architect, phd student (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL), traveler, photographer, future architectural historian, part-time punk (semi-retired), critique of ISM
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HAPPENING NOW: Judge Sparkle Sooknanan holds an emergency hearing as the Trump admin is reportedly trying—imminently—to deport hundreds of Guatemalan children without required process or access to representation. www.courtlistener.com/docket/71240...
“What if the Romanovs made Rasputin everyone’s doctor?”
They’re doing all this to prevent people from MEMORIALIZING A MASS SHOOTING
No no no no. As a former social worker, I can't properly express how much I hate this. Even beyond the "automating inequality" of it all, writing case notes is an important way to reflect on a session/meeting with a client and helps you make better decisions in how you work with them in the future.
This is what I mean when I talk about how Google is actively deciding to bake energy-intensive text generation into the basic infrastructure of the internet. They are *choosing* to make the digital world absurdly, eye-wateringly more energy hungry whether you request it or not. And it'll get worse
Every time you use ChatGPT or something like it, you’re helping to train an algorithm that is actually being developed to do things like this
yo this guy is cooking
What a cursed sentence (gift link) “The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”
In a functional government, this would be a five alarm fire where Congress calls in Kennedy and asks him what the fuck is going on
Put money into the pocket of your community and local economy, rather than towards the candidacy of a traitorous felon hellbent on waging war against the people he was supposedly elected to lead. But please feel free to shout out your local hardware store in the comments. lataco.com/oldest-hardw...
The Trump administration again petitioned the Supreme Court to block the use of billions in foreign aid. The administration urged the justices to overturn a lower court order that requires the government to spend the funds already appropriated by Congress.
Trump is threatening tariffs on any country that enforces digital rules. But this isn’t just about trade, it’s about destabilizing Europe’s democracy. Alexandra Geese, a Member of the European Parliament, argues it’s time for Europe to wake up, enforce its tech laws and build digital autonomy.
“The task force’s actual mission: to strong arm colleges into stripping away any vestige of ‘wokeness’ in their hiring, admissions, classes + rsch…. The gov’t has abandoned due process in favor of media warfare, preemptive declarations of guilt + freezes on billions in critical federal funding.”
This feels like a spot of good news www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...
And with Trump openly tying deployments to his personal need for “appreciation,” this move looks far less about security and far more about authoritarianism.
“CECOT represents a new institutional form: a prison that collapses the individual cells of modern incarceration into mass containment, structured not for rehabilitation but for spectacle.” hewittward.bsky.social opts out of the spectacle in NYRA no. 46/47. nyra.nyc/articles/mug...te
"Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface & its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate. This is based on over a century of scientific evidence." science.nasa.gov/climate-chan...
bathing in the phantasmagoria by an Albuquerque motel pool
living the Benjaminian dream in between Erfahrung and Erlebnis
I can't tell if these do much of anything - there should be inlets along the steel border for sidewalk runoff. Here's one of the city's pages on Green infrastructure for some more information: www.sfpuc.gov/programs/san...
Well, here we are...
Don't know - also haven't been in SF for over a year :-) Trees that are planted should be permitted (e.g. roots, fruiting, micro-climates in the overall SF planting plan). Friends of the Urban Forest are good for support. Hardly any runoff on sidewalks, so it's really just a greening effort?
lots of interesting things in the 1960s that are repeating themselves today - movements for liberation met with state violence, anti-war movements, anti-imperialism, extreme state repressions... hopefully we can learn from their failures... happy to pass along stories of solidarity!
May 1968 in Paris was a combination of student and worker strikes / occupations which resulted in the 'May revolution' only put down by the violence of the state (police and military). The late 60s saw similar movements in the US, UK, and even Eastern Europe. A summary: libcom.org/article/1968...
May 1968!
yeah, i think there are a variety of options available to someone working with the city (and the city has a good plan and is motivated to improve the sidewalks and streets). real stormwater intervention is in the street (before the water gets to the catch basins), lots of work done in the mission.
Agreed. Also, the cost of any sidewalk planting / stormwater runoff project is expensive and is really only merited where it makes sense (to mitigate stormwater). There are standards and permits and inspections and real costs to these, so it's not just a barrier to encampments.
ah, the Kantian sublime!
San Francisco - the delicious Taqueria El Farolito there on the right in the distance (24th and Alabama)
SF Better Streets has programs and funding for projects like this - for stormwater management and shade trees as well as all of the benefits related to planting: sfbetterstreets.org/index.html
People need to understand what's happening today: Trump sent the FBI to investigate one of his most prominent critics, and then threatened to military occupy multiple US cities. He's trying to become a full dictator who makes it illegal to oppose him.
i'll say it again, my loud and vigorous support for any democrat who calls for televised hearings and criminal charges for everyone involved in DOGE. this guy should never be able to live in peace again.
