Sean D. Johnson

What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.

Two and a half year old to Jessie, “Come with me upstairs, okay? there might be a monster”

Half an hour later to me, “Follow me upstairs, but don’t be a monster, okay?”

That sounds more interesting!

University—we switched to a new and terrible dual factor authentication software, Okta, that keeps getting autocorrected to okra

a pot of soup with shrimp and green beans is being stirred with a spoon . Alt: a pot of gumbo-adjacent soup with shrimp and okra is being stirred with a spoon .

Why are all the Michigan group chats suddenly hating on okra?

It is very hard not to have a safe choice to use the bathroom in public.

It may be impossible to continue living, working, eating, etc without a valid driver's license if your life was built around driving and the assumption that your license wouldn't be invalidated overnight by the legislature.

a cartoon of a coyote standing on a cliff with the words beep beep below him Alt: a cartoon of a roadrunner standing on a cliff then running off with the words beep beep below him

Nothing spices up a call for proposals quite like making the first announcement email also the T-1 day before the deadline reminder email.

‘It is the ultimate betrayal’: UMich and Ann Arbor community reflects on impacts of end to gender affirming care umich ann arbor community reflects end of gender-affirming care After a subpoena, the University of Michigan and Michigan Medicine announced in August they'd no longer offer gender-affirming care to under 19 years-old.

www.michigandaily.com/news/adminis...

The Trump Admin’s “Dear colleague” letter is dead thanks to professional societies, unions, civil liberties groups, and some state AG’s fighting back.

University administrators really showed their asses, and it is going to take the rest of us decades to restore what they cut in their rush to comply

I will celebrate when schools re-open all the offices, programs, scholarships, and groups they closed.

So much this.

Other fields have been revolutionized by the wonders of…Google Scholar, which compared to ADS is hot garbage.

Other fields routinely submit to *multiple* journals, each of which demand major re-writes *before rejecting* papers.

In other fields you often cannot access some papers.

There is a specific look my husband, a historian, gives me when describing a week of tracing some concept or artifact backward in the literature through decades of articles spread across many journals.

The look says “do not even think about telling me how this would just be a few hours with ADS”

Stevens also seemed generally impressed with the staff during the visit and their treatment of detainees. “Of note, there is female leadership here, and there are women who walked with us today and explained, on the intake process, how important it is to treat people with humanity,” Stevens said. “And that obviously really stuck out to me, because some of the things that we are witnessing before our eyes, in our neighborhoods, in our streets, is really a lack of humanity.” Both congresswomen did note, however, that at least one individual who they spoke to expressed a fear of punishment or retribution for sharing his concerns about the facility — though they attempted to speak with him privately, they were denied that opportunity. Stevens noted that she plans to remain in touch with that person’s family in Macomb County to ensure he is not punished for speaking with the congresswomen. “He was kept for several weeks in what everyone there refers to as ‘the hole,’ which is similar to a solitary confinement,” Scholten said of the same detainee. “He spoke of being kept in a freezing room where he couldn’t feel his toes and having his food just thrown into his cell. So these are things that we really need to take seriously.”

How is this even possible? Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for #MISen, "seemed generally impressed with the staff" at an ICE detention facility, per the @michiganadvance.com.

At the same event, Rep. Hillary Scholten spoke of a man "being kept in a freezing room where he couldn’t feel his toes."

When I describe how our field operates to people in other fields, from society controlled journals to arxiv to ADS, they are always shocked. It is easy to take our ecosystem for granted if you haven’t lived in a different one for a while.

I agree with your points. The arxiv is much, much cheaper to operate, but also doesn’t provide anywhere near the level of service. OJA is an interesting model, & we will see how it scales in the next few years. If successful, robustness of arxiv will be a major issue. And we don’t drive that bus

two men are standing next to each other and one of them is saying `` hello , computer ? '' . Alt: two men are standing next to each other and one of them is wearing a star trek uniform and saying `` hello , computer ? '' into a mouse.

I could find out more about those 13 missions easily if NASA's program/grant search page weren't still broken after *checks notes*... a full year now.

In addition to Chandra, the astrophysics programs impacted are:

Physics of the Cosmoc Strategic Research & Technology

Astrophysics Probes Future Missions

Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Maturation

Plus 13 projects in the planetary & earth portfolios.

nasawatch.com/space-scienc...

White House Withholds Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill NASA has been forced to pause funds for Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other missions until further notice.

Well, FUCK. Here I was excited for my first grant as a faculty member…

“White House Withholds Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill”

NASA has been forced to pause funds for Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other missions until further notice.

🔭🧪

gizmodo.com/white-house-...

Ma Lou’s chicken is outstanding, but to me, the biggest draw is their collard greens.

A line curve showing number of awards for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025 across NSF. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies well below curves for other fiscal years.

NSF Update

Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit.

Now by Directorate...

1/11

The push polls from Haley Steven’s campaign could really use some work.

Of all the sort-of traditional Super Bowl foods to invoke in the middle of a racist tirade, meatloaf is quite the choice.

Why didn’t anyone tell me Al Ameer opened a location in Canton?!? This is amazing news

Same decision as the AG, despite ACLU’s history* and mission.

*It is actually consistent with their pre-1965ish history on gay rights

The one that bothers/frightens me most is that, apparently, national ACLU decided not to back state branches filing lawsuits in state courts against the institutions on behalf of people with clear cases.

On these issues Nessel has actually been ok. Not as good as I’d like, but clearly taking the right side and working with those affected. I wish she’d put the AG’s office behind a suit against the institutions putting the policies in place. But she is at least suing the Trump admin about the EOs.

"Recent changes in the law did not force Texas A&M to eliminate entire fields of study related to race, gender and sexuality. That was a choice made by our regents. They are overachievers in their subservience to powerful politicians."

Questions for UMich admin+Regents about its new policy on policing gender in intramural sports:

1) why discriminate against students, faculty, & staff in violation of MI law+MI Supreme Court precedent to comply with an EO, which is not law, & which you didn’t try to challenge?

2) UNO?… really?

“Car to scale”???

Seriously! The pasta was done before I was ready for it