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: my thoughts on 'Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books'
- kudos:This strikes me as illustrating the digital labor issues associated with generative AI. It’s someone else profiting off of one’s work. link to “Fanfiction Community Rocked By Etsy Sellers Turning Their Work Into Bound Books”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools'
- kudos:Aw, geez, and I liked Automattic, too. I get that financing Tumblr is hard, but why this? link to “Tumblr and Wordpress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Bezzle (A Martin Hench Novel), by Cory Doctorow
- kudos:I feel like I say this whenever I talk about Doctorow, but I love that his fiction reads like an op-ed. While waiting for this book to come out, I’ve been slowly reading his co-authored book Chokepoint Capitalism, and I feel like The Bezzle is all his (and Rebecca’s) critiques about large and greedy companies wrapped up in a fun, action-driven narrative. Here’s the thing about me: I’m an academic, and I respect facts, reason, and citations.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: Vice surrenders (24 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
- kudos:Dammit, I literally just started following Motherboard again. link to “Pluralistic: Vice surrenders (24 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Shermin
- kudos:I enjoyed Nolan’s movie so much that I thought I ought to eventually read the book—yet, I couldn’t imagine that it coule live up to the film adaptation (especially after hearing the audiobook narrator’s awful attempts at any language other than English). Yet, this ended up being amazing—perhaps better than the movie. Funnily enough, I felt that the best parts weren’t about the man himself. Rather, his life provides fascinating insight into the existential horrors of nuclear weapons, the authoritarian impulses of McCarthy-era conservatism, and lots more besides.
scripture's authority comes from shared story rather than history
- kudos:About a week ago, I felt like I was going through an audio drought—I wasn’t listening to any audiobooks, my podcast consumption has continued to go down in recent months, and I just wasn’t listening to anything while doing the dishes or whatever. This wasn’t necessarily a problem (it’s been good in terms of mindfulness, for example), but it had gone on long enough that I decided that I wanted something to listen to.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Christians Explain How Jesus Would Handle The Border Crisis'
- kudos:Darkly hilarious. link to “Christians Explain How Jesus Would Handle The Border Crisis”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit: 'We Are in the Early Stages of Monetizing Our User Base''
- kudos:There are few phrases grosser than “monetizing our user base.” link to “Reddit: ‘We Are in the Early Stages of Monetizing Our User Base’”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Blue Origin Builds $8 Billion Barrel For Jeff Bezos To Ride Over Niagara Falls'
- kudos:This made me laugh out loud while reheating my leftovers for lunch. link to “Blue Origin Builds $8 Billion Barrel For Jeff Bezos To Ride Over Niagara Falls”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Criminologists cited in support of Safer Kentucky Act wonder why'
- kudos:Look, even academics cite the wrong papers sometimes, but if the researchers you cite to support your crime bill don’t actually support your crime bill, that should be a warning… link to “Criminologists cited in support of Safer Kentucky Act wonder why”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Only Started Buying Up Twitter Shares After Twitter Refused To Ban Plane Tracking Account'
- kudos:Musk’s pettiness knows no bounds. link to “Elon Only Started Buying Up Twitter Shares After Twitter Refused To Ban Plane Tracking Account”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Walmart buying TV-brand Vizio for its ad-fueling customer data'
- kudos:We live in a dumb timeline. Why are we turning TVs into surveillance machines? link to “Walmart buying TV-brand Vizio for its ad-fueling customer data”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit Signs $60 Million Deal to Scrape Your Online Community for AI Parts: Report'
- kudos:Look, I’ve never been really into Reddit, but I’m still really disappointed in the company. This sucks. link to “Reddit Signs $60 Million Deal to Scrape Your Online Community for AI Parts: Report”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Despite ‘mass fraud’ claims, data shows few Kentuckians use student IDs to vote'
- kudos:I’ve never voted for Michael Adams, but I appreciate his being a voice of reason within his own party. link to “Despite ‘mass fraud’ claims, data shows few Kentuckians use student IDs to vote”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Christian Man Persecuted Simply For Driving 90 Miles Per Hour In School Zone'
- kudos:I recently started following The Onion again, and it’s already paying off. link to “Christian Man Persecuted Simply For Driving 90 Miles Per Hour In School Zone”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit sells training data to unnamed AI company ahead of IPO'
- kudos:C’mon, Reddit. link to “Reddit sells training data to unnamed AI company ahead of IPO”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Mort d'Alexeï Navalny : propos racistes, nationalisme et positions conservatrices… L'autre visage de l'opposant russe'
- kudos:On peut pleurer la mort de quelqu’un sans oublier ses problèmes. Je ne savais pas tout cela, et j’avoue que je vois Navalny différemment maintenant. C’est toujours quelqu’un qui a mené une lutte importante, mais on ne peut pas ignorer ces propos non plus. link to “Mort d’Alexeï Navalny : propos racistes, nationalisme et positions conservatrices… L’autre visage de l’opposant russe”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot'
- kudos:Very interesting case. link to “Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How the Kansas City shooting proves the 'good guy with a gun' idea is a fallacy'
- kudos:Depressing but important read. link to “How the Kansas City shooting proves the “good guy with a gun” idea is a fallacy”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act '
- kudos:Look, it’s hard to oppose legislation that purports to be “for the kids,” but with the EFF, Mike Masnick, and other voices I respect still firmly against this, I’ll be calling my reps—and encouraging others to do the same. link to “Don’t Fall for the Latest Changes to the Dangerous Kids Online Safety Act “
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Russia Hides Its War Toll. We Pieced Together the Clues.'
- kudos:Russia is in the wrong in this conflict, but that also means that Russians are among those being wronged. link to “Russia Hides Its War Toll. We Pieced Together the Clues.”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Future data centres may have built-in nuclear reactors'
- kudos:You know, instead of assuming that we must grow AI data centers and asking how we should power them, we could look at the costs in terms of power and ask whether we should grow AI data centers. link to “Future data centres may have built-in nuclear reactors”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says'
- kudos:Heck yes. link to “Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers are using ChatGPT to improve cyberattacks'
- kudos:Hmm. Unsurprising but all the more frustrating for it. link to “Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers are using ChatGPT to improve cyberattacks”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The rise and fall of robots.txt'
- kudos:Fascinating read on web crawlers and robots.txt link to “The rise and fall of robots.txt”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sell lab-grown meat in Tennessee, pay a $1 million fine'
- kudos:Good article on some dumb fearmongering. link to “Sell lab-grown meat in Tennessee, pay a $1 million fine”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Bill Ackman: Nazis On ExTwitter Are Just The Price Of Free Speech; But Marxist Theory Or Anti-Israel Claims On Campus Are Beyond The Pale'
- kudos:Masnick’s perspectives on free speech are always helpful. link to “Bill Ackman: Nazis On ExTwitter Are Just The Price Of Free Speech; But Marxist Theory Or Anti-Israel Claims On Campus Are Beyond The Pale”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The ‘queer.af’ Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban'
- kudos:Domain name infrastructure plays a bigger role than we might think. link to “The ‘queer.af’ Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban”
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People, by Nadia Bolz-Weber
- kudos:I bought this book with a gift card and to thumb my nose at an obnoxious visiting authority at a Latter-day Saint stake conference from over four years ago. This guy spent the Saturday evening session of the conference complaining about young adults who supported gay marriage and parents who pushed back against school discipline instead of giving their kids a whuppin’ (his words, not mine) and then still had the gall to talk about how great Mormonism is because it doesn’t believe in a fire and brimstone angry God.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Hungary's president resigns over a pardon to a man convicted in a child sexual abuse case'
- kudos:Wondering how long it will be until implicit praise of her family values gets taken down from the LDS and BYU websites. link to “Hungary’s president resigns over a pardon to a man convicted in a child sexual abuse case”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on R&D'
- kudos:Bookmarking for later reference. I get that there are some complicated factors at play here, but this still seems wrong to me. link to “Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on R&D”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Taylor Swift joins Elon Musk in trying to silence student who tracks celebrity jets'
- kudos:Hate to see Swift taking a page out of Musk’s book here. link to “Taylor Swift joins Elon Musk in trying to silence student who tracks celebrity jets”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: How I got scammed (05 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
- kudos:Fascinating post. Grateful for Doctorow’s honesty at his being scammed and interested in the idea that lowering quality of services through AI trains us to accept fraud. link to “Pluralistic: How I got scammed (05 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Internet : les moteurs de recherche veulent remplacer la liste de sites par une réponse synthétisée'
- kudos:Une très mauvaise idée, celle-ci. link to “Internet : les moteurs de recherche veulent remplacer la liste de sites par une réponse synthétisée”
the weakness of the Bible as an argument for an expanded canon
- kudos:A week and a half ago, I wrote a post arguing that the Bible is actually more of a weak point than the Book of Mormon for fundamentalist, literalist attitudes toward Latter-day Saint scripture. That post—like this one—was inspired by an Introduction to Scripture class that I’m currently taking through Community of Christ’s Temple School. The first lesson did a lot of work to play up the Bible as the main scriptural foundation of Community of Christ and is doing some respectful but firm downplaying of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Mirage, by Matt Ruff
- kudos:I first read this book a few years ago, making my way through Ruff’s books after enjoying Lovecraft Country. I might like this one just as much—it’s bizarre to the point of absurdity but in a way that gets you to think. This reread was inspired by picking up a copy of my own from the clearance section of my favorite independent bookstore, and I’m really glad I own it.