I hope this helps someone: Regardless of your intention when using AI, it doesn't change the processes involved in using it, which include excessive consumption of water & other finite energy sources and data centers that are placed in vulnerable communities, polluting both people and land.
OPD is attempting to expand its surveillance system to be able to easily integrate footage from public and private security cameras into one centralized database under the Flock system, a massive AI-powered tracking system that has been metastasizing across the country in the past two years. 1/x
they're putting the 'poo' back in 'cesspool'
Outside Dupont north metro
This should get WIDE circulation: MIT stating that it “has no confidence in the provenance, reliability or validity of the data and has no confidence in the veracity of the research contained in the paper.” gizmodo.com/mit-backs-aw...
Trump has made no comment. The White House has found the time to post a video of the arrest of that guy who threw a sandwich at a cop, but nothing about a cop killed defending the government's own employees. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose district includes parts of Atlanta, has also said nothing.
anecdotal, but in my experience: attended a few lectures in undergrad & thought, "I'm going to need a Master's"; a few lectures in graduate school & thought, "I'm going to need a PhD"... a few lectures in my PhD program and am thinking I just can't get enough of these professors and their lectures.
Israeli forces intensify attacks on Gaza City after the military announces it will advance plans to take over the city and forcibly displace more than a million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south of the Strip. 🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: aje.io/toj6zm
Fossil capital is a death cult
Italy in the 1970s saw an 'auto-reduction' movement at grocery stores (as well as on public transportation and rents). Due to stagnating wages and inflation, shoppers 'reduced' what they paid or didn't pay anything at all. Shoplifting could just become the norm as we auto-reduce in solidarity.
Spotted by the Dupont Circle Krispy Kreme. #SandwichGuy @katestarbird.bsky.social
I’m going to keep saying this- You don’t fight fascism with fascism light. We don’t fight fascism by sacrificing Gaza, trans folks, unhoused people, migrants, etc. We fight fascism by building a strong coalition INCLUDING everyone and fighting for a better world for EVERYONE. There’s no other way
Throwing a sandwich at a cop: REQUIRES 10-PERSON TACTICAL TEAM TO AREEST IN FULL RAID GEAR (even tho subject wanted to turn himself in) Beating a cop unconscious with a flag pole: “Go home. We love you.”
Why was there a Kindertransport? Because we wouldn't let their parents come with them. Five years into the Nazi persecution, we wouldn't let their parents come with them. And we insisted every child had someone to meet their "costs". And we only agreed on condition most would "re-emigrate".
let's not forget Newsom's involvement in these cruel sweeps just a year ago
Americans need to understand you cannot solve a police state by voting alone. We have had rubicon crossing moments almost weekly this summer and the sooner people understand that when those of us on the academic and research side explain that it’s not because we are doomers it’s because it’s reality
Huge thanks to the dozens of climate scientists who sent us their rebuttals to the catalogue of outright falsehoods and misleading claims in Trump's new 'critical' climate report. This factcheck is the longest article CB has ever published - 27,500 words already and likely to keep growing...
my dad was always saying this
implies, of course, Disassociated Potato
D.C. police will impose a “juvenile curfew zone” this weekend in Navy Yard, covering Nationals Park, rec centers, schools, and nearby businesses. Teens under 17 caught out past curfew face up to 25 hours of community service, with certain exemptions.
Many people are going to re-learn that the cops can basically stop you for anything they want.
we've been sounding the alarm about Meta's roleplay chatbots for a while now. they're irresponsible and dangerous. Meta barely cares www.404media.co/instagram-ai...
i discovered this in 3rd year and it sort of changed the trajectory of my education (along with Lefebvre's Production of Space and Tafuri's Sphere and the Labyrinth)
been reading about it since the early 90s at school:
I filed a FOIA request with the FTC to get user complaints about ChatGPT. In one case from Utah, a mother reports her son was experiencing a delusional breakdown and ChatGPT told him to stop taking his medication. The AI bot also told him that his parents were dangerous.
entirely fascinating: the missed connection to vouchers to buses to hotels to buffets to (thankfully very quiet) rooms to buses to check-in to flights onward - a complete economy operating on the expectations of missed flights
Very cool how Thomas & Alito were found to have taken exorbitant bribes over the years and not a goddamn thing was done about it
Frankfurt - and the entire industry built around accommodating passengers overnight due to missed connections
The American press and public really need to figure out how to simply dismiss Trump's pretextual claims for authoritarian attacks and then resist the attack itself, not debate the claim. We have spent months asking "but is the Ivy League really antisemitic?" and now "but is DC really crime-ridden?"
