What if they tried talking to it?
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Don’t talk about tech and NOT credit authors
This short section of The Atlantic Daily has the following sentence:
“The term metaverse was coined in a 1992 science-fiction novel titled Snow Crash. (The book also helped popularize the term avatar, to refer to digital selves.)”
The book, not Neal Stephenson, the person who happened to author the book, but the book. If we want to talk about the future and technology and don’t address the erasure of the humans behind the technology (and the Book inspirations of its ideas) then you’re part of the problem.
It’s important to read player reviews before buying a video game.
Welp, I’m back
Sorry about the break. I really did think I could write a blog post about each day of the written portion of my comprehensive exams. Friends, I could not. I had no idea how much energy that was going to take out of me, including the one-hour commute each way. The day I wrote 5000 words, I slept the sleep of the dead. But, I’ve handed in my answers and it’s in the hands of my committee now.
How do I feel? Terrible. Well, not today. Over the last day or two I have settled down, but where I thought I would feel relief I only felt shame. I came out of the process feeling stupid, unprepared, more than an imposter, but a charlatan. I was (and kinda am) still thoroughly convinced that my oral exam will just be my committed expressing this disdain and then handing me packing boxes to clear my things and go. I was exhausted on Friday and cried. I blew up on Saturday morning and cried. Today, no crying, but still anxiety.
I’m going to stay as busy as possible this week so I don’t have time to think about anything negative. I will listen to every Agatha Christie book my library has and catch up on all my manga. Yah. That’s the plan.
Comp Exams Day 1 – the OS update
Thanks to the advocacy of previous graduate students, our school changed the structure of the English Ph.D. comprehensive exams from a 5-hour, in-person essay test to a take-home, multiday writing test. We still have questions that test the breadth and depth of our knowledge, but now we’ll be answering them in a way that more closely reflects how we actually do scholarly work.
Today I received my questions via email at 7 am. I was ready, so ready I forgot to take my pills. (I didn’t notice a difference aside from my disappointment, but I will not forget tomorrow). I took some time to read over all the options, made a few early selections, then grabbed a few relevant books (yes, I had to take the heavy one) and left.
I have a long commute, so it gave me the chance to let the back of my brain stew while I focused on my breathing. By the time I got to my office, I was ready to go. I took some time to create my draft documents, copy the selected question into the file, then do a preliminary–more like prepreprepreliminary–outline and listed out the texts/authors I would be using. Some of the questions were really interesting and I felt myself being pulled into working on them. Others I’d already written a thousand or more words about the topic. I chose the latter where I could.
That all done, I spent the next thirty minutes just going through papers and taking notes while my MacBook updated…
…
…then I was ready to go! The writing was sluggish at first. I felt myself tripping over how to phrase ideas and wrote too floridly and sometimes too simply, then convinced myself to get SOMETHING down because you can’t edit an empty page. I was aiming for 2400 words and I left at 1911. That’s not a failure.
I still had to finish grading the work in my summer class and needed to get the final papers out. But after getting that finished, I still ended up working on one of the other questions and getting more words in. Since this is a different format, the word count doesn’t really matter, but the hard work of selecting texts is done.
I think tomorrow will be a more productive day. I’ll be able to start writing right away, knowing I have minimaps in every draft document. I plan to come back to my DAY 1 answer tomorrow night, after I’ve allowed it to stew while I work on DAY 2’s answer. NIGHT 1’s answer has the bones to it, and I have a book here that can help me make sure I put them in the right spots.
Feeling optimistic and ready to keep rolling!
2023.08.13 – media_log
I spent most of today grading papers and prepping for my comp exams, which start tomorrow. I didn’t spend much time online and only posted two humorous things on Facebook. I’m going to need a really good reason to put those social media apps back on my phone.
Nobody ever questioned where that database holding 10,000 hours of Olive Garden commercials was located. Now we have ChatGPT teaching kindergarteners. This is the most important read: AI Causes Real Harm. Let’s Focus on That over the End-of-Humanity Hype “Magic 8 Balls that we can play with by framing the prompts we send them as questions such that we can make sense of their output as answers.”
Barrels of drinking water for migrants walking through Texas have disappeared it’s so easy to automatically suspect someone of spiteful behavior. We’re driven by us vs them in so many more ways that we forget that these are actual people whom we exploit with impunity and perhaps deserve at the very least to not die
The Latest Trend on Yachts? Submersibles Good. Gooooood. Feel the power course through your veins! It took three reporters to write this ass-licking advertorial. The Oceangate disaster doesn’t make an appearance until paragraph 11.
media_log is a collection of media that I’ve consumed throughout the day – not in bite-size, headline-only, hot-take form as per social media, but actually reading the article and having a thought. Since taking the social media apps off my phone, I’m being more intentional with how I spend my attention.
2023.08.12 – media_log
I’ve been moving my research notes and memos into Obsidian. I like the simple Markdown files that are kept on my computer first, then synched, and the wiki-style linking between notes and topics. Also, moving the notes is a great way to review them before my exams start on Monday.
The most important story:
Police stage ‘chilling’ raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones “The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.”
The constitutional case that Donald Trump is already banned from being president. A look at that argument those “conservative lawyers” (so it must be true!) are making about the 14th Amendment. It’s soothing to think so, but my expectations are low.
