who do are crazy. link to ‘Everyone should join the “cult of privacy.”’
listening to Handel's Messiah in September
- kudos:I’ve never had qualms about listening to Christmas music outside of December, but it still surprises me that I’ve been listening to parts of Handel’s Messiah during my morning routines over the past couple of weeks. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the music of Messiah, and in recent years, I’ve let go of my attachment to King James language and learned that a lot of the passages quoted in Messiah represent Christian prooftexting of the Hebrew Bible (here’s a great post on the subject by Pete Enns—and here’s another).
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A Smartphone That Lasts a Decade? Yes, It’s Possible. - The New York Times'
- kudos:I hope the Fairphone will be sold in the U.S. one day. It’s an awesome project. link to ‘A Smartphone That Lasts a Decade? Yes, It’s Possible. - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'New Book Says NSA Pressured GCHQ To Shut Down Publication Of Snowden Leaks By UK Journalists | Techdirt'
- kudos:Americans should be more worried about the NSA than they are. link to ‘New Book Says NSA Pressured GCHQ To Shut Down Publication Of Snowden Leaks By UK Journalists | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'West Virginia, Kentucky officials repeatedly ignored plans to prepare for catastrophic floods. Residents are paying the price. – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
- kudos:This is a tragic detail in an even more tragic story. Government can absolutely be good, and our allergic reaction to spending, laws, and policy only makes these situations worse. link to ‘West Virginia, Kentucky officials repeatedly ignored plans to prepare for catastrophic floods. Residents are paying the price. – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'It’s Time to Get Real About TikTok’s Risks | WIRED'
- kudos:It isn’t that TikTok doesn’t pose a real threat, it’s that it’s not alone in doing so. In particular, I appreciate that this article points out that U.S. border agents REGULARLY SEARCH COMPUTERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. So, yes, raise concerns, but be consistent instead of creating a moral panic around thus one app (which, by the way, would be a privacy threat even if it were totally owned by a U.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter’s edit button: You don’t really want it.'
- kudos:A good case for why the edit button probably isn’t as good as everyone thinks. link to ‘Twitter’s edit button: You don’t really want it.’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Public Paid For Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine Tech; The Fact That Moderna Is Suing Over The Patent Is A Travesty | Techdirt'
- kudos:Intellectual property is a social justice issue. link to ‘The Public Paid For Moderna’s mRNA Vaccine Tech; The Fact That Moderna Is Suing Over The Patent Is A Travesty | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Humiliating History of the TSA'
- kudos:What a story. I knew how awful the TSA could be to passengers, but I never knew how bad it also was for its own employees. link to ‘The Humiliating History of the TSA’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Republicans Have Realized That Forcing People to Give Birth Is Wildly Unpopular'
- kudos:This is very interesting—it gives me some hope that I haven’t had over the past couple of months. link to ‘Republicans Have Realized That Forcing People to Give Birth Is Wildly Unpopular’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Fayette board asks which option for local revenue citizens prefer | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:Speaking personally, I’d be happy to pay extra taxes to better support our local schools. link to ‘Fayette board asks which option for local revenue citizens prefer | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'On Truth Social, QAnon Accounts Found a Home and Trump’s Support - The New York Times'
- kudos:I don’t know that any of this is surprising, but it remains worrying. link to ‘On Truth Social, QAnon Accounts Found a Home and Trump’s Support - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'BYU requires new hires to waive their right to clergy confidentiality'
- kudos:The inconsistency here is infuriating. When I was in grad school, I had the philosophy that I (a Mormon working toward a PhD) couldn’t rule out the possibility of working at BYU. There’s still a lot that I like and respect about BYU, but seeing the way they’re putting the squeeze on their employees makes it clear that I could never have survived there. link to ‘BYU requires new hires to waive their right to clergy confidentiality’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A BYU fan repeatedly called Duke volleyball player a racial slur during match in Utah, family says'
