Notes

essays, field dispatches, quick takes — all of it, in one stream

all ai code fleeting listening riding scraps thought trail
scraps Sep 4, 2025 note
Stable relationships allow emotions to surface without judgment

From Sasha Chapin’s What I’m looking for in my marriage: Goal of relationship is to create a space for both people to have full range of emotions and be cared for, not to manage each other into having nice feelings all the time In unstable relationships, you are “convince[d] th…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
AI use in education will increase bad behaviors

The past two courses at HES have allowed, even encouraged, use of AI, or rather LLMs. I did use the LLMs yet still spent considerable time learning the traditional method. However, I could feel the pull of just copying/pasting from the chatbot window, and even started to default …

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
Be real online

As Dan Sinker explains, AI is a “mediocrity machine,” which is the culmination of reducing attention spans to short tweets, IG stories, and fast TikTok videos. Combating this means being more discerning about the content you consume and creating things that are generated by one’s…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
College English majors can't read critically

Carson et al published a study that tested college English majors and their inability to distinguish between figurative and literal language, and the inability to process prose even with access to their mobile phone (emphasis mine). Without the ability to parse dense subject matt…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
Concentrated effort is required to foster critical thinking

Thinking hard and deep about concepts and ideas requires focus and concentration. This means actively combating the systems and mechanisms that seek out our attention. In the modern age, there are too many distracting things to do this easily. Adverts move and shake, audio is par…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
Learning how to learn requires experimentation, reflection, and then adjusting based on internal feedback

Anne-Laure Cunff states that we need to “experiment, reflect, adjust” in order to learn how we learn. This feels true to what I’ve started exploring in the past month or so. Coming to understand that I take a more slow approach than I have ever in my life. Also, shifting my persp…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 note
Meditation creates the capacity to open our lives

A very real consequence to meditating so regularly, albeit for short durations at a time, is that life becomes bigger and more whole because it has become easier to experience the full range of emotions, without losing myself in them or giving into the siren song of emotional vol…

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scraps Aug 23, 2025 quick take

Hackers, the 1995 film, treats high school students like adults, as opposed to the infantilization of teenagers now. Joey is chain-smoking throughout the movie, and the kids are largely left to their own devices in New York City. Is there similar freedom now?

I largely grew up in the nineties, turning twelve as the decade turned over, and a full-fledged adult as the new millennium blinked into existence. I lived a whole life during that time. How lovely to be a child during that time.

scraps Aug 23, 2025 quick take

The Enshittocene, coined by Cory Doctorow, is the “perfect breeding ground for the worst practices in our society.”

From Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet