David Van Horn

it's pretty frustrating how republicans can just spew endless lies about city life with zero repercussions but the moment a dem disparages a pickup truck it's open season

Alright I'm angry and it's a travel day (bye Chicago). So one like = one awesome thing about DC that has little or nothing to do with the feds.

The vote goes down today for the RFK stadium. This is literally what the DC Council is voting for.

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi The university’s draconian policies and new definition of antisemitism make much teaching impossible

rashid khalidi, preeminent scholar of palestine: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

the trump administration is destroying ALL higher education but we only hear about the ivies because that's where the rich and powerful went or where their kids go. the obsession with them is missing the bigger picture.

Mayor Muriel Bowser Presents™️: Bad Fucking Deal

Thank you!

American Economic Association 2024-2025 Universal Academic Questionnaire Summary Statistics (May 2025)

It appears to be for asst. profs only and "[i]ncludes guaranteed summer compensation (over all years) and other compensation of cash value to employees, such as a signing bonus." www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Asphalt trail alongside a massive car viaduct.

Bike investment vs. car investment.

Columbia University’s agreement with the Trump administration is a disaster for academic freedom, freedom of speech, & the independence of American higher education. Never in the history of our nation has an educational institution so thoroughly bent to the will of an autocrat.

1/

UMD residents cannot bring personal electric scooters to campus this fall (edited) Effective Aug. 1, resident students will not be able to register their electric micromobility vehicles with DOTS. Vehicles that aren’t registered could be booted or impounded.

UMD forbidding student residents from having electric bikes and scooters. Fecklessly forward! dbknews.com/2025/07/02/n...

Estonia’s capital made mass transit free a decade ago. Car traffic went up It's a poignant lesson for U.S. cities that are considering going fare-free.

Note to NYC:

Tallinn, Estonia was the first global city go fare-free. My conclusion after visiting two years ago: The policy has ben a bust.

"Transit’s share of Tallinn commutes has fallen from over 40% in 2013, the year fares were eliminated for residents, to under 30% last year."

​The next NYC DOT commissioner will have the most exciting job in US transportation

This is your 41th monthly reminder that critical mass has been reached and the reaction continues. We must not back down from projects that give us safe infrastructure for mode choice. #BikeDC

ggwash.org/view/99877/b...

I think a big part of the reason some people love bikes and other people hate bikes is this shared understanding that the bicycle itself is a symbol of rebellion and anti-establishment independence.

It truly befuddles me how any protected micro-mobility infra can be axed when all of the data clearly shows demand. I mean this is *only* CaBi! DC should be putting down 3x whatever it did the year before over and over and over. #BikeDC

There’s a Nuclear Option to Fight Trump’s War Against Colleges. You Aren’t Going to Like It. Like watching NCAA basketball? What if you couldn’t, because schools went on strike?

thinking about this article for no reason

Muriel Bowser to DC’s immigrant community in two parts:

Bruce Sherman and ANC 3/4G oppose the end to reversible lanes on Rock Creek Parkway. They'd rather people die than have commutes that might slightly longer (which of course is taken on faith). anc3g.org/wp-content/u...

changed in hh income from Republican budget bill: more than 380k for the top 0.1%, 20k for the top 95-99%, negative for the first and second quintiles.

now that's a Chart of the Week (from @gelliottmorris.com):

∀x. international students ≥ x

DC Bilingual bike bus crossing N Capitol.

Mundo Verde bike bus waiting to cross Taylor.

TFW you get held up by another bike bus on your way to bike bus.

A HAPPY UPDATE! Mahmoud Khalil was allowed a "contact" visit—without plexiglass divider—with his wife and newborn son this morning before his immigration hearing, ACLU tells me, so I think we can safely assume that he was finally able to hold his child for the first time.

This is—it bears repeating—ethnic cleansing and a war crime. It feels utterly pointless to say, and roughly equivalent to screaming into the void, but the United States should not be supporting or providing any aid to a state that has ethnic cleansing as a policy position.

Today is the National Ride of Silence — a day where people across the nation gather to honor the many cyclists who have been injured or killed by road violence.

YouTube video by current continuation E1: Ranjit Jhala (UCSD)

As part of SIGPLAN blog, @samps.phd (Cornell) and I started an interview series where we talk to luminaries in the field of Programming Languages. Our first one is a super fun conversation with Ranjit Jhala (UCSD). 1h26m of goodness. www.youtube.com/watch?v=goUZ...

All @acm.org publications will be 100% Open Access as of January 2026. When we announced this at POPL and CHI this year, conference participants spontaneously erupted in applause. The CS community is excited about ACM's move to OA!