Jekyll2024-03-09T21:29:03-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/feed.xmlRyan P. Randall"Ryan P. Randall's website"Ryan P. RandallWeekly Assemblage for 2024 Week 052024-02-04T00:00:00-07:002024-02-04T00:00:00-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/wa-2024-week-05<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="mention-of-the-week">Mention of the Week</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-minervini-b82a0038/">Amy Minervini</a>, an English professor at Lewis and Clark State College, recently published an open textbook called <a href="https://lcsc.pressbooks.pub/musicinyourwords/"><em>Music in Your Own Words</em></a>. It’s a “music-inspired composition guide” for first-year English writing courses, and it looks fantastic.</p>
<p>She wrote this work along with her students, and was kind enough to mention my <a href="https://isu.pressbooks.pub/booky/"><em>Booky McBookface</em> training guide for Pressbooks</a> in their <a href="https://lcsc.pressbooks.pub/musicinyourwords/front-matter/intro/">book’s introduction</a>.</p>
<h2 id="viewing-and-listening">Viewing and Listening</h2>
<h3 id="star-trek-enterprise"><em>Star Trek: Enterprise</em></h3>
<p>As part of our viewing alpha, we’re getting close to the end of <em>Star Trek: Enterprise</em>’s first season. Unlike many of the other series, <em>Enterprise</em> gets into stride right off the starting line.</p>
<p>Watching it provides a fun, minimal version of the Brechtian <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095758798">estrangement effect</a> where we continually realize “oh, we’re watching this story establish its fictional pre-history, before this device or that purportedly emerged.” For instance, only does the story take place before the Federation of the original series exists, but in the middle of about the 17th episode we realized “wait, they don’t have communication badges yet!”</p>
<p>In other words, it’s enjoyable both for what you see <strong>and</strong> for what you realize you’re <strong>not seeing</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="plant43-eps">Plant43 eps</h3>
<p>I picked up a few of Plant43’s releases recently. If you enjoy the overlaps between B12-style UK techno and electro, you might also find these moving your feet and making your head nod.</p>
<p>His trio of eps on Semantica Records are where I first heard him: <a href="https://semanticarecords.bandcamp.com/album/dreams-of-the-sentient-city-semantica-41-2">Dreams of the Sentient City</a>, <a href="https://semanticarecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-sentient-city-awakens-semantica-54-2">The Sentient City Awakens</a>, and <a href="https://semanticarecords.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-sentient-city-semantica-69-2">Return to the Sentient City</a>.</p>
<h2 id="lightly-annotated-linkapalooza">Lightly-Annotated Linkapalooza</h2>
<ul>
<li>Mita Williams pays close attention to language in her excellently-titled <a href="https://librarian.aedileworks.com/2024/01/18/i-will-dropkick-you-if-you-refer-to-an-llm-as-a-librarian/">I will dropkick you if you refer to an LLM as a Librarian</a>. She provides a great round-up and contextualization of how people position “artificial intelligence” through the words they choose. As just one example, she compellingly suggests using the word <em>associated</em> instead of <em>learned</em>, and helpfully links to Alison Gopnik while sharing the idea that “large language models” (LLMs) are better understood as cultural artifacts than agents. Her post is worth reading, re-reading, and then following up on the cornucopia of links to the people she’s thinking with! (That last bit is what I’ll be doing throughout this week.)</li>
<li>As part of their <a href="https://dsriseah.com/ghdr/">Groundhog’s Day Resolutions</a> this year, Sri Seah is refining their plan in public across a series of posts. I really appreciate this sort of working where others can learn alongside you!</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="twirl">TWI(R)L</h2>
<p>This week I (re)learned… </p>
<ul>
<li>The Tasks plug-in for Obsidian recognizes a difference between “due before in one week” and “due before next week.” The first will keep a rolling 7-day window into the future. The second will only pull from this “week” on the calendar, with the “week” boundary apparently being <a href="https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Queries/Filters#Relative+date+ranges">Sunday/Monday</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="site-refinements-of-the-week">Site Refinements of the Week</h2>
<p>I re-named my Links Rhizome page to be an <a href="/elsewhere/">Elsewhere page</a>, as that seems to be the emerging convention… but I also decided to keep the first one to explain why I find a <a href="/links-rhizome/">“links rhizome”</a> such a compelling image.</p>
<p>Not yet a refinement, but I also realized that the “view page history” and “view page source” links (under the “Page Source” heading) work just fine on posts in my blog and notes in my digital garden, but don’t behave the same for stand-alone pages like the ones in that last paragraph. I’ll have to investigate further to figure out if I’m linking to slightly the wrong thing, if that’s just one of Jekyll’s weird inconsistencies, and/or if I need to refine the code with some kinda “if/else” statement in Liquid.</p>Ryan P. RandallAmy Minervini published a new OER English composition book. Mita Williams might dropkick you. Plant43 might make you move to the Sentient City.Patterning, a Groundhog’s Day Theme2024-02-02T19:45:47-07:002024-02-02T19:45:47-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/ghdp<h2 id="groundhogs-day">Groundhog’s Day</h2>