The Clasp
In February these Journalists celebrated the Ceasefire and the return of civilians to Northern Gaza. Israel has killed every single one of the Journalistsin this video.
little resistances, little oppositions:
yikes - that's a whole paycheck! and several other paychecks trying to chase it down!
i declined payment for a short article and was taken out to dinner instead (much more satisfying!) and when i was in a band, sometimes i would trade our CD for a beer (the disc only cost about a dollar...) honorariums need to be bookstore gift checks or something similar...
i'm so sorry - this is infuriating. i'd be there for all the logs and Octobers if i could (sad face that i'm in London).
we'll need something to read in our bunkers / shelters / tombs!
the intensity of my anger at those who would criminalize the homeless — a population literally created by the greed and callousness of the ruling class — is very hard to contain. it was you who dismantled the safety net. if you don’t like the results, put it back
Because I am angry I will share this again. One of the reasons that Israel is able to target individuals so precisely is that it collects every phone call in Gaza and stores the recordings in Microsoft Azure, then uses AI to analyze and pick targets.
Israel will deny that this was its intent. But we have no reason to believe them.
Not a lawyer but there seem to be some really easy libel lawsuits on behalf of high-profile immigrant detainees who were called gang leaders or terrorists against Fox hosts and guests. Would just need lawyers/firms brave enough to take on.
"Gazas death toll is simply staggering. Israel has pursued a deliberate policy of starvation, of manufacturing a famine.. in a clear & blatant violation of intl humanitarian law.. the impunity felt by the occupying power needs to be stopped" Slovenia at the UN this afternoon
the gradual enshittification of everything
The Trump admin is moving from denying climate change to rewriting it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a longtime oil industry executive, announced plans to “update” past National Climate Assessments, the gold-standard, peer-reviewed reports that lay out the risks of the climate crisis in detail.
Not a single person died on Helsinki’s roads in the last year. An impressive achievement which shows cities across the world that road traffic deaths are not inevitable. www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finl... Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year - Helsinki Times
thank you!
“GPT-5 is the first time that it feels like talking to an expert in any topic — a Ph.D.-level expert,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
very happy to hear! wishing her and you a full recovery!
very much dating myself, but when I lived in Florence, there were no ATMs, few if any places took credit cards (higher end restaurants and hotels), and rent was paid in cash (I could cash a maximum of $200 USD per week). I walked to our landlord's with 1.4M lire each month in cash.
Voting Rights Act turns 60 today. I've studied VRA for 15 years. Most people don't realize just how much it transformed American democracy, ended Jim Crow & enfranchised millions of Americans Now it’s on life support. If it dies, American democracy dies with it www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
‘Cigarette filters are a fraudulent product, providing no protection to people who smoke, while giving the false impression that they are doing something to reduce the risk.’ Nicholas Hopkinson (@copddoc.bsky.social) on smoking and plastic pollution, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/au...
The view of genocide from Outer Space: Free 🇵🇸!
‘Whatever Graeber is writing about, whether it is the history of democracy or the relationship between slavery and debt, he is usually trying to solve a problem in the present or to expose its latent potential.’ @leninology.bsky.social on David Graeber: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Microsoft can no longer deny it’s directly enabling the oppression and genocide of Palestinians by Israel. “According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.”
The more people are excluded from effective participation in traditional politics, the more it makes sense to pursue tactics like creating counteroccupations which aim to replace the state.
Everyone needs to change the way they live. We must stop using so much plastic. This has been clear for decades, but hey, it's such a great way to keep drilling for oil! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
We could have had cancer vaccines, and instead the United States will contribute nothing whatsoever to mRNA research, condemning millions of people worldwide to unnecessary illness and death
Looming problems from BLS statistics politicization. Social security benefits and many long term labor market contracts are indexed to the CPI. BLS makes the CPI. Recipients care about indexed cost of living increases, a lot. /1
The EPA has postponed enforcing limits on methane emissions linked to oil and gas operations while it weighs the possibility of scrapping the rules altogether.
This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen. By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza
This is another way of saying the only working part of Trump's economy is hype-based services and even then, AI is only "booming" because investors are lighting billions of dollars on fire hoping to be the last standing; there's no positive revenue anywhere in it. An economy of the 1% for the 1%.
Ah, Brașov - some memories of a quick stop there in 1994. Went to Castle Bran on the city bus, if I recall correctly. Looking forward to your experience there!
#OtD 2 Aug 1980 a bomb exploded at Bologna train station, killing 85 people and injuring over 200. Carried out by neo-fascists, it was part of the Strategy of Tension, a state programme to carry out attacks and blame them on the left stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9171...
I agree - as a project manager for large projects, I just want to know that you’re okay and struggling for time and then I can make adjustments to the schedule. I’ve been on the other side, too, and felt great relief when I did contact my editor and revised the due date.
for the unawares, monthly jobs reports explicitly exclude farm workers. so feel free to also mentally account for the impact of ICE hunting down agricultural laborers like runaway slaves
‘Just uttering that word – ‘genocide’ – in reference to Israel, that alone, the fact that this association can even be made, should be enough to tell us that something very wrong is happening to us… This word is an avalanche: once you say it, it just gets bigger’. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
I’m going to cry
Just Tam 
Tyler 