Will B. Payne

A digital city on a serving tray

Dr. Will Payne @willbpayne.bsky.social and colleagues published a new article in JPER titled "Digital Twin or Digital Kin: Misunderstandings and Myths about Urban Simulation, and Directions for Change." journals.sagepub.com/eprint/RDXWS...

Comic. The Most-Observed Animal and Plant in Each State on iNaturalist. (Not the most common species in the state, just the one people have reported the most times.) [labeled map of the US] WA: Mallard/Western Sword Fern. OR: Mule Deer/Western Ponderosa Pine. CA: Western Fence Lizard/California Poppy. HI: Green Sea Turtle/‘Ōhi’a Lehua. ID: Mallard/Big Sagebrush. NV: Common Side-Blotched Lizard/Creosote Bush. MT: White-Tailed Deer/Common Yarrow. WY: American Bison/Sticky Geranium. UT: Mule Deer/Utah Juniper. AZ: Ornate Tree Lizard/Saguaro. CO: Mule Deer/Great Mullein. NM: Mule Deer/Creosote Bush. AK: Moose/Fireweed. ND: American Bison/Prairie Rose. SD: American Bison/Hoary Vervain. NE: American Robin/Common Milkweed. KS: Ornate Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. OK: Pond Slider/Eastern Redcedar. TX: Northern Cardinal/Pinladies. MN, WI, IL: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Common Milkweed. IA, MI: White-Tailed Deer/Common Milkweed. MO: Brown-Belted Bumble Bee/Amur Honeysuckle. AR: Three-toed Box Turtle/Chinese Privet. LA: Green Anole/Baldcypress. IN: American Robin/Amur Honeysuckle. OH: Eastern Pondhawk/Virginia Springbeauty. KY: Common Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. TN: American Robin/Christmas Fern. MS: Northern Cardinal/Pale Pitcher Plant. AL: Gulf Fritillary/American Sweetgum. GA: Green Anole/American Sweetgum. FL: Brown Anole/White Beggarticks. NY: Eastern Gray Squirrel/White Snakeroot. PA: White-Tailed Deer/Garlic Mustard. WV: White-Tailed Deer/Great Rhododendron. VA: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern Poison Ivy. MD: White-Tailed Deer/Wineberry. DE: Fowler’s Toad/American Pokeweed. NC: Eastern Gray Squirrel/Christmas Fern. SC: Northern Cardinal/American Sweetgum. NJ: Spotted Lanternfly/Common Mugwort. VT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. NH: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern White Pine. MA: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. CT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Striped Wintergreen. RI: American Herring Gull. ME: American Herring Gull/Canadian Bunchberry.

iNaturalist Animals and Plants

xkcd.com/3118/

Mapping Corporate Landlords in New Jersey - New Jersey State Policy Lab As part of our ongoing research project supported by the New Jersey State Policy Lab, we are examining the growth of corporate ownership in the state’s small residential property market. Our focus is ...

Higher #corporate ownership rates of small, 1- to 4-unit properties appear in a range of #NJ municipalities, including Trenton, New Brunswick, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, and Newark:

OnlineFirst - "Mapping elite tastes along New York City’s gourmet gentrification frontier, 1990–2015" by Will B. Payne:

#localreviews #commercialgentrification #NewYorkCity #geographicinformationscience #foodculture

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Forty years before Milo Aukerman from the Descendents started working there (after, famously, Going to College)

Frame of preference A story of early Mac settings told by 10 emulators.

I wrote something new! It’s a UI design history essay about Mac’s Control Panel, and it uses emulation in some… maybe new and maybe interesting ways?

aresluna.org/frame-of-pre...

Comic. [two people in labcoats look at body pierced with blade draped over bench] PERSON 1: We found him lying uncomformably on the lab bench. I wonder if the iron-rich intrusion in his back is related. PERSON 2 with ponytail: It could be clastic. Maybe a rift opened in his body, and the intrusive material later fell into the hole. [caption] The Geology Department Investigates Their First Murder

Geology Murder

xkcd.com/3112/

What’s Happening to Reading? For many people, A.I. may be bringing the age of traditional text to an end.

"Text may get treated like a transitional medium, a temporary resting place for ideas." Joshua Rothman on reading in the age of AI www.newyorker.com/culture/open...

Who Are Corporate Landlords Acquiring Homes From? Examining Property Transitions in New Jersey - New Jersey State Policy Lab In this fifth blog post on our research into corporate ownership of New Jersey’s one- to four-unit residential properties, we share more preliminary findings from our analysis of changes in property o...

