I feel like we have the opportunity to turn David Lynch's quote into this moment's "Keep Calm and Carry On" and it's a far better rallying cry too.

I must’ve been a postdoc at MIT or a new-ish engineering professor when I first heard the story of how Ben Barre overheard colleagues talking about how his research was so much better than his ‘sister’ Barbara’s.

If you’re wondering what a “least weasel” is, they absolutely live up to the name. This is the least amount of animal you can have that can still meet the bar for “is weasel”

Team Mustelid checking in. Trash pandas, adorable otters, and least weasels.

I am older than gender markers on passports! How do you regulate gender? By making it a form of government ID. It has nothing to do with state security, only regulation

This is what so-called AI is actually good at: supercomplex pattern matching. Finding enzymes that turn polyurethane production into a closed loop is what "AI" should be used for: the stuff humans can't do that makes the world a better place.

Have some really good news: toxic plastics broken down into useful chemicals in less than 24 hours: arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Firmly believe one of the ways to improve trust in journalism among young people is to support them in learning to research, write, and report themselves. Even if they never pursue it as a job, it helps to understand the process, and encourages them to engage with their local journalism outlets.

Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

“I’m losing my edge, The kids are coming up from behind me… With better ideas and more talent, And they’re actually really, really nice.”

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

HERE IT IS!!!!!

Belatedly listening to @annaleen.bsky.social being interviewed by @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social for KQED Forum and was startled by the *best ever* endorsement for HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS! “What book will still be on our shelves in the far future?” www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

Teen Vogue took young people seriously. It's impossible to overstate how important, how rare, and how profoundly needed that is.

Canadian Academics: Your demographic data as an applicant and/or reviewer is being sought by a parliamentary committee where some members are pushing an anti-EDI agenda. This 🧵 outlines the massive problems with this. There is a sign-on letter circulating, hopefully you've seen it.

someone get mackenzie scott on the phone and tell her I have one banger of an idea

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

I literally have a slide with a screenshot from Teen Vogue that I've used for talks about climate change and infrastructure all over the world, and I get to give them props for their social and political coverage. Losing it is a loss for all of us, not just young people.

Vancouver friends! I'm speaking at the first-ever 'Cabbage and the City' event, where guests get to make and eat (and take home!) cabbage rolls and be part of a civic conversation. Bring a baking dish and a bottle of something and come say hi! 🥬🌃 www.sfu.ca/sca/events--...

This is from Autocracy, Inc, about how modern autocratic propaganda works. I consider this every time I decide what to share and how to frame it.

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

This New Yorker cartoon by Adam Douglas Thompson neatly combines two of my idiosyncratic enthusiasms

One of these shapes is called boo-ba and one is kiki. Which is which?

🎃 Some lessons from Hallowe’en: 👻 Little kids should be able to walk in the streets, even at night, without worrying about cars. People who are well-off are expected to give out more candy. Candy is for anyone who asks — no means-testing. Whatever else we are, we are each other’s neighbors.

Hallowe’en back in the land where Smarties are Smarties and Smarties are Rockets.

I love kids. I have two of them. They’re amazing. However, kids are the absolute least self aware, clumsiest little puffins on the planet. Please don’t drive tonight unless you have to, and if you do drive, drive super slow and pay 100% attention at all times. Happy Halloween! 🎃 👻 💀 #PublicHealth

“To be a Luddite today is to refuse the fatalism of techno-inevitability & to demand that technology serve the many, not the few. It is to assert that questions of labor, agency & justice must come before speed, efficiency & scale.” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/we-should-all-be-luddites/

A project that my company @performant.bsky.social has been working on for multiple years launches tomorrow! Launch events will be live-streamed on Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm MT. It's been such a privilege to work with the Native Bound Unbound team. They describe the project as follows... (1/4) #DH

If you take the time to read the whole Gates memo (which I did), the bulk of the content was mostly solid and encouraging. Really! It was the FRAME that was off--very off, from the first line. And when your framing is off, then how you make decisions and set priorities is off. THAT'S the problem.

Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life. In her latest — and, yes, 34th! — article for Places, @shannonmattern.bsky.social writes about building the infrastructure we need to keep ourselves free.

hello friends, loved ones, and haters, I wrote a long piece about the last 25 or so years of "indie," inspired by @chrisdeville.bsky.social's fine new book open.substack.com/pub/ericdhar...

"In other words, there is no economic deus ex machina that will bring the revolution. There are still people, in their stubborn, contradictory particularities, as they exist in concrete space and time. It is up to you to figure out how to act together, or not; how to find common ground, or not."

Also, check to see if your corporate overlord will match charitable donations. I’d prefer better tax policy, but this is a good interim step.

My sustaining donor spiel: If you have a enough money to keep forgetting to unsubscribe to something, I highly recommend becoming a sustaining donor at the food bank (or other org) of your choice.

Well, it’ll be a good place to house the Truth and Reconciliation Committee before it becomes the museum

People with very different theories of change and history and organization, overlapping generations, multiple groups pursuing contrary goals, and a lot of complicated personalities who just did not agree. All chasing moving political targets during times of social, media, and demographic upheaval

"In the two years since the state started charging a 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million, the effort has created a $5.7 billion windfall, with the surplus being used to fund bridge repairs, bolster literacy programs and address the transportation system’s budget deficit." Taxing the rich works!

This isn't just a national issue either; it is the single biggest soft power asset we have in a globally degrading information economy.

@kevinriggle.bsky.social …I keep all my transit cards from around the world in a multipocketed plastic folder, alongside the corresponding foreign currency, for if and when I go back to that city? I don’t know if that makes me more or less of a transit nerd than displaying them would.

Ruth Asawa arrived in New York with a monumental retrospective this month, making the largest show dedicated to a woman artist in MoMA's history. www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/ruth...

Because it can never be said enough: Money. Give money. And if your personal situation permits, set up a recurring monthly donation, even a small one. It helps orgs budget and plan effectively.

The appropriate reparations for centuries of extractive colonialism is freely providing the resources — technology, tools, money — to build out local renewable energy infrastructure globally, so that every human community has access to energy ample to meet all their needs so they can thrive.

I wrote this piece during a US federal government shutdown in 2013 and everything I said then is just as true today, except I’m even more furious at the people who don’t understand the value of collective systems and universal provision. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The appropriate reparations for centuries of extractive colonialism is freely providing the resources — technology, tools, money — to build out local renewable energy infrastructure globally, so that every human community has access to energy ample to meet all their needs so they can thrive.

All hail the return on the Autumn King, theonion.com/mr-autumn-ma...

I would laugh if this wasn't so true 😭

I wrote this piece during a US federal government shutdown in 2013 and everything I said then is just as true today, except I’m even more furious at the people who don’t understand the value of collective systems and universal provision. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Performative means that people are doing a thing together with the intention of other people seeing them doing it. The commonplace derogatory connotation of “performative” applies to some kinds of performance, but a thing being a performance does not mean it is fake or pretend.

If you're looking for an action to take tomorrow that can help protect millions of people regardless of their immigration status, call your governor to demand a ban on utility shutoffs this winter. Every state has slightly different policy– we got you covered.