<p>I’ve long appreciated Sri Seah’s posts on <a href="https://dsriseah.com/ghdr/term/ghdr/">Groundhog Day Resolutions</a>—and I felt a little lightbulb sympathetically illuminate in my mind when Rua Williams discussed their idea of a “Fractal Scaffold” during the <a href="https://fractalecho.substack.com/p/a-neurodivergent-writing-guide">Neurodivergent Writing Guide</a> session. Patterns—especially ones that can traverse and reinforce layers of activity—speak to me at the moment.</p>
<p>For those who are new to Sri’s “Groundhog Day” idea, it’s a system for checking in with yourself that is prompted by double dates on the calendar. 02-02, 03-03, 08-08, 09-09, you’ve got the idea. Their “Official Dates” suggest that you adjust your goals as necessary in some of these monthly reviews.</p>
<h2 id="resolutions-themes-patterning">Resolutions, Themes, Patterning</h2>
<p>I’m making it an intention (but not quite a <strong>resolution</strong>, since in my experience those lead all too easily toward shame) to be more attentive to patterns (positive, negative, and otherwise) in my life and to try and refine them for the better this year. Here “refine” probably includes “adopt, adapt, and/or shed”, as well as “improve.”</p>
<p>You might also consider this a <a href="https://www.themesystem.com/">yearly theme</a>, if you’re of that Myke Hurley-and-CGP Grey-influenced persuasion.</p>
<h2 id="patterning-towards-what">Patterning? Towards What?</h2>
<p>So. Huh. “Patterning,” eh?</p>
<p>Can I maybe rephrase that in terms of more concrete “outcomes” or “goals”?</p>
<p>The main outcomes I feel I’m looking for are:</p>
<ul>
<li>creating mechanisms for feedback on my ideas;</li>
<li>perceiving progress on my own projects; and</li>
<li>developing “muscle memory” and intuition for what I can or should be doing next.</li>
</ul>
<p>One major thing I’ll want to figure out is precisely what sorts of feedback I’d like to receive, on what scale. I’ve added comments to my blog in the last few months, and while that type of feedback would be nice, it’s not precisely what I mean.</p>
<p>I have in mind something closer to a dissertation writing group. One of the most difficult parts of being an interdisciplinary thinker in a slowly-paced, mostly long-distance grad program is finding and cultivating peers for writing and thinking alongside.</p>
<p>Some thinkers I’m inspired by here are Kathleen Fitzgerald, Jonny L. Saunders, Mandy Brown, and Sam Popowich. They’ve each shared “works in process” publicly, in ways I’ve appreciated as a reader.</p>
<h2 id="processes">Processes</h2>
<p>What parts of these patterns and whatnot might be useful for other people to read, either here on my blog or in the coziness of their own RSS reader? I’ll aim to post regularly about whatever bits of patterning, processes, and mental “muscle memory” are working for me. I always appreciate other people’s insights into their own processes, even when they describe things that don’t appeal to me in the slightly.</p>
<p>As for receiving feedback, I might end up experimenting with the <a href="https://support.hcommons.org/guides/groups/using-files-and-docs/">Docs feature of HCommons.org</a> for this, or seeing if <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/">H-Net</a> has relevant aspects. Or I might be like Johny L. Saunders and <a href="https://jon-e.net/infrastructure/">self-host well-developed drafts</a>. Or perhaps I’ll develop ideas across smaller blog posts, like <a href="https://aworkinglibrary.com/">Mandy Brown</a> and <a href="https://www.spopowich.ca/blog">Sam Popowich</a>.</p>
<p>My hunch is that the time I spent making my <a href="/notes">digital garden</a> was partially a type of slouching toward this thinking in public, but without having yet identified my desire for feedback. Blogging seems the simplest route for feedback—and the one with small enough chunks to appeal to potential readers—so I think that’s where I’ll start.</p>
<h2 id="coda">Coda</h2>
<p>Of course, if you’re interested in something like a dissertation group, some kind of infrequent salon for sharing ideas, or the like, please do reach out!</p>
<p>While I admire people catalysts for community, like Sri and their <a href="https://davidseah.com/virtual-coworking/">DS Cafe Coworking Discord</a>, I don’t feel like I’m up to that sort of shepherding while also trying to do my exams and dissertation (above and beyond my regular work). I’m massively appreciative of them for hosting and maintaining this Discord server, just as I appreciate Kfitz and all the other people who run HCommons.</p>
<p>I imagine there might be fellow travelers out there trying to navigate how to share thoughts larger than a social media post. If you’re in a similar situation, consider this at least a head nod of acknowledgement. And f you feel inclined to reach out, whether to share what patterns have worked for you or to say you might want to share some thoughts, there’s no need to stay a stranger!</p>Ryan P. RandallAspirations for this year, perhaps in fractal patterns.Acid Jeep’s Clock Rhythm2024-01-30T10:30:38-07:002024-01-30T10:30:38-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/photonic-jukebox/acid-jeep-clock-rhythm<p><a href="https://texasrecordingsunderground.bandcamp.com/album/clock-rhythm"><em>Clock Rhythm</em></a> by Acid Jeep distills a distinct flavor of “let’s rock some tough electro, but make the synths squigglier” bounce.</p>
<p>Warmly overdriven but not harshly distorted. Intense but not claustrophobic. Driving but not frenetic. <em>Clock Rhythm</em> keeps the balance right—and surprisingly fresh—at the intersection of genres that can veer rapidly into excessive or derivative sounds in the hands of other musicians.</p>
<p>I’m impressed by how much variety this album contains, while still remaining distinctly in the “electro” and “acid” realms of the adjacent techno possibilities.</p>
<p>Acid Jeep often avoids “pad” sounds, background layers of synth notes, and clear chord progressions. The resulting sleekness and syncopation feels a lot closer to a rhythm box equivalent of a ESG-style dance-punk band with bass, drums, and a single lead instrument than the lushness other home listening techno brings.</p>
