Chris Dwan (he/him)

Rebecca Solnit Says the Left’s Next Hero Is Already Here

“I get so tired of the idea that progressives have gone too far in asserting that every human being deserves human rights when people are being shot in the streets“

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/m...

Public Toilets in Somerville In March of 2021, City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen submitted a resolution: “That the Administration create clean, safe, and permanent public…

Cambridge has public toilets. Somerville doesn't. Here's why.

medium.com/@fdmts/publi...

Manually copying data from one epic instance to another is my supervillain origin story.

People think I’m kidding about this and then come back like ‘OMG cannot eat any more …’

Do not love manually updating my vaccinations and medications on the CVS, Mass General Brigham, and Beth Israel Deaconess websites because none of them talk to each other or to One Medical.

But sure, fuckin’ AI. That’s gonna work just -great.-

A picture of a bakery.

Best sweet treat: Yaffa.

Hands down the nicest people too. If they’re not busy, expect to be offered tea and samples and to have to insist on being allowed to pay and leave.

2/?

Let’s fight:

Here’s a thread of my favorite local businesses. Judging will be 100% arbitrary and biased.

1/?

There’s somebody laying on their horn in line at the car wash on Somerville Ave, and I say once again that if you are in a place where a slight delay at the car wash drives you into a pants-shitting rage, please do not drive.

Seriously, they were on the cusp of having to go to the historic preservation commission to destroy the -unfinished- hotel that was a local landmark.

A picture of the ‘Beacon Suites Hotel.’

IT’S HAPPENING!!!

Big thank you to everybody who did more than the legally required minimum of shoveling this year, just to help out your neighbors. I see you. You are awesome.

YouTube video by Ludacris - Topic Move Bitch

www.youtube.com/watch?v=StdE...

Then again, the reason I've never really engaged with technologies like Siri and Alexa is that I've never had trouble with stuff like turning on the TV, taking a note, or playing music.

It's the same with LLMs. I know how to read and write and I've got lots of ideas.

If I was a big important CEO and you told me I had a technology that would make my employees 10 times more effective, I would respond by having ideas and generating 10 times more value … not by laying off 90% of my workforce to do yesterday’s idea cheaper.

It shows a lack of imagination.

One of the tech oligarchs is yammering about their chatbot being conscious, sentient, and/or [checks notes] anxious?

Reminder: this is -always- a marketing ploy to distract from more important conversations around regulation, intellectual property, and their new complicity in war crimes.

I remain convinced that we’ll find the bottom of the barrel if we keep scraping for long enough.

Thanks for writing it.

We’re all living through years of abuse right now. The trauma is real.

This right here.

It’s the jarring disconnect of the perky music piped into the biotech office park (sorry - ‘campus’) … it’s knowing that every other person in the meeting to review the cyber insurance application is going through life altering shit, but that we’re not going to mention it.

This post is a little vulnerable, so I’ll probably delete it later. I just wanted to say that it’s happening to me. If it’s happening to you too … that’s normal.

We’re adaptable creatures. Can get used to anything … even times like these.

Good morning.

5/5

Anyway, I feel that I have accepted - in my gut - this new reality.

I hate it. I’ve moved from the hot phases of grief to acceptance and building something new.

4/?

It takes a long time for that non-linguistic core to change - months at least. This is the so-called ‘emotional processing.’ It’s why you can’t really be normal with somebody for a few months after a breakup … and also why re-orgs at work always suck and take so long to be effective.

3/?

We all have a non-linguistic core. It’s the part that merely feels safe or merely feels ashamed.

It’s the part that loses every argument with big smart logic and language brain because it doesn’t have logic or language.

For me, at least, that’s the very core of my awareness and identity.

2/?

My personal experience of being me is that emotions, desires, and even decisions rise first. It’s only later that logic and language show up to justify them.

I’m sad to report that, somewhere in my non-linguistic core, this horrid state of affairs has become normal.

1/?

Thank goodness the stupid hat lady is gone.

I think of gold as a value store of last resort for the savvy money manager. When you no longer trust the markets, the governments, or even the currencies that they issue - gold is durable.

And it's way, way, way up.

But also, if we’re going to see mass unemployment, a recession / depression, and no more mortgages because Americans are now too poor to be creditworthy … who’s gonna occupy either?

I mean, we could also talk about a referendum to override prop 2.5 … which if it was big enough to matter would drive the few remaining low income families out and complete the gentrification that is the (hopefully) unintended consequence of the most simplistic YIMBY take.

Sorry, I’m grouchy.

Also, if you build only housing, you get a commuter suburb because there’s nowhere to work in town so everybody has to travel to work in the town that built commercial.

See also Cambridge is rich and Somerville is poor.

I don’t post much about this because I’m bored with running the 101 class for the YIMBY brigade, but if you want to buff your tax base, add commercial. New residential is a net negative in terms of revenue per capita (AKA services)- and it’s worse the denser you make it.

We should do it anyway.

A plot of gold prices over the last 20 years.

Precious metals, specifically gold and silver, have long been a barometer of sentiment among sensible, thoughtful money people. Not gamblers, traders, or speculators, but investors and sensible trustees.

If you feel like things are chaotic, risky, and going to shit … you are not alone.