Local shame in response to local tragedy.

To paraphrase Mike Masnick, the defining motto of the Musk era seems to be ‘it can always get more stupid.’

How does this acquisition continue to get dumber and dumber?

The pettiness continues.

Some good commentary here. Musk loves certain buzzwords and flashy stunts, but they’re often in tension with the other decisions he makes.

I had never thought of a car as a creepy surveillance device, but this is horrifying.

Fascinating read—and one that reminds me that academic journal software doesn’t always render emoji either, which is a problem for social media research.

A dumb future that no one is asking for.

This is another dumb move by Musk. Masnick is excellent at calling him out on hypocrisy.

In my journey with Community of Christ, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what it means to pursue peace. I appreciate Pyle’s thoughts (and Star Trek references) here as he warns against allowing “peace and understanding” to neuter our opposition to evil. To be clear, that’s not what Community of Christ—or even maybe Nelson—is calling for, and I know my own opposition efforts risk denying the humanity and dignity of those I oppose. It’s a tricky balance, and I think Pyle’s argument is one of many to consider.

I’ve enjoyed reading Alice Marwick’s work in the past, and I really enjoyed her appearance on the EFF’s podcast here.

Sad news! Catan hasn’t been my favorite for a while, but it helped introduce me to designer games, and I owe Teuber a lot for that.

Rand Paul is very often wrong, but I always appreciate when he comes through.

I am not an AI expert, and my concerns aren’t on the existential scale. However, I do think it’s important to avoid moving fast and breaking things with these powerful technologies. That isn’t necessarily to say that more powerful AI shouldn’t be released (though I’m already disinterested by the current stuff), just that racing to improve them for commercial benefit and as technological flourish doesn’t strike me as socially responsible.

Even if the Kentucky GOP is right and this is what loses Beshear the election, it it was clearly the right thing to do. I want Beshear to stay in office, but I don’t know if I could vote for him if he didn’t resist the queerphobia coming out of the General Assembly. Shame on our legislature for passing this bill—and for so clearly acknowledging here that it’s to score political points at the expense of Kentucky children.

I’ve felt a lot of appreciation for Wil Wheaton recently, but for him to come to Kentucky to praise our libraries and speak against dumb laws passed by our legislature makes me just love the guy.

Good for Andy. One thing I personally appreciate about Governor Beshear is that he so often invokes his faith as a Democrat. Granted, it’s probably a calculated decision in such a red state, and I’m still uncomfortable with how faith and politics are intertwined in the U.S., but it shows that faith doesn’t have to be queerphobic.

Great point made by someone whose voice I’ve grown to appreciate over the past several months.

RIP my Twitter research. Glad I have other irons in the fire…

Twitter just gets worse and worse. What a joke.

Lots of helpful stuff in here.

Very interesting! I know some critics will describe this as a morally panicked response, but I disagree. I think it’s smart to ask how AI will affect human creators and for companies/communities like Paizo to take principled stances.

This is dumb and worrying. The CEO of Gab has been promising to develop “based AI,” but he’s a bit player. Musk has the resources and influence to make this a bigger problem.

I don’t know enough about OpenAI to evaluate these concerns, but I think these questions are important. The power of AI means that the companies that control them are also in a position of power, and it’s important that we treat them critically. That said, while I do think making LLM code open source is probably better in the aggregate, it isn’t without concerning drawbacks: The minute it was released under an open license, I’m sure Gab’s Andrew Torba would be considering how to make a homebrew version that can’t be content moderated.

Happy to hear podcasts aren’t working out for Spotify, because I was always upset about Spotify trying to wall off this garden.