🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'More academic publishers are doing AI deals'

- kudos:

I keep thinking about the similarity of exploitation of academic labor by publishers to the exploitation of everyone’s labor by AI companies, and stories like this just make it more clear. link to “More academic publishers are doing AI deals”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed'

- kudos:

I teach WordPress, and I guess I should be covering this this semester. I’ve been avoiding reading about recent drama at Automattic, but if this is a taste of it, wow, wow, wow. link to “If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Rep. Clay Higgins Posts, Then Deletes, Racist Comments About Haitians'

- kudos:

Posting this as a bookmark. It’s mindboggling how overtly racist this is—and how much work the GOP will do to dismiss it as nothing. I want to be able to return back to this in the weeks and months to come, to remind myself and others just how bad things are. gift link link to “Rep. Clay Higgins Posts, Then Deletes, Racist Comments About Haitians”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'I Love My Kids, But I Sometimes Regret Having Them - The Rev. Dev.'

- kudos:

It is hard to have honest conversations about the difficulty of parenting: Even in reading this post, I tensed up, because these are things you aren’t supposed to say. I’m glad someone was vulnerable enough to write this. link to “I Love My Kids, But I Sometimes Regret Having Them - The Rev. Dev.”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property'

- kudos:

What a wild story. link to “Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for trespassing on its ‘pristine’ property”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: Thinking the unthinkable (19 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'

- kudos:

Compelling metaphor. link to “Pluralistic: Thinking the unthinkable (19 Sep 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Going the Distance at the Tram Driver Olympics'

- kudos:

I had never heard of the tram driver Olympics before, and I love it. [gift link] link to “Going the Distance at the Tram Driver Olympics”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up'

- kudos:

Taking cues from neo-Nazis is a great look for the GOP ticket. link to “Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A day in Elon Musk’s mind: 145 tweets with election conspiracies and emojis'

- kudos:

24 hours on Elon’s Twitter feed is a great idea for a story, and I’m glad someone did it! link to “A day in Elon Musk’s mind: 145 tweets with election conspiracies and emojis”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer'

- kudos:

Who benefits from AI? Who doesn’t? link to “How Memphis became a battleground over Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Big publishers think libraries are the enemy'

- kudos:

A good take by Molly White. I remember when I stopped thinking about ebooks in terms of screens (as opposed to paper) and started thinking about them in terms of DRM (as opposed to free use). DRM helps the already powerful at the expense of everything else, and I want to do more to push back against it. link to “Big publishers think libraries are the enemy”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'What Musk's Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment'

- kudos:

I’m currently reading Extremely Hardcore and can’t wait to read Character Limit. The Twitter purchase alone ought to dismiss any serious ideas that Musk could do this kind of work. link to “What Musk’s Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Father of Ohio boy, 11, tells Trump and Vance to stop using son’s death for ‘political gain’'

- kudos:

Good for the dad, and shame on the politicians being this terrible. link to “Father of Ohio boy, 11, tells Trump and Vance to stop using son’s death for ‘political gain’”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk Threatens to Impregnate Taylor Swift'

- kudos:

Can something be shocking but not surprising? I’ve been thinking about this all day and still can’t believe it’s real. link to “Elon Musk Threatens to Impregnate Taylor Swift”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Fayette County schools leaving X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter'

- kudos:

Wish it were for more principled reasons, but I’ll take it. link to “Fayette County schools leaving X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'What If Trump Wins?'

- kudos:

It is wild—and worrying—just how close this race is. link to “What If Trump Wins?”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '750 | What’s Brewing | Wasatch Front | Part II'

- kudos:

I’m bookmarking this episode for later because it does a better job than I’ve ever heard of talking about how messy and complex and difficult it can be to have Mormon roots in Community of Christ—and it doesn’t even get into some of the “outside Utah” vs. “in Utah” dynamics that I personally think get overlooked. link to “750 | What’s Brewing | Wasatch Front | Part II”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'People are paying 'Strava mules' to do their runs for them, but why?

- kudos:

This is a take on digital labor and datafication that I can honestly say I never expected. link to “People are paying “Strava mules” to do their runs for them, but why?”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'College Grades Have Become a Charade. It's Time To Abolish Them. - Slashdot'

- kudos:

I really ought to read the original piece instead of just the Slashdot excerpt, but I tried that, and it just made me even more angry, and I don’t think it would change my response. I’m not opposed to doing away with grades, but I’m not convinced by hand-wringing about grade inflation. Grades do need to be meaningful to be useful, but the idea that As need to be reserved for an elite few speaks less to meritocracy (referenced in the full piece) than to a need for an elite.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Second Circuit Says Libraries Disincentivize Authors To Write Books By Lending Them For Free'

- kudos:

