July 18, 2025

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Jul 18 2025

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Here are long-form blog posts I published recently:

• Ellul on technique and turning stones to bread

• recent sermon text on finding the Ultimate in the ordinary

• Jacques Ellul contre l'IA

• on Grok, other LLMs, and epistemology

Here are microblog posts that I published recently:

• One of my favorite ways of stretching my Hugo and Siri Shortcuts skills is thinking about features I could build into my website based off of what other services already offer. Thinking about building a game session logging system this summer…

• Playing the Portal series with kiddo is going well, except that she is (understandably, tbh) freaked out by the Valve screen that appears when you first load it.

• Je suis content de découvrir combien il est facile de changer mon site Hugo en version multilangue, mais il y aura des conséquences pour le POSSE si je ne suis pas attentif…

• Discovered a quirky museum spotlighting local artists and found in their gift shop a zine that a former student of mine contributed to. Double win!

• Dealing with yet another case of “these reviewer suggestions are good and pretty straightforward, so why don’t I have any motivation to make the revisions?”

• J’ai été content aujourd’hui de comprendre le mot « rougeole » à la RTS. Puis, je me suis demandé où j’aurai eu besoin d’apprendre ce mot dans le passé. Comme elle fait sa réapparation aux États-Unis maintenant, peut-être que j’en aurai besoin en fin de compte.

• I hear people are angry about Superman being an immigrant, so I think it’s time to read “Superman Smashes the Klan” again (and maybe even listen to the 1940s radio serial it’s based on).

• Every game I bought myself for kiddo’s Switch has really only gotten playtime if kiddo has taken an interest in it.

• Je compte bientôt préparer un document professionnel en français. Il y a cinq ans, j’aurais demandé à quelqu’un de m’aider à corriger des erreurs. En 2025, par contre, je me demande si mes petites erreurs éventuelles feront preuve que j’ai tout écrit moi-même au lieu de me fier à l’IA.

Here are photos that I published recently (or at least their descriptions):

• Once again, ClassDojo shows how much of its business model is built on creating feelings of parental inadequacy.

Here are news articles and podcasts I commented on recently:

• 🔗 linkblog: Facebook is starting to feed its Meta AI with private, unpublished photos

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse A Neuchâtel aussi, les téléphones portables seront interdits à l'école obligatoire

• 🔗 linkblog: The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger

• 🔗 linkblog: Reddit turns 20, and it’s going big on AI

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse Ecoles, hôpitaux, universités: l'ampleur des dévastations à Gaza en images

• 🔗 linkblog: Measles cases in Fayette and Woodford counties put Kentucky health officials on alert

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse La bataille perdue par Genève contre les locations Airbnb illégales

• 🔗 linkblog: Kids are making deepfakes of each other, and laws aren’t keeping up – The Markup

• 🔗 linkblog: Quand les vacances scolaires deviennent un casse-tête pour les parents

• 🔗 linkblog: Le système de bonus social à la chinoise menacerait-il des démocraties comme la Suisse?

• 🔗 linkblog: Laid-off workers should use AI to manage their emotions, says Xbox exec

• 🔗 linkblog: From the Backlist: Bloggers Discuss the LDS Church Compensating Social Media Influencers — Exponent II Blog

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse Le retour de Donald Trump relance le débat sur la souveraineté numérique 

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse Pour développer l'industrie des puces, la Suisse finance la recherche plutôt que le secteur privé

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse Désormais autorisés, les vélos cargo électriques veulent faire de l'ombre aux camions en ville

• 🔗 linkblog: Google, de moteur de recherche à moteur de réponse

• 🔗 linkblog: Rural hospitals in Kentucky brace for financial hits or even closures under GOP's $1 trillion Medicaid cut

• 🔗 linkblog: ‘Improved’ Grok criticizes Democrats and Hollywood’s ‘Jewish executives’

• 🔗 linkblog: Radio Télévision Suisse Le plan national des pistes cyclables suisses avance à bon rythme

• 🔗 linkblog: God’s Pantry Food Bank voices concerns about federal cuts to food stamps

• 🔗 linkblog: OpenAI and Microsoft Bankroll New A.I. Training for Teachers

• 🔗 linkblog: Emily Bender: L'IA est un perroquet stochastique sans faculté de raisonnement

• 🔗 linkblog: Microsoft, OpenAI, and a US Teachers’ Union Are Hatching a Plan to ‘Bring AI into the Classroom’

• 🔗 linkblog: Knives, bullets and thieves: the quest for food in Gaza

• 🔗 linkblog: Measles cases tick up by four in Fayette County

• 🔗 linkblog: Grok praises Hitler, gives credit to Musk for removing 'woke filters'

• 🔗 linkblog: What is AGI? Nobody agrees, and it’s tearing Microsoft and OpenAI apart.

• 🔗 linkblog: The New York Times Runs Interference For A Racist To Manufacture A Fake Scandal About Zohran Mamdani

• 🔗 linkblog: Musk makes grand promises about Grok 4 in the wake of a Nazi chatbot meltdown

• 🔗 linkblog: A.I.-Generated Images of Child Sexual Abuse Are Flooding the Internet

• 🔗 linkblog: Trump Seeks to Cut Basic Scientific Research by Roughly One-Third, Report Shows

• 🔗 linkblog: Trump Mobile Keeps Charging My Credit Card And I Have No Idea Why

• 🔗 linkblog: Musk’s Grok 4 launches one day after chatbot generated Hitler praise on X

• 🔗 linkblog: Grok searches for Elon Musk’s opinion before answering tough questions

• 🔗 linkblog: Mike Lee Can’t Stop Throwing Social Media Grenades. His Church Isn’t Happy.

• 🔗 linkblog: AI 'Nudify' Websites Are Raking in Millions of Dollars

• 🔗 linkblog: a16z-Backed AI Site Civitai Is Mostly Porn, Despite Claiming Otherwise

• 🔗 linkblog: Hugging Face Is Hosting 5,000 Nonconsensual AI Models of Real People

• 🔗 linkblog: Kentucky Republican lawmaker questions gender and women’s studies course at UK • Kentucky Lantern

• 🔗 linkblog: I Tried Grok’s Built-In Anime Companion and It Called Me a Twat

• 🔗 linkblog: 'Doing their own thing': KY legislators hear about the state of AI use and guidance in schools

• 🔗 linkblog: 'Arbres', 'noix', 'tout le monde sait'... Ce vocabulaire détourné par des internautes pour diffuser des idées d'extrême droite sur les réseaux sociaux

• 🔗 linkblog: The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations

• 🔗 linkblog: Will AI end cheap flights? Critics attack Delta’s “predatory” AI pricing.

• 🔗 linkblog: The Astronomer CEO's Coldplay Concert Fiasco Is Emblematic of Our Social Media Surveillance Dystopia

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

• 📚 bookblog: Ice Age (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📺 tvblog: Andor Season 2 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: 1776 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 🍿 movieblog: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek: Lower Decks, Volume 1 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Je vais rester (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: The Kill Lock (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: TRVE KVLT (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Brutal Nature Omnibus (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Catfight (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Country of Ghosts (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Shadow Fall (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Victory's Price (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

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