Jillian Foley
@jillianefoley.com
historian of cryptography, computers, and information; doing mom stuff and writing in chicago
occasional newsletter @ jillianefoley.com
occasional newsletter @ jillianefoley.com
Pinned
Jillian Foley
@jillianefoley.com
· Mar 28
I’m thrilled to announce my book will be published by @harvardpress.bsky.social! Less thrilled for democracy that it gets alarmingly more relevant by the day!
I cannot get enough of the grass costume people. Give me that content directly to my eyeballs. Stayed up late cackling at my phone at grass people memes
February 10, 2026 at 4:43 PM
I cannot get enough of the grass costume people. Give me that content directly to my eyeballs. Stayed up late cackling at my phone at grass people memes
Reposted by Jillian Foley
thank you bad bunny for highlighting the importance of critical power distribution infrastructure bsky.app/profile/cost...
It’s the weekend everyone, so you know what that means. Time to drink two polar seltzers and do a thread on the power transformer shortage. Without transformers, we don’t get a clean energy transition. And as energysky knows, there’s been a shortage due to covid, supply chain, & labor constraints 🔌🔋
February 9, 2026 at 1:35 AM
thank you bad bunny for highlighting the importance of critical power distribution infrastructure bsky.app/profile/cost...
Reposted by Jillian Foley
The current regime took a week to abolish USAID, which is three times as old and was not in the news every day for brutalizing children
“We cannot just abolish ICE!”
Bestie, you are older than ICE.
Bestie, you are older than ICE.
February 8, 2026 at 3:59 PM
The current regime took a week to abolish USAID, which is three times as old and was not in the news every day for brutalizing children
Things my two-year-old has said are “too spicy” this morning: her socks, her ducky, a bite of apple
February 7, 2026 at 6:05 PM
Things my two-year-old has said are “too spicy” this morning: her socks, her ducky, a bite of apple
Reposted by Jillian Foley
quick, someone help, we've got a vegetable situation
February 4, 2026 at 9:32 PM
quick, someone help, we've got a vegetable situation
it's really bleak out here without institutional research access!
I’ve been trying to work on a very small public humanities project and I am here to tell you that even that is almost impossible without full research library access
February 4, 2026 at 5:57 PM
it's really bleak out here without institutional research access!
big this energy today
me: ugh why can't I find one source that puts all of these events in context
me, a historian: oh no i have to write it, don't I
me, a historian: oh no i have to write it, don't I
February 3, 2026 at 7:36 PM
big this energy today
Reposted by Jillian Foley
As a social scientist, I really don't like how much of what's going on now is based in Great Man History and palace intrigue--decisions by small sets of powerful individuals who are driven by psychological traumas and tempers
February 3, 2026 at 1:12 AM
As a social scientist, I really don't like how much of what's going on now is based in Great Man History and palace intrigue--decisions by small sets of powerful individuals who are driven by psychological traumas and tempers
panic! at the broken primary source link
February 2, 2026 at 9:46 PM
panic! at the broken primary source link
Reposted by Jillian Foley
there comes a point when you just keep making your weekly giant pot of beans and no one in the house can stop your beanage
beantips.com/how-to-cook-...
beantips.com/how-to-cook-...
How to cook a pot of beans
Beans are awesome. They're cheap, healthy and delicious. I make a pot every week. Most recipes I'll be posting here will start with something like “First, cook a pot of beans.” So, let's get that out ...
beantips.com
February 2, 2026 at 9:16 PM
there comes a point when you just keep making your weekly giant pot of beans and no one in the house can stop your beanage
beantips.com/how-to-cook-...
beantips.com/how-to-cook-...
tear them down and rewild some prairie
Just had the thought that if/when the data center bubble bursts the buildings could get turned into detention centers, gross
January 31, 2026 at 10:17 PM
tear them down and rewild some prairie
the way I knew what chain this was talking about.
ahh, maryland-style pizza. america's most rightly unremarked upon regional pizza. famous for its motto "just like that one so-so chain used to make it"
January 31, 2026 at 4:43 AM
the way I knew what chain this was talking about.
Reposted by Jillian Foley
every day lately I read something that will stay with me forever. this is beautifully written and absolutely heart shattering.
Kao Kalia Yang at @literaryhub.bsky.social - "If they take me and leave the children." One of our great local writers at this moment of crisis.
