"AI is operating at a PhD level" oh, so it's replying 'sorry for the late response' to every email and complaining about its labor conditions?

New report out today that I worked on with Adam on a vision for the Oxford to Cambridge region for the Supercluster Board. We explore the role of clusters, and strategies to optimize knowledge flows and innovation from gpts to specific industrial applications. Check it out!

Detained immigrants with a lawyer are 10x more likely to win their cases than those without one, and 7x likelier to get released from custody. Pass the Access to Representation Act, NOW. https://prospect.org/2026/06/01/nyc-immigration-courts-speed-deportations-as-striking-detainees-in-newark-suffer/

Megathread about responding to new OMB grant funding rules (feel free to add/link more!) I was collecting these for me, but figured I'd round 'em up for everyone 🧪 What's the problem? arstechnica.com/science/2026... elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

Articulating a positive case for the university is an important task for intellectuals in this moment, imo.

In this newsletter I outline important actions to take. 1. Submit a comment opposing the rule change. 2. Contact state legislators to ensure states are engaged with the impact at the state and local level. 3. Contact members of Congress. 4. Spread awareness. This rundown is a great source:

What we are talking about here goes beyond science — this is the dismantling of the American administrative state as we know it. This is maybe the biggest change in American governance since the New Deal. It is hard to overstate that THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL. 🧪🔭⚛️

This is incredibly dumb: cross-national collaborations are part of what makes science great. No country has a monopoly on good ideas.

It’s official. After a year of work our project is live!

Don't write your manuscript reviews using AI. DEFINITELY do not feed someone else's manuscript into AI and have it write the review for you.

In a new series of blogs, we will be looking at the current and historical work of City-REDI. Dr Chloe Billing shares findings from a report on innovation intermediaries and their role in regional innovation systems, co-authored with her collegues. https://ow.ly/rU7k50YZxHy

This is the bazillionth reason why no one should flippantly talk about getting rid of the southern states. We should never turn our backs on the powerful organizing happening there. We should not cast away the activists working to make change — and who in doing so risk way more than we do up north.

Can you think of a single Democrat anywhere in the country who thinks the purpose of public education is to prepare people for democracy and maximize their ability to think for themselves, rather than workforce training & development? They think public ed is about subsidizing training for industry!

This is a big problem. We have rigorous standards (usually) to ensure physical products don’t cause harm; we need similar regulations to root out predatory practices in digital services and social media Stop big tech from making users behave in ways they don’t want to economist.com/by-invitatio...

New York streets belong to New Yorkers, and Soccer Streets are for the kids. We’re turning the block outside your school into a car-free playground and World Cup celebration. Now until June 26, you’ll find Soccer Streets in front of 50 public schools across all five boroughs. Let’s play!

“Once a climate project, electrification is now a geopolitical insurance policy. A fossil fuel supremacist government has made oil and gas costly and unreliable—and accelerated the turn to the electric world order" Essay & thread here: www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/daw... bsky.app/profile/70sb...

Do you believe in independent journalism that is loud and clear about how abusive and authoritarian our government has become? Then please support @talkingpointsmemo.com! We need just 26 new members to complete our annual drive and subscriptions are on sale until we do!! talkingpointsmemo.com

Me! I am one of those academics and you can be one too!

DEADLINES FOR REGISTERING TO VOTE IN PRIMARIES 5/5 — NEW MEXICO — mail, online (6/2 in-person) 5/8 — IDAHO — mail, online (5/19 in-person) 5/8 — SOUTH CAROLINA — in-person (5/10 online, 5/11 mail) 5/12 — NEVADA — mail (6/9 online, in-person) 5/12 — NEW JERSEY — in-person, mail, online npr.org/vote

This week, the Supreme Court finally killed off the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I've spent the past decade studying the VRA and the attacks on it, so I thought I would offer some historical perspective, and where I think we're headed. This will be a long thread; buckle up.

American Black women now have fewer voting rights and reproductive rights than their mothers did at the same age. Progress isn’t a straight line, indeed.

1/ Must read @ariberman.bsky.social on the Supreme Court's destruction of the Voting Rights Act and its continuing project to roll back the Civil Rights era: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

SCOTUS decision isn’t just about maps. It’s about who has power. Our focus must be on state/local races not just federal ones. It’s the state legislature that draws the maps. Electing Dems will help ensure that the maps will be drawn fairly & that every minority group will have their voices heard.

I PROMISE you Trump doesn't know what the NSB is. This is another layer of Destruction a la Vought. And by the way...they can't call "saving money". The National Science Board is a volunteer position. This is about wiping the NSF completely off the face of the planet. PERIOD. Don't sugar coat.

