Best bike commutes are getting off the train from Boston and riding through a post-apocalyptic downtown Worcester set up that way for filming the Walking Dead. No pictures unfortunately but was pretty great.

Massachusetts folks: call/email your state reps and tell them to vote no on the climate rollback bill. Great toolkit for this here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

The dam is breaking. The world's leading public health news organization is now reporting US driver violence as a public health crisis. "American roads have become more dangerous than violent crimes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and other major cities." t.co/BEcu5JJ457

2/🧵 New piece with @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social in @NewRepublic: We analyzed 60,000+ respondents in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study. Gen Z has the lowest racial resentment of any generation. The generational shift overwhelms the education divide that supposedly defines modern politics.

Flurries on the Worcester side of my commute today have me excited about winter and looking forward to putting the studded tires back on the Brompton.

Tonight was a very bad night.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren says of the deal. “People want us to stand and fight for health care, and that's what I believe.” (via Igor Bobic, HuffPo) x.com/igorbobic/st...

It shouldn’t be forgotten that a big piece of Mamdani’s campaign was simply “cities are cool and lots of people enjoy living in them” which in and of itself dismantles alot of rightwing talking points

Croc charms are nothing but a recipe for kid sadness.

Hell yes. The yankees still suck though.

Big day at U.S. District Court in D.C. where Sean Dunn, the D.C. Sandwich Guy, is on trial for misdemeanor assault of a federal officer. Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore is on the stand narrating surveillance video of the sammie toss. 'Now he’s struck me with the sandwich,' Lairmore says.

"all lectures, assignments, feedback, and grades will be made by me without AI, nor will any of your intellectual property be fed to tools that train AI. Ideas are social, so let’s make them together. " against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...

When we start doing college tours for my oldest this year, my first question is going to be about whether the college Admin is pushing AI use on faculty for teaching and students as personal chatbots. If so, they are off the list.

"Developing our linguistic capacities — to master diverse concepts, to follow an intricate argument, to form judgments, to communicate those to others — is the development of our capacity to think. Cognitive degradation threatens democratic processes." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...

CFA for this year’s SPCW conference. Excellent theme. “Responding to the Contemporary World: Wrong Answers Only” Abstracts due Feb. 5. More info below. Please share. spcw.org/calls-for-pa...

This city does not tolerate chuds.

Yet *another* reason to just say no (to genAI)

Books the Boston Institute for Social Theory has read: Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism Táíwò, Elite Capture Wark, Capital is Dead Han, The Burnout Society Hui, Post-Europe. Next up: Seymour, Disaster Nationalism. In Boston? get in touch if you want to join!

I'm not sure you can get more marie antoinette than taking away food stamps before thanksgiving while you build a gold and marble dance hall so the other crooks can bring bribe you over a badly-cooked (argentinian) steak

An OpenAI executive said GPT-5 found solutions to 10 "previously unsolved" math problems when in reality all it did was find online references to places where people had already solved them techcrunch.com/2025/10/19/o...

1. Yesterday, millions showed up to the No Kings Rally. Perhaps no one Rally was as full of subtext as Boston's, however. Senator Markey showed up wearing a trans pride flag. His challenger, anti-trans Dem Rep. Seth Moulton showed up to boos and jeers. Subscribe to support our journalism.

This.

Things in Boston were as they should be today.

In Boston, every day is No Kings Day

If a journal says word limit for submissions is 8k but then goes on to say that subs over 9k will be returned to authors, isn’t the real limit 9k?

Cardiff will be the first UK city to introduce a surcharge for oversized SUVs and trucks, "while very large vehicles – those over 3,500kg – will be excluded from residential permits entirely."

Culture might seem a less consequential right than free assembly+ its infringement makes less spectacular news than repressive violence. But the repeal of the right to culture is grave. honored to be with @isanchezprado.bsky.social in @hyperallergic.com today! hyperallergic.com/1049388/how-...

Don’t let your institution sign on to this authoritarian bullshit. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Cycling ftw.

LA: we will fight you. Chicago: we will fight you. PDX: we will make you endure week after week of of improv theater.

Excited to see this is finally out and to have a piece in it (in Portuguese!) alongside a great international set of authors and thinkers. Thanks to the translators and editors. lavrapalavra.com/produto/voca...

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Must-read on Trump’s lawless Chicago invasion: “The president instructed federal agents to use extralegal violence against immigrants & citizens, pitting armed soldiers from 1 state against citizens of another… rubicons can’t be uncrossed.” www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-...

This is how the techbros take over universities and deprofessionalize faculty. Do not let them do it. scdailygazette.com/2025/10/07/c...

China’s no longer just exporting goods — it’s exporting energy independence. From panels, EVs & batteries to full cleantech ecosystems, it’s overtaking the U.S. fossil model built on extraction—ashes to dust. The Petro Age is ending; the Electron Age has begun.⚡ #EnergyTransition #EV #Lithium #Solar

The last coal-fired power plant in New England, Merrimack Station, has stopped running. With the closure of that facility, the region is poised to become the first in the United States without a coal plant on its grid. https://bit.ly/4nxOcna

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. trib.al/9Sxu9IN

I teach a history of antifascism course @ruhistorydept.bsky.social and figured I'd start an ongoing thread this semester to share some insights from course readings and recommend some great works on antifascism. 🧵

I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest Greta Thunberg is literally, in every meaningful way, tougher & a better leader than any elected official. Every single one. Some much more than others. Methods, policy, practicalities, those are all beside the point. You need passion, drive & humanity

1. BREAKING Judge Immergut, who was nominated by President Trump, has just granted a request by Oregon and California to block the deployment of National Guard troops from Texas and California to Portland.

Portland never stops being Portland.

A judge on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to halt its mobilization of 200 Oregon National Guard troops to protect the ICE building in Portland and its officers amid nightly protests. www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

The absolutely horrific reports of inhumane and degrading treatment that the courageous people abducted from the Sumud Flotilla have been subjected to should jolt the Prime Minister Albanese and Minister Wong into action.

This is so good.

I see we are now at the stage of topsy-turvy authoritarianism where we are calling armed masked brownshirts with the full backing of state power a ‘vulnerable group’

Pretty cool how traffic in a car on the morning commute means you go slower but when there are a lot of other cyclists on my morning bike commute, I get where I am going a few minutes faster because cars have to wait for us more.

‘“we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19 percent longer than without — AI makes them slower”’

i do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

University leaders keep saying we need to prepare our students for an AI future. But this is basically what the technology is good for. This and burning up the environment while raising everyone’s utility costs.