November 1, 2024

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Nov 01 2024

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

• Atomic Robo, the Book of Mormon, and Animal Man

• a local news dilemma

Here are microblog posts that I published this week:

• Sure looks like someone finally got fed up with the majority of Harris signs in our cul-de-sac and decided to swipe them all overnight.

• The only good thing I got out of reading a blog post arguing that ChatGPT leaves open the door for young earth creationism just now was a reminder to reread Hervé Le Tellier’s « L’Anomalie ».

• A lot of my Hugo hacks are ugly, but I’m happy that I’ve figured it out well enough to be able to do the hacks in the first place.

• Some switch has recently flipped in my brain so that I can hand out Bs, Cs, and worse without being anxious about it. I still have real concerns about grading as a concept, but I’ve stopped worrying about taking off points as though I’m the one being penalized.

• Sometimes I feel like I’m nagging my data science students when I tell them to use function x in R instead of almost-identical function y. Other times, I remember that function y has awful output that makes grading their work a pain, and I stop worrying.

• Pretty sure I just saw a student dressed up for Halloween as a Skrull, and it occurs to me that anyone could claim to be in costume as a Skrull.

• Time to go combine some favorite things: bike commuting, libraries, and early voting.

• I first met my spouse in college, where she was doing biology while I was doing French, so even though I’m now a tenured professor in a technology-focused major, I still think of her as the “STEM parent” for the purposes of helping with kiddo’s homework.

• Between class, early voting, and Halloween yesterday, I did not get to much of my email inbox. Today’s going to have to be “All Sends Day.”

• In our big content management systems class project this semester, students are knocking it out of the park in a way that makes me proud of them but also reassures me that maybe I understand this stuff despite no formal training after all.

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

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Real Monsters of Street Level Surveillance'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk worked in US illegally in 1995 after quitting school – report'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for school shootings and measles'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Long lines reported on first day of early voting in Kentucky'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Fitness app Strava gives away location of Biden, Trump and other leaders, French newspaper says'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Beshear calls for electing president by popular vote, says it would be better for Kentucky • Kentucky Lantern'

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

• 📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu

• 📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤 for Eastern Standard Tribe, by Cory Doctorow

• 📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality, by Matthew Harris

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