Alexander Zimmerman
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b-traven.myatproto.social
Alexander Zimmerman
@b-traven.myatproto.social
Mutineer on ship of Capital & State.
Exiled public Librarian bunking in so-called Maine, US.
Luddite currently sailing the Non-Profit Tech seas.
All the music, all the tea.
Pinned
Preppin' for 2025
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
This is shameful, and it won’t get better under the Skydance regime.
More than 90% of streaming shows created by white people, study shows
Annual UCLA study finds declines in cultural diversity behind and in front of the camera since last year
www.theguardian.com
December 17, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Another shout out to @germnetwork.com for displaying the Blacksky logo for users hosted on our PDS.

Also leading the way by calling it atproto and not just bluesky
December 16, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Maine is set to limit local police involvement in federal immigration enforcement with a new law sponsored by Rep. Deqa Dhalac. The law won’t take effect until the summer of 2026, but advocates say it’s a crucial step to protect immigrant communities.
New ICE non-cooperation law ‘sends a far-reaching message’ - Maine Beacon
A bill aimed at preventing Maine law enforcement agencies from participating in federal immigration enforcement, LD 1971, will become law when the legislature reconvenes in January. But it won’t take ...
mainebeacon.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
A little advent calendar of #ComputerSaysMaybe episodes coming your way.

The first is an episode beautifully cut by our team to give you an overview of my time at @mozilla.org Festival in Barcelona, including some interviews with amazing folks.

www.themaybe.org/podcast/comp...
The Maybe
www.themaybe.org
December 15, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Y'all this one was fun. I love when the subject is actually more radical than I expected, not less.
New Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff ⚔️

Margaret talks to Katy Stoll about the leaderless society that almost overthrew Rome.

@margaret.bsky.social @katystoll.bsky.social @whysophiewhy.bsky.social

www.iheart.com/podcast/1119...
December 15, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Every once in a while I revisit @everest.bsky.social’s awesome directory of tiny tools for creative coding. Instant inspiration: pick a random tool and just play around with it.

tinytools.directory
Tiny Tools Directory
A list of small, free, or experimental tools towards joyful digital creation.
tinytools.directory
December 12, 2025 at 4:35 AM
"We present a novel dataset that can support future reception research and serve as a benchmark for future Work-level clustering approaches...

...We share an open-source, interactive tool that allows users to explore checkout trends for any post-1945 NAAL author or work over the last 20 years."
Which canonical American authors are the public reading, and why?

To find out, we analyzed library borrowing patterns for every author in the Norton Anthology of American Literature (1945 to the Present).

Excited to share this new CHR paper & data!
anthology.ach.org/volumes/vol0...

#CHR2025
Excited to be in Luxembourg at CHR 2025 to hear about everyone’s amazing work and to share my project with @mellymeldubs.bsky.social and our team. We tracked canonical authors and texts in Seattle Public Library circulation data.
December 14, 2025 at 6:59 PM
TIL: Asperitas clouds!
Another old photo, the first time I ever saw asperitas clouds. They sparked my interest in celestial phenomena. Taken in Richmond, Maine.

#asperitas #celestialphenomena #clouds #maine #sky
December 14, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Honestly, Hating the Computer is a critical motivator in developing better software. I do not trust anyone who does not - at least a little bit - Hate the Computer.
November 19, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Brutal but effective public health messaging from New York Public Health.

The CDC is compromised. They’re no longer a reliable source of information.

They push anti-vaxx & anti-science grift.

Get your vaccines. Wear a respirator. Clean the air

Get public health advice from experts, not RFK Jr
December 13, 2025 at 10:44 AM
"¡Crawfish Rock! detona ensimismado

Cada coco enraizado.

Ante el despojo fulminante

La resistencia es constante."
Important, from a publication I like a lot in Honduras, a photo-essay about Crawfish Rock: the people resisting Próspera and the Network State.

