HBon Mot of the Week:

“We must not rest on just commiseration! We must motivate each other forward toward something or other!!”

Links to the past week:

• There was a cynical amusement I felt reading this article, because American AI companies just fleece the government and finance industries to purge lots of money for themselves and then release basically nothing. Then China comes in — after the coronation of the Tariff King, and, more importantly, the TikTok “ban” — and dumps DeepSeek into the world. That is a masterful gambit. Gorram masterful.
• I enjoyed trying out the Bear blogging platform. It’s simplicity drew me in so, I tried it out a bit and I liked it, but I was only trying it out of novelty. Not for me. Would totally recommend though.
• The Internet used to be the repository, now it’s more of a landfill. People that create these AI-free spaces will be the reason we have a future.
• I used ‘calvary’ instead of ‘cavalry’ in a Facebook post. When my step-brother told me (out of kindness), I lost it. I’d always wondered how horses were incorporated into that church by the highway. Also, I laughed until I cried.
• I have taken to bolding parts of my paragraphs. Accept this as the new norm until I forget to do it.
• FD Signifier should be on your required watching list and Why I don’t think we should waste our time making anti Trump content… is a necessary message for our challenging times. I remember saying that the way to curtail the power of Rush Limbaugh was to make him irrelevant. The same applies with Trump. The more you sling at him, the more powerful he gets, and the media will just lap up the scraps. Also, think of how popular Stewart/Colbert was in the hey days of W and then Obama when they had the right-wing machine to bash against. They learned from the right’s playbook and understood that mockery and dissent were more profitable than actual uplift. I’ll have more to say about our liberal safe spaces in late night television, I think. I’m still percolating.

Wisdom of the week:

More of me

• I posted this on Friday: I don’t think we know what animals think
• I am considering starting up my casual gaming blog again. I haven’t worked on it in years – really missed the boat there during the pandemic. If you have casual or cozy games you love (that aren’t Animal Crossing), I’d love to hear about it. I’m not trying to be an influencer, but a curmudgeon. 🙂

How’s the writing going:

Ah, well, this has been a pretty busy week, family-wise, so not really at all. On the happy side, the Writing Center at my university opened this week and I had my first open times for tutoring. No students yet, but I’m going to use the time to get caught up on writing center scholarship, which will hopefully make me a better tutor, and keep me in the right frame of mind if a student needs a session at the last minute. Since I’m on leave, I’m doing all my sessions remotely. It’s a bit more challenging for me (at first) but it’s far more accessible for the students. I’ll be writing more about accessibility in the coming weeks.