<p>Sequencing “<a href="https://texasrecordingsunderground.bandcamp.com/track/noise-source">Noise Source</a>” and “<a href="https://texasrecordingsunderground.bandcamp.com/track/tape-overwrite">Tape Overwrite</a>” back-to-back deftly juxtaposes tension and spacious bounce.</p>
<p>This album also makes room for compelling detours into relatively chilled-out-but-not-quite Boards of Canada or Black Moth Super Rainbow pastoral places and other more dubby techno spaces. “<a href="https://texasrecordingsunderground.bandcamp.com/track/syncussion">Syncussion</a>” in particular uses restraint and sound design to arrive somewhere very different than it starts, and the closing “Growth and Decay” manages to feel like a coherent part of the album despite not having any recognizable drum sounds.</p>
<p><abbr>RIYL</abbr> (recommended if you like): AFX’s “Analogue Bubblebath”; Aphex Twin’s “Classics”; Drexciya’s “The Journey Home”; Autodidact’s “Time Flex”; imagining if ESG hung out with Daft Punk to play <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeout_(video_game_series)">Wipeout</a> and got inspired by Meco’s extended drumline interplay on “Other Galactic Funk”.</p>Ryan P. RandallTough electro with bouncy rhythms and squiggly synths.Weekly Assemblage for 2024 Week 042024-01-28T13:48:53-07:002024-01-28T13:48:53-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/wa-2024-week-04<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="poem-of-the-week">Poem of the Week</h2>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>Sorry, Carl Sandburg.
This fog clearly strode in on bison's hooves.
It's not looking aloof over river, city, roofs.
These are all the fog's now,
until it gets bored.
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>It was profoundly foggy on Tuesday morning, and this <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45032/fog-56d2245d7b36c">echo</a> sprung into my mind as the sun bravely tried to weave its way through the soup.</p>
<h2 id="reading-highlights">Reading Highlights</h2>
<p>The main book I’m thinking with at the moment is Maurice Lee’s <a class="internal-link" href="/notes/Reading/Books/lee-overwhelmed"><em>Overwhelmed</em></a>. Its first chapter, in which he outlines some of the ways that “informational” reading and “literary” reading were culturally constructed, has somehow helped me start putting into words some of the tensions I’ve long felt exist within “information”/”knowledge” work. (It’s a line of thought not clearly related to his chapter, so for now, I’m letting those thoughts simmer in a different text file.)</p>
<p>I’m finding his writing—meaning his prose as well as his arrangement of thoughts—very generative. I’d definitely recommend the book, if libraries or literature interest you.</p>
<h2 id="lightly-annotated-linkapalooza">Lightly-Annotated Linkapalooza</h2>
<ul>
<li>In <a href="https://www.cassey.dev/fun-web-resources/">Resources for the Fun Web</a> Cassey Lottman offers a breezy round-up of ways we might make this year another Year of the Blog (…or Digital Garden… or Indie Web… or Indie Newsletter… or…).</li>
<li><a href="https://ia.net/topics/ai-art-is-the-new-stock-image">AI is the New Stock Image</a> (in the iA Newsletter, via <a href="https://front-end.social/@stephaniewalter">Stef Walter on Mastodon</a>) nicely juxtaposes AI-generated graphics against (mostly) human-created ones in order to assert its points.</li>
<li>Dave Rupert sings the praises of <a href="https://daverupert.com/2024/01/focus-visible-love/">big, beautiful, beefy focus states with <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">:focus-visible</code></a>. I primarily just use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">:focus</code> on my own site—I appreciate both the styles and the irony of someone with ADHD having so much <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">:focus</code>—but it’s great to see someone sharing tips on how to approach this for people (especially clients) who consider these indicators distracting rather than enhancing.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="twirl">TWI(R)L</h2>
<p>This week I (re)learned…</p>
<ul>
<li>The term <a href="https://stimpunks.org/glossary/dolphining/">dolphining</a>, which is a great metaphor for that “deep dive” thing many of us ADHD folks do where we sort of mentally withdraw, only resurface into conversation with a comment that makes perfect sense to us but seems inscrutable for people who weren’t able to perceive our hidden trajectory.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://afinestart.me/">A Fine Start</a> extension exists, which lets you create a browser homepage with custom links. I’ve been trying the free version this week and have been enjoying the slight extra bit of mindfulness so far.</li>
<li>The JSON file format is apparently <a href="https://smarimccarthy.is/posts/2024-01-23-json-bad/">both slow and dangerous</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="site-refinements-of-the-week">Site Refinements of the Week</h2>
<p>A process refinement!</p>
<p>Although I usually work on anything related to this site in VS Code, this week I started writing blog drafts in Obsidian. Separating a “thinking and drafting” space from a “coding and perpetually refining” space has been helping me focus on what I’m actually aiming to do.</p>Ryan P. RandallA quick poem, resources for the fun web, dolphining, A Fine Start, and a process improvement.Weekly Assemblage for 2024 Week 032024-01-21T00:00:00-07:002024-01-21T00:00:00-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/wa-2024-week-03<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="sound-of-the-week">Sound of the Week</h2>
