September 8, 2023

spencergreenhalgh.com posts digest for Sep 08 2023

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

• who has the power to bind on earth?

• unfinished thoughts on games and living one's values

• there but for the grace of Matt go I

Here are microblog posts that I published this week:

• My college is floating the idea of investing in GPT-type technology to help researchers code text data. This reminds me of my longtime belief that the distinction between “qual” and “quant” is often less important than the distinction between different research paradigms.

• Je regrette ne pas avoir réussi (pour le moment) à enseigner le français à ma fille, mais ça reste utile pour parler en secret avec mon épouse.

• Today, I’m remembering the family friend from a Latter-day Saint congregation I grew up in who heard me in a church settng quote some scripture on the need for the rich to give to the poor and then took me aside to ask how liberal my school friends were and give me some cautionary advice.

• I’ve been struggling with putting together a particular document for over a week. It’s like I’ve entirely forgotten how to do academic writing—something I usually feel pretty confident about.

• I firmly believe that research is a process of argument—and that statistics are, therefore, a rhetorical device.

• It’s not that I didn’t enjoy church, but what really fed my soul today was a family trip to some beloved indie bookstores. And some listening to a radio adaptation of Les Misérables. And, okay, yes, the smores cookies and cream ice cream I snitched from spouse’s cone.

• Je trouve que Paris est surreprésenté dans les mondes francophones et francophiles, mais je me lasse pas quand-même des vidéos sur son métro.

• I’m torn between how much I dislike the idea of a connected car and how easy it just now made it to get a question answered at the local dealer. I guess we wouldn’t agree to all this surveillance if it wasn’t actually useful sometimes.

• Il y a beaucoup de sagesse dans la chanson « Octobre » des Cowboys fringants. Faut que je l’écoute plus souvent.

• College conversation about investment in GPT-type tech to support research is continuing. I think it’s… fitting that the survey being circulated is clearly using Qualtrics’s auto-suggested Likert responses—and that the responses aren’t quite right for the questions being asked.

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

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'As X bleeds cash, Musk threatens Anti-Defamation League with defamation lawsuit | Ars Technica'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character - Polygon'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '*privacy not included | Shop smart and safe | Mozilla Foundation'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Marsha Blackburn Makes It Clear: KOSA Is Designed To Silence Trans People | Techdirt'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Dependence on Tech Caused ‘Staggering’ Education Inequality, U.N. Agency Says - The New York Times'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'How Elon Musk’s Impulses Transformed Twitter - WSJ'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Top French Court Upholds Abaya Ban in Schools - The New York Times'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/07/govern-yourself-accordingly/'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Musk shut off Starlink to prevent Ukraine attack on Russian ships, report says | Ars Technica'

• 🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome | Ars Technica'

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

• 📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Good Omens 2

• 📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for A Legacy of Spies, by John Le Carré

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