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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 44m

Noting - bc we're at the point where it's good to make note of good things in the world? - that I listened to this + a 30 min voice note from a dear friend who lives on a different continent in the course of one run, and it was like, the best combo of things that had come through my earbuds in ages.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 47m

Almost forgot! I listened to this podcast with Mark Frost about the female characters in Twin Peaks in late September and it was an absolute delight.

Meant to throw it on the internet with an "I recommend" stamp on it!

mubi.com/en/notebook/...

MUBI Podcast | Mark Frost Founds “Twin Peaks”

In our latest episode, we learn more about the female characters of “Twin Peaks.”

mubi.com

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Reposted by Stephanie Tuerk

Brian Klaas @brianklaas.bsky.social · 14h

A coup just took place in Madagascar. I wrote about it--and why it's the most interesting island you probably know nothing about.

The yogurt kingpin, the radio DJ coup, and the most interesting island on Earth

Madagascar is a fascinating island home to 30+ million people. It's also home to bizarre, volatile politics that virtually nobody knows about. And the president just escaped on a helicopter.

www.forkingpaths.co

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 9h

Sigh.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 2d

Tired: Information wants to be free
Wired: Information wants to be designed

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 3d

Look at how much more legible this is by changing just 3 CSS properties in DevTools -- give containing element for each method a different background color and a border, and turn off internal borders. And lots more could be done -- with spacing, color choice, and typography -- to improve this.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 3d

I realize everyone is trying their best so I don't really like calling people out, but like, here's an example. Literally the *styling choices* here are making this impossible to read.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 3d

Dear DevTools companies:
Poorly styled / designed documentation is killing / will kill your product.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 5d

Have to admit that I'm having a hard time saying, "this reflected at the same time an emergent international popular print culture and a trans-European interest in discovering place and language-based national identities" in this cursed (but masochistically enjoyable) language though.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

Making a small presentation for my community learning center Russian class about my recent trip to Latvia/Estonia and almost 10 yrs after finishing my PhD, I seem to be incapable of not saying, "In this presentation, I will..." 🤦

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

Things that are kind of cute and endearing:

When someone in Oct 2025 tried to reassure you about the future being like, look at the past 10 years -- bad thing has never happened!

Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

At the same time, it would be hard to convince me that the critique of positivism or whatever has like, led design to some great, alternative place.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

It's not all terrible. The development of nuance in thought over the course of the 20th Century is, all in all, probably something to celebrate. And that kind of entails a more tempered thinking about how we can change the world.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

Remembered the Athens Charter and CIAM the other day (most of this stuff has been removed from my brain's RAM at this point) and was like, could you imagine that happening now?!?!!!!?!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_...

Andy Budd @andybudd.bsky.social · 6d

www.ft.com/content/e637...

Why designers abandoned their dreams of changing the world

Design was once seen as a tool to improve lives — but as modernism has become marketing, that sense of social purpose has drifted away

www.ft.com

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Reposted by Stephanie Tuerk

David C. Brock @dcbrock.bsky.social · 6d

My oral history interview with Ken Thompson -- of Unix, C, Go, computer chess, and other fame -- for the Computer History Museum and the ACM is now online!
computerhistory.org/blog/a-compu...

A Computing Legend Speaks

Ken Thompson, one of the foremost programmers and computer scientists of the last 50 years, shares stories about his life and career in a newly released oral history.

computerhistory.org

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 6d

Yes, and....feels like a good time to say that if I can ever be of service to mutuals here (via like, a 1:1 meeting) or you just think it would be super great to talk, I'm down for that! (DM!)

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 7d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 8d

Is the best part of going away coming back and seeing what is way too familiar to you with new eyes?

Well, actually it definitely is not, but it's still a nice, temporary side benefit.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 8d

Yes, completely!

There are like 10 things listed in the RQ docs that are followed with "if you want to handle these yourself...uh. good luck!" And I probably experienced 8 of them. I definitely learned more by encountering them...but maybe also could have stopped earlier for my own well-being.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 8d

Also while I'm confessing I bought $30 worth of salt/salmiak licorice from Duty Free in Helsinki.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 8d

Life update: I am doing a learning project in React and for a while i really wanted to avoid higher-level libraries so that I could really grapple with the fundamentals/React itself.

I have given in and just installed React Query. :)

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 11d

In conclusion: the world may be fucked, but travel is still amazing. Glad to have gotten to know this region a bit!

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 11d

But the prices here are apparently very very high compared to salaries (food is the same price as a major US metro) and ppl feel they can barely afford it anymore.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 11d

And 4. (Could keep going but I'll stop :)) is there anywhere in the world where people are optimistic right now? From the outside, Tallinn truly looks like a smart, walkable urbanism dream.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 11d

3. What a time to be going to all of these "Museum of Occupation"s (etc), which many post-Soviet countries have. In the Baltics they are also ab Nazi occupation as well. One needs to view these w/ a critical thinking hat on, but there is certainly a new resonance for me at the moment.

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Stephanie Tuerk @stephanietuerk.net · 11d

Some thoughts from the Tallinn airport:

1. Truly not ready to go back to the US.

2. Odd to me how much Tallinn reminds me of Singapore -- ungodly clean, very safe (8 yr old kids without parents everywhere), very e-convenient. Also uncomfortable weather for the most part (though still nice now).

A picture of a residential area in Tallinn, with kids walking to school, a wood house, and also some more modern buildings as well.

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