This is so, so well-articulated.

Oof, that's a big question! I will say candidly that Al has been a significant contributor to my own feelings of burnout and alienation within tech, and I'm not sure what comes next, but boy am I tired of it already. I do worry about design and software development becoming more "niche" or "bespoke" as more and more of the industry turns toward LLM-driven automation. Weirdly, as someone in a role that is poised to take advantage of this shift, I feel more negatively toward Al than many others... maybe that's because I can validate what it's doing and I'm often unimpressed?

Part of this is my own defensiveness/ reaction to a stable landscape changing too rapidly for comfort; part is ethical concerns I have over how this technology is being created (through the ingestion of others' unpaid labor, at severe environmental cost), deployed (often without consent), and used (polluting our knowledge ecosystems and supercharging the spread of disinformation). It's also funneling more and more money and power into an ever smaller set of hands.

The core belief I'm coalescing around is that the process is the most important thing, and there are no shortcuts. "Ideas" are a dime a dozen, and LLMs can, by nature, only produce statistically-average results. I think it's the act of putting pen to paper, experimenting, and really thinking through a problem that you end up with something-a product, a work of art, a piece of writing-that's worth sharing with others. No matter how technology changes, that will remain constant, and I think that any designer or engineer who really engages going deep with the process will continue to find work. At least, that's my hope!

a colleague asked if my resignation had anything to do with where the design profession is going with AI and this is what I told her

Do you love looking at cats? Do you support immigrants? Be part of our 2026 NorCal Resist Cat Tour!

In Sacramento tinyurl.com/NCRCatTour

I'm so excited that we can finally share this! I'm chairing this year's conference with Nick Santos. It's gonna be amazing!

Also, we're looking for volunteers to help with planning. Let me know if you have questions or want the sign up sheet!

#gischat

Your regular reminder that librarians and statisticians are natural allies in the medical research ecosystem.

R Basics introduces everything you need to get started. It covers both base R and a few Tidyverse functions for carrying out some common data analysis tasks.

It also includes a variety of case studies that use open data (often from California Open Data).

R Basics Reader for UC Davis DataLab’s R Basics workshop series.

We recently updated R Basics, our introductory workshop about research computing in R! 🎉 The reader (a mini-textbook) is here:
ucdavisdatalab.github.io/workshop_r_b...

It is *fascinating* to me how quickly some people have gone completely from “we all must work in the office! human collaboration is vital and only happens in person!” to “I can replace all these pesky people with chatbots!” Definitely some commentary there about our society and who gets to choose.

"If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?" Education workers reveal a growing crisis on campus and off AI Killed My Job: Educators.

AI is fundamentally a labor issue - and if after reading these testimonials from educators that @bcmerchant.bsky.social has collected you're not convinced it's time for a Luddite praxis in K-12 and higher education, then shit, I'm not sure what else to tell you.

You're not! Human languages are really imprecise.

note that if you're quitting ChatGPT, you should also quit Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok, etc! none of these firms are your friends.

Kickapoo Chef Crystal Wahpepah Showcases Oakland’s Native American Side In her new book, the Kickapoo chef and self-proclaimed ‘Indigenous food warrior’ presents the healing properties of intertribal cuisine.

“We have so many beautiful stories that have been handed down from generation to generation. I come from a really strong family of women, and I feel like it’s my duty to continue to pass along that wisdom"

Read the full Q&A with chef Crystal Wahpepah. ⬇️

The process is the point.

+1, Mint is the distro that usually just works without a lot of extra config.

The Peng You x Farmer Mai event RSVP ended Feb 14 🫠

Little Morocco Cafe is delicious and only 2 blocks away.

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Instead of wasting a half a trillion a year on datacenters, I vote we build hundreds of high speed rail lines all across the US

I'd actually go further and say that the "STEM"/"humanities" split is a meaningless and fake one. Mathematics and programming have as mucv in common with music and writing as with biochemistry or paleontology.

CONTRIBUTOR GREG BROCKMAN AMOUNT ELECTION TO DAT $25,000,000 $25,000,000

The largest Trump superPAC donor so far this cycle is the president of OpenAI

An illustration of an opossum holding a sign that says abolish ICE.

Stand up, fight back.

New Delhi in San Rafael. And +1 for Sol Food. Also Emporio Rulli in Larkspur for lunch dates.

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

Look, I was a little kid when we went through this last and I just wanted it to live in my mind as a horrible thing some evil reactionary adults did when I was growing up. I was fine with that simple understanding!

I did NOT ask to experience a re-enactment as an adult.

🚨 Thread collecting actionable steps to help civilians in Venezuela, Venezuelan refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, and Venezuelan immigrants in the US. 🚨

✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups.

❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions.

👇

Discworld QOTD, from Guards! Guards!

Time to start looking for a new web browser, I guess.

aren't you tired of feeling insane all the time? Behold! I have had a thought.

Really liked reading this from @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, who asks, isn't it exhausting to just feel like you're going insane every time you go on the computer

youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...

Bracket showing the 32 names in the Worst Person in Tech 2025

🚨 THE BATTLE BEGINS 🚨

Your favorite year-end contest is back. It’s time to choose who will be this year’s Worst Person In Tech for 2025!

Each day of this week new matchups will drop until we choose the winner on Friday.

🗳️ Cast your ballot: twsu.forms.app/worst-person...

I haven't been watching much TV lately, but season 3 of Dark Winds is the show I'm most excited to watch next.