I wrote this piece during a US federal government shutdown in 2013 and everything I said then is just as true today, except I’m even more furious at the people who don’t understand the value of collective systems and universal provision.

the Guardian

If we want a civilised society, charities can

Debbie Chachra: I gave to a local food bank because women with infants are going hungry thanks to the shutdown. But it fills me with fury

I’ve been repeatedly pointing people at this over the past few weeks, so putting it here:

How Complex Systems Fail

I made a quilted winter cover for the AC in my living room (in lieu of taking it out), and also a very silly joke.

I had reason to revisit Cory Doctorow’s (@Cory Doctorow ) long, thoughtful review of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS yesterday and it’s so great — it means so much that he really, truly gets what I was trying to get across. “This is a bold engineering vision, one that fuses Chachra's material science background, her work as an engineering educator, her activism as an anti-colonialist and feminist. The way she lays it out is just…breathtaking.”

Pluralistic: Deb Chachra’s “How Infrastructure Works” (17 Oct 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow