Can something be shocking but not surprising? I’ve been thinking about this all day and still can’t believe it’s real.

Wish it were for more principled reasons, but I’ll take it.

It is wild—and worrying—just how close this race is.

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.

This is a take on digital labor and datafication that I can honestly say I never expected.

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.

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.

What a disaster.

Interesting read wirh important implications for how we think about research quality.

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.

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.

Got a good chuckle from this.

Sometimes the internet is good.

This is one of these stories where I’ve been waiting to get Masnick’s take on it, and he does not disappoint.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Rand Paul is so often wrong, but when he’s right, he’s often really right.

Interesting—and hopeful—read.

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.

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.

Finally read up on this, and it’s worrying.

I… did not realize that there were BYU connections to Project 2025.

This is clever, spot on, and sometimes hilarious.

This sucks so much—and encapsulates our world’s obsession with financial success over environmental health.

If AI is indeed going to help us reduce emissions, it seems to me that that will be the product of targeted, scientific and industrial use of AI, not shoving AI into a load of commercial products. Are these commercial companies using AI to figure out how to reduce emissions? If not (and maybe even if so), it seems disingenuous to express optimism that their increased energy use will be magically cancelled out by someone else.

Look, I’ve been trying to approach the SCOTUS decision with an open “I’m not a legal expert” mind, but I think this quickly demonstrates how dangerous the decision is. There’s no way this is an official act, and Trump’s insistence that it could be shows his confidence that he can get away with what he wants as president. This is not good for democracy.

I’m not necessarily opposed to teaching the Bible in public schools, but if you’re going to do it, you should do it right: Compare and contrast the creation accounts, discuss different authors’ conflicting takes on issues, and treat it as literature. That’s clearly not what Walters is advocating for, and his approach is indefensible.

This is a darker version of some of the thoughts I had when I first heard about the “PhD comparison.” Before you click through to the article, I also want to use this short post as a complaint that I don’t think “intelligence” is a thing—and that PhDs certainly wouldn’t be a measure of it if it were.

I went to BCHS and was on speech and debate with Akilah. I was one of those naïve white kids who didn’t really register all of the problematic parts of our mascot, and I have regrets. I’ll be interested to listen to this podcast and do some more internal work.

Austin’s book was already on my ’to read’ list, but this interview really convinced me. There are some really interesting arguments in here, and while I want to evaluate them in more detail, they’d provide fascinating readings if they hold up.

What a fascinating, depressing read. The Mormon angle only makes it more interesting (even if it doesn’t really play in here).

This is a helpful EFF overview that I’m posting to bookmark for later.

This sucks on so many levels.