Astounding!! Finally you can see the cover of the anthology I've been working on for the past couple of years with co-editors @older and Karen Lord! "We Will Rise Again" is full of essays, interviews, and speculative stories about protest, social movements, and hopeful resistance -- all informed by the experiences of real-life movement leaders and community organizers.
Want to know what US government workers actually do, vs. the propaganda spewed by DOGE? This incredible website, "We the Builders," is full of first-person testimonials from government workers about their actual jobs, and how they make the government work for the public. https://www.wethebuilders.org/
Are you in the New Haven, CT area on 3/31 at 4pm? Want to hear me and brilliant science journalist Carl Zimmer have a conversation about building a more sustainable future? Well come on out to Yale! March 31, 2025, 4:00 โ 5:00 pm, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, Room 101 Registration Link: https://cglink.me/2dA/r2292706
Made this helpful little graphic after reading a recent issue of Judd Legum's newsletter, where he and Rebecca Crosby wrote about how DOGE has pushed the NSA to delete internal and external web pages (i.e., digital documents) that contained any of these 27 words. Please share widely. https://popular.info/p/the-nsas-big-delete
"It may be the first time somebody has force-fed a shrinking potion to a sleeping dragon. Using a medicine check." (Hey -- it's veterinary medicine!) #dnd#gamenight
Right now, the U.S. is in a media crisis. Just in the nick of time, I'm starting a newsletter series about understanding media in the twenty-first century. I'll teach you how to challenge and change the messages that our media carries. Let's go. https://buttondown.com/thehypothesis/archive/what-is-media-a-primer-for-americans/
I am in #vancouver! I will be here for a couple of months. Any recommendations for good Chinese noodle places (literally any kind of noodle, from any part of China) or hikes or both?
Need some climate hope today? @Grist has just published stories from the 12 winners of the "Imagine 2200" climate fiction contest. I was a judge, w/Omar El Akkad, and we loved these brilliant stories from around the globe. They're full of memorable characters and inventive scenarios for humanity's long-term survival on a healthy planet. Free to read! Enjoy! https://grist.org/imagine2200-climate-fiction-contest-2025/
I'm going on a 3-month vacation to Canada with my partner, who needs a biologic to, you know, stay alive. Despite everything I know about how fucked up the US insurance system is, I am still gobsmacked at how cruel they are in their attempts to block his 90-day supply. They gave him a one-week window to fill his prescription with a "vacation override" -- and every day they cancel the pharmacy orders, using various bullshit excuses. It's day 5 and he's still trying to get his prescription filled.
I think LLMs may wind up being remembered the same way we remember 19th century Spiritualism. A bunch of scientists and rich people bought into Spiritualism, too -- until they didn't.
Today I'm making shortbread with a layer of caramel and a layer of chocolate on top. Usually that's called "millionaire's shortbread" but I'm really not in the mood to celebrate millionaires or billionaires. So I'm calling it Ultra Tasty Fuck Yeah Shortbread, which is accurate and evidence-based.
I am going through my own personal computer history museum, wiping and disposing of 25 years of my old laptops, phones, and tablets. It's an emotional journey that involves ancient Linux distros, forgotten passwords, and stickers from the organizations that time forgot. I will post pictures when I'm done!
I write science fiction and science nonfiction. Author: Stories Are Weapons, The Terraformers. Bylines: NYT, New Scientist, The Atlantic, etc. Pod: Our Opinions Are Correct. Sometimes a professor of media studies. I love noodles.