So, so many wild things in this article. I grew up loving this hymn and had no idea it had roots in blackface minstrelsy. Hope the Church will take it out of its next hymnbook, but I’m not holding my breath. The real kicker is Brigham Young’s concern about blackface—not because it’s racist but because it’s degrading to white people.

I remember the first Floppotron, and 3.0 continues to be delightful. I may have to show this in class next year.

Doctorow is spot on here. Apple may be the most benevolent of the big tech companies, but it still has far too much power over its users.

Yes please.

Given the aggressively queerphobic language I’ve read on Gab, events like this are worrying but not surprising. More worrying is the way that this queerphobic language is increasingly used in the mainstream GOP. How do Republican politicians and voters feel about these events?

I’ve been plenty spooked by Ring’s video capabilities, but apparently I haven’t been worried enough about its audio surveillance.

Disappointing news, but glad for the fight that the EFF and others are waging.

The only thing worse than the already-bad reality of powerful, private data brokers is public agencies buying what they have to sell.

This is a peak example of what performative concerns about “free speech” boil down to.

I haven’t read much about this bill, but it’s worrying that powerful entities have such an advantage in the debate about limiting their power.

Depressing read, though I’ll freely admit I haven’t been paying enough attention here myself.

Very, very interesting read on how the purported objectivity of big data is influencing how (conservative) judges use corpus linguistics.

I hope it will be the last. End it while it’s still good.

What a mess. Glad to be pivoting toward my blog and Mastodon.

What’s the point in having an ethics board if you’re going to so flagrantly ignore them? Good on members for responding with resignations, and thank goodness Axon woke up to how dunb their decision was.

This is unbelievably dumb. School shootings can’t be solved by technology—it’s a social and political problem. Shame on Axon.

Some good thoughts by Masnick on a good op-ed by Wheaton.

I have long been skeptical of gas prices as a talking point. Some interesting thoughts in here.

GOP has some reckoning to do.

I’m interested in this argument about Star Wars feeling like a TTRPG campaign setting. Throughout much of middle and high school, I played the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars TTRPG, and that made even the prequel movies beloved because they became a setting to explore rather than movies to be unsatisfied with.

Content moderation is a good thing, and ‘free speech’ should not be our primary concern when it comes to social media platforms.

This article may make its way into a chapter I’m writing on how assumptions about education shape our understanding of what appropriate data collection looks like. As Audrey Watters has written, this kind of thing is very much edtech, and we need to be critical about how we deploy it. Even if it did work, I’m not sure the surveillance would be worth it. If it doesn’t work, all the more reason to be skeptical.

This is difficult but important to read. As gut wrenching as these shootings are, I am still distant enough from them that they don’t always stick with me. It’s helpful if depressing to read about what sticks with others who are closer to them.

Disappointing but unsurprising. I wish McConnell would show as much willingness to call out Republicans on guns as he does for Ukraine.

Tom the Dancing Bug is usually just the right level of dark.