Reading The Hidden History of Neoliberalism by Thom Hartmann. It’s a book that puts the daily headlines into context. Highly recommended.
Rush Would Not Be Pleased with US Today
“A field of battle covered with dead bodies putrefying in the open air is an awful and distressing spectacle, but a nation debased by the love of money and exhibiting all the vices and crimes usually connected with that passion, is a spectacle far more awful, distressing and offensive.”
—Letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, 1813
Do you know what would be the best use for AI? It should be trained on tax law, and then set loose on the tax returns of the wealthiest American citizens, including Donald Trump. And if the US government won’t do this, hackers should.
I spent some time trying on the ideas of small-c conservatism (i.e., pre-Trump conservatism), but most of it didn’t fit me.
I don’t know about you, but I find this shocking. Stock ETFs that buy the same thing that Republicans or Democrats buys using insider information. WHAT???
Unboxing! 3rd Edition of my textbook "Introduction to Play Analysis"
When I left to take the dog for a walk this morning, I discovered a small, heavy box on the front porch. I hadn’t remembered ordering anything scheduled to arrive yet, but when I opened the box I found ten copies of the 3rd edition of my textbook, Introduction to Play Analysis! I’m delighted with this new edition, which really is a complete revisioning of the original. None of the analysis process is changed, but I’ve always felt as if the book would benefit from a demo of the analysis process “in action.” So we included the complete text of Susan Glaspell’s classic short play Trifles, and at the end of each chapter I applied the ideas described to the play. Thanks to some careful but ruthless editing, the new book is less than 20 pages longer than the original, so Waveland Press (a great publisher – thank you Don Rosso) was able to sell this edition with only a slight increase on the previous list price. I’m looking forward to seeing how it is received.
The AI Discussion
“For many good reasons, there are lots of tensions around GenAI and a sometimes-growing antagonism between those who are critical and rejecting AI and those who are engaging with AI (regardless of whether they do so critically or uncritically). I think there should be meaningful conversations amongst these groups (and all the variations among and beyond them). But, at times, the dismissiveness of one by the other leads me to wonder how thoughtful we are being about the discourse as a whole. In particular, there’s some degree of talking past each other that feels like a cornerstone of the very critique we hold of GenAI and the world at large that we’re just reproducing in this space. We’re robotically (if I may) reacting (not responding) to one another’s comments with rejoinders that re-entrench our own perspective without doing the work of learning and thinking that we rally to when we talk about what our students should be doing.”
Lance Eaton, AI + Education = Simplified (Substack) [open.substack.com/pub/aiedu…
For those of you who are still willing to learn about AI, Ethan Mollick does a good breakdown of the 3 major AI platforms and what each is most useful for.
Ted Gioia declares that long form material has made a comeback. I think he’s right!
adam@social.lol “suspended” me, whatever that means. What a coward. Apparently, my posts can be seen here, but not “there” (wherever “there” is). Hilarious.