If the space rocket blows up in space, then it is not the most powerful space rocket ever built, sry.

Really can't downplay the seriousness of this for all of higher ed. But at the same time you wonder how putting powerful enemies into an unmistakably existential crisis will pay off for a regime still consolidating power

One day after being booed, Columbia President Claire Shipman at university-wide graduation says international students shouldn't be targeted by government for free speech. "And let me also say, that I know many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate, Mahmoud Khalil."

Tomorrow I get my PhD conferred (cheers) at Columbia University (booing) and now I'm reading beautiful novels again (greater cheering). Please recommend me new beautiful novels!

Speaking to NPR in his first media interview since his detention, lawful permanent U.S. resident Mohsen Mahdawi finds peace in meditation and hopes "America will fulfill its promise."

In the wake of what Judge Dugan did (100% legal), now is a good time for everyone to know what she knows: An immigration or administrative warrant is *not* a judicial warrant. You are not obliged to obey it. Indeed, you can let the person out the back door. docs.google.com/presentation...

Columbia may have signed its own death notice. Word has it that tomorrow Columbia will announce an agreement to formal oversight by Trump. This, if true, will signal the death of Columbia as we knew it - a premier teaching and research institution. I explain it here: youtube.com/shorts/W7Rr7...

A huge honor to get to write something with my hero @naomiaklein.bsky.social. We wish it was a happier topic, but it's an urgent one. We dove deep into the apocalyptic fervor of the far right to issue a warning about the rise of End Times Fascism. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

"When mass protests broke out against his policy, Biden repeatedly condemned the activists as violent and antisemitic, responding to outlier actions that didn’t represent the movement. Biden’s slander helped splinter the Democratic coalition, giving Trump a potent wedge issue." shorturl.at/K4cPI

New ACLU video shows the moment ICE arrested Georgetown Scholar Dr. Badar Khan Siri. Masked agents accosted him on his way home from an iftar. In just 4 days, he was transferred among 5 different facilities across 3 states. Multiple refused him food or water to break his fast.

We've finished scanning CD-ROM Today! This was an influential magazine from the height of the multimedia era, and a great record of what was happening in the computer games/software industry in the mid-90s archive.gamehistory.org/folder/f8071...

Reading Phil Spencer talking about how maybe "AI" can help with ports and preservation and feeling my blood boil. What a fundamental misunderstanding of not only this tech but how games WORK.

Harvard tries once again to outdo Columbia--this time by dismissing the leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies without the Trump administration even asking them. So much for not obeying in advance. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Wow the exact thing genAI creators intended, for their users to become psychologically dependent and chemically addicted to their product, is happening, who could have seen this coming futurism.com/the-byte/cha...

My colleague Rashid Khalidi: "We are approaching the status of Chilean universities under Pinochet, where on the orders of an authoritarian government, ideas and books were banned, students were expelled and arrested, departments were taken over & faculty fired." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ah look, the rapid rise of the German armaments industry during a lil Transatlantic far right conjecture, I'm sure everything totally okay and chill; no bad vibes or premonitions at all!

it's so cool how nazis are going to raze an ivy league school and turn it into a snowflake safe space camp for chud student athletes like they did ito third rate florida schools and its own trustees don't even care because the new york times convinced them the students were baader meinhoff

He is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding. Witnesses said Israeli soldiers took him from an ambulance. This is what "No Other Land" is all about. www.middleeasteye.net/news/palesti...

European Commission, I am told, is ready to rip (already fraying) social contract in its enthusiastic march towards the armament economy. at Social Europe event recently, two punchlines: European SMEs have a bright future in arms manufacturing chains. Forget welfare, we're in the age of warfare

I don't really have a lot of comrades active here but it's nice to scroll thru a dumb media app that isn't all nazi AI stuff.

This year Columbia University's "anti-discrim + harassment training" is especially egregious. Not only CU's collaboration with ICE to exile Ranjani Srinivasan and disappear Mahmoud Khalil, but also how the training uses cartoon images of protestors in slides that describe forms of harassment.

society erred when we removed the computer from its honored place in the home and ushered it into every part of our profane world. we must rebuild the temple of the Computer Room

We really need a new Arcades Project about dead tech, but I'm not sure our generation currently has the melancholic-messianic grasp of revolutionary communism to do it right.

Potential revised Muslim Ban coming. @aaup.bsky.social

Hyper-Imperialism is a militarized form of imperialism marked by the US's declining hegemony and growing reliance on military power and sanctions to maintain its dominance. This dossier remains a nice read for understanding current shifts in U.S. foreign policy. thetricontinental.org/studies-on-c...

"...there has been no mass organizing movement as many had hoped. One reason is the absence of a practical alliance between Mexican independent unions and the U.S. and Canadian unions in the same industries." labornotes.org/blogs/2025/0...

Currently chasing bad vibes (reading a lot about Hsinchu)

One of the greatest insights I received from growing up on the border in the Bush years was the intimate and early understanding that the U.S. is a disgusting, reactionary, war-hungry country built on a big bundle of terror and bones, but also, uniquely endowed with great hamburgers.

We have to face facts: WW2 combat flight sims disappeared from the mainstream and fascism began making a return. Indeed they were replaced by their Wario / Scratch: the live service combat arcade game, where military hardware was stripped of context and rendered morally neutral and brand safe.

"yearslong clampdown"

I wish there were more Bolsheviks on bluesky

Taipei at night

In Taiwan, always more fun to buy tech stuff in person. Even if I'd save like 10-20 bucks online, no one can convince me it's better than buying stuff from a random uncle in a cubicle on the fourth floor of a Taipei electronics market, who will let me play with 30 gadgets before buying them.

National Day of Mourning for weird videogame handheld and IEM headset aficionados throughout the gringo continent.

in better news

Showing this to my gf, who keeps asking me when Skyrim 2 is coming out.

Video Game History Museum Library Digital Archive is now available to the public archive.gamehistory.org

this seems significant

"We must grapple with the reality that the current models we have for philanthropy are not up to the task of incubating, developing and supporting strategy on the left." on the list of serious election post-mortems, highly worth your time to read www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Brb gotta figure a way to make my dissertation about a murder

I really wanna know who in the Taiwanese gov manages their list of b list homophobic far right American political figures to visit the island

Re: maquilas and destruction of the world. From Bowel et al 1995 study that tried to estimate maquila waste and contamination. In 1991, JRZ government made public that US maquilas in the city produced roughly 35,000 tons of toxic waste per year, only 35% returned to US.

blogged about Xiaohongshu and why i thought about that time chinese people were on Clubhouse for a week ko-fi.com/post/Xiaohon...

Coming to terms that in my research on the maquila in Taiwan and Mexico, industrial poisoning is huge issue for workers and their communities. What's your fav readings on labor and ecology?

A great interview with Rebecca Karl on the importance of the AHA vote against scholasticide in Gaza: truthout.org/articles/sch...