Wrote about capitalist realism, academia, and the radical monopolies inherent in innovation tied to capital.

Library advocates in multiple states and major advocacy organizations wouldn’t be fighting back if corporate greed didn’t dictate their collections over their community’s needs. Supporting a library’s right to fair terms in digital is what brave, forward-thinking, and informed authors do.

I’ve been taking pictures of good bumper stickers for more than 3 years (400 photos!) and the thing I love the most is that you rarely see the same deranged one twice. This was the only sticker on a new looking white Kia Forte parked at the North Carolina State Farmers Market on a Sunday morning.

I’m exhibiting @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social conference this year and was surprised to see that an org that says they care about privacy selling participant data to vendors, particularly at a time when a lot of people are taking a risk in attending the conference at all.

“Moreover, campus surveys suggest that many students feel compelled to self-censor. Out of fear for their grades, they often respond to exam questions by drawing on what their professors have taught them, thereby reproducing expert opinion.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

“No one goes to Pilates thinking ‘I’m going to be a fascist today’”

How Things Work is three years old this week. It's not the most important thing in the world but it is nice to know that it is possible to build sustainable independent media in 2026. If you're a subscriber, thank you for keeping hope alive. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/three-year...

Wtf I share a birthday with Bari Weiss this sucks

I have never used another browser unless I was forced to, so I was surprised to see that Firefox has less than 5% market share! It’s not even that ideological, I just like it.

Wrote about why we need a strong consumer protection movement to fight digital contract abuses over @techdirt.com. Thanks for the opportunity @masnick.com ! www.techdirt.com/2026/04/21/y...

“We’ve been signing away our rights one click at a time…. If we want to take them back, libraries are the most powerful place we can start.” Our ED @littlewow.online in @techdirt.com.web.brid.gy www.techdirt.com/2026/04/21/y...

Our mutual hatred of this mural was one of the first things my partner and talked about... the dystopian "Chesterfield cigarettes" billboard that rises above it is missing, which makes it look oddly threatening. Kate Bowler might be great, this mural is terrible. www.reddit.com/r/bullcity/c...

Sometimes I wonder if the chat LLMs are basically Ask Jeeves in its most evolved form.

If you or someone you know is in North Liberty Iowa, @libraryfutures.bsky.social is so proud to be supporting this event and community read of Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience! northlibertylibrary.org/programs/eve...

Thanks to @bookriot.bsky.social @heykellyjensen.bsky.social for featuring our new Imagine IF game! Play as a librarian as you CYOA and fend off Intellectual Freedom challenges! bookriot.com/library-futu...

I read through a ton of Seder supplements and made my own Haggadah! you can download it here! 👇

Ugh so considerate and this is the thanks you get!

You: basic, hate the internet because of AI or social media brainrot or whatever. Me: wise, has always hated the internet, for killing off CD-ROMs

This from @masnick.com was thought provoking— as an old school “learn to code” type with humanities background, I am interested in the role of expertise in tech. Agentic code bots transform the gatekeeping of code, and I’m much more here for it than I thought I’d be www.techdirt.com/2026/03/25/a...

What’s interesting about this article is that it doesn’t ask whether AI has taste, just assumes it doesn’t, but rather how people can cultivate taste. It’s the same question asked of yuppies in the 1980s — replace “AI” with “money” and it’s the same old. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/s...

damn this card for reporters is such a flex

I guess now is as good a time as any to publicly admit that from about 2008-2011 I was adamantly convinced the iPhone wasn't going to take off.

Everyone knows Jolene!

This was excellent

Only interested in this feature if it’s Harold Bloom telling me he knows my work is unreadable based on the first three words and he’s not even going to bother with it

If I had to describe my gateway political ideology, it would be “know your neighbors!” Being able to rely on people who have little in common beyond proximity is crucial to navigating across difference and building small d democracy. It takes work, but it pays off! thewalrus.ca/cramped-cond...

Feeling paranoid about stochastic violence and weaponized media? Me too. That's why I can't stop thinking about this incredibly helpful essay by @littlewow.online in @flaminghydra.com about the idea of "reparative reading" as a corrective to the "paranoid style." flaminghydra.com/issue-511/

hello Buncombe County, NC (found on Reddit)

Platform based licensing is like printing money for big publishers and intermediaries – why charge once when you can charge again and again?

