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 'Reddit Tells Mods That Protesting By Changing Sub To NSFW Violates The Rules | Techdirt'
- kudos:I’ve linkblogged a lot of stuff on Reddit lately, but this is a good summary and reaction, so I’m adding it to the list. link to ‘Reddit Tells Mods That Protesting By Changing Sub To NSFW Violates The Rules | Techdirt’
the pain of unfulfilled hope
- kudos:Wil Gafney and her *Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church° continue to be a source of inspiration for me. For the past two weeks, her readings for the relevant Sundays of the season of Ordinary Time in the Christian liturgical year have begun with Samuel’s miraculous birth to Hannah. I’ve just now completed the reading for Proper 6 reading, in which Hannah’s pleas for a child despite her seeming infertility are answered.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit Experiments With Removing Mods, Blocking Attempts To Switch Subs To NSFW | Techdirt'
- kudos:Lots of ugh here. link to ‘Reddit Experiments With Removing Mods, Blocking Attempts To Switch Subs To NSFW | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'In WWII, a segregated U.S. Army deployed to fight Hitler — and brought Jim Crow : NPR'
- kudos:I had never heard about this story before. It’s tempting to think of World War II as “a good war,” but stories like this complicate it. How is this blatant racism compatible with fighting against the Nazis? link to ‘In WWII, a segregated U.S. Army deployed to fight Hitler — and brought Jim Crow : NPR’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit starts removing moderators behind the latest protests - The Verge'
- kudos:I’m glad this article points out how much unpaid work mods do to make Reddit a place people want to go. They arguably add more value to the platform than employees do, and this strikes me as a bad move. link to ‘Reddit starts removing moderators behind the latest protests - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit Communities Still Dark As Protest Continues - The New York Times'
- kudos:Reddit’s response continues to feel tonedeaf and sketchy to me. link to ‘Reddit Communities Still Dark As Protest Continues - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit CEO Triples Down, Insults Protesters, Whines About Not Making Enough Money From Reddit Users | Techdirt'
- kudos:Here’s Masnick saying some of my thoughts but better—and adding some observations I would not have come to on my own. link to ‘Reddit CEO Triples Down, Insults Protesters, Whines About Not Making Enough Money From Reddit Users | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Here’s the note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen - The Verge'
- kudos:Feels pretty sleazy to me. link to ‘Here’s the note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: Reddit ‘was never designed to support third-party apps’ - The Verge'
- kudos:I get that any platform has to pay its bills, but Huffman keeps coming off as a real jerk. link to ‘Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: Reddit ‘was never designed to support third-party apps’ - The Verge’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Marry Me a Little: A Graphic Memoir, by Rob Kirby
- kudos:This comic memoir of (same-sex) marriage has excellent art, tells a good story, and hits on very important points for the time we’re in. I picked it up on a whim and really enjoyed it.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Thousands of Reddit communities remain dark as protest continues - The Verge'
- kudos:Keep it up, subreddits! link to ‘Thousands of Reddit communities remain dark as protest continues - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit communities with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely - The Verge'
- kudos:What I appreciate about coverage of this from The Verge and Techdirt is the way that it draws attention to questions of digital labor. link to ‘Reddit communities with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'More than six thousand subreddits have gone dark to protest Reddit’s API changes - The Verge'
- kudos:Good for them. Let’s hope it makes a difference. link to ‘More than six thousand subreddits have gone dark to protest Reddit’s API changes - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Critics of KY Gov. Andy Beshear recirculate drag queens photo | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:This just makes me like Andy more. Shame on Cameron and everyone else using queerphobia to influence an election. link to ‘Critics of KY Gov. Andy Beshear recirculate drag queens photo | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Inside 4chan’s Top-Secret Moderation Machine | WIRED'
- kudos:A good glimpse at content moderation, and why it’s important to do it correctly. link to ‘Inside 4chan’s Top-Secret Moderation Machine | WIRED’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for How to Resist Amazon and Why (Updated & Expanded), by Danny Caine
- kudos:Look, this is the kind of book that I bought knowing already that I’d agree with its thesis, so maybe you shouldn’t read my review of it. Nonetheless, I think Caine does an excellent job of bringing together many of the arguments against Amazon. This company is bad news, and while it’s hard to escape it entirely, I think the world would be a better place if more of us did less to support it.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '78 | Common Grounds | Trinity Sunday – Project Zion Podcast'
- kudos:Really loving this (six year old) podcast episode. I don’t care much about the Trinity except when it’s understood in the ways that Karin Peter and Susan Ocley describe here. link to ‘78 | Common Grounds | Trinity Sunday – Project Zion Podcast’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'OpenAI says it could ‘cease operating’ in the EU if it can’t comply with future regulation - The Verge'
- kudos:Last paragraph here is an important one: I’ve seen a lot of headlines about OpenAI calling for regulation, but it’s noteworthy that it’s hypothetical future regulation. link to ‘OpenAI says it could ‘cease operating’ in the EU if it can’t comply with future regulation - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Heritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ Content | Techdirt'
