@histoftech.bsky.social
Historian of technology & dad joke aficionado who lived w/a great little gray rabbit until recently (RIP). I won’t share AI generated content, except to critique it. In person I’ll be wearing a KN95. If you care about me put one on too. www.marhicks.com
We spoke to Black women who started the Target boycott & who sustained it for a yr+. They'll likely never go back.
Teacher Laverne Mickens put it like this: “[Black women] will say if & when it’s over. And I can tell you right now: That will be the 15th of never ever.”
19thnews.org/2026/03/targ...
Exclusive: The United States’s withdrawal this year from the WHO is having knock-on effects on an influential global organization for cancer research: NIH is cutting ties with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, WHO’s 60-year-old cancer research arm. https://scim.ag/3N2CzrD
lol AI got them into this mess and now they're trying to use AI to get out of it.
AI use really does shrink your brain
I don't get why people think it's snobby not to care for it. It's a real danger. Very real. With tons of evidence.
“Our instinct at the firm is, every time we hear about another attack, we need to see the chat logs because there’s [a good chance] that AI was deeply involved…”
one of the greats
I hope everyone faving and reposting also commits to doing at least 2 out of the 3 things below:
1) masking in public spaces
2) taking steps to clean the air in local schools
3) adding remote options for people who can’t physically go to stuff in person
Because ignoring this won’t make it go away
Shafiqah would’ve said something far more insightful & classier here, but I am just so tired.
We all deserve better, esp. the kids who’ll get this virus a dozen+ times before they’re adults. LC is already a top chronic illness in kids.
Cleaning indoor air is going to be the fight of their lives.
A lot of people have died. A lot of people have become too disabled to work or leave their homes. A lot of people are still alive—fighting and trying.
I’m not sure how to make people care about this before it happens to them. It’s been an eye opener just how much people are willing & able to ignore
On this year’s long covid awareness day, I want more people to read and think about what the late Shafiqah Hudson said before it killed her. Because she was right, as usual, and also early, as usual. Perhaps too early for a lot of people to listen.
This is a really cool program. If you are a graduate student in the humanities (e.g. history) definitely check this out!
But I'm profoundly grateful to everyone still making an effort to mask, to clean the air, to distribute tests and PPE, to support mutual aid funds, and more. I'm grateful for the friends and communities I've made because we've all been pushed from public spaces.
Thanks, John!
The thing about this fascist take over is it has been telegraphed, planned out, on the surface, barely even dogwhistled, for a decade. A decade. And liberals (and a fair number of leftists) have spent the decade telling us to calm down, stop being hysterical, stop exaggerating
When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.
this is just open and abject corruption, but the way U.S. journalism frames it you'd not really understand that there's anything untoward
“Her daughter’s new student enrollment form was denied due to “license plate recognition software showing only Chicago addresses overnight” in July and August... “Although you are the owner on record of a house in our district, license plate recognition shows that is not the place where you reside.”
The federal government won’t confirm or deny using drones for surveillance in Minnesota. Local law enforcement agencies say the drones aren’t theirs. Lots of residents shared videos, photos and detailed notes of apparent drones sightings in Minneapolis. (2) www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
As our technology gets worse, wonkier, more addictive, more invasive, and downright dumber, the idea of analog and “obsolete technologies” sounds better every day. baltimorebeat.com/whats-poppin...
Nature is, after all, a construct defined entirely around the human and human artifice!
He did so much harm he’ll never answer for😐
this story has it all: suburban public schools paying $$$ to make sure they’re as exclusionary as possible, nationwide surveillance tech available for a fee, equating living breathing human beings w their car. America in 2026 babee!
and that was before Elon took over—you know back when it was supposedly not an evil place full of terrible people manipulating public discourse🙃
Remember all the years Twitter kept him on the site without banning him
It floors me that an apartment would have a rule about people not having out of state license plates
good lord😐
I didn’t, but they took them from me anyway!
Third: “Sánchez is adamant she and her daughter have been living in their home since moving in. As for the location of her car—she says she loaned it to a family member in Chicago last summer.”
She owns a home in the school district and pays taxes there. Yet the location of her car matters more🧐
