jonathan zong

I hesitate to post this but since I’m not running for anything or trying to get you to subscribe to a Substack I’ll use this as a chance to say

1) If this president does something illegal to you, don’t go along with it.

Slices of Life: A Comic Montage by Qu Bulgilhan Press presents the complete English-language release of Qu's wonderful collection of sublime comics about life!

Our Kickstarter campaign for Slice of Life by Qu is now officially in it's final week! We've creeping up to 70% funded and know we'll get there! Thank you so much for the support thus far!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bul...

Wrote about how CITY The Animation came to be: a lasting friendship between author and studio, Keiichi Arawi's direct involvement, and director Taiichi Ishidate's strong belief that creators mustn't only make new things, but specifically do so in new ways blog.sakugabooru.com/2025/07/07/c...

there is some really savvy data storytelling happening in this video

Honestly, I have listened to this several times and it's great. It was the lead track to the Queen of Katwe official movie soundtrack, which Zohran Mamdani curated and produced as the film's co-music supervisor: www.teenvogue.com/story/queen-...

thanks for sharing nikhil! i also wrote something for this and similarly had trouble placing (and was sad to discover the katy times no longer has an op-ed section). but i might follow your lead and post soon.

When We Are All Enemies of the State - Boston Review A recently discovered 1974 speech by Stuart Hall on Walter Rodney—and why fascists fear ideas.

“If it is a “political” act to do certain kinds of intellectual work..it is considered even more so to break the boundaries of Academia & to..work alongside the masses in their struggle.”

www.bostonreview.net/articles/whe...

Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity

So honored to have been able to translate "Circular Universe" by @chitawei.bsky.social ! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

You can find this piece and many other incredible stories of trans and queer futurity in AMPLITUDES, ed. @leemandelo.bsky.social and published by @erewhonbooks.bsky.social!

bookshop.org/p/books/ampl...

hi folks! I'm teaching tech ethics this summer, and part of the course is having students read news articles about ongoing tech issues.

can anyone recommend publications that cover tech issues in a non-US context (either issues in countries beyond the US and/or do not center the US)?

This is easily one of the best magazine features I have ever read. It is funny, educational, comprehensive and detailed about multiple technical topics while staying accessible to a general reader. I wish I could nominate it for a National Magazine Award. It is well worth your time.

The history of ergodic literature is kind of a trip because half the time you end up looking at something you didn't know you could DO with the written word, and the other half of the time it's just a guy who clearly wants to be writing hypertext fiction but has the misfortune of being born in 1899.

Indigenous scientists are fighting to protect their data — and their culture They’re worried about the loss of their research.

Great coverage of our mutual aid network across the US-Canadian border moving Indigenous data so it's safer.

www.theverge.com/features/664...

The odd path ‘Expedition 33’ took to becoming one of the best games of the year “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” is a surprise hit made by a small team that’s being celebrated by even the president of France. Its creators explain how they did it.

My interview with Expedition 33's team: This is lead writer Jennifer Svedburg-Yen's debut as a writer. She is a former private equity investor.

Regarding how much the team put themselves into the game: "We are emptied out."

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

screenshot from an online job application form. the question reads "Can you describe specific ways you have integrated AI tools into your development workflow? Please include any custom setups, automations, or use cases beyond single prompt usage" (a red asterisk indicates that this is a required question). an answer has been typed in the textbox below the question: "there is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thousand voices. it will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. it will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. it will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask. it feels no joy and no sorrow, it knows no right and no wrong. it knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same. it offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. “you simply must visit the monster—i always just ask the monster.” there are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn’t mean it has no price for when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. and when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face."

applying for jobs again

Inside the life of a 24/7 streamer: ‘What more do you want?’ A lonely young woman in Texas has streamed every second of her life for three years and counting. Is this life, or a performance of one?

This story hits so hard on so many levels. Inside the “life” of a 24/7 Twitch streamer who has been streaming nonstop for three years. She’s both a success story and a nightmare cautionary tale for the attention age.

Gift link: wapo.st/4jGA60O by @drewharwell.com

The technology of enchantment In an anthropology and studio art course called Paranormal Machines, MIT students investigate how humans interpret interactions with advanced technologies.

i'm reminded that graham jones taught this "paranormal machines" class at MIT

news.mit.edu/2019/paranor...

