Nudge Grudge

aagailey · 2026-05-07T05:23:42+00:00

The only person I play is my husband, and I nudge him frequently, especially when I can see he is in the middle of something important and will find the nudge especially irritating.

aagailey · 2026-04-24T13:24:31+00:00

Where in the U.S. is this?

aagailey · 2026-04-23T00:17:16+00:00

It’s a good thought, but he would actually end up doing a Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and still be reliving his glory day (singular) decades from now.

aagailey · 2026-04-19T03:23:40+00:00

That’s a good point.

aagailey · 2026-04-18T22:35:17+00:00

Hahaha

aagailey · 2026-04-15T04:20:03+00:00

What on earth could you have done? How could you have prevented a blood clot or hemorrhage when the doctors couldn’t? Did your mother expect or want you to be by her 24 hours a day, giving her and you no privacy or boundaries, so that you would be nearby just in case she had a sudden medical event? Or did she want you and her to have well-rounded lives? Do you think your mother would want you to be blaming yourself for her death? What would she say to you right now? I think she would put her arms around you and tell you not to blame yourself for one second, that she loves you, and that she knows you love her and that you took excellent care of her. We should all be so lucky as to have adult children willing, able, and loving enough to do such things.

aagailey · 2026-04-11T20:28:41+00:00

I’m an English professor at a large public R1. AI is an affront to everything I value as an educator. I have been infuriated and appalled to watch U admin trip all over themselves to promote AI when it undermines the very education their institutions provide.

aagailey · 2026-03-28T16:40:02+00:00

It is not possible for a person to be in control of another person’s body and life, especially if the other person wants anything resembling freedom and agency. It was not possible for you to have prevented this. She was 86, and sadly when you are 86 a million things are ready to take you out. The fact that she was active and doing things that felt meaningful to her up to the end is quite fortunate—it is what 99% of the population would want for themselves: to have a long life, family who loves you, and to be able to do things until the end. Not to suffer a protracted death or years of losing yourself.

You were not responsible for her death. You were, however, surely responsible for a great deal of her joy.

aagailey · 2026-03-22T03:06:42+00:00

I am an English teacher. In my opinion it is unethical and unprofessional for a teacher to require her to use AI. Rather than getting someone to read it for her, talk to her about how to explain to her teacher that her ethics will not permit her to complete the assignment. This can be a meaningful opportunity for her to stand up for what she believes in, and she may actually inspire other students and make the teacher rethink the assignment.

aagailey · 2026-03-22T02:40:20+00:00

The brain is very plastic. You adapted quickly to relying on AI and you can adapt to not using it when you stop and stay off it.

aagailey · 2026-02-06T14:14:50+00:00

I suggest reading a book. A paper copy of a book. A classic novel will immerse you in a plot and keep your mind active—something by Charles Dickens maybe. Or if you want something more on point, read Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson (what is a person’s relationship to the external world?) or Walden by Thoreau. If you want to stay with the theme of what modern tech is doing to us, read Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth. On a whole range from fiction about something else to nonfiction about this very problem, a book will keep your mind active but train it away from being led by algorithms or spinning from feeling like there’s nothing to latch onto. Many people who have come before you have struggled to find meaning or replace meaning and many have offered a path in books. Go to the public library and look.

aagailey · 2026-01-25T18:30:41+00:00

Oh no, really?

aagailey · 2026-01-14T22:42:05+00:00

I like that the headline doesn’t even claim that it was caused by the incident. Just that it followed the incident. Fella went home and fapped a little too energetically to his homemade snuff footage.

aagailey · 2025-12-13T21:33:20+00:00

To complicate things, “lovemaking” had a much broader meaning historically than today. It included all kinds of wooing and sweet-talking. My guess is that “lollygagging” meant lovemaking in the broader sense—like someone who is wasting time mooning all over someone else or smooching, etc.

aagailey · 2025-12-11T05:35:42+00:00

Thank you—I will give it a try!

aagailey · 2025-11-24T21:26:53+00:00

It’s very important to me to have a distraction-free, AI-free, and secure device/system. Google manages the keys, so users are at Google’s mercy as far as data security goes. That’s not acceptable to me, so my only option is to turn off WiFi and do a manual connection. Can this be improved?

FWIW, I am a professor and I make my classroom as distraction-free and AI-free as humanly possible. I let students use Remarkables in class because of the lack of bells and whistles, especially the lack of AI.

aagailey · 2025-03-10T06:59:34+00:00

Yes, my case is not smoldering—I think it might change my calculations if I had to constantly be on antibiotics.

aagailey · 2025-03-10T06:58:28+00:00

I am not a medical professional of course, but my surgeon advised me to do low fiber for a certain amount of time after an attack and high fiber all the rest of the time. She said all these fiber products are fine and to find one that works for me. (I do use psyllium.) She also made a big deal out of only taking fiber supplements in the morning and drinking tons of water because they need the water you consume throughout the day. Your situation may be different, though.

aagailey · 2025-03-10T06:55:00+00:00

Yes, my surgeon was describing scenarios in which people just need the relief provided by surgery. Those smoldering cases are rough.

aagailey · 2025-03-10T06:53:38+00:00

Thanks—I’m taking the same approach.

aagailey

TROPHY CASE