I haven’t paid much attention to gestures at all this before now, but this critique convinces me.

What a mess.

A few months ago, some colleagues reached out to ask if I would be willing to record a guest lecture for our library science program’s LIS 600: Information in Society. In particular, they were interested in having me record something for a week on the digital divide. I am conversant on that topic, but it’s not an area of specialty for me, so I was unsure about it until I realized that some of the readings for that week touch on topics like platform design that I am really interested in through my work on social media communities.

This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic from yesterday spoke to me at a deep level: My first thoughts went to generative AI, an area in which I feel like a fetishization of optimization is crowding out really important questions of what is good. As I put it in a university survey earlier today, there are undeniable benefits to the use of AI tools, but there are important questions as to who benefits.

This made me laugh out loud while reheating my leftovers for lunch.

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.

It is a coincidence that I’m visiting my local independent bookstore the same day Bezos went to space, but it’s a happy one.