@stevendbrewer@wandering.shop

LAX Hotel Hilton #FensterFreitag #WindowsFriday #Photography

I have submitted grades for the semester and run the last faculty senate meeting of the year. I have two meetings tomorrow and a meeting on Monday, and then I am DONE for the rest of the year.

An infuriating fluff piece about Anthropic using an LLM to run a vending machine at the WSJ (via @jacobsberg.bsky.social). The journalist uncritically accepted statements from the Anthropic flack like, "They maybe don't have the most sophisticated understanding…" No, no, no! LLMs don't "understand" anything. Pretending as though they do should be recognized as a category error with these systems. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anthropic-claude-ai-vending-machine-agent-b7e84e34?st=V2XjZM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

From *The Better Angels and The Complicated Camping Catastrophe* in *Better Angels: Tour de Force*, only at the Truck Stop at the Center of the Galaxy! (And anywhere else fine books are sold…) https://truckstop.waterdragonpublishing.com/product/better-angels-tour-de-force/

Baggler ご! Baggler six!
Let's all play some Baggler tricks!
Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss!
Baggler しち! Baggler eight!
Let's jump through the Baggler gate!
Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss!
Baggler きゅう! Baggler ten!
Let's do the Baggler Call again! (2/2) #wss366

Baggler いち, Baggler all!
Let's all do the Baggler Call!
Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss!
Baggler に, Baggler two!
Let's get stuck in Baggler glue!
Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss!
Baggler し! Baggler five!
Let's get stung in a Baggler #hive!
Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! Pss! (1/2) #wss366

Some students have discovered that it's "safer" to post the original and the revised paragraph at the same time. That way, if they forget, they've already "locked in" completing the final step so they don't lose credit.
Using "points" to motivate student learning always results in people finding ways to game the system: to get the points without actually meaningfully engaging in the activity. Oh, well. The students who actually do it always comment on how helpful it was. I can live with that.

One of the most successful activities I ever developed for my student writing class has students post a "perfect paragraph" by Thursday every week, comment on three other student paragraphs to "suggest improvements," then take the feedback received and post a revised paragraph by midnight on Sunday. Many students have commented on how helpful the activity is at every level: learning to identify problems with writing, seeing the effect of waiting a few days to make revisions, etc. However…

Rory arrived at school carrying Tseluna in kitten form. He approached his gaming friends, Gabe, Larry, and Fred, who were in another class. 
"Well met, Milords," he said, following the Protocol.
"Well met, Lord RazorFell," they said in turn, using the name of his character in the game they played on Wednesday evenings. He inclined his head and continued on through the crowded hallways. #wss366 from A Familiar Problem https://waterdragonpublishing.com/product/familiar-problem/

Mi ĵus eksekvis @eliecaser nova komencanto de #Esperanto. Bonvenigu tiun!

In the video description, though, it says, "Hi!! My dear Bokddungs!!!!" I was curious what a "bokddung" was so I tried Google Translate. It didn't recognize it. So I tried using DDG. It suggested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_lung So I tried Google and I found that Lee Su-Hyun always says that. But I still don't know what it means.

I recently discovered several series of recordings of Korean artists that appear to have been made during the pandemic that are outdoors and done with acoustic instruments (Sea of Hope, Begin Again Korea, and others). I also discovered Lee Su-Hyun, a charming vocalist with a beautiful voice. I found she did a couple of little videos of *Santa Tell Me* that are cute and fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ukfe1qr64c

I think maybe I like Nayeon's a tiny bit better. But these are fabulous and heartwarming. #Kpop