Yangyang Cheng

Legendary founder of NPR programming Bill Siemering is enjoying Zoom visiting with students so much that he's asked me to put a second call out. No honorarium necessary. Any takers?

UT-Austin to merge race, ethnic and gender study programs More than 800 students are pursuing degrees in the affected departments, which include African, Latino and gender studies.

This is AWFUL. Univ of Texas is consolidating 4 depts into 1: African and African Diaspora Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Mexican American and Latino Studies will become "a Social and Cultural Analysis department." www.texastribune.org/2026/02/12/t...

⏰ Reminder: our 2026 creative non-fiction contest is still open for submissions until 1 March! The theme is ‘In Flux’ – in the era of uncertainty, what are the lingering aftershocks of instability, and how do you respond to the changes?

🔗 More details here:

Launching Reckoning Science We believe in science and its achievements, but also in the need to examine how it is actually made, including its limits and its entanglements with politics, money, and power.

Excited to announce that my post doc, Sasha Kaurov, and I are launching
reckoningscience.org/launching-re...
Please take a look, read, and subscribe! All proceeds will go to supporting the underfed post-doc.

DOCTOR: I told him he needed to get out to a show, that was how he would cure his depression.

CHOTINER: So you learned this technique in school?

DR: No, not— listen it was good advice. Pagliacci was in town.

C: Right. Is it standard to give advice before learning a patient’s name?

DR: Now look

A young Fred Korematsu

A photo of Fred Korematsu in his later years

"It may take time to prove you're right, but you have to stick to it."
- Fred Korematsu

Jailed for refusing to abide by FDR's Exec Order 9066, he took his case against internment all the way to the Supreme Court - and lost. Remember him on Korematsu Day, January 30th. 1/

"Boxer" indemnities🎓

❤️

I am just very sad for everyone involved. But I’m proud of the student journalism here.

Engineers, Lawyers, and the Costs of ‘Building’ | Made in China Journal Today there are two great peoples on earth who, starting from different points, seem to advance toward the same goal … —Alexis de Tocqueville (2012: 655)   In 1919, after visiting Bolshevik Russia, th...

In his acclaimed 'Breakneck', Dan Wang frames China as a fast-moving technocratic 'engineering state' and the US as a rule-bound 'lawyerly society'. In this review, Clark Aoqi Wu argues the contrast is overly simplistic, substituting a memorable slogan for historical explanation.

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence:

"Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

Some good news! Guan Heng has just been granted asylum in the US, although DHS reserve the right to appeal the decision in the next 30 days.

He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.

Last year, a human trafficking victim trapped in a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle region of Laos contacted me. He then proceeded to leak to me a huge collection of the compound's internal materials.

Then he had to get out alive. This is his story.

🧵👇 www.wired.com/story/he-lea...

In an effort to appeal to the youth and confuse the olds, the Doomsday Clock is now 67 seconds to midnight.

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality."

-James Baldwin, from Notes on the House of Bondage (The Nation, 1980)
#everynightapoem #ofsorts

TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location, after majority ownership officially switched to a group based in the US.

According to its new privacy policy, TikTok now collects more data on its users, including their precise location, after majority ownership officially switched to a group based in the US. www.wired.com/story/tiktok...

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

TSMC’s innovative business model took inspiration from the long history of electronics manufacturing in Taiwan.
https://bit.ly/4a6Iq7K

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon?
I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com:
www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Woodblock snowscene of Tokyo about a century ago. Kawase Hasui, Evening Snow at Terashima Village, 1920, from Twelve Scenes of Tokyo (Tôkyô jûnidai)]

All this impending snow.
Reminds me that now we enter into the 24th of 24 micro-seasons: “Greater Cold” #大寒 - the coldest period of the year. Yet also, a period anticipating the beginning of spring and the warmth of the coming lunar new year.

[Kawase Hasui, Evening Snow at Terashima Village, 1920]

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

"Against all the saber-rattling, myth-making, and visions of world domination, [Island Tinkerers] offers a timely intervention and powerful antidote."

@thenation.com reviews @honghongtinn.bsky.social's fascinating #OpenAccess contribution to the history of computing technology:

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

"As the world appears entranced by faster chips and smarter electrical brains, elevating a company like TSMC to mythical status, few are pausing to ponder what the computing power is for—and who powers the computers?"
I review Honghong Tinn's important new book, Island Tinkerers, in @thenation.com:

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

TSMC’s innovative business model took inspiration from the long history of electronics manufacturing in Taiwan.
https://bit.ly/4a6Iq7K

How George Orwell’s 1984 predicted the global power struggles happening now Is art replicating life when it comes to Orwell’s most influential novel? Emrah Atasoy and Jeffrey Wasserstrom investigate

Reupping this as January 21, the anniversary of Orwell’s death, begins in Europe and is midway through in Asia, www.the-independent.com/news/world/g... —by @atasoyemrah.bsky.social & me, in part the piece looks at novels, news, & non fiction of the 1930s-1940s that influenced Orwell’s vision

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

"As the world appears entranced by faster chips and smarter electrical brains, elevating a company like TSMC to mythical status, few are pausing to ponder what the computing power is for—and who powers the computers?"
I review Honghong Tinn's important new book, Island Tinkerers, in @thenation.com:

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

New review for The Nation by @yangyangcheng.bsky.social, on ISLAND TINKERERS by Honghong Tinn, which explores the history of bottom-up innovation and growth in Taiwan's technology sector, with special attention to the frequently overlooked work of women in the industry.

Wish I could have been in that class!

Amusingly, I just gave a mini-lecture of sorts on this very topic for a comparative politics course. Funny timing.

Many thanks to @davidmarcus.bsky.social for his patience and sharp edits, and to @thenation.com for the generous space and careful production: a shoutout to Gus at fact-checking!
Check out @honghongtinn.bsky.social's important new book, Island Tinkerers, here: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254938...

Great review of an important book.

How Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the World A new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon?
I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com:
www.thenation.com/article/worl...