Amazon already has too big a footprint here. Don’t feel great about this.

Putin has outwitted every U.S. President since W, not necessarily because he’s smarter, but because he doesn’t operate with the same constraints U.S. presidents do. To blame this on Biden is moronic. We obviously shouldn’t let this episode of the culture war overshadow the more important crisis happening in Ukraine itself, but this appropriation of the crisis really worries me in the context of U.S. politics. These stances are largely indefensible. Gabbard isn’t totally wrong, I don’t think, but it’s still a sloppy oversimplification.

Remembering the time that the only person at church who understood my dissertation research was the one who worked for the state of Michigan doing social media surveillance of social justice movements.

There is no denying that Putin is smart and strategic, but expressing awe instead of concern is typically Trump in its idiocy.

Worrying stuff here. Right-wing media consumption appears to be the big predictor for QAnon beliefs.

Happy that my much cheaper bike does not rely on servers to function properly.

Kentucky has taken some bad steps in this direction lately, but this is horrific.

Bellingcat does good work. It gives me hope to see people using the internet to fight back against disinformation spread by the internet, but I’m also glad the article touches on the dangers involved.

The students in my fundamentals of computers class have repeatedly heard me bring up this story to explain that technology is never just technical.

This has been around long enough that I used to show it to my FREN 102 students, but very glad to see it cross my radar again via Boing Boing. The whole show is fantastic, but this bet might be the best. Great, nerdy deployment of mostly-right French.

City council member responded to my concerned email by basically telling me I should have spoken up before the vote happened. Feels harsh but fair—want to do better about showing up and speaking up.

Can we please refrain from electing the alleged Q to Congress?

A long but important read.

This is terrifying on so many levels. Besides the possibility of war, the thing I’m most spooked by is the sheer cynicism of Russian efforts here. It doesn’t matter how bad the disinformation is if you can count on enough people to believe it. Trumpian, but turned up to 14.

I grabbed this book at the library while dropping off some overdue items and read the whole thing that night before going to bed. Reread, rather—I’ve read this book at least once before. It made a big impression on me at the time, even though I’m sure I wasn’t particularly anti-racist then, and I loved it even more this time.

The art is great and the story is even better. It’s an amazing comic with a powerful message, and I think I ought to buy a copy for kiddo to read when she’s older. I already own Yang’s Superman Smashes the Klan, which is one of my favorite comics, but I think this one might be even better.

This took me a while to read: not because i didn’t like it, but because there were some parts that enraged me (in a productive way), so I couldn’t trust myself to read it before bed for fear of getting too wound up to sleep.

I appreciated the book’s straightforward approach to laying out problems with American democracy and its optimism that we can do something about it. This year, I’ve been wanting to think—and engage—more in politics, and I think I’ll find the last chapter of this book particularly helpful for giving me the motivation to do so.

Lexington just installed plate readers on a trial basis, so this hits particularly hard right now. It’s scary and it needs to stop.

Doing transcription yourself sucks. It’s long and tedious, and the final product never feels worth all the effort you put into it. For all that, though, this is exactly why services like Otter have never sat well with me.

Quite enjoyed this read. Appreciated Spiegelman’s take that Maus got pushback because there’s not a satisfying ending. It’s true of Maus, but maybe that’s a feature, not a bug. Hat tip to Boing Boing for pointing me to this.

This story is so, so much to take in. I saw it from the Massachusetts Pirate Party with a comment about implants needing to be open sourced. I agree, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Disappointed to see more legislation like this under consideration.

Glad to hear this—and glad my state rep seems to me a voice of reason here.

Yes for more transportation funding, but not if it’s all going to cars.

This continues to be a dumb and worrying story.

Why are dress codes so often so gross?