Deeply appreciate Masnick’s writeup. I don’t know the ins and outs of the law, and that’s given me some pause in being upset about the ruling. To see a lawyer find fault with so much gives me greater confidence in my own frustration. The most dangerous part, though, doesn’t require a law degree to understand. The logic of the findings poses a threat to all libraries, not just this one.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk Deletes Nazi Apologist Tweet After Near-Universal Backlash'

- kudos:

What a disaster. link to “Elon Musk Deletes Nazi Apologist Tweet After Near-Universal Backlash”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Is Your Google Scholar Profile Looking A Bit Empty? Need To Bulk Up Your Citations? Simple – Buy Some'

- kudos:

Interesting read wirh important implications for how we think about research quality. link to “Is Your Google Scholar Profile Looking A Bit Empty? Need To Bulk Up Your Citations? Simple – Buy Some”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI Checkers Forcing Kids To Write Like A Robot To Avoid Being Called A Robot'

- kudos:

I am way more pessimistic about AI than Masnick is, but we agree on this sort of thing. Algorithmic surveillance is no more appropriate in response to AI concerns than it is to cheating concerns. link to “AI Checkers Forcing Kids To Write Like A Robot To Avoid Being Called A Robot”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending'

- kudos:

In a weird kind of Streisand effect, I’ve only started using the Internet Archive library since this lawsuit began and it’s a fantastic service. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of copyright law, but this sucks. link to “The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Beotrump'

- kudos:

Got a good chuckle from this. link to “Beotrump”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How a Group of Teenagers Pranked 'One Million Checkboxes' - Slashdot'

- kudos:

Sometimes the internet is good. link to “How a Group of Teenagers Pranked ‘One Million Checkboxes’ - Slashdot”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Zuckerberg’s Spineless Surrender: Rehashing Old News To Enable False GOP Narratives'

- kudos:

This is one of these stories where I’ve been waiting to get Masnick’s take on it, and he does not disappoint. link to “Zuckerberg’s Spineless Surrender: Rehashing Old News To Enable False GOP Narratives”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How Telegram's Founder Pavel Durov Became a Culture War Martyr'

- kudos:

I’ve been trying to think through Durov’s arrest since I first heard about it—there are a lot of complex things going on here. I think this captures nicely my thoughts and taught me a few things, too. Telegram is a sketchy platform (technically even more than in terms of content), but that doesn’t mean arresting the founder is warranted. Yet, that doesn’t mean that outcry on the right is in good faith, either.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'CAPTCHAs Becoming Useless as AI Gets Smarter, Scientists Warn'

- kudos:

One thing this article misses is how often CAPTCHA has been used to train AI. It’s always been playing both sides against each other. link to “CAPTCHAs Becoming Useless as AI Gets Smarter, Scientists Warn”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Ask God (Terms and Conditions Apply)'

- kudos:

This article speaks to a deep tension in Mormon theology: You can pray to God to tell you what is right, but you shouldn’t expect it to tell you something different than what church leaders say. To what extent, then, does prayer become subordinated to obedience? link to “Ask God (Terms and Conditions Apply)”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'KY prisoners hack state-issued computer tablets to digitally create $1M. How’d they do it?'

- kudos:

Prisoners got punished for taking advantage of a hilarious exploit in an app for transferring money from their commissary accounts to a private company’s media store, but no one at that private company is being held accountable for unironically describing prisons as a “growth industry.” This sounds like something Doctorow would have made up for The Bezzle, and it’s kind of amazing that I’m reading it in the news instead.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'KY inmates and their families spend millions on for-profit computer tablets'

- kudos:

The state and a private company are splitting millions of dollars that they earn from charging a literally captive audience to use tablets. This is straight out of Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle, and I hate it so, so much. link to “KY inmates and their families spend millions on for-profit computer tablets”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Senator Calls U.S. Support for Saudis a “National Disgrace” After Intercept Reveals Unpaid Debt to Pentagon'

- kudos:

Rand Paul is so often wrong, but when he’s right, he’s often really right. link to “Senator Calls U.S. Support for Saudis a “National Disgrace” After Intercept Reveals Unpaid Debt to Pentagon”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How MIT copes without Elsevier'

- kudos:

Interesting—and hopeful—read. link to “How MIT copes without Elsevier”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: Apple vs the “free market” (15 Aug 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'

- kudos:

I’ve only skimmed this, but I’m posting it as a reminder to myself that everything I said about Disney yesterday also applies to Apple, and that I need to find ways of extracting myself from their ecosystem, as hard as it may be. link to “Pluralistic: Apple vs the “free market” (15 Aug 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Ex-Google CEO says successful AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to ‘clean up the mess’'

- kudos:

What reckless hubris. As I wrote earlier today, I’m in favor of more liberal IP law, but not so that businesses can swallow up content to profit from it. link to “Ex-Google CEO says successful AI startups can steal IP and hire lawyers to ‘clean up the mess’”