Approximately 19% of Trenton's one- to four-unit #housing properties transitioned to corporate ownership between 2012 & 2022, totaling just over 4,000 properties in the Garden State capital, according to new research from @ericseymour.bsky.social w/ @bloustein.rutgers.edu:

#Rutgers #NJ #NewJersey

In the past week, a union leader has been arrested, a U.S. Rep charged with a crime, a U.S. Senator violently handcuffed, and reporters shot with rubber bullets and detained. There is no ambiguity. This is a regime operating as an authoritarian. Americans who believe in liberty must oppose it.

Senator Padilla’s office sends me this video of his take-down and detention at Sec. Noem’s press conference in L.A.

I am in downtown Los Angeles right now and it is completely surreal to hear that Trump is sending Marines here. We are listening to mariachi music. People have dogs. There are teenagers here. It is utterly and completely peaceful. Please tell your friends.

She reviewed a Tampa restaurant on Yelp. Then came a lawsuit. The legal battle illustrates the fragile relationship between chefs and restaurant owners and the people they serve.

Professor @willbpayne.bsky.social has examined how user-generated review platforms can impact restaurants' reputations, and as the landscape of restaurant discovery evolves, he notes it is more crucial for restaurants to navigate online reviews carefully.

There is one place, however, where Musk, with the help of his minions, achieved his goals. He did indeed shred U.S.A.I.D. Though a rump operation is now operating inside the State Department, the administration says that it has terminated more than 80 percent of U.S.A.I.D. grants. Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of global health at Boston University, has estimated that these cuts have already resulted in about 300,000 deaths, most of them of children, and will most likely lead to significantly more by the end of the year. That is what Musk’s foray into politics accomplished.

Musk should be asked about this in every interview he does now and forever. To ignore it is a dereliction of duty.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

New article out in Urban Studies! I examine Google’s urban-tech power from Fiber to Sidewalk Labs and argue that the company is less a cohesive strategist and more a shapeshifter, driven by the speculative ethos of Silicon Valley journals.sagepub.com/eprint/JIJUW...

Me too! Still use the All City Space Horse for commuting/errands when it’s just me, but for kid hauling and larger pickups (whole pizzas, plants, etc.) it can’t be beat. Ownership cost per mile is so low compared to a car too

Trump Cuts Are Killing a Tiny Office That Keeps Measurements of the World Accurate A tiny but crucial agency that maintains physical coordinates like latitude and longitude in the US is struggling as the Trump administration forces out federal employees.

SCOOP from me: the mass exodus of employees from NOAA is decimating a tiny office that literally keeps our measurements of latitude and longitude accurate — and, former employees tell me, endangers the science of how the US understands global measurements:

Looks great Gavin!

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrested at ICE detention center in NJ NEWARK, N.J. (PIX11) — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, authorities said. “The Mayor of Newark, Ras B…

SHAME. This is an example of the feds on an out of control rampage. Arresting the mayor of Newark for demanding to inspect a site in Newark is absurd. #ReleaseBaraka
pix11.com/news/local-n...

I am outraged by the unjust arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka earlier this afternoon outside of Delaney Hall in Newark.

I am calling for his immediate release by federal law enforcement.

Between his attacks on NIH, NSF, and higher ed generally, Trump has very nearly placed a moratorium on public scientific research in this country, yet legacy media seems determined to frame it exclusively as a snit over Harvard.

How Dutch are these breeches, btw?

I’m about to PayPal someone to send me hand harvested and cleaned seeds of a spring ephemeral plant called Dutchman’s Breeches, and it feels so refreshing to just be transacting plant nerd to plant nerd

Trump and Bukele’s Concentration Camp CECOT is no regular prison. It is also a warning.

The great @andreapitzer.bsky.social is in @nymag.com, calling CECOT what it is: a bona fide concentration camp

Plus the fact that any metric that California’s #1 in that’s not measured per capita is not necessarily all that exceptional!

Photo by Berkeley Center for New Media on April 26, 2025.

BCNM student Lee Crandall is recognized for their groundbreaking work in the field of geography at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers!
bcnm.berkeley.edu/news-researc...

The ones that look like chunky zip ties that have been around since the 80s also work fine, but it’s annoying enough to undo them that you may end up leaving things unlocked sometimes, so then you’re back at square one…

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Picture of a red button with text saying “Push to slow automatic door” and the brand name “Horton”

@aresluna.org I present to you… a Horton Gorton (spotted in Vancouver, the land of Tim Horton’s, unrelatedly)