Erin Kissane
banner
kissane.myatproto.social
Erin Kissane
@kissane.myatproto.social
Making and mending networks and knowledge. Working and thinking at wrecka.ge, building at Unbreaking.org.

Cofounded the Covid Tracking Project, previously OpenNews, old web nonsense.
Pinned
This is what I spent most of last week working on with other people who cannot leave this stuff alone. Gotta put the facts in order in a stable place and then see what meaning emerges.
The fight against authoritarianism has many fronts. At Unbreaking, we choose to work against information overload and for collective understanding. On our Immigration timeline, we track major and representative events from across the US—now filterable by legal case:

unbreaking.org/issues/immig...
while I'm talking out of turn Stevie Nicks sounds exactly like a stoned singing sheep esp in her solo career and it's charming, actually
December 3, 2025 at 6:20 PM
is it permissible yet to express skepticism about the Brené Brown industrial complex or no
December 3, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Who taught you math
December 3, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Welp, radio is making me a terrible grump, time to turn it off and log out of all the things
December 2, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Like I am going to read Nerd Reich but I have been reading about this in the mainstream press for years and years. And of course WIRED has covered the bejeezus out of it and there’s so much indie reporting.

The frame warfare here deserves better arguments than “No one is covering it.”
The claim that no one in mainstream media is covering the influence of tech money in the rise of authoritarianism, which I just heard Gil Duran say on KQED, makes me feel insane.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America
The reactionary blogger’s call for a monarch to rule the country once seemed like a joke. Now the right is ready to bend the knee.
www.newyorker.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:56 PM
The claim that no one in mainstream media is covering the influence of tech money in the rise of authoritarianism, which I just heard Gil Duran say on KQED, makes me feel insane.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America
The reactionary blogger’s call for a monarch to rule the country once seemed like a joke. Now the right is ready to bend the knee.
www.newyorker.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:47 PM
My eyes keep being weird so I'm trying to find non-text ways to get the information I need, and man, national daily news audio is a real hellscape of people acting either two notches dumber (relatability!) or two notches smarter (counterintuitive cleverness!) than they actually appear to be.
December 2, 2025 at 5:17 PM
And yet wherever ICE and CBP show up in force, young people do come out to protect their neighbors—and at far greater risk to themselves than the risks posed by mass protests that may help in a diffuse way, or may work more like an accountability sink than a countermove.
Fantastic data in here. Was just talking to a neighbor about the age curve at No Kings. Not an easy thing to fix.
The Times piece by @brendannyhan.bsky.social about No Kings made me curious about the political activism of young people over time. So I pulled some CES data and made some charts. www.pbump.net/o/how-severe...
December 2, 2025 at 4:50 AM
The child for whom I have been collecting books recs was given the chance to request a book for the school library and she asked for an, uh, body horror…caper? About ancient fish gods that eat human fear? And it has arrived. So she is now slowly converting her classmates to the fish cult.
December 2, 2025 at 3:08 AM
🎁📚 People who acquire books for middle schoolers: many banger recs await you in the replies to this post
This year’s holiday recs request: Moar Books for child (12) who finally got to read the Murderbots and loved them the most, but is not ready for Locked Tomb levels of grief and death. Preferences in next post.
December 2, 2025 at 1:03 AM
my brain saw “whistleblowers” and “leave“ and told me FEMA got rid of leafblowers so make fun of me all you want but it’s better in here
December 1, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Reposted by Erin Kissane
New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out @sarambsimon.bsky.social ‬(Northwestern University)‬’s review of ‪Brian Michael Murphy (‪Williams College‬)’s book _We the Dead: Preserving Data at the End of the World_ pub 2022 @uncpress.bsky.social

#hstm

Review available @hnetreviews.bsky.social
December 1, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Erin Kissane
if you’re cold they’re cold
let your demons in
November 30, 2025 at 6:39 PM
This year’s holiday recs request: Moar Books for child (12) who finally got to read the Murderbots and loved them the most, but is not ready for Locked Tomb levels of grief and death. Preferences in next post.
December 1, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Another fantastic recs thread, this one for kids
Seeking fun middle-grade and up fiction recs for a kid reading voraciously at an undergrad level in the technical sense, but with the sensitivities of a softhearted 10-12 year old. Comic violence is fine, could do without terrible grief. Likes in following post…
December 1, 2025 at 12:02 AM
The hour comes round again for winter mysteries
I'm sure I missed some things, but here is my best fast crack at a roundup of the 100+ books/series/authors people recommended in this thread requesting non-cozy, kinda literary, ideally wintery mysteries that aren't police procedurals.

gist.github.com/kissane/cd8d...
November 30, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Erin Kissane
truth coming out of her cup noodles to shame mankind
November 28, 2025 at 5:48 AM
arguing about AI on here today is the coward’s path and you know it, you gotta go do it with your worst uncle
November 27, 2025 at 8:57 PM
We’re out till December. I am so grateful to the folks who do this work with us, and to all y’all who read and pass it on ❤️❤️❤️
Unbreaking will be taking some downtime for the rest of November, so you’ll see our next briefing in December. In the meantime, you can catch up on our Data Security, Immigration, Medical Research, and Equality at Work work: unbreaking.org/blog/this-we...
This week at Unbreaking, November 20 — Unbreaking
This week's update covers what the immigration crackdown is doing to our communities, the ongoing exploitation of our personal data, and what's going on with federal workers and medical research fundi...
unbreaking.org
November 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM
I do think homemade cranberry sauce is better with a little molasses and a little ruby port and a verrrry long simmer.
November 25, 2025 at 11:47 PM
The main thing that has improved my cooking in the past ten years is brain medication (fewer forgotten ingredients and burned pots). Doing that also helped me learn to do more things the long way, which is, unfortunately, usually worth it.
November 25, 2025 at 10:59 PM
a late November holiday is a bad idea, actually, this is all just a bizarrely delayed harvest festival and you’re supposed to finish those by October
November 25, 2025 at 9:14 PM
I finally thought of the right Chotiner joke for yesterday but now it is too late.
November 25, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Erin Kissane
For the past six weeks or so I've been volunteering over at @unbreaking.org, helping out with their immigration timeline. It is, as you might suspect, heavy work but it is made lighter by the fantastic community of very thoughtful individuals working on sensemaking in a time that doesn't make sense
November 25, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Reposted by Erin Kissane
My latest pieces online, and I expect to add a few more over the coming week. If you're thinking about holiday gifts, consider some handmade pottery!

If you like it, I want you to have it. #pottery #art

art.miriamsuzanne.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:38 PM