TODAY: @littlewow.online on "paranoid reading" and its remedies. "To practice a worldview more expansive and more open to possibilities than paranoia does not mean you have to deny the reality or gravity of oppression." flaminghydra.com/issue-511/#a...

inordinately charmed by the hibernating mister softees

One of the best essays I’ve read on AI from @rusty.todayintabs.com yesterday. “I’ve watched all three of my children learn what a cat is, and in each case the number of pictures of a cat they needed to see was not ‘all of them.’” www.todayintabs.com/p/a-i-isn-t-...

Now you can play being a Librarian with Imagine IF: imagineif.libraryfutures.net A choose-your-own-adventure experience supports public librarians through scenario-based gameplay. Play the role of a librarian as you navigate intellectual freedom issues and interact with patrons and staff. 📚📜

Got book challenges? Need informative, interactive, level-headed, and fun advice on how to handle them? We've got you. Imagine IF: The Game is out now from Library Futures! See where you intellectual freedom adventure takes you! www.libraryfutures.net/post/library...

Want to experience what it feels like to be a librarian on the front lines of an intellectual freedom challenge? Play Imagine IF, the new game from @libraryfutures.bsky.social, where you can be the helpful library cat, or…. Choose chaos! imagineif.libraryfutures.net

My friend @brendanballou.bsky.social is in the NYTimes to announce the new @publicintegritylaw.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/o...

From Ivan Illich “Silence is a Commons,” 1982. “The machine-like behaviour of people chained to electronics constitutes a degradation of their well-being and of their dignity… The political process breaks down, because people cease to be able to govern themselves; they demand to be managed.”

There is literally no world in which I would ever "hit the sauna" or take an exercise class with my colleagues and I am a sober spin instructor. These are free time activities!

I read the puffy, flattering Newsom piece in the New Yorker and somehow I find him even more unlikable than I did before I read the piece.

France’s escalating investigation into Elon Musk’s X has become a fresh flashpoint in the transatlantic fight over platform governance, writes Mark Scott, highlighting how US claims of censorship collide with Europe’s push to hold powerful platforms accountable.

Brilliant reflections on a sun-drenched yoga course (that came with a side order of MAHA-style insanity)

TODAY: @littlewow.online vs yoga teacher training. "Because I’m a librarian, everyone kept asking for book recommendations. I suggested Orientalism by Edward Said, but I don’t think anyone took me up on it." flaminghydra.com/issue-493/#i...

I wrote about some theories I learned at my yoga teacher training, like that the government shouldn't be telling you to vaccinate against disease and that you can heal cancer with reiki over at @flaminghydra.com. flaminghydra.com/issue-493/#i...

Ivan Illich never misses. Fom 1982 www.inist.org/library/1982...

Current ownership dynamics of Big 5 publishing: S&S: private equity KKR (sold by Ellison's Skydance) PRH + Macmillan: formerly Nazi affiliated Bertlesmann + Holzbrinck HarperCollins: Murdoch's NewsCorp Hachette: conglomerate Lagardère Group Independent publishing has never been this important. 📚

My favorite email of the year is here: the strange and unnecessary "Season's Greetings" card from the Copyright Office. Thankfully still signed by Shira, the People's Register of Copyrights.

My dear friend Andrew Martin has a story in the New Yorker this week! It’s excerpted from his forthcoming novel Downtime, a very fine read. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

🎬 Enter the 2026 Public Domain Film Remix Contest! Remix & reimagine treasures from 1930—early sound films, cartoons, music, literature & art—and turn them into unique films. 📅 Deadline: Jan 7, 2026 💰 First prize: $1,500 ℹ️ Details: blog.archive.org/2025/12/01/2... #contest #film #publicdomain

A bracing read for anyone connected to the nonprofit world. I love it and the work and writing of @littlewow.online (related: @flaminghydra.com is wholly free of institutional infuence, it is direct from the source, i.e. fellow human beings, and that is why you should subscribe)

I wrote about the brutal ethics of fundraising for nonprofits.