Welp. I seem to have started to work on another book project.

Theater people, you DON’T NEED purpose-built buildings. www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/v…

Politicans and parents think they know about education because they once went to school, which is like saying that you are a mechanic because you went in your garage.

We finally have a dog who doesn’t give a hoot about fireworks.

Reading The Hidden History of Neoliberalism by Thom Hartmann. It’s a book that puts the daily headlines into context. Highly recommended.

“A field of battle covered with dead bodies putrefying in the open air is an awful and distressing spectacle, but a nation debased by the love of money and exhibiting all the vices and crimes usually connected with that passion, is a spectacle far more awful, distressing and offensive.” —Letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, 1813

Do you know what would be the best use for AI? It should be trained on tax law, and then set loose on the tax returns of the wealthiest American citizens, including Donald Trump. And if the US government won’t do this, hackers should.

I spent some time trying on the ideas of small-c conservatism (i.e., pre-Trump conservatism), but most of it didn’t fit me. scottwalters.net/blog-item…

I don’t know about you, but I find this shocking. Stock ETFs that buy the same thing that Republicans or Democrats buys using insider information. WHAT???

When I left to take the dog for a walk this morning, I discovered a small, heavy box on the front porch. I hadn’t remembered ordering anything scheduled to arrive yet, but when I opened the box I found ten copies of the 3rd edition of my textbook, Introduction to Play Analysis! I’m delighted with this new edition, which really is a complete revisioning of the original. None of the analysis process is changed, but I’ve always felt as if the book would benefit from a demo of the analysis process “in action.

“For many good reasons, there are lots of tensions around GenAI and a sometimes-growing antagonism between those who are critical and rejecting AI and those who are engaging with AI (regardless of whether they do so critically or uncritically). I think there should be meaningful conversations amongst these groups (and all the variations among and beyond them). But, at times, the dismissiveness of one by the other leads me to wonder how thoughtful we are being about the discourse as a whole.

For those of you who are still willing to learn about AI, Ethan Mollick does a good breakdown of the 3 major AI platforms and what each is most useful for. open.substack.com/pub/oneus…

Ted Gioia declares that long form material has made a comeback. I think he’s right! open.substack.com/pub/tedgi…

adam@social.lol “suspended” me, whatever that means. What a coward. Apparently, my posts can be seen here, but not “there” (wherever “there” is). Hilarious.

I am particularly interested in what is apparently known as “source bounded AI” such as Google’s NotebookLM. This allows you to “train” and individualized use based only on the documents that YOU have uploaded. I’m particularly interested in how that might be used in education and self-education. One of the real issues once you have gotten out of school is not being able to have a real discussion about things you read.

Really? We’re going to judge learning effectiveness based on (checks notes) an EEG assessing “cognitive load”? Please. Just stop with this. arxiv.org/abs/2506….

Tom at @apoorplayer wrote a powerfully honest essay called “The Age of Futility” that inspired me to do what we used to do in the old days of blogging: write a post on our own blog, and then link to the original, creating an actual conversation. Here’s my contribution: “The Age of Sensibility.”

“The theatre, by the beginning of the current century, had become yet another American industry composed of a series of interlocking professions, each dependent upon the others, with its business operations centralized structurally and geographically. It had, in the course of the nineteenth century, become less democratic in both its administration and appeal and had assumed the role of manufacturer of a product prepared and packaged for nationwide distribution. The long run had become its principal goal; the star system and the star vehicle had become the means to that end; the combination company had become recognized as the standard producing unit of the commercial theatre; and the practices of theatre management and play production, once the domain of the actor-manager, had become discrete and separate endeavors.

“The Annecy [Animation Festival] crowd cheered the announcement [of the upcoming Pixar film Gatto and went wild as Docter unveiled animation tests of a distinct, unique hand-painted look, something Pixar has never shown before. The film appears to be rich in colors from Venetian settings, and blends 2D hand paint textures with cutting-edge CG animation." I assume the anti-AI crowd will boycott this as well as all other Pixar CGI-created films.

Yesterday, I got a mailer from the New Criterion saying they were “defenders of the beautiful and the good” and that they focused on the arts and culture. I know from writing my dissertation that the New Criterion leans right, but I figured no big deal because the focus was on art and literature. So I subscribed. The first article was Heather Mac Donald parroting Trump’s dumb ideas with admiration while she accepted the Burke Award, and praising Roger Kimball for predicting (and celebrating) Trump’s election.

Officials in the Trump administration had some well-timed trades right before Trump announced tariffs. It was totally obvious at the time, and it was good to have it confirmed. Propublica is playing it very safe in this article, but has made the evidence public nonetheless. Well done! www.propublica.org/article/u…

I have a new author page that includes a blog: scottwalters.net.

OK, this is cool. Falcons nest on the roof of the UMass W. E. B DuBois Library where I get my academic books (I get my more popular books at the local Cheshire Library). They have a live cam on this page so you can watch: www.library.umass.edu/falcons/

Just finished “The Heartbeat Library” by Laura Imai Messina. A beautiful, deeply-felt book that was truly extraordinary.

Parking this here for the future: “As arts organizations become part of the world of markets instead of being buffered from it, their focus shifts from preserving human heritage and culture to attracting and building a paying audience. It’s easier, after all, to measure artistic success in terms of tickets sold than in terms of something vague like aesthetic triumph. Arts organizations start to think and act like businesses, adopting management philosophies and marketing techniques and training staff in management and business practices.