Texas questions rights of a fetus after a prison guard who had a stillborn baby sues There is some possibility for this to bite Texas in the Lone Star. The idea of “personhood” cannot be applied to women carrying the fetus and not individuals threatening There is so much structural sexism on display in this piece–most importantly, not believing women about their own bodies– that we almost see the scaffolding that allowed the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
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Was Bigfoot seen in Pennsylvania last year? Witnesses say ‘yes’ Obviously.
Penn State gender pay gap is among worst compared to public Big Ten schools, federal data show They mention the pay increase of the female president but not the pay of the football coach even though they keep saying “Big Ten.” (Coach’s salary in 2022? $7 million.) WE ARE, I guess.
A slightly sadistic experiment aims to find out why heat drives up global conflict “In other words, does extreme heat trigger a psychological effect that is driving up the violence?” I’m curious if the increased aggravation that people feel because of the heat is because of our social conditioning against sweat. Is that increased aggression a Western, white issue? The growing cultural preference for Western-style aesthetics is a problem. There was an article about sweat yesterday, I’ll have to find it. Got it -> We Must Learn to Love Our Sweat
media_log is a collection of media that I’ve consumed throughout the day – not in bite-size, headline-only, hot-take form as per social media, but actually reading the article and having a thought. Since taking the social media apps off my phone, I’m being more intentional with how I spend my attention.
2023.08.11 – media_log
Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money?
Required reading if you keep hearing the name “Richard Hanania” bandied around and want to learn about the next high-profile “totally not a racist anymore” bro is. I would hate watch the white nationalist and eugenics-loving billionaire fight for conch as they grunt their IQs at each other while the ashes of civilization dust their sweaty, Botoxed brows.
Zoom’s Changing Stances on AI and User Data has Faculty Alarmed
Why is only “faculty alarmed?” Oh because it’s a good business decision to outsource all of the intellectual work your scholars do. Zoom’s new TOS probably has a broad view of consent. Remember the CAN-SPAM Act that put that “Unsubscribe” in all those emails? Whatever happened to opt-in as the default? Fun fact: I had a meeting this morning and the “Accept the new TOS” note came up and I could either be late for my meeting and read it, or click “Accept” because that’s what we always do.
How should we remember Trinity Site, where the first nuclear bomb was tested?
An interesting look at the physical Trinity Site (not the conceptual idea we have collectively in our heads.) This led me to the FAQ on the Trinity Site Open House website, where the question on the dangers of residual radiation is second to last at number 25, right above whether or not marijuana was allowed on the site (it is not.) Incidentally, the question of whether or not you can bring your firearm is number 8 on the list. (No. “Leave them at home.”).
Seeing a new David Brooks column the same day I listened to the If Books Could Kill podcast on “On Bullshit” is … chef’s kiss!
Vivek Ramaswamy Has a Gimmick That Republicans Are Sure to Love
“Ramaswamy’s call to raise the voting age is a novelty policy for a novelty candidate. And yet it tells us something about the Republican electorate, and thus the Republican Party, that the eye-catching gimmick of an ambitious politician is a plan to disenfranchise millions of American voters.” Republican voters will never love you.
Biden’s risky Persian Gulf bet
“‘We’re talking about using the lives of US service-members as a deterrent,’ Emma Ashford, a researcher at the Stimson Center, told Vox.” Isn’t that what we always do?
There’s No Shame in Flaking
I had a friend that used to call me “Croissant” I flaked so much.
media_log is a collection of media that I’ve consumed throughout the day – not in bite-size, headline-only, hot-take form as per social media, but actually reading the article and having a thought. Since taking the social media apps off my phone, I’m being more intentional with how I spend my attention.
Dear NPR – take a long step back
You’re not implying that these two people are ‘rogue animals,’ are you? What a terrible fucking headline! I think every news organization needs to show its headlines and blurbs to a select group of diverse people before letting any of its copy editors’ (or interns’) ClevErnEss out into the world. Cripes!
2023.08.10 – media_log
media_log is a collection of media that I’ve consumed throughout the day – not in bite-size, headline-only, hot-take form as per social media, but actually reading the article and having a thought. Since taking the social media apps off my phone, I’m being more intentional with how I spend my attention.
Hot take: One of the reasons I don’t care for YouTube shorts, besides the fact that I can’t filter them out of my subscription page, is that there is no easy way to see what channel it’s from.
Who Was Fernando Villavicencio?
I feel stupid for not knowing who this man was before he was assassinated.
Never Tweet
I like Charlie Warzel’s take on this subpoena and what prosecutors could be looking for, though the idea that it’s a technicality to cover all bases seems more likely. I don’t know how many more “smoking guns” need to be found to get this guy gone. Scroll fast past the main image if you don’t want to choke on your beverage.
Pottstown’s ‘Chicken Hill’ a central character in new James McBride novel
Shout-out to Pottstown and the Pottstown Regional Public Library for their help with James McBride’s new novel, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.
After decades, a tribe’s vision for a new marine sanctuary could be coming true
Co-managing sanctuaries and sacred spaces with the indigenous populations is long overdue and a step in the right direction. Scientific knowledge can only be enhanced with a historical record of the land and its living things, as well as a respect for the interconnectivity of our ecology. Learn more about the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary at chumashsanctuary.org.
The Local-News Crisis Is Weirdly Easy to Solve
A great overview of the power and necessity of local news. I am quietly skeptical if federal funding would ever jump-start local news again–so much depends upon the local population engaging with the local news–we need so much more than “Patch” websites and Facebook.