- kudos:Masnick makes a good point here. I’m sympathetic to “for the kids” motivations, but I’m increasingly convinced that Masnick is right, that it’s meant to make bad policy sound impossible to argue against. link to ‘Heritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ Content | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '584 | What’s Brewing | A Path Forward for Chicago – Project Zion Podcast'
- kudos:Bookmarking this for later. Community of Christ isn’t very big in Kentucky, and I wonder how digital technologies could help connect us and provide people easier ways to visit us. This seems like an interesting model. link to ‘584 | What’s Brewing | A Path Forward for Chicago – Project Zion Podcast’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Is Teetering on the Glass Cliff | WIRED'
- kudos:I was not familiar with the term “glass cliff,” so this was an insightful read. link to ‘Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Is Teetering on the Glass Cliff | WIRED’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development, by Richard Howard
- kudos:I picked up a copy of this book at the 2023 World Conference of Community of Christ, after it being on my wishlist for some time. It does an excellent job of examining the subjectivity of Restoration scripture by tracing its evolution over time. I remarked to a friend earlier this week that it’s a shame it was written in the 90s (and originally, the 60s) rather than now, when there’s so much more available to do this kind of work.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
- kudos:Can’t believe it’s been ten years; can’t believe we’re not collectively furious about this. link to ‘10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For | Electronic Frontier Foundation’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: The IRS will do your taxes for you (if that’s what you prefer) (17 May 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
- kudos:I have been furious with Intuit since ProPublica did their great reporting on this, but I’ve continued to use TurboTax because the system is broken. Very excited for this news, and I appreciate Doctorow’s passionnate take. link to ‘Pluralistic: The IRS will do your taxes for you (if that’s what you prefer) (17 May 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Stream episode Mountain Meadows Massacre — What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? | Episode 286 by Mormon Land podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud'
- kudos:Good podcast episode; what stands out the most is the authors’ comments at the end that merely researching the book gave them nightmares. link to ‘Stream episode Mountain Meadows Massacre — What did Brigham Young know and when did he know it? | Episode 286 by Mormon Land podcast | Listen online for free on SoundCloud’
- kudos:
My alarm woke me from a dream in which I was trying to recruit Latter-day Saint missionaries as pilots for the Rebel Alliance, and I have a lot of questions about that worldbuilding.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation | Techdirt'
- kudos:Bellingcat does good work; Twitter continues to be a joke. link to ‘Twitter ‘Shadowbans’ Bellingcat After Musk Attacks Them, Then Tries To Retcon A Nonsense Explanation | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Zoom will soon integrate Anthropic’s chatbot across its platform - The Verge'
- kudos:Using AI for customer service is the stuff of my nightmares. link to ‘Zoom will soon integrate Anthropic’s chatbot across its platform - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Once Again, ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Caves To Authoritarian Censorial Bullies | Techdirt'
- kudos:I know I can always count on Masnick to write this article when a story like this comes up. link to ‘Once Again, ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Caves To Authoritarian Censorial Bullies | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Google’s AI pitch is a recipe for email hell - The Verge'
- kudos:Some good comments in here—especially on how AI enforces and normalizes certain kinds of writing instead of allowing us to determine what writing should look like. link to ‘Google’s AI pitch is a recipe for email hell - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The 'Mormon Moment' 10 years later: Why Joanna Brooks and Mitch Mayne left the public eye'
- kudos:A great column from Jana. It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years—or that I’ve changed so much in my own Mormonism over that time. link to ‘The ‘Mormon Moment’ 10 years later: Why Joanna Brooks and Mitch Mayne left the public eye’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Incorporating Private Cameras Into Their Real-Time Surveillance Networks | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
- kudos:This sounds worrying to me. Surveillance can and will be abused, and we should be wary about embracing it on this scale. link to ‘Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Incorporating Private Cameras Into Their Real-Time Surveillance Networks | Electronic Frontier Foundation’
on doing—and asking—what is right
- kudos:One of this week’s lectionary readings in Community of Christ (and presumably elsewhere) is in 1 Peter 3. As I was reading the NRSVUE rendering of this passage this morning, verses 13-17 stood out to me: 13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Kelly Craft escalates anti-trans rhetoric, calls for excluding ‘transgenders’ from Ky. schools'
- kudos:This is indefensible, and no amount of spin from a comms director can change how harmful this is. link to ‘Kelly Craft escalates anti-trans rhetoric, calls for excluding ‘transgenders’ from Ky. schools’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Spotify ejects thousands of AI-made songs in purge of fake streams | Ars Technica'
- kudos:Content moderation is hard, and it’s especially hard at scale. Because AI makes doing things at scale easier, it necessarily makes content moderation harder. link to ‘Spotify ejects thousands of AI-made songs in purge of fake streams | Ars Technica’
- kudos:
All right, black tea, let’s see how we get along.