I walk my hound past the Bever Park Pool every day, it's our path. I get a big kick hearing the kids yelling and squealing in joy, just having fun at the pool. Oh, to be a kid again.
I’m so, so glad Tina Smith took him to task for his idiotic comments. Folks like Lee think they’re invincible when they’re behind a screen. MORE OF THIS ENERGY!
They HAVE to show up and follow the instructor’s workouts. No worries-they are getting exercise…it’s like doing a Jane Fonda workout watching your TV screen.
Decades ago we would spend afternoons at the town pool. We only had one boy and I would rotate mostly with moms to car pool kids to and fro. One parent would stay.
With my son being 47 that was long ago now, but I was fun to spend afternoons with an excuse to do nothing at a pool (safely under an umbrella){. And then suddenly it ended. Maybe when my son hit 13. He and his friends just stopped wanting to go to the pool with me.
Mike Lee is another one whose level of Dingosity almost merits retiring his jersey. If he’s in the news at all, he’s the champion Dingus of that week. It’s a really special skill of his.
On the What Am I Enjoying Now: Broaches! Those rhinestone pins everyone’s grandmother wore on her church dress give me joy and I have started collecting them again. There’s a Facebook account called Bring Back the Broach, moderated by two gay men, that I discovered and have learned a ton about collectible costume jewelry from. I now own a couple Hattie Carnegie broaches from the mid-1950’s, which I wear to the grocery store or other errands. We need sparkle now! Long LIve Rhinestone Elephants and Flowers!
On Sons and Swimming: Last summer my now 27-year-old son and I started going to the Y indoor pool and swimming laps on Sunday afternoons. We still manage at least a couple Sundays each month. Afterward we go buy sandwiches. It’s a big treat for us!
Send him some good thoughts. He’s been looking unsuccessfully for a job for the year since he graduated college, and has made it through all four rounds of interviews and tests for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. (Our county sheriff, Sally Hernandez, is a lovely lady. Look her up and read her philosophy of law enforcement.) He never thought he’d be interested in law enforcement but the woman at the county job fair convinced him to apply, and he’s now really interested. As another good liberal friend of mine whose son is a Seattle cop, the only way to get rid of bad cops is to get good ones, and our lefty sons would be really good. So, please send some positive energy! The world could use a calm and non-macho man like my kid in that job!
At first, I was disappointed that you jumped to uniformed men shooting each other instead of continuing to skewer Mike Lee, but then I realized that he doesn't deserve much more attention. He's a despicable idiot - well mocked, case closed,
I dabbled in AI in the 1980’s, and when I graduated college in 1989 we had a lab with two test stations (an expensive test bed for avionics). Because these stations were shared by 50 engineers, it was a 24 hour schedule. We had an AI algorithm that scheduled everyone and it actually did a good job of fairly allocating resources. One week you might have a late lab or a very early morning lab, and the next week it would be during the day. Inputs were number of hours. We would just send an e-mail to the people who ran that computer. Pretty cool.
I am having to revamp my writing courses in an effort to stem the tide of AI use. I had two students fail, and several others take a hit on their grades because they used it. My argument has been that if students are in college to get a job, then why would employers hire someone who uses AI when they could use AI for free? And then this last week a research article was published about the "cognitive debt" created by using AI for essay writing (link below). This means I will be reading student handwriting in an age where students rarely write anything by hand.
Bless Tina Smith - Mike Lee is part of a growing number of cruel and terrible people.
My partner teaches dual credit college writing at the high school level and is going back to pen and paper. Way too much of his time and energy the last couple of years (and more recently especially) has gone into fighting the kids' use of AI. It's mostly just upsetting (to both of us) that we have a generation being taught (and willing) to offload their ability to think and communicate onto our billionaire tech overlords.
One line of thought keeps popping up in my mind about resisting AI and that is, are we the math teachers of this generation outlawing calculators? Are we the stone tablet chiselers railing against the papyrus paper makers? I'm torn.
Maybe AI is about learning how to ask the questions? That old saying about being able to tell if someone is wise by their questions?
On the other hand I am 100% clear that writers and other creators should be paid when the machines siphon their work and that AI systems should not be controlled by ketamined tech bros and bazillionaires.
