Revolutionizing brain‒computer interfaces: overcoming biocompatibility challenges in implantable neural interfaces https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12951-025-03573-x
The #IWW #GDC as an antifascist organization was always kind of a hack. It was a beautiful hack and it worked well for what it did.
In 2016, as Trump was rising, I found info from the Twin Cities GDC. They were super organized, building an amazing community defense organization. When we (Seattle) went to set up our chapter, following their lead, they were extremely supportive. When I got shot, Twin Cities folks were at my house keeping my partner safe. They literally flew people out to support us. They very much remain in my mind when I think about what mutual aid looks like.
Unionism is an important strategy of a larger fight. But it's important to realize that it's not the other way around. The GDC was built to defend the union, because there wasn't something larger to do that work. It filled a gap.
When we organized against Trump, we tried to make the GDC the greater thing. We tried to make the GDC into the vehicle for social revolution against the fascist threat... And it sort of worked. We were able to do a lot.
But that was never what it was built to do. It was always built as an appendage of the IWW. This contains its own problem. If Unionism is the revolutionary movement, then it becomes impossible to build a truly revolutionary society. Unionism centers "workers" which implicitly decenters those who can't work in the traditional sense (the young, the elderly, those physically or mentally able to work). It also decenters care labor that hasn't yet been widely commodified. Sure, there are all types of hacks to patch the holes, but the fundamental construction starts from the wrong assumptions.
It felt, for a while, like things could go another way. Like that our ability to bring members in could shift things a bit, maybe set the GDC on more equal footing with the core focus of the IWW. But that was always an illusion, far less important to think about than the crushing terror of the regime we were fighting.
Now, I will absolutely trash talk the IWW on occasion but in the end I do think they're doing good and important work. Any criticism I have should be taken with a grain of salt... And I know I do have a lot of salt. Again, Unionism is an important strategy. It's useful both in improving immediate material conditions and as part of the most powerful weapon we have against the capitalist system: the general strike. It's important, I can't say that enough. But it's not sufficient.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently, and I wonder if there are any other GDC organizers or former organizers who might be feeling the same. Feel free to DM me. I'd like to get some more perspectives and see if my understanding from several years ago deviates significantly from what other folks are feeling right now.
I'd also like to bounce some ideas around that come from my own organizing experience.
Filing: Oracle signed ~$150B of data center leases in the three months ending November 30, raising its total data center and cloud capacity commitments to $248B (Martin Peers/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/o
@… thanks.
Let's note, at the foot of the penultimate archived page (prior to removal of the topic):
― opening poster RypPn pleaded for people to be better
― eternal_noob replied, "But i'd like to watch things burn. 🥸".
The flames certainly entertained that one person. Moderators might have been less amused; it …
Stefanik calls on feds to ramp up bid-rigging probe of Hochul homecare contract after 'bombshell' email emerges (Rich Calder/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2025/12/13/us-news/stefanik-calls-on-doj-to-ramp-up-probe-of-hochuls-homecare-program-following-bombshell-email-revelation/
http://www.memeorandum.com/251213/p33#a251213p33
Questions remain about how leaders at the Los Angeles fire department responded to a fire that leveled entire communities,
and who within the agency knew about concerns the fire could still pose a threat.
A former LA city councilor says the aftermath and recovery effort should serve as a Pearl Harbor moment for the city,
which should never again be in a position with flames encroaching on all sides.
The LA Times has published a series of bombshell revelationsabout th…
Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading
«an ineffectual "open source revolution" that maintains the status quo of our modern day hellscape by facilitating an upwards transfer of wealth and power, amassed by the hyperscalers who are now entering their final, fascistic form. Open source "won" by aiding and abetting the already dominant owner-class.»
Quite a long read, but the core issue of where FLOSS is failing feels about right to me.
https://blog.muni.town/open-source-power/
Nick Sirianni Postgame Locker Room Speech: Raiders https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/video/nick-sirianni-postgame-locker-room-speech-raiders-nfl-2025-week-15-novacare-rehabilitation
UK filings: Revolut CEO and largest shareholder Nik Storonsky has shifted his residency from the UK to the UAE; Revolut is awaiting a full UK banking license (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/54348782-abc4-4345-a939-f8606103109e