Letter From Minnesota: “If They Take Me and Leave the Children…”
Today is Tuesday, January 27th, 2026. I got gas for the first time this year by myself. The gas station was mostly empty. I drove into the station, heart thudding in my chest. I did everything as f…
lithub.com
January 29, 2026 at 5:12 PM
every day lately I read something that will stay with me forever. this is beautifully written and absolutely heart shattering.
very refreshing to see the occasional heated disagreements that are trivial instead of existential. currently watching one mom accuse another of "fighting words" about midwesterners' taste in bagels on the jewish mom chat
January 29, 2026 at 5:30 PM
very refreshing to see the occasional heated disagreements that are trivial instead of existential. currently watching one mom accuse another of "fighting words" about midwesterners' taste in bagels on the jewish mom chat
Reposted by Jillian Foley
I was active in Chicago and talking to friends in MPLS it is an exponential evolution in the organizing that happened here.
I keep seeing leftists from outside of Minneapolis say they’ve seen all this before, and no, you haven’t. I’ve been at this for 30+ years and I haven’t either. It’s not what you’re picturing. This is something else
I know people keep saying this but it’s hard to communicate the depth of active resistance here. Like, I’m on random cafes and people are checking in for observation shifts. Signs everywhere. Folks in visibility vests on the corners. It’s wild. Absolutely wild.
January 22, 2026 at 6:27 PM
I was active in Chicago and talking to friends in MPLS it is an exponential evolution in the organizing that happened here.
finally got around to setting up a redirect for this and I am immediately less full of rage when I need to use google drive
a tiny pet peeve in the grand scheme of awful tech "innovations" but dear god why does google drive not default to my *actual drive*.
i do not want a random list of files. I want to see them organized the way I organized them.
i do not want a random list of files. I want to see them organized the way I organized them.
January 21, 2026 at 5:16 PM
finally got around to setting up a redirect for this and I am immediately less full of rage when I need to use google drive
in chicago our school and daycare and neighborhood chats and patrols are quiet lately but they're all still ready. fuck this shit.
To say a bit what people’s lives are like: both of my kids’ schools have chats that are connected to the parents and neighbors patrolling school grounds observing for ICE. Every a.m. other parents monitor them in case we need to quickly go to the school to help prevent a child from being kidnapped.
January 15, 2026 at 3:59 PM
in chicago our school and daycare and neighborhood chats and patrols are quiet lately but they're all still ready. fuck this shit.
Reposted by Jillian Foley
sincere question: if you are writing a lot right now, how
January 14, 2026 at 11:44 PM
sincere question: if you are writing a lot right now, how
this episode is everything I hoped it would be when I wrote in this question!
New Episode
hearts heavy today and we talk about that, but then we get into a fun genre conversation about Karen Russell
soundcloud.com/printrunpodc...
hearts heavy today and we talk about that, but then we get into a fun genre conversation about Karen Russell
soundcloud.com/printrunpodc...
Episode 183—The Only Genre Is My Feelings
After checking for a few minutes about the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities, we answer a reader question about genre as relates to Karen Russell’s THE ANTIDOTE, a novel that has both historical AND f
soundcloud.com
January 12, 2026 at 8:22 PM
this episode is everything I hoped it would be when I wrote in this question!
Reposted by Jillian Foley
Ada gave this specific advice to a workshop I attended in grad school and it has been hugely helpful. It’s so hard and so fruitful.
Making myself rewrite old things to be half length. Essays especially but anything more than 6 months old. You learn so much cutting your own writing. Usually half length isn’t as good as it was at 2/3 length; feeling when you pass that line from good cutting to cutting vital things teaches tons
January 8, 2026 at 11:22 PM
Ada gave this specific advice to a workshop I attended in grad school and it has been hugely helpful. It’s so hard and so fruitful.
Reposted by Jillian Foley
I find the idea that technology “evolves” via some sort of passive internal force of history extremely pernicious. The idea that things simply improve rather than very specific choices and efforts being made in targeted areas that then require new infrastructures to maintain is really dangerous.
January 4, 2026 at 2:31 PM
I find the idea that technology “evolves” via some sort of passive internal force of history extremely pernicious. The idea that things simply improve rather than very specific choices and efforts being made in targeted areas that then require new infrastructures to maintain is really dangerous.
Reposted by Jillian Foley
Instead of whatever this is, we should have a government getting lots of new homes and apartments built, lots of clean energy built, lots of high speed rail and transit and bike lanes built, human rights for everyone, economic & healthcare opportunities for all, & innovation that leads the world.
January 4, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Instead of whatever this is, we should have a government getting lots of new homes and apartments built, lots of clean energy built, lots of high speed rail and transit and bike lanes built, human rights for everyone, economic & healthcare opportunities for all, & innovation that leads the world.
that end of the Sugar Bowl was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a football stadium
January 2, 2026 at 5:03 AM
that end of the Sugar Bowl was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in a football stadium
Reposted by Jillian Foley
DJ Moore, with absolutely nothing left. Game-winner.
December 21, 2025 at 4:33 AM
DJ Moore, with absolutely nothing left. Game-winner.