Author: Steph

The Topic of Death

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:42 — 18.0MB)

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“So he wants to die deliberately and he’s considering who to ask. These, I presume, are people or gods with whom he is close. The choices strike me as having an inherent performative quality. If he’s a

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National Insecurity

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“…what does classified information do? I think the metaphor that we’re intended to bring to it is war, spying, national secrets, and the vulnerabilities of huge things like infrastructure. I imagine that the individual instances of it are

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Bext Holidays Ever

A typo. Decided it could function as an (sortof, not quite) anagram.

Hang on. I’m gonna ask ChatGPT.

screenshot of the Q&A with the answer being "portmanteau" is the process for blending a new word from two separate words
Q&A with ChatGPT, at chat.openai.com

Bext is a portmanteau of next and best. (Not an anagram.) This is the bext christmas that I can remember. It’s perfect for my present circumstances, and is meaningful like some of my other favorite christmasses.

Q&A with ChatGPT, the plural of "christmas" includes a double "s"
Q&A
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Misunderstanding and Meaningful Communication

Misunderstanding is a large category with many tails; what intrigues me are skills for resolution—the transition from a 'missed' understanding of each other to a shared understanding happens almost instantly through routine communication skills, and over time through persistent use of collaborative communication skills.
Misunderstanding is a large category with many tails; what intrigues me are skills for resolution—the transition from a 'missed' understanding of each other to a shared understanding happens almost instantly through routine communication skills, and over time through persistent use of collaborative communication skills.

Transcript links for the Parable of the Sower podcast by Adrienne Maree Brown & Toshi Reagon

I started collecting the transcript links for the first season of the O’Parables podcast in one place for those who need or want to read them.

If you’re unfamiliar with Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993), it’s a fictional account of surviving societal breakdown which has uncanny relevance to today. The story spans a journey of three … Read more...

The Next Three Months

We’re in the lead-up to a tumultuous time.

I have been listening to the O’Parables podcast. Octavia E. Butler’s trilogy is prescient. She wrote it in the early’90s, set in the 2020s. She is literally describing conditions so many are already experiencing and most of the rest of us (the non-billionaire class) are heading into. The podcast features Adrienne … Read more...

Introducing “Communication Dynamics”

Like all good students, they have questions about the introductory slide show. How detailed will the quiz be, do they need to learn every detail, how much they should try to memorize, etc. “It’s all over the place!” one of them exclaimed.

Another liked the game-type set up, the mystery of searching for the links and the fun of clicking … Read more...

I’m always talking to someone, even though I’m alone

Recently I realized (not for the first time) that my emotional state can be more easily agitated when there is no interlocutor.
Recently I realized (not for the first time) that my emotional state can be more easily agitated when there is no interlocutor.