Please share. It is important to hear and lift the voices of those directly impacted by the Network State. + Beautiful photos

criterio.hn/crawfish-roc...
Crawfish Rock resiste ante Próspera, los colonos modernos
criterio.hn
December 14, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
I also did a prototype of a Molotov cocktail. Don’t like the glass combo and my lines are janky but it has promise as a pattern
December 14, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
The Harper's Letter test almost never misses...
Well, there's a photo I never expected to see in my life. Noam Chomsky palling around with Steve Bannon.
December 13, 2025 at 3:21 AM
"Huffman said she used the money to buy six months of car insurance and cover the cost of cremation for her father, who had recently died.

She was able to travel to Nevada to reconnect with family. She had money for...
An Oregon pilot program giving cash to homeless youths sees a staggering reduction in homelessness. The program gave participants $1,000 cash payments each month for two years, and at the end of the project's first phase, 91% of participants reported being in stable housing.
Oregon pilot program giving cash to homeless youths sees staggering reduction in homelessness
The state program gave participants $1,000 cash payments each month for two years. At the end of the project's first phase, 91% of participants reported being in stable housing.
www.streetroots.org
December 13, 2025 at 5:23 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
I created a Reddit account when we were expecting our first baby and it was so helpful through the pregnancy and continues to be so with her now at 16 months old. Just getting perspectives from other parents who have stressed/questioned the same things is so helpful.
I'll add that as someone who not that long ago spent many frantic nights looking for information on sleep training, feeding, etc etc--by far the most valuable internet resource was reddit, the only place with human advice. Everything else is basically useless at this point.
This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.
December 9, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
She’s not the only one! I’ve started searching Reddit when looking for specific information, because so many of my (even-Non-Google) search results come back full of A.I. & Amazon sales link garbage websites they are drowning out the good data I used to be able to get.
December 10, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
searching reddit to solve problems is so helpful as an anxious person bc everyone giving their takes actually sounds like a normal person and gives it to you straight, you get multiple opinions in one link, and you don’t have to comb through a bunch of ads and bullshit to find a satisfying answer
I'll add that as someone who not that long ago spent many frantic nights looking for information on sleep training, feeding, etc etc--by far the most valuable internet resource was reddit, the only place with human advice. Everything else is basically useless at this point.
This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.
December 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
I love that Google searches all basically now require the addition of "reddit" to be anything close to useful
December 9, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
I would say this because I edited it but @mshannahmurphy.bsky.social's piece on tech bros founding their own for-profit cities really is unmissable reading www.ft.com/content/b127...
Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities
They want to escape from regulation and ‘failing’ democracy — but are they more opportunistic than libertarian?
www.ft.com
December 7, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Seeing the Sangh is the world’s first comprehensive map of the organisational affiliates surrounding the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh—which together constitute the largest far-right network in the world. rssproject.caravanmagazine.in
Seeing the Sangh
Seeing the Sangh is a dataset of the Sangh Parivar, a Hindu nationalist organization in India.
rssproject.caravanmagazine.in
December 12, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Passing this on from folks who are not on Bluesky: If you're in NYC, Bluestockings is having a final closing sale.

Come celebrate and grieve the closing of the store, and the sunset of Bluestockings Cooperative.

Books, appliances, merchandise, furniture-- everything is going.
Masks are required!
December 9, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
Another article about California law enforcement agencies making illegal Flock searches for ICE and CBP.

We found thousands of such searches via public records requests.
Anti-Flock group finds that state agencies accessed SCPD camera data thousands of times on feds' behalf since mid-2024
Numerous California law enforcement agencies searched the Santa Cruz Police Department’s Flock camera data thousands of times in the past 18 months on behalf of federal immigration agencies, according...
lookout.co
December 12, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman
"AI music is the future, basically no difference" Sure, buddy...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOtC...
Fred again.., Ezra Collective, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso - Beto’s Horns, Ezra Remix (London, 25th June)
YouTube video by Fred again . .
www.youtube.com
December 11, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Alexander Zimmerman