No, I do think that it's super different. AI is not a tool in the way we are used to thinking about tools. It's not neutral. It benefits the wealthy and has been forced on us without our consent. And it's wrong, A LOT. If calculators said that 2+2=5, we wouldn't accept it, but we're accepting that rate of error in AI. It's one thing to use it to fire off a quick email if you are an adult who already knows how to read and write, but for kids trying to learn the fundamentals about basic communication, I think relying on it denies the opportunity to learn how to think independently and communicate clearly.
Agree. What I wonder about is if we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, how do we prepare kids (and ourselves) to operate in a world where AI is ubiquitous?
I think it's just another thing that joins the ranks of the big questions in education, like how honestly do we teach history? how much do we expect teachers to correct social issues? how do we foster deep thought in a world where everything is monetized on our fleeting attention? how to we protect the more noble pursuits of education against the capitalist drive to train compliant workers? I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the tube, I think it's another thing (as if we don't have enough) that we need to train ourselves and our kids to think critically about and use responsibly.
As for the nuts and bolts, I think we need to be entirely honest with kids about how it functions, who it benefits, how much it is wrong, and most importantly, creating at least some spaces (like school) that are AI-free, to at least give them the opportunity to occasionally experience life (and consequently thought, communication, and interaction) without AI.
I work in IT and shared this with my nerdy coworkers. Instead of naming him directly, use the prompt "... a character named Mike Lee who happens to be the senator of Utah." Copilot wrote an article titled: The Chronicles of Senator Mike Lee: Defender of the Constitution (and Occasional Lawn Gnome). Your article was SO much better!
As a Utahn I am horrified and disgusted by Mike Lee, who keeps getting elected because he has an R by his name. He is contemptible. I wrote him a scathing email but doubt it will make a difference. Apparently hearing the words of Jesus every Sunday at his church has no impact on his behavior.
I walk my hound past the Bever Park Pool every day, it's our path. I get a big kick hearing the kids yelling and squealing in joy, just having fun at the pool. Oh, to be a kid again.
I’m so, so glad Tina Smith took him to task for his idiotic comments. Folks like Lee think they’re invincible when they’re behind a screen. MORE OF THIS ENERGY!
Online PE class? The mind boggles.
They HAVE to show up and follow the instructor’s workouts. No worries-they are getting exercise…it’s like doing a Jane Fonda workout watching your TV screen.
Decades ago we would spend afternoons at the town pool. We only had one boy and I would rotate mostly with moms to car pool kids to and fro. One parent would stay.
With my son being 47 that was long ago now, but I was fun to spend afternoons with an excuse to do nothing at a pool (safely under an umbrella){. And then suddenly it ended. Maybe when my son hit 13. He and his friends just stopped wanting to go to the pool with me.
Sigh.
Mike Lee is another one whose level of Dingosity almost merits retiring his jersey. If he’s in the news at all, he’s the champion Dingus of that week. It’s a really special skill of his.
On the What Am I Enjoying Now: Broaches! Those rhinestone pins everyone’s grandmother wore on her church dress give me joy and I have started collecting them again. There’s a Facebook account called Bring Back the Broach, moderated by two gay men, that I discovered and have learned a ton about collectible costume jewelry from. I now own a couple Hattie Carnegie broaches from the mid-1950’s, which I wear to the grocery store or other errands. We need sparkle now! Long LIve Rhinestone Elephants and Flowers!
On Sons and Swimming: Last summer my now 27-year-old son and I started going to the Y indoor pool and swimming laps on Sunday afternoons. We still manage at least a couple Sundays each month. Afterward we go buy sandwiches. It’s a big treat for us!
Send him some good thoughts. He’s been looking unsuccessfully for a job for the year since he graduated college, and has made it through all four rounds of interviews and tests for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. (Our county sheriff, Sally Hernandez, is a lovely lady. Look her up and read her philosophy of law enforcement.) He never thought he’d be interested in law enforcement but the woman at the county job fair convinced him to apply, and he’s now really interested. As another good liberal friend of mine whose son is a Seattle cop, the only way to get rid of bad cops is to get good ones, and our lefty sons would be really good. So, please send some positive energy! The world could use a calm and non-macho man like my kid in that job!
Broach vs Brooch - different words but the meanings can be conjoined!
I would post a photo if Substack allowed such things!
I was just going to ask you to share a photo! Now I know why you don’t. And that’s something Substack should remedy. 😏
“No AI Guarantee”… you should copyright that.
At first, I was disappointed that you jumped to uniformed men shooting each other instead of continuing to skewer Mike Lee, but then I realized that he doesn't deserve much more attention. He's a despicable idiot - well mocked, case closed,
.