- kudos:BYU is really on a roll this week. link to ‘A BYU fan repeatedly called Duke volleyball player a racial slur during match in Utah, family says’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'BYU Tramples Queer Students, Again – Wheat & Tares'
- kudos:Learned about the Trib article from this blog post, which I think also makes some solid points. It’s one thing to prefer that outside organizations not provide materials, but if BYU isn’t doing anything itself… link to ‘BYU Tramples Queer Students, Again – Wheat & Tares’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'LGBTQ groups say BYU trashed their resource pamphlets'
- kudos:What a disappointment. link to ‘LGBTQ groups say BYU trashed their resource pamphlets’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Lost in Transcription: Auto-Captions Often Fall Short on Zoom, Facebook, Others - Consumer Reports'
- kudos:Great example of how automation often makes things easier but not better. The former can be good so long as we don’t lose sight of the latter. link to ‘Lost in Transcription: Auto-Captions Often Fall Short on Zoom, Facebook, Others - Consumer Reports’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How YouTube’s Partnership with London’s Police Force is Censoring UK Drill Music | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
- kudos:See, this is censorship. link to ‘How YouTube’s Partnership with London’s Police Force is Censoring UK Drill Music | Electronic Frontier Foundation’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Inside the World’s Biggest Hacker Rickroll | WIRED'
- kudos:What an epic—if illegal—rickroll. The best part in my book is repurposing student monitoring software. [link to ‘Inside the World’s Biggest Hacker Rickroll | WIRED’](https://www.wired.com/story/biggest-hacker-rickroll-high-school-prank/?mc_cid=b5e6da334c
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Erik Prince wants to sell you a secure smartphone that's too good to be true | MIT Technology Review'
- kudos:Interesting read on privacy-focused phones—and related scams. link to ‘Erik Prince wants to sell you a “secure” smartphone that’s too good to be true | MIT Technology Review’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'McConnell Dismisses the Threats to U.S. Democracy - The New York Times'
- kudos:McConnell gets so close to recognizing the danger other Republicans pose to democracy, but he always stops just short. link to ‘McConnell Dismisses the Threats to U.S. Democracy - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter Removes Florida Political Candidate Advocating Shooting Federal Agents; If DeSantis Won His Lawsuit, Twitter Would Need To Leave It Up | Techdirt'
- kudos:I appreciate the way that Masnick uses examples from the news to call out how dumb some of these laws are. link to ‘Twitter Removes Florida Political Candidate Advocating Shooting Federal Agents; If DeSantis Won His Lawsuit, Twitter Would Need To Leave It Up | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Gab Users Somehow Astounded To Discover Gab Will Comply With FBI Requests For User Information | Techdirt'
- kudos:I read Torba’s blog post last week but hadn’t been aware of the context. Interesting read. link to ‘Gab Users Somehow Astounded To Discover Gab Will Comply With FBI Requests For User Information | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal. - The New York Times'
- kudos:This is why the EFF and others have concerns about overreach of even clearly well intentioned content moderation. CSAM is clearly despicable, but automated content moderation can make mistakes, and consequences for those mistakes aren’t small. link to ‘A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal. - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That | Techdirt'
- kudos:Masnick makes two good points here: The GOP seems to only care about content moderation in self-serving ways, but also we should be wary of political mandates for content moderation. link to ‘Google Maps Is Misleading Users Searching For Abortion Clinics… And The GOP Is Threatening The Company If It Fixes That | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Fayette school board members ask to stream meetings online | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:I want to be more involved with and aware of what the FCPS school board is up to—livestreaming seems like a good idea to me. link to ‘Fayette school board members ask to stream meetings online | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Lexington KY looking to address more crime, safety issues | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:These numbers sound great, but what cost are we paying? I’m not talking about the $70,000, I’m talking about the hard to quantify costs of surveillance—which, as the ACLU of KY points out, are likely to disproportionately target communities of color. Except we can’t know that because the city won’t tell us where the cameras are. link to ‘Lexington KY looking to address more crime, safety issues | Lexington Herald Leader’