<p>Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip… That’s thankfully not the sound of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NERzLlHo-D0">the tap or our kitchen sink</a>, but instead the snow melting everywhere in Boise this weekend. I measured at least 8 inches / 20.3 centimeters on the ground, and that was after an overnight rain that probably helped compact some of it. This is a <strong>lot</strong> of snow for Boise… the second most on the ground I can remember in all our years here!</p>
<h2 id="viewing-and-reading">Viewing and Reading</h2>
<p>This week we watched the end of <em>Star Trek: Voyager</em> and, a few days later, started into <em>Star Trek: Enterprise.</em> We’re also mixing in <em>Derry Girls</em> and <em>Star Trek: Prodigy</em>, re-watching the episodes we’ve already seen to get back up to the portions that are new to us.</p>
<p>Now that our “Viewing Alpha”<sup id="fnref:fnma" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:fnma" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> has gone beyond what initially aired before Constance Penley wrote <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL2649214W/NASA_Trek?edition=key%3A/books/OL665281M"><em>NASA/Trek</em></a> (<a href="https://www.versobooks.com/products/1578-nasa-trek">publisher site</a>), I think I might finally read my copy, too.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I’ve really been enjoying Maurice Lee’s <em><a class="internal-link" href="/notes/Reading/Books/lee-overwhelmed">Overwhelmed</a></em>.</p>
<h2 id="lightly-annotated-linkapalooza">Lightly-Annotated Linkapalooza</h2>
<ul>
<li>In <a href="https://brianlovin.com/writing/incrementally-correct-personal-websites">Incrementally correct personal websites</a>, Brian Lovin discusses both the idea of “iterating toward something more truthful, accurate, usable, or interesting” and how he applies that to his own site.</li>
<li>In <a href="https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/let-a-website-be-a-worry-stone/">Let a website be a worry stone.</a>, Ethan Marcotte writes about his site in a way that sounds quite familiar to me.</li>
<li><a href="http://colorsafe.co/">Color Safe</a> (<a href="https://github.com/donnieberg/accessible-color-palette">GitHub</a>) lets you quickly choose lovely <strong>and</strong> accessible color palettes based on the WCAG Guidelines for color contrast ratios.</li>
<li>On his <a href="https://www.howtocanvas.com/">How to Canvas site</a> Dr. Sean Nufer provides many tutorials and workable code templates for the Canvas learning management system.</li>
<li>In <a href="https://exploringaipedagogy.hcommons.org/">Exploring AI Pedagogy</a>, maintained by the <a href="https://exploringaipedagogy.hcommons.org/about/">MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI</a>, instructors share their teaching reflections related to generative “AI.”</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="twirl">TWI(R)L</h2>
<p>This week I (re)learned about…</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect">The ELIZA effect</a>, which seems mighty relevant to how people attribute cognition, emotion, or interiority to so-called “artificial intelligence” software.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/">The ARIA Authoring Practices Guide</a>, which explains both patterns and practices to make more accessible web experiences.</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Etymology">“influenza” etymology</a>, including “influenza di stelle” or “influence of the stars.”</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="site-refinements-of-the-week">Site Refinements of the Week</h2>
<ul>
<li>I modified the <a href="https://github.com/ryan-p-randall/ryan-p-randall.github.io/blob/develop/_plugins/bidirectional_links_generator.rb">backlinks plugin</a> so that double-bracket (wikilink-style) links will work for blog posts, not just notes.</li>
<li>I added the “Bonus Info” section to all the blog posts, which is where these backlinks will show up. You can also link to any page revisions or take a gander at the page source, too.</li>
<li>I added <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">aria-label="Breadcrumbs</code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">aria-current="page"</code> to my breadcrumbs include, as suggested by the <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/breadcrumb/examples/breadcrumb/">ARIA Authoring Practices Guide</a>.</li>
<li>I’m also refining the structure of these “weekly assemblage” notes to be a little more skimmable, and less likely to lead me toward bundling up a bunch of things that might better be published as smaller, separate posts.</li>
<li>I updated the CSS a bit.</li>
</ul>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:fnma" role="doc-endnote">
<p>For those not yet of the Trek persuasion, this is a reference to <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Memory_Alpha:Introduction">Memory Alpha</a>, a fan wiki whose name refers to <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Memory_Alpha">Memory Alpha</a>, effectively an archival “memory planet.” <a href="#fnref:fnma" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Ryan P. RandallLots of snow, incremental correctness patterns, the ELIZA effect, and more.Weekly Assemblage for 2024 Week 022024-01-14T17:10:44-07:002024-01-14T17:10:44-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/wa-2024-week-02<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="dont-call-it-a-comeback-rss-feeds-have-been-here-for-years">Don’t Call It a Comeback, RSS Feeds Have Been Here For Years</h2>
<p>Although I’ve been using RSS readers since well before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Reader">Google Reader</a> joined the many other projects (often mercilessly and pointlessly) <a href="https://killedbygoogle.com/">killed by Google</a>, <a href="https://netnewswire.com/">NetNewsWire</a> has become a much more prominent part of my day for the last couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Sometime early last week I went through all my old RSS subscriptions and asked which still bring me joy. Then I unsubscribed or marked many as “read” in bulk.</p>
