April 6, 2024

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Apr 06 2024

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Here are long-form blog posts I published this week:

• Arthur Dent, the bulldozer, and generative AI

• more on stories (not history) as the source of faith

Here are microblog posts that I published this week:

• Teaching password security in class today, so time to talk about Ozymandias’s total lack thereof in Watchmen (and how dumb it is for a computer to say “almost there!” when you enter an incomplete password).

• Kiddo is at my parents’ for her spring break and has discovered a box of my old Animorphs books. I’m excited to share yet another nerdy thing with her but also thinking about how surprisingly violent that series is for purported kids’ books.

• Catching up on grading today, and I’ve been laughing out loud at some of my students’ Hypothesis annotations of class readings. I’m so glad I use this instead of discussion board responses: It’s so much more organic and creates more social presence in online classes.

• Kiddo’s been visiting grandparents since Sunday, and her books are still strewn about the living room, so time to admit I’m part of the problem here.

• Finally got the rest of kiddo’s soccer schedule! Relieved that there’s no conflict with Eurovision 2024, because that would be a real dilemma for our family.

• It’s convenient that I’ve been reconsidering my longtime taboo about swearing at the same time that “enshittification” is becoming such a professionally salient word.

Here are news articles and podcasts I commented on this week:

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Even The Most Well-Meaning Internet Regulations Can Cause Real Harm'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How anti-vaccine activists and the far right are trying to build a parallel economy'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'After years of trying, the U.S. government may finally mandate safer table saws'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'New Catan game has overpopulation, pollution, fossil fuels, and clean energy'

Here are my reviews of books and other media I consumed this week:

• 📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Borgen (Season 1)

• 📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

If you have thoughts about anything I've posted, feel free to comment directly on my website through Hypothesis or to reply to this email with what you have to say.

Thanks for reading!

Spencer