Tom Streeter

“We build our computers the way we build our cities—over time, without a plan, on top of ruins.”

― Ellen Ullman

YouTube video by CBC News Why Trump just ‘terminated’ Canada-U.S. trade talks | About That

Dear journalism outlets: how about more of this type of explainer and less horse race, he-said/she-said, and inside baseball coverage? Explaining things like video editing should be considered a necessary part of professional reporting, no? (I'm looking at you, NYT.) youtu.be/TKIlZX20f8A?...

Opinion | How a Fringe Movement of Gun Nuts, Backwoodsmen and Free Marketers Paved the Way for Autocracy

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/o...

How the Hate Card Could Play in Canada A political storm is coming, and it’s going to hit hard.

"Poilievre stated . . . Christians . . . “may be the number 1 group that are victims of hate-based violence.”
The political media sphere [acted like] Poilievre wasn’t reading the mood of the nation.

Au contraire.

Poilievre is reading the cards very well." charlieangus.substack.com/p/how-the-ha...

Opinion | America Still Has a Political Center, and It’s the Key to Winning

Some data: Centrists as the NYT defines them -- pro-corporate, moderate on social issues and silent on class -- lost the Presidency against non-centrist Republicans in 2000, 2004, 2016, 2024. And AOC and Bernie regularly get votes from folks who also voted for Trump. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Judge issues new broader order barring any National Guard from relocating to Oregon Judge asked federal government lawyer: 'Do you believe this is an appropriate way to deal with a judge’s order that you disagree with?'

Folks we are watching the adjudication of some of the most important constitutional issues of federalism, executive discretion, and judicial review since the 19th c

www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

I will also note that some of the best work on all the connections between popular culture and radicalization comes from queer, BIPOC, and/or women scholars. I wonder why the media has ignored us? 🧐

Anyone who researches pop culture (esp. toxic geek spaces, gaming, fandom, etc.) is having a bit of a "told you so" moment as they see mainstream media outlets fall all over themselves to understand stuff we've been screaming about for literally a decade (or more). Y'all didn't wanna listen.

Each case is distinct, and they're all complicated, but they're worth looking at for hints about how to get out from under anti-democratic regimes.

There's a substack post circulating that claims "Once fascists win power democratically, they have never been removed democratically. Not once. Ever." But Philippines 1986, Chile 1990, USSR 1991, South Africa 1994, Poland 2023. Just some of the examples. Worth checking out.

US writers in bien-pensent outlets like the Atlantic and the NYT are obsessed with the supposed horrors of Canada's MAID policies. I have many reservations myself. But 1/4

This is one of the absolute toughest things about predatory inclusion — the predation is often fun or a little useful. Criticism makes a reasonable person sound like an asshole. LowerEd weathered me for this kind of social death.

So I’ll say it: your enjoyment does not matter & should not matter.

I spent exactly that period as a very lonely skeptic of hacker narratives. Had to cultivate a strong sense of irony.

One of the only non-heroic sympathetic representations of hacking was S Dreyfus 1st 1997 ed. of Underground; in her version the stories are poignant, Assange was listed as a technical consultant. 2nd ed. he's listed as co-author and many of the chapters are revised to fit more heroic narratives.

With Cuts to Federal Funding, How Will Public Media in the U.S. Survive? - Nieman Reports With cuts to federal funding, how will public media in the U.S. survive? Gabe Bullard writes, "The closure of the CPB will hurt NPR and PBS, but the most immediate and devastating blow will be to the ...

I'm closely interviewed for this Nieman Lab report that discusses how rural areas will be affected by loss of funding for local NPR reporting. We must not underestimate the importance of equal access to information - we're about to witness a seismic ideological shift in American sense of "place."

Do Artifacts Have Political Economy? - Kean Birch, 2025 Harking back to Langdon Winner's now classic essay “Do artifacts have politics?,” my aim in this article is to ask a very similar question—namely, do artif...

I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology

#STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Join us in person or online tomorrow (Jul. 24) to talk about my new book 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘈𝘳𝘵!

I'm thrilled to be in conversation with Ruth Skinner & Judith Rodger at Museum London, hosted by Words, London's literary & creative arts festival.

Register: tinyurl.com/tradingonart

@ubcpress.bsky.social

The replacement of everything with generative AI is NOT inevitable, but it sure is if you all shrug and say "Well, it's inevitable" like your brain was washed in bad predictive SF for decades.

It’s a CONCENTRATION CAMP…not a PRISON 🤯

ALLIGATOR AUSCHWITZ 🐊

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.

I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

Ask yourself why Rolling Stone is the only outlet performing this obvious public service.

there's a lot of things to say about tech these days but certainly the part where it is now three dumb assholes competing with each other to do the same thing with no indication that it is a good idea except that the other dumb assholes are doing it is sure one of them

YouTube video by The World According to AI Bigfoot VLOG - Yoga session in the forest

In case you've missed it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3F1...

Luke Stark's important argument that we should look at AI, not as search engines and certainly not as minds, but as something akin to animation -- a tech that humans manipulate to generate unique perceptions -- is well illustrated by Big Foot vlog. dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml...

"What if, only days or hours from now, the president and Mr. Musk reconcile? It will be like Mr. Trump’s tariffs all over again: now they’re high, now they’re lower, now they’re postponed. The story must change so the show can go on.

"Just don’t expect a trip to Mars anytime soon. Heaven can wait."

Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Splitsville, Until They Aren’t

I'm going with this take: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/t...

"Journalists are also politicians now." -- Mikhail Gorbachev, August 22, 1991, after the "dumb coup" attempt. He was reflecting on the truthful but relentlessly negative Soviet Glasnost-era news coverage, which many have argued led to a collapse in public confidence in his democratizing regime.

This doesn't preclude us from saying LLM's are in many ways mind blowing, worthy of study and experimentation, and useful. We can argue about where to go next, but we should do so from a recognition that the current situation of AI slop and the degradation of basic education was not inevitable.

Just say it: it was a wrong to release ChapGPT openly to the public and to advertise it as useful ways to find information and do work. LLM based AIs are doing serious damage to education, to the functionality of the internet, and to our capacity to build a world based on a shared reality.

This point is super relevant in a world in which tech founders are lauded as the found of societal wisdom and insight - they cost more than we realise