<p>Now, when I would usually peep in on Mastodon or a Discord group, I instead find myself gravitating toward NetNewsWire’s “Today” section.</p>
<p>Unlike social media’s endless scroll and endless context shifts, the “Today” section brings me more substantial “chunks” of reading and a recognizable endpoint. While I anticipated the benefits of having an obvious stopping point, I didn’t foresee how much I’d prefer having slightly larger chunks of reading and fewer jarring shifts in context.</p>
<p>It probably helps that I’m following a large number of feeds, and a few people who post small updates throughout the day. (These folks often post to their own microblogging sites with <a href="https://book.micro.blog/microformats/">IndieWeb microformats</a> or to IndieWeb-oriented services like <a href="https://home.omg.lol/">omg.lol</a> and <a href="https://micro.blog/">micro.blog</a>.)</p>
<p>This means that I’ll usually see <strong>something</strong> new in my RSS reader, even if it’s only 2 to 20 new things rather than the hundreds of new posts I’d encounter on Mastodon.</p>
<p>Maybe I’ll start doing more frequent, smaller posts as well? If you’ve got a site, consider this more encouragement to add an RSS feed and to make it prominent and easily discoverable!</p>
<h2 id="author-author--ai">“Author, Author” & AI</h2>
<p>We watched the “Author, Author” episode of <em>Star Trek: Voyager</em> as part our of first viewing of <strong>all</strong> of <em>Star Trek</em>. (In homage to the <a href="https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Portal:Main">Memory Alpha wiki</a>, we’re calling this our “#ViewingAlpha”.)</p>
<p>In this episode, the Doctor—an “Emergency Medical Holograph” who has grown far beyond his expected role as the ship Voyager’s supplemental medical support—has become the author of a holonovel. (Yep, <strong>holo</strong>novel: an interactive work of fiction playable by any immersive holodeck.)</p>
<p>As part of the Doctor’s ongoing story arc—one that parallels many similar “not quite human” characters in the series—this episode revolves both around his relationship to his crew mates and his legal rights. Can he legally be granted copyright for the work he’s clearly created?</p>
<p>The episode immediately made me think of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano">Olaudah Equiano</a>’s excellent slave narrative/captivity narrative <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/olaudah-equiano/the-interesting-narrative-of-the-life-of-olaudah-equiano"><em>The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano</em></a>, as well as the ongoing copyright questions generative AI technology currently presents.</p>
<p>Whether you’re deeply familiar with <em>Star Trek</em> or relatively ignorant of the series, I think it’d be an excellent stand-alone episode to dip into. (Full disclosure: I haven’t rewatched it before writing thing. But I don’t believe there’s any necessary context that isn’t explained within the episode, particularly as what Samuel Delany might call “a significant distortion of the present.”)</p>
<p>I’m still toying with the idea of having one or two seasons of <em>Star Trek: Voyager</em> or <em>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine</em> be part of my dissertation, and this is one of those episodes that’s strong enough to be persuasive.</p>
<h2 id="site-refinements-of-the-week">Site Refinements of the Week</h2>
<p>Looking over my site’s <a href="https://github.com/ryan-p-randall/ryan-p-randall.github.io/commits/develop/">commit history</a>, I spruced up a few things this week!</p>
<p>Most are accessibility-related things you might not immediately perceive. Which will probably be a running theme, whenever I post this sort of “site refinements of the week.”</p>
<p>First, I realized that the <a href="https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/">Minimal Mistakes theme</a>, which I use for my site, uses an <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><h4></code> heading for the on-page table of contents. Maybe there’s a reason for this—but in practice on my site, there’s always a skip from the page title’s <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><h1></code> level to much lower <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><h4></code> level. As <a href="https://webaim.org/techniques/semanticstructure/#headings">WebAIM explains</a>, it’s best not to introduce this sort of jarring skip. So I fixed that pattern, at least for my own site! I might end up submitting a pull request as well.</p>
<p>Less related to the theme overall is the introduction of <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">aria-describedby</code> attributes to the button-styled links on my home page. These mean that anyone using assistive technology will hear the descriptions associated with the buttons, just as someone would quickly perceive visually based on the layout.</p>
<p>Although they haven’t hit the live site yet, I’m also tinkering with switching my footnotes plugin from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221127194150/http://www.bigfootjs.com/">Bigfoot</a> to <a href="https://littlefoot.js.org/">Littlefoot</a>.</p>
<p>I believe Littlefoot will have better support for screen readers, plus it seems easier for me to understand its CSS, which means it’ll be that much easier to connect its CSS to the <a href="https://fossheim.io/writing/posts/accessible-theme-picker-html-css-js/">theme switcher</a> I eventually plan to add.</p>Ryan P. RandallRSS reading; _Author, Author_ and A.I.; and Site Refinements of the Week.Observations on Aaron Swartz Day2024-01-11T20:23:48-07:002024-01-11T20:23:48-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/observations-on-aaron-swartz-day<p>As I was just doing some small refinements on my website related to accessibility, consistency, and… well… <strong>typos</strong>, I happened to read this on Mastodon from Vic Kostrzewski:</p>
<iframe src="https://howcyborgs.chat/@vic/111738751820622723/embed" width="400" height="400" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-forms"></iframe>
<p>Indeed, today is the anniversary of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz">Aaron Swartz</a>’s death. It’s remarkable how many of my activities today—even ones that I consider utterly mundane—relate to things Swartz championed or even helped create.</p>
<p>So, as a tiny tribute and way of saying “thank you” to someone who fought to make our world the better place we all deserve, here’s a few of the things I’ve done today that directly benefit from Swartz’s innovations or activism.</p>
<h2 id="rss">RSS</h2>
<p>At least three different times today, I checked <a href="https://netnewswire.com/">NetNewsWire</a>, my current <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_feed">RSS</a> reader of choice for Mac and iOS. (I even added a couple of new subscriptions, from my phone, as I was standing in the kitchen making dinner!)</p>
<h2 id="wikipedia">Wikipedia</h2>
<p>You’ll notice that some of the links on this page go to Wikipedia, which Swartz <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia">analyzed in depth</a>. Although I don’t remember consulting Wikipedia today (before starting to write this article), I do so most days.</p>
<h2 id="markdown">Markdown</h2>
<p>Even more constantly, I use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown">Markdown</a> files. I use Obsidian throughout every single day as a combination commonplace book / bullet journal / task-and-attention manager. Before Obsidian, I used Dendron, VS Code, 1Writer, Editorial, nvAlt, and a host of other desktop and phone apps that share documents in this lightweight, open format.</p>
<p>Markdown has been my default way of writing for about 15 years at this point. It’s spanned the whole range of writing notes in class to writing academic papers (sometimes in <a href="https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/sustainable-authorship-in-plain-text-using-pandoc-and-markdown">combination with Pandoc</a> to writing the many other notes to myself that I want to keep handy on my phone and across devices).</p>
<h2 id="personal-websites-and-the-open-web">Personal Websites and the Open Web</h2>
<p>Not only are posts on this site written in Markdown, but I also explicitly choose not to put them behind any kind of restrictive access.</p>
<p>Swartz was, of course, quite familiar with paywalls. Today “freewalls” are flourishing like kudzu. These restrict access, unless you create an account with the platform. These transactions don’t require direct money, they just require that you hand over all the information about your reading habits and interests that the platform can hoover up.</p>
<p>As the wolf might have said to Little Red Riding Hood, the better to surveil you and your proclivities, my dear.</p>
<h2 id="creative-commons">Creative Commons</h2>
<p>This website, as well as <a href="https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/">In the Library with the Lead Pipe</a>, an academic journal I help run, both use Creative Commons licenses to help make sure that the content is shared freely—with attribution.</p>
<h2 id="open-access">Open Access</h2>
<p>The journal I help run is entirely open access, without any author or reader fees. Open access to knowledge of course was another of the causes Swartz championed fervently.</p>
<h2 id="conclusions-that-dont-conclude">Conclusions That Don’t Conclude</h2>
<p>There isn’t a rousing conclusion for this post. After all, I started out just meaning to bear witness to some of the ways Swartz’s work touches my daily life. But maybe this will be the year I finally watch <a href="https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz">The Internet’s Own Boy</a> or dig into the Internet Archive’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/aaronsw">Aaron Swartz Collection</a>?</p>
<p>I wonder how many other things in my day were touched by Swartz in ways I don’t yet know. And how many things there were in yours.</p>
<p>Of course, perhaps the best tribute would be to remain convinced that we can work toward a better world—even if ushering this more just world might involve committing to some good trouble along the way.</p>Ryan P. RandallA tiny tribute based on dots I just connected, as I was going about my business.Weekly Assemblage for 2024 Week 012024-01-06T21:59:06-07:002024-01-06T21:59:06-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/wa-2024-week-01<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="ai-and-teaching-college-writing">AI and Teaching College Writing</h2>
<p>I profoundly appreciated this week’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nStU3-CK1TA">Future Trends Forum on AI and Teaching College Writing</a>, featuring <a href="https://danielcernst.com/">Daniel Ernst</a> and <a href="https://hickstro.org/">Troy Hicks</a>.</p>
<p>These English professors not only summarized their <a href="https://theconversation.com/writing-instructors-are-less-afraid-of-students-cheating-with-chatgpt-than-you-might-think-207202">March 2023 survey of college writing faculty</a>, but also shared many potential uses of technology.</p>
<p>Here are a few brief insights:</p>
<ul>
<li>Professors’ anxieties around AI tend to cut at the emotional core of teaching.</li>
<li>There’s a distinct worry that students might circumvent the learning process we try to offer, which produces anxieties of being undermined/cheated in disciplinary, interpersonal, and emotional senses.</li>
<li>Professors might have students engage the AI in a dialogue. The assessment might be something close to a Socratic rhetorical dialog, rather than a more customary essay final product.</li>
<li>Using AI highlights nuances of language when prompting, with the output often shifting noticeably based on the specific terms and grammar used.</li>
<li>Asking students what they meant with particular words or concepts remains one of the best ways of knowing whether they’ve used generative AI inappropriately—an approach that’s likely the best outside of AI concerns as well.</li>
</ul>
<p>Although I have far less direct experience with uses of AI than these professors, I’ve felt for a while that one of the best responses instructors can take will be to repeatedly emphasize and reinforce disciplinary ways of knowing. This can help highlight that disciplines aren’t static bodies of content in what <a class="internal-link" href="/freire-and-critical-librarianship">Paulo Freire would call a “banking model” of education</a>. Instead, it might help professors hew to a more Cultural Studies-style view of disciplines as “ways of making meaning.” AI might also let students who aren’t already familiar with a discipline’s or genre’s ways of knowing and communicating, or who otherwise aren’t yet well-disposed to generate their own ideas, feel less anxiety in the brainstorming / pre-writing stages. If instructors allow students to <strong>transparently and critically</strong> engage with generative AI for pre-writing, these less-familiar students could potentially find the desired disciplinary ways of knowing more approachable.</p>
<p>Therefore, it was very heartening to hear Ernst and Hicks share similar ideas about what AI might make more perceptible and engaging for students, if instructors move from an anxious “students will cheat” model to “how can we engage meaningfully with AI-informed processes?” approach.</p>
<h2 id="home-page-changes">Home Page Changes</h2>
<p>I realized recently that my website’s home page presents the reader with a huge wall of text. So instead, I’m currently going with greatly trimmed-down introduction (with the former moved to my <a href="/about">About</a> page), plus a few buttons that hopefully invite readers to explore my site. I’ve also trimmed down my top navigation menu a bit.</p>
<p>While it’s certainly an improvement, I fully expect that this isn’t even my home pages final form!</p>
<h2 id="gearing-up-for-2024-spring-semester">Gearing Up for 2024 Spring Semester</h2>
<p>Our Spring semester starts tomorrow, and I’ll be taking fourth-semester Spanish. I’m still quite excited to be refreshing my abilities with Spanish, which have definitely been clouded by the other languages (French and Latin) I’ve studied since learning Spanish in middle school and high school.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to start reading academic theory originally written in Spanish, but I’m looking forward to that potential!</p>
<p>For now, I’m just enjoying occasionally dipping into Netflix’s show <em>Pasteleros contra el tiempo</em>, a Mexican variant of <em>Sugar Rush</em>.</p>Ryan P. RandallPerspectives on AI from writing instructors, home page changes, and a new semester.rearview mirror 20232023-12-30T00:00:00-07:002023-12-30T00:00:00-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/weekly-assemblage/rearviewmirror-2023<p>You might think of this as a Weekly Assemblage for 2023 Weeks 51 & 52. You’re also very welcome to hear Pearl Jam’s “rearviewmirror” in your head as you read this.</p>
<p class="notice"><a href="/weekly-assemblage/weekly-whaaa">Weekly Whaaa…?</a></p>
<h2 id="instructional-design">Instructional Design</h2>
<p>This was my first full calendar year working as an instructional designer, rather than as a (mostly instruction) librarian. I’ve enjoyed the shift even more than I anticipated.</p>
<p>Being able to take a “user-centered” perspective goes a long way in each position. One thing I’ve carried over from my library instruction is to highlight repeated patterns and ways of knowing, aiming for transparency and clarity about what you’re doing and why.</p>
<p>What I didn’t expect was how much more frequently I’d do project management-type functions. Aspects of this come naturally to me, like brainstorming, or recognizing which aspects of something reinforce or distract from the main ideas. Other aspects, like working on a “rally mode” rather than a “sprint mode” and providing supplemental executive function for other people, don’t come so naturally.</p>
<p>So that’s a major thing I’m aiming to work on in the next year: developing patterns that help me reinforce my intentions and ways of working.</p>
<h2 id="website-changes-and-experiments">Website Changes and Experiments</h2>
<p>This year I’ve made a few changes, updates, and experiments here on my site. I’m proud of the outcome of all this tinkering and pattern-examination, so here’s a quick review! (The next section has more abstract reflection, so skip there if website nerdery isn’t yr jam—but the reflection does build off what’s in this section.)</p>
<p>I’ve recently added a <a href="/bookmarks">bookmarks page</a>, inspired by what I’ve seen other people do with services like <a href="https://raindrop.io/">Raindrop</a>. I ended up lifting & adapting <a href="https://github.com/franck-chester/franck-chester.github.io/blob/main/_layouts/tags.html">Franck Chester’s code</a> to give my bookmarks workable tags that are separate from Jekyll’s built-in tags for posts. I’ll probably continue refining the Liquid code, since I don’t think the current method is the most elegant or efficient way of doing it… but it is <strong>effective</strong>—and for now, that’s the important thing! I’ve also just updated the layouts to include the <a href="https://indieweb.org/bookmark">IndieWeb Bookmark markup</a>, as well as make better use of <a href="https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/post%20formats/post-link/">Minimal Mistake’s Post Link format</a>.</p>
<p>Just yesterday, I also adapted Maxime Vaillancourt’s <a href="https://github.com/maximevaillancourt/digital-garden-jekyll-template/blob/main/_plugins/bidirectional_links_generator.rb">bidirectional links generator plugin</a>. Now when I use a <span title="There is no note that matches this link." class="invalid-link"> <span class="invalid-link-brackets">[[</span> backlink <span class="invalid-link-brackets">]]</span></span> in posts on my site to refer to a note, it will make a workable link and also show up in the “Other places I mention this note” section (which I also just reworded to reflect this change).</p>
<p>This last month I’ve also been experimenting with <del><a href="https://scatteredquotes.com/oh-arent-you-a-beautiful-boy/">backcombing</a></del> <a href="https://plausible.io/">Plausible analytics</a>. I think I’ll use Plausible in lieu of self-hosting Matomo, the other option I’d been considering. Plausible at least claims to be lighter weight and more privacy-respecting <a href="https://plausible.io/vs-matomo">than Motomo</a>, so if I’m going to use analytics at all, it feels like a better choice. I might end up trying to self-host Plausible somewhere (like <a href="https://www.hughrundle.net/privacy/">Hugh Rundle does</a>)—but for now, after learning how much more it would cost to self-host it with my current host rather than use Plausible themselves, I’ll pay Plausible for the service (as well as supporting the tool and having them do the labor).</p>
<p>As of this week, I’m also experimenting with <a href="https://giscus.app/">Giscus</a>-based comments. I used to use Staticman, but eventually got so annoyed by the continual spam that I removed comments entirely. I’m not entirely thrilled by a commenting system that requires commenters to have a GitHub account, but that’s a tradeoff that makes sense for something entirely optional. As much as I love the idea of using webmentions or using Mastodon-based commenting, I can’t wrap my head around how I’d handle spam with those. (The amount of spam—and occasional very ugly abuse—I see through a certain Wordpress site has made me decidedly jaded when it comes to comments sections.) An open question is whether or not I’ll add comments to the notes in my digital garden… but before jumping into that, I’m going to see how it goes with comments on the posts in my blog. I’m slowly learning to take website tinkering <del><a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL489421W/Bird_by_Bird">bird by bird</a></del> yak by yak.</p>
<p>I also added my <a href="/reading">reading page</a> and have mostly kept it updated, taking a more <a href="https://indieweb.org/POSSE">POSSE approach</a> than using Goodreads or even <a href="https://bookwyrm.social/user/foureyedsoul">Bookwyrm</a>. As much as I love the idea of Bookwyrm, I’m more interested in doing something closer to Mandy Brown’s <a href="https://aworkinglibrary.com/">A Working Library</a> by adding book notes and annotations to my blog, my notes pages, or something else along those lines. (I still want to figure out how her site creates the “related reading” and “related writing” sections.)</p>
<p>I’ve similarly been refining the styling of my <a href="/links-rhizome">links rhizome page</a> a bit throughout the year, after initially adding it in the last week of 2022. It’s nice to have something functionally similar to a LinkTree page, but entirely my own. (If I had all the time in the world, creating a LinkTree-style theme for GitHub Pages seems like it would be a great way to introduce people to creating static sites.)</p>
<h2 id="patterning-for-motivation">Patterning for Motivation</h2>
<p>Looking back on all these additions to my site has me thinking about not just the patterns of how the files and code fit together, but also the patterns of how days and weeks fit together to encourage or hinder things I aspire to do.</p>
<p>When I’m someone who’s often motivated by the give-and-take of conversation, discussion, and experimentation, how do I channel that impulse away from the short bursts of social media interaction and toward less-immediate but more substantive patterns for motivation?</p>
<p>I’m thinking both of tools, like those made by <a href="https://dsriseah.com/about/sri/">DSri Seah</a>, as well as intentional communities, like those on Mastodon or Discord, or the audiences of things like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ruawilliams505">Rua Williams’ Neurodivergent Burnout Series</a>. What other communities, patterns, and interactions can we co-create? What can I do to make them more likely?</p>
<p>I expect I’m going to keep casting about for better patterns into the new year, and probably well beyond. But it’s good to clarify that these sorts of interaction and motivation are a large part of my aspiration with this site, even as adding comments feels somehow both “too small” and “more likely to invite spam than substance.”</p>
<p>Consider this an open invitation to reach out—through a comment here, on Mastodon, in <a href="https://github.com/ryan-p-randall/ryan-p-randall.github.io/discussions/">Discussions</a>, etc.—if you’ve got ideas to share, if you’re looking for something like a dissertation writing group, or etc.</p>Ryan P. RandallSeeing things somewhat clearer; initial reflections as we move beyond 2023.A small, curated set of Mastodon starting points.2023-12-18T00:00:00-07:002023-12-18T00:00:00-07:00https://ryanpatrickrandall.com/notes/new-note-curating-mastodon-starting-points<p>Thankfully, many people have written useful guides to getting started with the community-run social media network called Mastodon. Instead of writing up my own, I’m curating a short list of the most useful ones I find over at my <a class="internal-link" href="/notes/Technology/Social-Media/mastodon-starting-points">Mastodon starting points</a> note.</p>
<p>Most of these guides will be aimed at people in higher education trying to find similar folks, rather than users more broadly.</p>Ryan P. RandallOther people's guides to getting started with Mastodon.