Alexi Brooks

I forgot it’s that time of year again. I think you’re being entirely too kind. AI assistance does not belong in the leaderboard at all IMO.

In honor of TDoR, the full text of First Protocols of Queer Goetia, anonymously published by Contagion Press in 2019, and a text very dear to my heart.

May our grief and our love be twin edges of a keen blade, now and always.

The text begins below:

A screenshot from Celeste. Madeline stands by a memorial dedicated to those who perished on the climb up Celeste Mountain.

happy transgender day of remembrance

thank you for sticking around in the hardest of times. if you haven't, you are missed dearly

please live 💜

I think people forget that the only reason opportunities exist to "talk nicely" to people with power over you (your boss, your government, etc.) is because lots of people with the same amount or less power than you literally rioted to win you that privilege.

We're going on strike! And if you want to support, we're raising money for our hardship fund. Chip in if you can!

The authoritarian checklist It is time to admit that America is no longer a functioning democracy

If you can't access it, here is the longer original piece: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...

Volunteer run audiobooks for books in the public domain. Very cool stuff!

Have you thought about volunteering with LibriVox? (In our copious free time, I know.)

Apparently I completely fail-cropped that. Sorry folks! XD

Vox headline that reads: "Is MAHA losing its battle to make Americans healthier?"

Anyone got a recommendation for a good source of long-form (written!!!) explainers? I enjoy learning new things, staying up to date on current events, reading insightful analysis. I used to use Vox to get a variety of useful opinions, but it's gone completely to shit. The last straw:

Put in my vote for the Hugo awards. If you still need to do it, you've got a couple days left but you might want to get on that!

I feel pretty good about the categories I found time to read most of (novel & short story). I remember last time I participated I ranked No Award a lot. Not this time.

Quick q about this: If I turn away from my computer to draw a flow chart on a white board, what category is that recorded under?

If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people:

1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money
3) We won’t need a lot of troops
4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq
5) We’ll find WMDs
6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators
7) It will be easy
8) It won’t take long

All lies.

I got called away after that. This is harder than I remembered but I guess that’s why we practice

We got a podcast recommendation: Hard Fork (Kevin Rus?)

8 years later, human automation is the title of a sociology conference

Next speaker: computer scientists said it wasn’t their responsibility to think about ethics. Sociologists said this is not sociology. We’re the people people

I got here a little late. One speaker was talking about whether intelligence is about acting vs thinking, humanlike vs rational

Observations from some public science on AI in thread. (Let’s shake off the live skeet rust!)

Hey NPR, if 1 in 100 people in the US participate in an event… isn’t the takeaway that is a newsworthy amount of people? Immediately? What recent events besides the protests meet this threshold?

I’m not a fan of rhyming with uncle. I use “cousin” right now. I don’t hate pibling but I’m going to stick with cousin.

This is a great list of demands for any campus right now. Best of luck to Tufts grad workers and I hope grad workers everywhere follow your lead!

Whew that’s a mood for sure

Student? Staff? Tufts community supporter? You are invited to FTL community office hours. Thursday March 27, 10 am–12 pm, north side of Ballou Hall. Come learn about our contract fight and how you can stand with us in demanding a better Tufts!

Medford, Somerville, and Tufts campus communities: Tufts full-time lecturers need your support! Come learn about their contract fight and call the provost and dean with us on Thursday between 10 am and noon. Exploitation of workers affects all of us. We are stronger when we resist together.

Off the top of my head:
The Authoritarians (Bob Altemeyer)
Fifth Season (NK Jemisin)
The Lady or the Tiger (Raymond Smullyan)

"University leaders are unpracticed in reacting quickly & collectively to attacks on their institutions."

If only unis had organized groups of all kinds of workers on campus, with hard-learned tactical skills & a hunger to resist, whom leaders could view as allies rather than annoyances.

Oh wait.

I’m less interested in persuasion and more interested in defenses that will convince people “on side” to stand up and fight, but I wonder how effective we’re being at that too.

don't want the US government to disappear you? act in solidarity with Latinx people who are in fact being disappeared today off the streets without warrants, because they're walking around looking brown and wearing tattoos without carrying their papers.

And yet it is a fundamental text, and if people in the book club haven’t read it there’s no better time than now!

Classes day 1 complete! I survived 5 hours of class time in the same day. No idea how k12 teachers do this every day