Notes for Chapter 5 of "The Good Drone!" This chapter addresses different manners in which governments and social movement may leverage or oppose drones and covers everything from jamming controls to aerial art!

NEW: Hours before a new entry ban is supposed to go into effect, the federal government officially acknowledges for the first time that the restrictions do NOT apply to people who currently have H-1B visas. Link: www.uscis.gov/sites/defaul...

Was the FCC’s pressure to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air illegal? Here’s what the Constitution and Supreme Court say. #firstamendment #supremecourt #fcc #politics #news #jimmykimmel

I have to keep this deliberately vague, but this is a total disaster for academic research. And imposing it so suddenly is just cruel. I’ve got friends scrambling to get back to the US before midnight tonight. Do you know how hard that is to do on 36 hours of notice?

Yes, this is clearly about Indian immigrant workers. Solidarity with other immigrants has always been our only option, but the Indian diaspora is rife with reactionary conservatism, anti-Blackness, classism, technocultism, and model minority myths that hinder real solidarities.

This morning's front page @chicagotribune.com. Photo by @staceywescott.bsky.social

Besides the effects on the tech industry, right now there are H-1B holders—people—who built a life in the US. If they are traveling, they have 17 hours to get back to the US, or the life they built will be shattered and taken from them. Can you imagine constantly living with this uncertainty?

I just became aware that a pretty central college bar from my time in Pittsburgh at CMU (Mario's Saloon) had extensive neo-Nazi ties. It's hard to put this into focus. Mario's was a pretty typical location for events and outings.

Ta-Nehasi Coates is doing a lot of things with this essay, but one of the most important is fearlessly using examples of anti-trans hate to describe Charlie Kirk's politics. The contrast between his choices and those of other writers for major legacy outlets is revealing.

I’m hearing that the admin has asked UCLA to not recognize transgender folks identities. Universities need to plan to reject these requests: transgender folks are our students and colleagues. But above that, it’s just a question of basic respect for how people choose to live their lives

The near total lack of reference to the Professor Watchlist in the professionally Serious journalist class’s chin-stroking about Charlie’s Civil and Good Politics is a reminder that the US “free press” does not have a position on whether targeting academics is a bad thing and has often helped do so

I am just going to keep posting that the TX governor recently pardoned a political murderer. The dude texted "I'm going to shoot protestors", then went and shot a Black Lives Matter protester. He was convicted in a jury trial. Hard to find a more blatant example of celebrating political violence.

Last chance to send me your questions for Frankie! What burning questions do you have about space robotics? #Robots #Robotics #Space

🤖 I close my eyes for five minutes and found out one of my favorite colleagues is going on Robot Talk! Frankie is a great researcher and an excellent communicator! This one is a can't miss! 😃

Evan Ackerman has been a thoughtful reporter on robotics for a decade or more @spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-rob...

🤖 Haven't re-upped this in... Like ever! If you are interested in the robotics community in Colorado check out this list 👇 If you do robotics in CO and aren't on the list, I can add you!

I have many thoughts about Charlie Kirk—and perhaps even more about the white elites, including some on the left, who insist we can’t hold multiple realities at once. We can. And we must. A brief 🧵

I finally have all my notes up from Chapter 4 of "The Good Drone." This chapter centers on the history and politics of the camera, and was a challenge and a lot of fun to read! If this interests you, Choi-Fitzpatricks' book is available as open access: thegooddrone.mitpress.mit.edu

This doesn't seem to be an idle threat. Landau is responding to people reporting posts on X with an image suggesting that they'll put permanent black marks in peoples' files or even seek to strip visas from people who "made light" of Kirk's assassination. Another betrayal of the First Amendment.

“The State Department indicated it would review the legal status of immigrants ‘praising, rationalizing, or making light’ of Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting.”

If this holds, there isn't much left of free speech for anyone who isn't a US citizen www.axios.com/2025/09/11/c...

For hours yesterday, starting minutes after Charlie Kirk was shot, @laurengoode.bsky.social and I combed through social media finding countless graphic videos of the incident. They autoplayed, without warning. This is the post-content moderation world. www.wired.com/story/charli...

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

You've got to read this and wonder: How many trans, non-binary, and queer students were in this class? How do they feel? How are they hurt or impacted by bigoted student/university/president?

The Atlantic and NYT lost their minds if there was so much as a trigger warning in classes. Now, professors and Deans are being fired for a class that discussed the existence of trans people and those same publications are quiet. It was never about free speech. www.texastribune.org/2025/09/08/t...

Useful to note that this was a planned operation against this professor, not organic.

Canvas: Hey! You think it'll help if we import all your old announcements when setting up your course this sem? Me: Sure... Uhh maybe? Canvas: Great! You didn't set release dates so guess it's all available now 🤷‍♂️

Why hasn't Preprint Peer Review caught on more? I discovered a small, but simple reason - authors are missing out on the JOY of getting feedback because they aren't notified when feedback occurs. more in thread below!

the maga constitution doesn’t allow any institution, public or private, to explicitly work to ameliorate racial inequality but allows the government to racially profile

🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers.

Can you get a COVID vaccine this year in Colorado? Here’s what to know.

Interesting shutdown politics thread by health policy expert and former OMB official Topher Spiro.

People from all over are showing up for DC. This is not a moment. It’s a movement. We are united in our demands. We are all DC! #FreeDC

Pretty good example of the developing roles of cameras in technology and politics today!

I loved this piece from @grimalkina.bsky.social about who is and isn't allowed to be technical. "I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but if my belonging in tech is fundamentally unacceptable yours is uncertain." www.fightforthehuman.com/why-i-cannot...

The criminalization of groups based on a constructed category through medicalization is fascism 101 and would open the door to medicalizing opposition to fascism as a mental illness. What we are seeing is the construction of fascist infrastructure to destroy large portions of the population.

The way they would accomplish banning trans gun ownership is by having the ATF along with another federal agency or board such as HHS declare anyone with gender dysphoria has a "mental illness" that makes them a "danger to [themselves] or to others" under U.S.C. § 922(g)(4) and 27 CFR § 478.11.

The word you are looking for is “authoritarianism.”

Flock bad.

In the coming days, we expect to see what's playing out in LA and DC happen in Chicago. These efforts are not about fighting crime or making communities safer. This is about Donald Trump testing his power and producing political drama to cover up his own corruption.

Coloradans need to decide! Do we want space lasers* or the right to vote!? How to choose!? *fantasy star propaganda wars

While reading on the genealogy of camera technology in "The Good Drone" I got caught up in a tangent on broader development of camera and sensor technology that is too much for the main thread so I am posting here separately.

Explanation of how risks for trans youtg are increasing in states like Colorado... TLDR local legal protections don't matter much if not enforced, when clinics restrict care, and when institutions cave to Trump.

TIL! Woke pronouns... Just one more reason that Tex is holy, I guess 🤷‍♂️

Get the hell off Substack before you literally can’t anymore without blowing up your business

On AI and cat-realism ✨

"Fun really is the name of the game for Trump & co. It’s fun for them to see a majority-Democratic city like DC live in fear of violence/deportation, to flood the trains/buses with armed law enforcement just because they can, to unleash troops who understand that they will not be held accountable."

Today, a few years past release... seeing my PhD advisor and the company where he is CTO featured as the subject of a documentary subtitled "Killer Robots" ...continues to have a significant impact on how I conceptualize robotics and drone research and the role of DoD funding. Who-da thunk it 🤷‍♂️