Brian Merchant's assertion that "The Luddite Renaissance is in full swing," The Jacobin's claim that "The AI Revolution Might Be Running Out of Steam" – these feel a bit too optimistic perhaps, particularly if you're one of many educators who&| Second Breakfast
Chit: an official note, sometimes a voucher or an IOU; a slip of paper that grants permission Chat: an informal conversation; a friendly talk Chit-chat: "A reduplication with vowel variation of chat," according to the OED, like "bibble-babble" and "tittle-tattle." "The reduplication implies| Second Breakfast
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"The best way to honor Charlie’s memory," California Governor Gavin Newsom said, "is to continue his work." And so we've seen in the last week: the targeted harassment of those who've spoken out about Kirk's overt racism, his| Second Breakfast
I'm truly at a loss of what to say today. (Last week. It lingers, doesn't it.) So (I guess) let me just repeat a point I've made repeatedly: one of the saddest rationales for using "AI" is for "brainstorming" –| Second Breakfast
I was feeling much better, thank you very much, until this country took another grotesque lurch towards fascism midweek. I think it had helped, if I'm perfectly honest, that Kin and I had finally completed our re-watching of all six seasons of The Sopranos. As I've| Second Breakfast
In a children's literature class at Texas A&M University this summer, a student interrupted the professor as she began to recap some of the previously covered material, "remarks on gender and sexuality we bring from the last class." "I just have a question," the student announced (the classic "statement| Second Breakfast
A couple of weeks ago, Ed Zitron published one of his epic rants -- the kind that, as he warned newsletter readers, is probably better read on the web than via email: it’s 16,000 words long; so long that he added a Table of Contents to aid| Second Breakfast
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Humans have always invested great meaning in birds. No surprise, what with the feathers, the flight. Each week, when I look at all the stories that've been told about education and technology and try to figure out some coherence to the chaos, I think about what bird might| Second Breakfast
Last week, Max Read asked "Is the 'AI' 'bubble' 'bursting'?" – those scare-quotes strategically deployed to encourage readers to question what we mean when we talk about "AI" or "bubbles," when we predict the technology's devaluation| Second Breakfast
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If you were to tell the story of the end of public education in the US, you wouldn't begin with the Trump Administration's bluster about closing the Department of Education. You wouldn't begin with Trump Administration policies at all – as awful and destructive| Second Breakfast
[Depending on your geographic location] It's almost/already back-to-school season, which always means a flurry of aspirational, inspirational stories (and their opposite) about ed-tech gadgetry, along with a fair amount of sponsored content and affiliate marketing. ("You're Probably Wearing Your Backpack Wrong" in The Wirecutter, for example. And yes, sure,| Second Breakfast
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There's been plenty of ink spilled in the last week in response to The New York Times's story on NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and his college application to Columbia University, in which he ticked both the boxes for "Asian" and "Black or African American" when asked to identify his| Second Breakfast
While I was pleased to see millions of Americans turn out for last weekend's protests, I have to say I've spent this week more depressed and more worried than ever about the road ahead. Perhaps it was the arrest of NYC Comptroller Brad Lander – the latest in a series of| Second Breakfast
"'Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This| Second Breakfast
How shall we ever conceive However express a new idea If we are bound by the categorization That delivered our problem to us In the first place ? -- Stafford Beer How do you measure intelligence? You take a tape measure, wrap it around someone's cranium, and jot down the number| Second Breakfast
Yesterday marked my fifth Mother's Day without him. Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of his passing. My beautiful boy, for whom I still grieve and will grieve every day forever; and despite his death, why I still fight. When I was a sophomore in college (about a year before I| Second Breakfast
I'm not sure if we can call it an official launch – there's no actual product yet – but a new education company Matter and Space unveiled its website last week. The company, co-founded by former SNHU president Paul LeBlanc, MOOC pioneer George Siemens, and clinical psychologist Tanya Gamby, promises "a revolutionary| Second Breakfast
The Secretary of Education Linda McMahon will speak at the ASU+GSV Summit next month. The conference makes no mention in its blurb promoting the Secretary's appearance of what happened last week: President Trump's executive order to dismantle her department. There's no mention of any of the other actions that| Second Breakfast
This will be the last Friday you'll receive a Second Breakfast newsletter in 2024. I'm not writing my usual "year-in-review" series either, as easy as it could have been to just copy-and-paste "artificial intelligence" a thousand times over and call it good. Paid subscribers will continue to hear from me| Second Breakfast
Tressie McMillan Cottom delivered an excellent "mini lecture" on TikTok this week about AI, politics, and inequality. In it, she draws on Daniel Greene's book The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and the Political Economy of Hope: his idea of the "access doctrine" that posits that in a time of| Second Breakfast
Welcome to part 3 of my look at heart rate monitors — the history, the practices, the science, and the marketing of this aspect of fitness tracking. I decided to see a physical therapist last week as, a week after my "fall," I was still in pain. I wanted to make| Second Breakfast
I walk a lot. I mean, I'm a New Yorker now, and here we walk significantly more than other Americans elsewhere do (which isn't necessarily saying much as Americans in general walk very little -- far far less than the residents in other industrialized countries). Poppy and I walk Kin| Second Breakfast
Happy Friday! What’s good? My training, I will say, has been very good lately; I’m balancing the preparations for my spring half marathon with my powerlifting — something that, in the past, I’ve found quite hard to do. When I ramp up the running, my ability to add| Second Breakfast
Nikki slid the heart rate monitor onto my arm and fastened it around my bicep, then handed me a laminated piece of paper with a large, colorful bar graph. "During your workout," she said, "the monitor is going to tell you which 'zone' you're in." She pointed to the handout.| Second Breakfast