Blogaround

1. Taobao Plans to (Finally) Allow Users to Pay Via WeChat Pay (September 5) Well I guess this is only relevant to people who do a lot of online shopping in China, but it's going to make *my* life more convenient so I'm posting it here.

2. A Defense of Delilah (March 4) "The only difference between Delilah's actions and those of the women we laud is that she wasn't playing for the team the Bible roots for."

3. "criticizing AI is racism," says AI-backed writers group 😐 (September 5, via) 24-minute video from D'Angelo about the drama with NaNoWriMo and AI.

4. The Chosen Doubles Down (August 18) Laura Robinson continues to write about this bible-related urban legend about anointing the Passover lamb, and I am so here for it.

Also from Laura Robinson: The Ethical Problems with the Something Was Wrong Podcast (September 3) This is a really good analysis of the ideas "don't blame the victim" and "believe victims" which you always hear feminists saying. What does it actually mean to "believe victims" and how should that look different depending on what your role is? Particularly interesting is how the statistics about "false rape allegations are extremely rare" are specifically about rapes that are reported to the police. In that context, false allegations are extremely rare because there is little incentive for people to lie. But in other situations, it might not be so unlikely that someone claims to be a victim of rape when they are actually not.

5. This Sudoku Is Astonishing [MUST WATCH] (September 7) 22 minutes in, not one single digit placed, "This is the sort of thing that should be, just, taught in schools as an example of what human beings are capable of." (59-minute sudoku solve video.)

6. The Bell Riots: What Should Happen When History Catches Up to Star Trek? (September 2) 16-minute video. "Some of you might say, but wait, doesn’t Star Trek need to resolve these inconsistencies between its fictional history and our real history in some explicit, in-story way, so that creators of future Star Trek projects can refer to those fictional historical events without contradicting real history? Good question. No."

7. Dick Cheney says he will vote for Harris (September 7)

8. James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader, dies aged 93 (September 10) I was a huge fan of "The Lion King" when I was little. (Okay who am I kidding, I am still a huge fan of "The Lion King.") I remember one time, my parents were watching "Star Wars", and they explained it to me by saying "that guy is the same voice as Mufasa."

9. The Word of the Week: Sanewashing (September 9) "Why isn’t Trump being covered the same way? When Trump says something insane or incoherent that should be the news. It’s not just smoke that a reporter needs to blow away to reveal some underlying policy point that may or may not actually exist."

10. cohost is shutting down (September 10) Cohost is a social media site. The link I'm sharing here is a Pillowfort post discussing it, because I've only heard about Cohost through Pillowfort. Sad to hear they're shutting down.