For decades the tech industry has insulated itself from criticism by leveraging the rhetoric of progressivism & benignity towards the disenfranchised & disabled, w promises of “access” & “democratization” that their products afford. We can’t stop them using this lang but we can stop falling for it.

This Weeks Onion Magazine: ‘I Don’t Know How And It’s Not My Event’: Simone Biles On Her Decision Not To Snowboard At The Winter Olympics

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again I’ve been genuinely astounded at how quickly & effectively RFK Jr & his allies—Drs Prasad, Bhattacharya, Makary, Høeg, Oz, & Kulldorff—have been able to dismantle the US vaccination system, including vaccine R&D I thought guardrails might slow them, but nope

»Die Kybernetik ist überall, wie Luft.« In ihrem großen Buch zeichnet @annanosthoff.bsky.social eine faszinierende Genealogie der datafizierten Gegenwartsgesellschaft – von den Anfängen der »Wissenschaft von Kommunikation und Kontrolle« bis zum KI-Hype und Techfaschismus heute. 18.2.!

20 years ago, Emily Care Boss organized the first JiffyCon, held in a church basement in Greenfield, MA. The repeating event quickly exceeded space capacity. We had to stop this indie TTRPG con several years later, due to space & pricing constraints. Scale & scope are everything it turns out.

Spaces that can host conventions – even small ones – have practically vanished in much of the UK. It is an honest to god tragedy, and it makes me so angry to hear politicians lament the loss of third spaces without doing anything about this. So we just can’t put these things on.

The AAUP at the U of Cincinnati just passed a resolution entitled "Resolution to Express Solidarity with Immigrants and to Oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement Activities on the campus of the University of Cincinnati." Proud of my colleagues and the humane staff I work with.

Wedging this into my narrowest hallway

with alt text:

I was talking to @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social about the diffusion of different game cultures & their ties to creator/influencer cultures, especially based on which are most/ least resistant to monetization. (All are very human & thus subject to a lot of Scene Bullshit, but capital shifts a lot)

Today on Hidden Door's not-so-hidden blog, we talk about procedural narrative + procedural generation (or procgen if you're COOL). You've probably seen procgen before, whether you know it or not. But where?! Secrets revealed, procedures explained: www.hiddendoor.co/blog/procedu...

Vielen Dank für die Liste und die Anregungen - und für alle, die mehr zu Schwarzer europäischer Gegenwartsliteratur lesen wollen, ist natürlich sowieso immer Jeannettes Diss zu empfehlen! www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...

Hierlang für @isdbund.bsky.social #BlackHistoryMonth Termine in Berlin ⬇️und in ganz Deutschland ➡️ isdonline.de/events

Fascists only need to win one election to destroy democracy, whereas democrats have to win every election to preserve it. That’s why fascists cannot be allowed into politics, why a tolerant society must never tolerate fascism or it will lose its tolerance. It’s the Popper Paradox and we’re living it

"Dance lessons gave young people an opportunity to experiment with romantic sentiments... in a familiar and well-supervised environment." Learn more about changes in Jewish courtship on the dance floor––my book "It Could Lead to Dancing" is now on sale ($21 paperback for US/Canada orders).

WKRC documented today's protest by a group of SPCA students in Cincinnati. This particular group was led by a 7th grader with a bullhorn who self-organized a whole coalition of students to leave their classes and protest ICE. I wish the international community could see such everyday US actions.

I shared German class with football star Nate Kaeding and was in multiple bands with Bridget Kearney (of Lake Street Dive), but all that maybe pales in comparison to my HS friendship with Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower. She's the courageous one I want to be when I grow up.

Anyone using AI to describe history should be booted out of the historian's guild forthwith. And that's not just me protecting my work. That's me protecting the discipline. That's me protecting our story of what has been. 🧵5

WKRC documented today's protest by a group of SPCA students in Cincinnati. This particular group was led by a 7th grader with a bullhorn who self-organized a whole coalition of students to leave their classes and protest ICE. I wish the international community could see such everyday US actions.

BREAKING: The House passed the so-called SAVE America Act which threatens to upend our freedom to vote. The bill could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters by requiring documents like passports or birth certificates to register to vote and forcing voter roll purges. The Senate must reject it.

ChatGPT is like this Magic Button you can press to *instantly* make your instructor sad and anxious; like a non-commital insult pre-packaged in digital form.

This post got me to listen to Computer Magic, and that led me to buying Davos @bandcamp.com Go give Fuzz a listen, and if you enjoy it, go dive into Computer Magic's wider discography. For me it's both intensely modern and intensely nostalgic, and that's a wild ride danzcm.bandcamp.com/album/davos

As someone said, the biggest issue with AI in the workplace is not that it increases your speed. It's that it triples the output of the biggest idiot you work with.

Feeling good. "As always, Claybourne weaves a narrative that’s engaging, thought-provoking, ridiculously imaginative, and takes the reader places—sometimes with their heart in their throat—that they didn’t know they needed to go." - new Goodreads review

The Trump administration has just cut off an entire region of nearly a million and a half people, with 600 000 in El Paso alone from global transport networks. The nearest logistics and transport node is now Holloman Air Force Base

“For me, education was a source of light. Literature pulled me away from self-loathing and nihilism, and toward the beauty of the world. The bleak, miserable world I occupied was illuminated, its true nature exposed. Other potential versions of my life were lit up as well, inviting me in.”

Pen-&-Paper-Rollenspiele wurden in der Fantastikforschung lange unterschätzt. In meinem Gespräch mit @letobili.bsky.social (Tobias Unterhuber) geht es u.a. darum, warum sie als »Missing Link« zwischen Literatur, Film & Games gelten können. titel-kulturmagazin.net/2026/02/10/r... #gamestudies #rpg

That's why he's a legend

A parent at my kids’ school was abducted a few hours ago. Please help us help the family with legal expenses and care for their elementary school son (who doesn’t even know his dad was taken yet 💔): gofund.me/20a5b26ab

We could have this kind of leadership in every US city, folks. I'm here for it!

Jordan Mechner's graphic novel memoir about his father's escape from the Holocaust receives a German version at Vermes-Verlag. @jmechner.bsky.social will be in Vienna for a book reading at the Jüdisches Museum Wien. www.gamesmarket.global/jordan-mechn...

Over 28 years, 140 people died at the Berlin Wall from all causes (intentional shooting, drowning, accidents, etc.). #comparativeborderregimes

Way to go, Pope!

I am revisiting the horrific NSU murders in Germany, and reminded of the lingering "mysterious deaths" of the many Ferguson activists since 2014. As we spend our minutes contemplating real-world conspiracies, consider this one, too. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

This CEO governing "style" is endemic across so many institutions, as market-first neoliberalism dissolves into "me-first" neo-fascism. Authoritarians simply dismiss or ignore the opinions they don't want to hear, as they level all their policies against their workers. Solidarity with these unions.

Happy Black History Month! ✨️ Es gibt so viel tolle Literatur von Schwarzen Autor*innen - ich empfehle mal ein paar meiner Lieblingsbücher ⬇️ #blackhistorymonth #SchwarzeLiteratur #lesetipps

A whole raft-full of folks are lining up to leave this platform, which received our communities over the past decade as other platforms deteriorated, and those not yet on the raft usually just haven't heard the news.

TIL in 1971 Alex Randolph created a chess variant where players either don't know the identity of the opponent's pieces, or their pieces. Titled Mimikri, it was only released in Germany... and it is uncannily similar to a prototype I devised last summer for a thing boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20...

Friends with a new, renewed, or amplified interest in the Spanish language and Latin America, consider checking out the work your colleagues/neighbors in departments of Spanish/Romance Languages/Modern Languages/etc--they're likely in the corner of an old campus building 1/

The future of higher ed is in this cohort of African grad students who experienced excellent training and *less* racism from established white universities, and who see the world with clear, moral eyes. I am happy to be in dialogue with them.

Vielleicht könnte sich Merz statt Teilzeitmüll zu jammern auf die Arbeitgeber, die Recht brechen, konzentrieren. Exhibit A: youtu.be/g9f2Yqm9AIo?...

IDK who was even playing in yesterday's game. I only know that Bad Bunny was on a team and they won

Both Europeans and Americans responding and contributing to developments at the Danish convention Fastaval played no small part in producing the modern "chamber larp" and "freeform larp" movements in the 2000s. What started in US SFF fandom became a true international game design dialogue.

We have published our first report on larp festivals and conventions, explaining the foundations of the work we are doing in Larpocracy: Larp Festivals as Democratic Spaces. zenodo.org/records/1841...

Do you know what else has been proven to improve kids grades/attainment at school? Plenty of food, secure roof over kids heads, financial security at home. Invest in that motherfuckers. www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion...

Workers in Minneapolis are experiencing the escalation of ICE raids there since December as an immediate threat upending their lives, and have been organizing within their workplaces and communities to defend themselves and one another: labornotespodcast.podbean.com/e/how-worker... 🧵1/4

From Epstein to Bezos, the ruling class is rotten to the core. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The art of Robert Pruitt is a portal to Black histories and Black futures. Free immediately captivated me, and I used it as the cover for my first book. He depicts Black people with such beauty and care. #BHM

Just this month, I am writing: * an invited lecture bridging representations of BIPOC in East & West German cinema to 1990 * a chapter on my personal relationship to Apocalypse World * an essay on the German vampire film as dark initiation * a short piece on collaborative TTRPG authorship