Kristin Gorski

One of the key reasons the New York City Subway is recovering ridership more quickly than any other large rail system in the US:

this is so wonderfully weird, give her all the golds 🥇

YouTube video by Streetfilms® Ghent Kicked Out the Cars So You Can Walk, Bike, Live & Thrive in the City (Velo-City 2024)

When it comes to designing cities for biking & walking, Ghent (Gent) Belgium may not be as well known as Copenhagen, Amsterdam or Paris (yet), but it’s one of the most inspiring cities in the world. I was honoured to do some work with them in 2019. Watch @streetfilms.bsky.social’s fantastic video:

Column | Can’t put solar panels on your roof? Plug-in ‘balcony solar’ may be for you. Balcony solar promises to cut energy costs and grid reliance for renters and apartment-dwellers. I did a trial run at my home.

Seems like an excellent idea.

In Germany, plug-in panels are sold at supermarkets, "renters have a legal right to balcony solar," & the tech has been proven safe. Almost 10% of households have plug-in solar.

We need this in the US, too.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

The shutdown of ocean currents could freeze Europe When climate change poses a strategic threat, it needs a strategic response

The collapse of a critical climate system could mean a sudden, severe cooling in Europe—even as the rest of the world keeps warming. We explain what this devastating scenario would look like

Living Through This, Again | Defector The moment I had long dreaded finally arrived: the day I’d have to dismantle my childhood. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. It took 43 years to get here, to this spring day in 2025, standing ...

crazy good piece by @amyphillips.bsky.social about teenage rock’n’roll dreams and creating building the world you want to inhabit on the walls of your childhood bedroom defector.com/living-throu...

👏👏👏

Support Scientists Who Stand Up Researchers should not have to endure death threats or public attacks when they engage publicly and try to combat misinformation.

💯

“Researchers should not have to endure death threats or public attacks when they engage publicly and try to combat misinformation”

@michaelemann.bsky.social & @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social

www.americanscientist.org/article/supp...

Exciting progress in New York City, where the Q train extension project continues to advance.

[Now—can the MTA make good on Gov. Hochul's proposal to have the tunnel boring machines continue down 125th St in preparation for a future crosstown line, or am I naive...?]

New $250 Visa Integrity Fee Will Cost US $11 Billion, Say Tourism Officials The U.S. is facing a steep decline in international travelers—and this fee will only make it worse, say tourism officials.

The U.S. is facing a steep decline in international travelers—and this fee will only make it worse, say tourism officials.

Appreciating this #Caturday stare

Article of the Week: Solarpunk. This artistic and social movement imagines a brighter, optimistic future where sustainability transforms everyday life. Illustration depicts a futuristic eco-city with green rooftops, waterways, modern buildings, and a blimp in the sky.

Imagine cities powered by renewable energy, buildings overflowing with greenery, and communities in harmony with nature. Solarpunk blends sci-fi, art, and activism to show hopeful, sustainable futures with DIY innovation, solar power, and social inclusiveness.

Learn more ➡️ w.wiki/9BBv

Sometimes books are bound in (parts of) other books. Here is LJS 195, a 15th c. Medical Miscellany bound in a leaf from a 15th c. liturgical book. At the end of the clip is an unfolded leaf that was once used to cover another book; you can see the spine and the folds around the edges. (1/2)

Seizure medication, wheelchairs, Social Security cards, dentures, urns of ashes, work uniforms — just some of what's been thrown away during cruel, degrading, utterly counterproductive homeless sweeps.

A good time to revisit this gutting @propublica.org story:

Rare as hen's teeth: an Assistant Curator job, with our fantastic team at National Museums Scotland! Closing date 24th August #museums #museumjobs
careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553

“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson Fiction, from 1948: “The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around.”

The story that inspired the most mail The New Yorker had ever received in response to a work of fiction—and caused some readers to cancel their subscriptions.

EPFL NLP Postdoctoral Scholar Posting - Swiss AI LLMs The EPFL Natural Language Processing (NLP) lab is looking to hire a postdoctoral researcher candidate in the area of multilingual LLM design, training, and evaluation. This postdoctoral position is as...

The EPFL NLP lab is looking to hire a postdoctoral researcher on the topic of designing, training, and evaluating multilingual LLMs:

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Come join our dynamic group in beautiful Lausanne!

it finally happened

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

Illugi Pétur Ágústsson þjóðhetja

When you register your name in the Icelandic phonebook you can choose to state your profession. And they have a pretty loose definition of what exactly a profession entails.

This person for example has opted for „þjóðhetja“. It means „National Hero“.

You're proud of your heat pump and you want to brag about it, but your neighbors don't even know you have it! What can you do?

Here you go: a heat pump yard sign.
merch.quilt.com

We looked something like this in 1837

Americans are being conditioned to think of crime as an urban issue. Ask why.

Alabama's murder rate is far higher than New York City's.

Urban crime is not worse than rural crime. It's just more visible. In cities everything is more visible.

So be careful what you blame city leaders for.

I'll say it a thousand times -- any account of the past that only celebrates the good parts of a nation without reckoning with the bad is not what we call "history"

It is propaganda, pure and simple.

Watch Out!

The Real Cost of Voter ID Laws — And Who Pays the Highest Price Read about the fight for democracy from activists, elected officials, legal experts and others.

A new must read from Yunior Rivas.👇

In a healthy democracy, the right to vote isn’t something you earn or defend and the burden is on the government to make voting easier, not on citizens to prove they deserve to vote. www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the...

As I wrote in @thehill.com, federal science funding isn’t just about labs, it’s about livelihoods. Cuts to NIH, NSF & NASA mean lost jobs today, stalled discovery tomorrow, and fewer opportunities for the next generation. When we invest in research, we are investing in workers and communities. ⬇️

Q&A with Jay Rosen: How Trump nullifies reality Media critic says lies should be called lies, but the word has “no magic powers.”

Media critic Jay Rosen says journalists' regular fact checks are overmatched by today’s political lies. What’s needed now, he says, are “reality rejection checks” as Trump and his supporters deny established facts.
My Q&A with ‪@jayrosen.bsky.social‬ in this week’s free Stop the Presses newsletter.

The Black Market for Fake Science Is Growing Faster Than Legitimate Research, Study Warns A small but growing number of academics are improperly taking credit for articles, citations, and authorships, allowing them to appear prestigious without having conducted their own research.

The Black Market for Fake Science Is Growing Faster Than Legitimate Research. A small but growing number of academics are improperly taking credit for articles, citations, and authorships, allowing them to appear prestigious without having conducted their own research. www.wired.com/story/black-...

A grid of black-and-white, often askew photos of buildings and kids and a horse-drawn carriage.

Turns out the 1940s NYC Tax Department photographs (by WPA photogs) include outtakes, and they are so wonderful! 1940s.nyc/outtakes