We don't hear about what happens behind the scenes until something is missing. Recently,Trump dismissed the NSB.The National Science Board, free from political interference, shapes what science gets funded. These policy decisions will have a trickle-down effect. Less funding, less innovation.🧪

When Einstein developed general relativity the closest thing to a practical application that could even be imagined at the time was a slightly more precise description of where to look for the planet Mercury in the sky, and yet now we’d all be literally lost without it. Anyway: fund basic research.

While we're talking percentages, let's talk about the proposed cuts to NASA's science budget. NASA is currently 0.36% of US federal spending. www.planetary.org/space-policy... The proposed budget cuts NASA science by 47%. NASA science is already on a shoestring, and that string is about to break

Yesterday brought essays by both Charmaine Chua @charmainechua.bsky.social and Kate Wagner @katewagner.wehwalt.net on the warehouse, the detention centre, the concentration camp. Get reading

Jane's Walk NYC is back again this May. The yearly festival offers in-person, guided group walks plus virtual and self-guided explorations. This year, there are over 250 walks across all five boroughs—a record number! www.mas.org/janes-walk-n...

@emmabalkind.bsky.social you immediately came to mind. Maybe of interest?

We do now know the NSF is proceeding with dissolving the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division. Congress might reverse it, but it is now already underway. YOU CAN NO LONGER SUBMIT FUNDING PROPOSALS TO SBE. Program officers are being moved to different parts of the agency. Call your Congress member

1/ I'm currently writing a blog post about what other countries are doing to address “high gas prices.” Australia (Victoria): All trains, trams, and buses free for the entire month of April. Australia (Tasmania): All public buses free until the end of June.

YOU GUYS it is Fish Doorbell season again! visdeurbel.nl/en/

Welcome to Trump's cost-of-mobility crisis. Blue cities & states could rapidly expand areas covered by frequent bus routes & cut average headways in half. States could issue emergency subsidies for purchasing EVs priced under 40k, with a higher subsidy for union-built. Fund by taxing the rich.

Just want to say there has been lots of strong coverage re: what seafarers are going through in the Strait of Hormuz. (It's just a shame that events like these are what it takes to make these often invisible workers visible.) Some examples of good reporting: www.theguardian.com/business/202...

seeing Chavez’s legacy be swiftly and correctly decimated is a powerful reminder that we as a society could, actually, hold people accountable when credible allegations are made that they are child molesters

n.b., ICE never left www.standwithminnesota.com/adoptarent

The “writing is thinking” posting will continue until a single freaking person in Silicon Valley has figured this out

*breathing into a paper bag*

This could ve big: DfT have a new tool showing how well-connected every 100x100m cell in England and Wales is to work, shops, leisure, health etc, broken down by mode connectivity-tool-lite.dft.gov.uk/app

It’s weird that there’s a branch of academics pretending that it’s acceptable to have LLMs write any portion of their manuscripts or other forms of public engagement. It’s not. You’re supposed to be the author. No matter what your new toy can do.

'claude can now research like a phd student!' bullshit, pour a bottle of department reception red and 6 pints into that motherfucker and it ain't gonna go home and finish its chapter for tomorrow morning

Here are all the lighthouses of the Northern Seas, each light is the right color, each turns or pulses at the right frequency, and is scaled with its brightness. You can also see how far they are visible. I had Claude Code build this by giving instructions in English: lighthouse-atlas.netlify.app

We've posted the slides and a printer-friendly version of our subway expansion report, A Better Billion! Slides: transitcosts.com/ABB_Presenta... Printer-friendly PDF: transitcosts.com/A_Better_Bil... NYT write-up: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/n... The OG interactive: transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...

PLEASE HELP US SHARE THIS: “We’ve let the lies be far too successful, and that’s significantly hurt our cities. No more.” It’s our blunt NEW @usa.streetsblog.org op-ed sharing why we’ve created @urbantruth.bsky.social. SPOILER: We need to call out the lies and tell the truth much more persuasively!

The Department for Transport has announced £271 million to help develop green vessel fuel and accelerate innovation across the maritime sector supporting hundreds of skilled jobs and driving decarbonisation. (1/3)

Hot off the press - a letter from the Exec Chair of @ukri.org explaining his plans and in particular the financial position of STFC. It notes curiosity driven research is protected and will make up around half of UKRI spend over the coming period www.ukri.org/news/open-le...

This post is for all of you in every time zone all around the world. I keep hearing that Bluesky is still mostly North American. But I think there’s lots of you around the world that love cities, and want them to be better. We want @urbantruth.bsky.social to be global. I hope you’ll check us out.

I demand to know why I’m being force-fed AI that will allegedly save me time and aggravation BUT I *still* can’t attach a document to an email without closing it first. Can we please deal with some basic stuff that actually matters??! (PS if AI can actually solve that I may be more on board)