March 21, 2025

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Mar 21 2025

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

• bike cowardice and bike infrastructure

• policy and the prophetic voice: generative AI and deepfake nudes

• thoughts on academic labor, digital labor, intellectual property, and generative AI

• why I want to reread Cory Doctorow's 'For the Win' despite all the other books I need to get to

• Jacques Ellul and the value of research

Here are microblog posts that I published this week:

• Okay, also: In the ranking of Khans, Cumberbatch is way down at the bottom, and Montalbán should be clearly at the top, but this Lower Decks!Khan is at least a close second… and might even be my favorite?

• This is the kind of week where I really needed a Friday morning runner’s high, so thank goodness for that.

• I think I’ve finally finished all of my Hugo taxonomy-and-template side projects. Time to write up a summary post and then find something else to do as productive procrastination.

• This weekend, I read some Star Trek comics, did some cool stuff in Kerbal Space Program, and bought a new tin of my favorite chocolate mint tea. It’s exactly what I needed to let my mind relax for a bit.

• This afternoon was going pretty well until I totally spaced on kiddo’s orthodontist appointment. 😬

• So, it turns out that spending time with Jacques Ellul’s mid-20th century critiques of systematization, abstraction, “productivity,” and “efficiency” does NOT make it any easier to write letters evaluating colleagues’ progress toward tenure.

• I REALLY like “Take on Me,” but I can’t watch the music video without complaining that comic books don’t look like that (except maybe the low-quality first Tintin album, but even then, not really).

• “My anxiety is really high; taking some time off during spring break would be the healthy thing to do.” vs. “Not using spring break to get caught up is making me anxious about work I feel behind on.”

• As far as I can remember, EVERY situation in which I’ve experienced multiple “Spencers” in a group and we’ve had to distinguish ourselves from each other has been in a Mormon-adjacent context. (“Greenhalgh” is also a disproportionately Mormon name, but that has fewer practical consequences.)

• On vient d’annoncer que l’ascenseur au travail sera en panne toute la semaine prochaine. Il faudra que je réfléchisse sur les conséquences pour mon vélotaf.

• Kiddo enjoys sending me messages encrypted in runes, and I enjoy brute forcing an interpretation like that scene in Cryptonomicon.

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

• Every once in a while I surprise myself with how well I can read music, despite all I’ve forgotten since long ago piano lessons. Getting the musical jokes in Ryan North’s Lower Decks comic is the most delightful this has ever been, though.

• The problem with trying to make comic characters look like their screen counterparts is in those panels when Spock looks nothing like Zachary Quinto (or either of the other options, for that matter).

• Look, I don’t have experience running an academic publishing company, but I don’t know if I’d activate the experimental AI summarizer on an article exploring the ethics of generative AI.

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

• 🔗 linkblog: NASA, Yale, and Stanford Scientists Consider 'Scientific Exile,' French University Says'

• 🔗 linkblog: OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use'

• 🔗 linkblog: They look like Nazi salutes. Here's why some people think they're a joke'

• 🔗 linkblog: Pluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'

• 🔗 linkblog: AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality

• 🔗 linkblog: “Awful”: Roku tests autoplaying ads loading before the home screen

• 🔗 linkblog: Rather than lower rates, Arkansas jail simply cancels all inmate phone calls

• 🔗 linkblog: Pluralistic: You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission (19 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

• 🔗 linkblog: The future of search isn’t Google — and it’s $10 a month

• 🔗 linkblog: Facial Recognition Company Clearview Attempted to Buy Social Security Numbers and Mugshots for its Database

• 🔗 linkblog: UK ends relationship with nonprofit amid Trump admin investigation

• 🔗 linkblog: Etats-Unis : un chercheur français refoulé pour avoir exprimé « une opinion personnelle sur la politique menée par l’administration Trump »

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

• 📚 bookblog: Warp Your Own Way (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 1 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 2 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 3 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 4 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 🎙️ radioblog: Guards! Guards! (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 🎙️ radioblog: Eric (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 5 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 🎙️ radioblog: Small Gods (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 6 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 7 (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 8 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 9 (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)

• 📚 bookblog: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Volume 2 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Star Trek 2011-2016, Volume 10 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

• 📚 bookblog: Queen & Country, Definitive Edition, Volume 03 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)

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