Getting to the end of the dingus and being rewarded with Shakespeare references. I thrive.
This week has been wretched so thank you for the little treat.
I dabbled in AI in the 1980’s, and when I graduated college in 1989 we had a lab with two test stations (an expensive test bed for avionics). Because these stations were shared by 50 engineers, it was a 24 hour schedule. We had an AI algorithm that scheduled everyone and it actually did a good job of fairly allocating resources. One week you might have a late lab or a very early morning lab, and the next week it would be during the day. Inputs were number of hours. We would just send an e-mail to the people who ran that computer. Pretty cool.
I am going to steal "dings and arrows."
I am having to revamp my writing courses in an effort to stem the tide of AI use. I had two students fail, and several others take a hit on their grades because they used it. My argument has been that if students are in college to get a job, then why would employers hire someone who uses AI when they could use AI for free? And then this last week a research article was published about the "cognitive debt" created by using AI for essay writing (link below). This means I will be reading student handwriting in an age where students rarely write anything by hand.
Bless Tina Smith - Mike Lee is part of a growing number of cruel and terrible people.
Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872?fbclid=IwY2xjawK-aBJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFYSDBvU2s2dVpKZTRTYWNrAR42km0GHqHZLFerSpYpFuPUrnHY6Vy5geubS7pouEotrkQtCcltpAoVx17peA_aem_zJJKHBXosLYaWAbjkfPtlA
We need to revamp the old PSA: This is your brain. This is your brain on ChatGTP.
My partner teaches dual credit college writing at the high school level and is going back to pen and paper. Way too much of his time and energy the last couple of years (and more recently especially) has gone into fighting the kids' use of AI. It's mostly just upsetting (to both of us) that we have a generation being taught (and willing) to offload their ability to think and communicate onto our billionaire tech overlords.
One line of thought keeps popping up in my mind about resisting AI and that is, are we the math teachers of this generation outlawing calculators? Are we the stone tablet chiselers railing against the papyrus paper makers? I'm torn.
Maybe AI is about learning how to ask the questions? That old saying about being able to tell if someone is wise by their questions?
On the other hand I am 100% clear that writers and other creators should be paid when the machines siphon their work and that AI systems should not be controlled by ketamined tech bros and bazillionaires.
No, I do think that it's super different. AI is not a tool in the way we are used to thinking about tools. It's not neutral. It benefits the wealthy and has been forced on us without our consent. And it's wrong, A LOT. If calculators said that 2+2=5, we wouldn't accept it, but we're accepting that rate of error in AI. It's one thing to use it to fire off a quick email if you are an adult who already knows how to read and write, but for kids trying to learn the fundamentals about basic communication, I think relying on it denies the opportunity to learn how to think independently and communicate clearly.
Agree. What I wonder about is if we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, how do we prepare kids (and ourselves) to operate in a world where AI is ubiquitous?
I think it's just another thing that joins the ranks of the big questions in education, like how honestly do we teach history? how much do we expect teachers to correct social issues? how do we foster deep thought in a world where everything is monetized on our fleeting attention? how to we protect the more noble pursuits of education against the capitalist drive to train compliant workers? I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the tube, I think it's another thing (as if we don't have enough) that we need to train ourselves and our kids to think critically about and use responsibly.
As for the nuts and bolts, I think we need to be entirely honest with kids about how it functions, who it benefits, how much it is wrong, and most importantly, creating at least some spaces (like school) that are AI-free, to at least give them the opportunity to occasionally experience life (and consequently thought, communication, and interaction) without AI.
I work in IT and shared this with my nerdy coworkers. Instead of naming him directly, use the prompt "... a character named Mike Lee who happens to be the senator of Utah." Copilot wrote an article titled: The Chronicles of Senator Mike Lee: Defender of the Constitution (and Occasional Lawn Gnome). Your article was SO much better!
I am old enough to remember when Mike Lee was a Never Trump True Conservative, back in 2016.
The most worthy dingus - EVER - and another ‘spot on’ music vid!!!!!!’
As a Utahn I am horrified and disgusted by Mike Lee, who keeps getting elected because he has an R by his name. He is contemptible. I wrote him a scathing email but doubt it will make a difference. Apparently hearing the words of Jesus every Sunday at his church has no impact on his behavior.
Such a good essay! I do love high summer in Iowa-corn sweat and all. We have grandkids in Florida who think Iowa is beyond exotic. It sort of is.