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Posts by David McHugh

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I'm assuming you meant this hyperbolically, but for context the current youth unemployment rate is almost half as bad as it was at the peak of the Great Recession (which thankfully for my age is not yet multiple decades ago).
fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14...

6 days ago 0 0 0 0
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Claude Shared via Claude, an AI assistant from Anthropic

Deep Background analysis here, for the curious: claude.ai/share/91b1c8...

3 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

This made for a good test case for @mikecaulfield.bsky.social's Deep Background prompt for Claude for contextualizing claims. Definitely helpful. I wish I knew how it would've answered before your post (which it cited as a very useful critique).

3 weeks ago 1 0 1 0

I have multiple family members whose favorite new songs (found via YouTube) have turned out to be AI. I don't think people are enthusiastically seeking out AI music, but more than we think are finding it. (it is catchy)

1 month ago 1 0 1 0

Next vibe-coding, I'll need to ask Claude to assess a Squishiness score for its softerware.
Great article, as usual - thanks!

1 month ago 2 0 1 0
Pluralistic: Code is a liability (not an asset) (06 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

This reminds me of Doctorow's Code is a Liability.

1 month ago 1 0 0 0
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What's a good examples of a game mechanic that illustrates a key historical insight? What's a mechanic that distorts understanding?

1 month ago 0 0 0 0
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Why Chess Will Destroy Your Mind That’s how it looked back in 1859, according to Scientific American.

Thanks, Jeremiah! My contribution is that there was at least some (quaint) moral panic over Chess, "a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time", from medium.com/message/why-...

1 month ago 0 0 0 0

What are mostly forgotten games that went "viral" in their era (I'm thinking there must've been some courtly fads if nothing else)?
What's the earliest known moral panic over a game?
What's a historical game that's been surprisingly influential on modern game design?
Thanks!

1 month ago 1 0 1 0
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This was a great talk! Thanks, Bryan & Steve & Trent. The podcast and book look great; I'll be sure to share those with interested students & educators.

1 month ago 1 0 1 0

Same. In principle, I'm anti privacy risks of age-gating. In practice, I think a good version of that might be less damaging than kids on social media and chatbots. Ugh.
I'm hoping there could be some responsible end point (e.g., iPhone) age verification rather than every site tracking us.

1 month ago 0 0 0 0
About - 2026 Play Make Learn Conference The Play Make Learn Conference is a place for collaboration and discovery in the design, research and practice of playful learning, games for learning and positive s

My favorite conference returns July 9 & 10! Play Make Learn (playmakelearn.org) is perfect for educators of all kinds, librarians, and creatives. I'll be here for the games plus amazing makerspaces, the arts, and more.

CfP open thru 3/9. In Madison, WI.

1 month ago 1 0 0 0

Pancakes are a load bearing part of the food pyramid. To sneak nutrition into my children I add astonishing quantities of eggs, riced veggies, seeds, fruits, etc. All vanish within the pancake's tasty embrace. The quest continues for the perfect lembas, however.

1 month ago 3 0 0 0

Maybe in 2426 humanity will discover Brandon Sanderson was writing encoded essays rather than novels. Probably still about magical worldbuilding though.

2 months ago 1 0 0 0

I love that Trithemius literally wrote the book on this, fully hidden as a book on magic. And that it still took 4 centuries to figure out that book 3 was not an actual book about magic. Committed to the bit.

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

Thanks, Bonni! I'll check those out.

2 months ago 0 0 0 0
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Being older school, I would probably have to check my calendar to see what I've done for fun in the distant past of more than 48 hours ago...

2 months ago 0 0 0 0

I'm sympathetic to the underlying concern, but the context of admissions means the question isn't really about fun but an evaluation of them. I'm much more sympathetic to automated help for an often less than human admissions system than if this is actually how they identify fun.

2 months ago 0 0 1 0

I recently discovered the podcast and it's excellent - thanks! I love the AI metaphor game; last year I ran an AI Metaphor Tournament with students but now the bar is set higher! I'm looking forward to perusing the podcast backlog.

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

Strong negative reactions to the app are actually strongly correlated with a severe diagnosis of [create an account to view]! New accounts get 10% coupon with Pharmatron brand [pro account needed].
; )

2 months ago 1 0 1 0

Hypochondriac's Friend - the app that confidently explains how every symptom is in fact cancer (inspired by WebMD). Paid accounts can upgrade to more exotic illnesses.

2 months ago 2 0 1 0

Why waste your time with books, when you can read whole genres this way? I thought the Love genre was solid. Magic was so good I even read the Dragons subgenre. Nonfiction's still pretty slow though, Old was ok, but Numbers put me to sleep.

3 months ago 0 0 0 0
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Awesome. Some art is timeless. I really want to know what's going on with this guy and his noble steed...

3 months ago 0 0 0 0
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A painting of a Mongol horseman attributed to Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322 CE). Made in China during the Yuan Dynasty (1260 - 1368 CE). Hanging scroll; colors on silk.

A painting of a Mongol horseman attributed to Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322 CE). Made in China during the Yuan Dynasty (1260 - 1368 CE). Hanging scroll; colors on silk.

Sounds like the people call out for a "sequel" to Pentiment but in the style of cave paintings... And/or various art styles of horses through history (Mongols, ~1300 AD):

3 months ago 10 0 0 1

Unpopular opinion: I was really put off by what seemed to me to be a very strong pro-suicide theme of the Good Place's finale. Brilliant show, but it lost me at that one.

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

A hot take indeed. I'd argue Venn diagram instead. Just because Work is rarely set up to be playful doesn't mean they're opposite. Some of the best work (and colleagues!) are playful, and that's largely independent of the difficulty of the work.

3 months ago 1 0 1 0
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This kinda came up in their most recent podcast:

3 months ago 0 0 1 0

That's an interesting example since ESRB a self-regulatory organization. I don't think it'd be constitutional for the government to demand that same level of access (nor would I trust all administrations with that power).

3 months ago 4 0 1 0
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Relevant comic, from: www.kevincomics.com/comic/enhance/

4 months ago 2 0 0 0

Excellent visualizations and contextualization. Though I expect some of this won't land as people talk past each other: critiques are centered on generative AI but water savings are presumably not from genAI.

6 months ago 1 0 1 0
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