A new way to make graphs more accessible to blind and low-vision readers Designed to help blind and low-vision readers understand graphics, the “Tactile Vega-Lite” system from MIT CSAIL converts data into a standard visual graph and a tactile chart. Accessibility standards...

Tactile charts are an important tool for conveying data to blind and low vision people via embossed paper. However, tactile charts require high levels of time and expertise to design.

Introducing Tactile Vega-Lite, new work at #CHI2025 led by MIT SM student Katie Chen

news.mit.edu/2025/making-...

shout out to the guys yesterday who stopped me, pointed at the sky and said "sir, there's a rainbow" ... there was a rainbow

Embodying Stories for Resisting Technology: Anti-Colonial Approaches to Human-Computer Interaction How can we create interactive narratives that foster a liberatory approach to current and potential sociotechnical systems?

Computer scientists - who's going to be at CHI?

While I can't be there this year, do say hello to Cornell gradstudent Beatrys Rodrigues, who will be presenting her work on anti-colonial approaches to HCI.

citizensandtech.org/2025/04/embo...

Tactile Vega-Lite: Rapidly Prototyping Tactile Charts with Smart Defaults Tactile charts are essential for conveying data to blind and low vision (BLV) readers but are difficult for designers to construct. Non-expert designers face barriers to entry due to complex guideline...

Katie is presenting this research at #CHI2025 in Yokohama, Japan. This is her first academic conference so make sure to say hi!

Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2503.00149

Conference session: programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/pro...

A Tactile Vega-Lite specification of a grouped bar chart with highlights showing lines that were added to convert the visual spec into a tactile one. Next to the spec the visual and tactile outputs are shown. Figure caption says: Figure 5: Tactile chart creators can use the TVL code editor to customize key properties such as axis labels, tick marks, sorting, and texture encodings. The rendered outputs on the right showcase the parallel visual and tactile representations. Highlighted code snippets in yellow show properties that were added in TVL.

If you're a visualization designer without experience in tactile design, this also means you can make small edits to an existing VL spec to create a tactile-friendly version.

Check the example gallery in our paper for currently supported chart types, which include types commonly used in tactile

Side by side comparison of a visual line chart and its tactile equivalent. Figure caption says: Figure 1: Comparison of visual and tactile charts representing fertility rate trends for China and Australia from 1955 to 2005. This comparison shows design considerations necessary when transforming visual data into tactile formats, such as converting text to braille, adjusting scaling and spacing of chart elements, re-arranging the legend, and substituting visual encodings with tactile encodings.

Katie interviewed expert tactile designers and read through dense guidelines to create Tactile Vega-Lite, which extends Vega-Lite with tactile affordances.

TVL incorporates best practices as smart defaults, which means even non-experts can quickly create guideline-compliant charts

Why are tactile charts hard to make? Designers need to account for tactile perception, adjusting layout, spacing, and textures to optimize for touch-based reading. Braille publishing guidelines for charts can be hundreds of pages long. And even expert designers lack dedicated tool support.

A new way to make graphs more accessible to blind and low-vision readers Designed to help blind and low-vision readers understand graphics, the “Tactile Vega-Lite” system from MIT CSAIL converts data into a standard visual graph and a tactile chart. Accessibility standards...

Tactile charts are an important tool for conveying data to blind and low vision people via embossed paper. However, tactile charts require high levels of time and expertise to design.

Introducing Tactile Vega-Lite, new work at #CHI2025 led by MIT SM student Katie Chen

news.mit.edu/2025/making-...

Massive turnout in solidarity with Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student who was abducted from a Somerville street by Trump’s government - Somerville stands with Rumeysa

i would add that if one of your faculty gets kidnapped by the government & your comment is "please know that we are closely monitoring the situation," you have completely lost the plot as an educational institution

From one of our papers on this topic

🔓 osf.io/preprints/ps...

Every person on Bluesky should know:
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic

www.404media.co/the-200-site...

ICE arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests, his lawyer says A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead last spring's protests at Columbia University has been arrested by federal immigration agents.

The Trump administration’s detention of Mahmoud Khalil — a green card holder studying in this country legally — is targeted, retaliatory, and an extreme attack on his First Amendment rights.
apnews.com/article/colu...

independenttechresearch.org/the-crowdtan...