The Weekly Miscellaneous
A blog about many things, updated <s>weekly</s> whenever
Acting ethically in an imperfect world
tante.ccLife is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are […]
It Has Come To My Attention That Some of You Have No Idea Where The Term Purity Culture Comes From
In the controversy surrounding Cory Doctorow’s anniversary post, many people have engaged with the spirit of the thing, but I have yet to see any in-depth discussion of his choice to invoke the term purity culture. Purity culture is a term with very particular origins, and it’s not some general term for people being mean on the internet. It’s a term for a specific enculturation into a pattern of sexual abuse.
Links, Feb 27, 2026
Musical expression, tech, and Jimi; Snakes on a SSH; What feminism holds for men; Art, Joy, and Copyright Infringement; Behind the curtain on Identity Verification and LLM Tokens; Google's Authentication Antics; more on LLM harms and ethics in tech
fiddery
fiddery
On ethics, using LLMs and cultural purity
Ethics are difficult, and not using LLMs and objecting to their usage isn’t puritanism nor reducing ethics to a commercial choice.
Acting materialistically in an imperfect world: LLMs as means of production and social relations
This is a follow-up to last month's Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them . Cory Doctorow celebrated the sixth anniversary of Pluralistic…
We will come to regret our every use of AI
Drawing the distinction between using tools and having systems use you
A Critique Of A Critique (Of LLMs And Technology Critique In General)
Kind of interesting critique of (part of) one of Cory Doctorow's posts as regards to LLM haters: Acting ethically in an imperfect…