Shannon Mattern

YouTube video by Texas Architecture Jessen Lecture: John Ronan, "Sticks and Stones," November 11, 2015

I prefer “pebble channel” to “gravel trench” (the architect talks about materials around the 18-minute mark)

Yes indeed!

Oh, that’s so cool!!

You’ll love it!

I think often about those pebbles around the stacks at the Poetry Foundation.

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53277-new-second-term-low-donald-trump-job-approval-government-spending

Maybe it was way more than seven million? "8% of Americans say they participated in a No Kings protest on October 18."

p.s. Older people are really showing up.

Inge sitting on the rug in a patch of sun

Inge sitting on a floor mat, amidst boxes, in a patch of sun

Inge sitting on her couch, in a patch of sun

Inge sitting on a stair landing, in a patch of sun

We’re moving back to NY Mon and Tues. I’m eager to watch Inge discover her new favorite sunny spots in the new house :)

❤️

Sometimes it’s fun to do things with lots of other people! This is how I felt during my first few Critical Mass rides! So thrilling!

I just read a post from a big account complaining that the mass Thriller dance in NYC’s Halloween parade was fun the first time, but now, after 21 years, it’s tiring. Gee, I’m so sorry to waste a full three minutes of your time with a community tradition that brings lots of folks a little joy 🙄

What if we could work with our public libraries to create + sustain convivial infrastructures for local news, local 🎶, digital equity, and more? I wrote abt lots of communities that are doing this work, bldg networks of solidarity + resistance, modeling alternatives to extractive commercial systems.

Congratulations, Katherine! This looks fantastic!

Volume 11 Issue 4 | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press

I find it v difficult to put into words how honored and lucky i feel to have edited this issue on feminist historical methods, to have had so many important pieces of writing and thinking entrusted to me over these last few years. 1/
online.ucpress.edu/fmh/issue/11/4

This looks amazing! Thank you! :)

‘Library Making as Practice,’ a colloquium drawing together a range of tactics and strategies to library making as practice.

criticalmedialab.ch/library-maki...

Also rethinking the power asymmetries in the ways how knowledge circulates and how publics are formed. Can’t wait!

My 11-year-old sitting with her pile of Halloween candy, sorting it into a bar graph

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

Taking sage advice of @unlawfulentries.bsky.social I’m posting cover of forthcoming book Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis

Feds say immigration blitz will continue amid Halloween festivities Families and city leaders are scrambling to make Halloween and the Day of the Dead celebrations safe for children caught up in the debate over aggressive immigration raids.

to understand the situation in Chicago I recommend listening to this piece which has a CHILD talking about the TEAR GAS they encountered en route to a HALLOWEEN PARADE

www.wbez.org/public-safet...

• Professors should never put a student's words or work into an AI software without their consent. • Professors should also be transparent about their Al usage with grading, curriculum building, and any other way they might use it in their teaching. • If a professor does use Al chatbots in the classroom, they should explain their reasoning behind this decision and how its usage will help students meet learning outcomes. • Professors should additionally respect a student's choice to refuse Al. To do this, it would be ideal that they have assignments that students can choose from that do

Eminently reasonable proposed principles for professors’ use of AI, from a student refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/a...

Top researchers consider leaving U.S. amid funding cuts: 'The science world is ending' A poll from the journal Nature found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. That includes a man who’s been dubbed the "Mozart of Math." Stephanie Sy examines what’s b...

A Nature poll found that 75% of U.S. researchers are considering leaving the country.

Guyz, even the *historians* are leaving or contemplating / likely to go. Including, at least 3 historians that I know of in my subfield. 😢

It's a Ponzi scheme. And these people at our universities have got us involved.

If you want to get your $100,000 deposit together just have to not eat 20,000 croissants! How hard can that be?! Imagine you had five a week - that’s just 4,000 weeks! Barely seventy six years to get that deposit! What on earth are they complaining about?!

The GOP’s top think tank just defended an open Nazi Reasonable people can disagree about whether Hitler was good, says the Heritage Foundation.

Kevin Roberts' defense of Nick Fuentes is a watershed moment: the right has officially declared open, unabashed Hitlerism to be an acceptable position in their coalition

www.vox.com/politics/466...

The second most important thing to remember about the pandemic is that the federal government built a temporary fully funded and expansive welfare state via unleashing a tidal wave of money into society to limit economic misery, and it worked pretty well.

“You can think abt that as you’re optimizing the kill chain from sensor to shooter,… but it’s the same thing as: How do I find the enemy targets? How do I decide which targets I want to prosecute, based on maybe the inventory I have on hand + the effect it might have on the enemy?” So very helpful!

I love that this photography studio is floating in the river!

Thanks!

Thanks!

Satirical Adobe ad in the Onion: "Experience the magic of buying new software, every month, forever"

@theonion.com

The most popular candidate is a socialist in a time where fascism is sweeping the nation. He represents politics and policies that have felt completely impossible. And his wild popularity has inspired the country and created hope where none existed. That’s why.