Thinking about picking up my book? Do it this week! all @islandpress.bsky.social print titles are 50% off until 11/16! islandpress.org/books/when-d... also lots of other great books to grab as well -- thread below with some links of my favorites

idk man, when in doubt, it's a helluva lot easier and cheaper and more humane to invest in keeping people out of homelessness than to spend money pushing the unhoused around from damp sidewalk to damp sidewalk. rental/food assistance over sweeps all day any day www.opb.org/article/2025...

This is a good thread on narrative framing. How we talk about technology matters, particularly because hype is one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful weapons

Walking in downtown SLO really brings it home yet again how much our housing for people is determined by housing for cars. Multiple "SLO downtown is dying" articles recently, but none mentioned how it is mostly 1-storey buildings that instead could include 3-4 storeys of apartments. But

It is wild, if not surprising I guess, that whether people could fly somewhere at Thanksgiving seemed to have more political effect than whether people could *eat* at Thanksgiving.

Logging off for real. Reminding myself of these gorgeous views on my sunset hike tonight. I love how the fog rolls in and cascades down over the coastal mountains. Goodnight, all. Rest up, the fight continues.

Definitely should *not* have logged back on after my meditation group tonight 🤦🏻‍♀️

So airline travel got messy and the President started ranting about the filibuster, so all that sacrifice over the last month plus was not worth fighting for, do I have that right? Kinda seems like the two main issues.

look I know being an engaged citizen IS the work of democracy but it is also the work of elected officials not to create situations where everyone has to be mobilized all the time to prevent them from allowing some kind of Dickensian horror on a Sunday night while you're in between loads of laundry

I know others have already made this point, but there is absolutely an aspect of this related to the lack any real rail in this country. The effects on air travel should not play as big a factor as it clearly did in affecting healthcare for millions, let alone enabling a fascist government.

I have a complicated medical profile, to put it mildly, so I thought about enrolling in the best PPO plan at my new job. Until I saw that they were already saying the premiums would more than double in January. And I have it *good*, since I had other employer-paid options.

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

My family has been without half our income for 40 days. It has been.. very hard. We are willing to feel that pain so people can have health care next year, or to undo these illegal recissions. We are not willing to have been put through this for NOTHING.

Anyway a great way to radicalize people is for them to realize that you just abandoned their chance at being able to access and afford health care because you didn’t like waiting in line at the airport.

The gender theory of everything remains undefeated

Last night, the Trump Administration sent a letter suggesting Wisconsin should return our FoodShare payments. My response ⬇️

So I had a silly idea recently for some local merch, and this Mamdani logo generator just happened to drop at the right time, so here is the first version ™️ 😄

So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!

Apropos of pearl-clutching headlines about New York, I thought about one of my favorite stickers I bought from @blueheronfarm.bsky.social blueheronfarmcajeta.com/products/bin...

Just talked with a professor from France who informed me that they just don’t do evictions in the winter where he’s from and that that’s extremely normal. It would be a BATTLE to get a policy like that in Portland. We’re honestly barbaric in the United States. It’s absurd.

Who was I just telling about this World Naked Bike Ride seat cover (unused!)? @rainsurname.bsky.social maybe? I found it yesterday when unpacking boxes in my office. 😄

omg. My nieces would have lost it. 🤩

With flights being cancelled all across the country one can only dream how it would be if we would have a decent high speed train network. At times the TSA lines at IAH were twice the time it would take the proposed Shinkansen-style train from Houston to Dallas.

Billionaires should not exist. But trillionaire should not even be a word in the English language.

I know the chronic pain and dynamic disability folks have known this forever but some days I wish there was a socially agreed upon normalized way to show good days from bad. Like, if you saw me just standing today, you wouldn't know whether it is "hiking after work" me or "hurts to climb stairs" me.

Happy Four Seasons [Total Landscaping] Day to all those who celebrate! 🗣📣👨‍🌾🔨🚜 Still one of my all-time favorite moments of levity in very dark times. Those are the days the internet was made for. 😄

The more people who crash into the traffic calming, the more necessary it was.

You (a fool): The LLM is an all-knowing oracle, on its way to godlike intelligence Me (dumber): The LLM is Indra’s Net, each fundamentally empty token a multifaceted jewel in whose surfaces the reflections of every other jewel arise in mutual interdependence The LLM: You can eat that rock

I couldn't read to the end. This article is devasting, and breathtakingly sad, literally. We are so far down the rabbit hole in the worst possible ways that I don't know how we step back through the mirror. There is literally no reason these platforms should have this capability with no failsafe.

Next request: anyone seen good domain-specific research on AI and workforce development and/or education? Specifically, whether employers actually expect or want "AI literacy", and in what ways? I keep hearing that "employers expect" phrase, but without citation. Is it an AI bubble talking point?

Has anyone seen research on gendered differences related to AI use? e.g. enthusiasm, skepticism, environmental or ethical concerns, etc? Some folks must have done this work. Thanks!

This seems like one of those days where I open up the skyline, scroll for a few seconds, and immediately go from "wait, what's going on?" to "nope, no thanks, none of that today" and immediately log off again.

This makes me wonder if the ratio of promises/realized benefits ratio with data centers in rural places is similar to prisons. This doc is largely about my hometown - I wonder if we'll see a data center version soon? youtu.be/-BALJXq5mIg?...

“I can accept skepticism and criticism and even cynicism, but what I cannot accept is injecting even more unnecessary cruelty into a world that already has more than enough.” Great piece by @marisakabas.bsky.social www.thehandbasket.co/p/zohran-mam...

Has anyone created an activity-based model for "There and Back Again"? If so, please point me in that direction. I feel like that would be an amazing class demonstration or activity but I don't have the skills myself to create it 😄

This is so obvious and probably part of Maslow, but it just occurred to me that the angle of the pyramid, and thus the size of each layer, shows how each section is constrained by income & privilege. So, someone with money/privilege has a much larger ability to fulfill the top. Does that make sense?

‼️ "Roughly one in four @transit.app users has some form of accessibility need, spanning from low vision to mobility limitations."

This is a landslide. The last NYC mayoral candidate to clear 1 million votes was John Lindsay—over 50 years ago. It will be dismissed by pundits saying it can only happen in New York. That's garbage. Think pledging to freeze rent and offer childcare won't resonate in Nevada? Wisconsin? Texas?

lot of messages tonight...but i don't think there's any as strong or replicable as having an identity, an ideology, and a clear message for people and then staying, without ever wavering: "I refuse to apologize for any of this."

We have friends everywhere

I know the term authenticity gets over-used these days, but it struck me that Mamdani's authenticity is truly embodied, and at our most primal level, humans respond to that. It is like the opposite of the Uncanny Valley. He is fully himself and, as he said, unapologetic about it.

“Years from now may our only regret be that this day took so long to come” Zohran Mamdani

man, I know the Mayor of NYC isn't the same as President of the US, but I can't help but think a speech like this (and a politician like this) could have led to a different outcome. Hopefully will lead to a different outcome in the future.

Bluesky rn

tired: leaders throw folks under the bus wired: leaders invite folks on the bus in a dedicated lane

*taps sign*

folks we still got prop 50 coming in CA if you’re in line to lib out stay in line