Happy first day of the 2025-26 school year! (I didn’t teach yesterday so today counts)

Academic friends prepping for the CHI deadline: I am happy to give some big-picture pre-review feedback if you could use it! I can probably do this for three-ish papers (maybe two papers where I would be considered an expert of some kind and one paper on a topic I'd just be an everyday reader)

Trump has tried quite a few things to try to distract us, but none of them are working. Some things he should try next, which could totally work: universal healthcare, pro-earth climate change policies, federal decriminalization + legalization of certain substances, prison reform… I’d be distracted!

Me three months ago:

Our #educhi2025 papers are available now! Also, the conference has just started (today is the pedagogy workshop educhi2025.educhi.org). I'm excited about my paper, which is about using amoeba drawings to encourage sketching and prototyping within ambiguous problem spaces dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

You can tell I turned 37 today because I watched a full ad about a nonstick pan, followed the link to the website, and got really excited to read about how it works because I’m tired of my eggs sticking. I bought it. When it comes it will be like my birthday all over again!

Wondering if your team could work with our HCI/d students? In this thread I'll list some project types that have worked well in past semesters to spark ideas.

Let’s all remember that our conferences are attended by people who speak many languages. Your presentation is a chance to explain your research as clearly as possible. It is not the time to try to show off your vocabulary, which is likely inaccessible to many in the room.

Heyyyyy, so when we pick destinations with low flight connectivity for our conferences, any kind of travel delay snowballs. All the Newark stuff from last night has me getting to the conference 36 hours later than planned. I’ll be missing the workshop I was going to be a full day early for. #DIS2025

I know I’m a bit biased, since @graydesign.bsky.social is an author, but I’m legitimately excited to read this. I’m talking myself out of bringing it to DIS with me, but I’m going to try to tackle this before EduCHI. studioproperties.org #studioProperties #studioPedagogy #prettyBooks

Don’t tell the republicans, but I used part of my sick day to turn this Totally Straight* SuperDry tank top into a SuperGay one. *I don’t get all the credit. Tank tops are already pretty gay. It didn’t take much convincing.

What. A. Nerd.

I’m teaching the “HCI/d Studio Practice” course next semester. We pair industry partners with student groups that include first and second year Master’s HCI/d students. If you know someone interested in working with a group of students next semester, let me know! More details: lnkd.in/gqUshj6C

When a person becomes a billionaire, every cent over 1B should go to a world fund. Not for the specific nation, but for the Earth. They literally can't spend that much money anyway. #voteAustinForEmperor

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Photos from Japan, post 5/5

Photos from Japan, post 4/5

Photos from Japan, post 3/5

Photos from Japan, post 2/5

Photos from Japan, post 1/5

Looks professional. But has Pokémon cards (gifts for students). May this always be true haha. Congratulations to the IU Bloomington HCI/d Master’s students!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Reposting to remember this analogy with exercise, since that’s basically how I explain it to my students already.

Our hotel room number is 2319. Hopefully we don’t encounter any unexpected human artifacts.

Masako Wakamiya's keynote is a beautiful love letter to technology appropriation. Loved her stories about turning "Office" into a playground #chi2025

I hope I can be half as awesome as the #chi2025 keynote speaker, Wakamiyu Masako, when I grow up. She’s a technology legend at 90!

Congratulations to the team who made the KaraokAI interactivity exhibit for winning the popular vote!!! dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... @annarlcarter.bsky.social #chi2025 #interactivity

I did end up getting some new glasses from Jins after learning from @mayworms.info that they could make them in 30 minutes. These ones are dragon ball themed!!! “Supreme Kai” is a bit on the nose for glasses I got at CHI #chi2025 but it was not intentional lol us.jins.com/products/jin...

#chi2025 questions don’t have to be designed to embarrass students. You can ask the same question without trying to push the presenter off balance first. Especially if you want them to be able to answer your question. Thankfully the old dudes who tend to do this in our community are less common

ADHD+no adderall at CHI update, since people have said these are useful for them. I’m not as overwhelmed as I thought I’d be, and I attribute it to being much more aware now of how and when I get overstimulated. Knowing how a situation feels with and without ADHD medication is a key part of that.

Thinking about how cool it was in CHI2022 to watch a keynote from a speaker who did a ton of background research on our community to be able to connect her research to our field in a meaningful way.

Austin’s Unofficial Rules for Not Dying (or Being Boring) at Conferences, particularly #chi2025 A short thread of practical survival tips for the conference grind:

All of the C-CILab PhD students (Suchismita Naik, Seora Park, and Tilar DeVine) have work at #CHI2025 this year! Here’s a little thread celebrating what they’re up to. So proud of them! ❤️

If anyone is making a #chi2025 bingo card this year, then they should make sure to include “overheard senior academics discussing their Bidet experiences” on the card somewhere #whereischinosaur

Clearly, spreading bullshit is the highest virtue, so teaching people to recognize propaganda & manipulation is “censorship”, and therefore we need to defund digital literacy programs. And while we’re at it, education is “censorship” of bad ideas, which is why we need to defund the universities!

Feeling cute today, even though I still don’t understand photo angles like I should.

When far too many are choosing silence, we need everyone to raise our collective voice now.

The truth is, DOGE was never about making government more efficient. It was about taking control of it from the inside. What happened at the NLRB is not an isolated incident—it’s a warning of what happens when billionaires are handed unchecked power inside public institutions.

Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia alive? Because the amount of resistance to addressing his being trafficked gives the distinct impression that either he is dead or what they have done to him is so unspeakable that they cannot afford for him to be freed, seen, or spoken with.

Two string theorists walk into a bar, and the first one tells the author of the joke, ‘Hey, I’m not a string theorist, I’m a topologist,’ and the second one says, ‘It’s fine — in string theory, all good punchlines loop back on themselves.’

Mom and I met David Sedaris and chatted with him for a while! I showed him where I wrote “I knew it” in his book where I learned he is gay. Mom confessed to stealing my book. He recommended a farm museum for my trip to Tokyo. I helped him chastise someone taking a picture. We traded a pin for a pen.

Trump is now saying certain favored companies will be exempt from tariffs. Oh really? In 1773, Britain exempted the East India Trading Company from tariffs on tea. It led to the Boston Tea Party.

BREAKING: In the most predictable of predictable news, trump has just ordered a 90-day pause on some tariffs. HE CAVED AGAIN. What a fucking clown.

The House passed legislation to prohibit federal district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, marking a significant step in an escalating Republican campaign targeting judges who have blocked some of Trump’s executive orders.

Looking for more online groups where people genuinely connect. We’re expanding our study on subtle acts of support in online communities and are looking for new groups to observe. If you're part of such a group or you moderate one, please consider joining our study! c-cilab.com/subtle-acts-...

I want my government to be boring and competent enough so that I don’t have to think about it every goddamn minute.

asked my 6yo if she knew what the song she was singing (pink pony club) was about. "no," she answered, "wait--gay?"

It's not too late! Find a March near you, and tell these Robber Barons: Hands Off Our Schools! Hands Off Our Libraries! Hands Off Our Med Science! Hands Off Our Soc Sec! Hands Off Our Health Care! Hands Off Our Vaccines! Hands Off Our Jobs! Hands Off Our DEMOCRACY! #HANDSOFF 🛑 handsoff2025.com

Washington, DC, with the props!

Hands off #handsoff Bloomington, IN #bloomingtonindiana