Chris Dwan (he/him)
@somershade.bsky.social
Hyper local in Somerville, MA. FOIA requests & long threads live-tweeting city meetings. Also @fdmts
Pinned
The most important thing to remember about Somerville social media is that most of Somerville is not on Somerville social media.
I was going to go up to City Hall tonight for the pre-Thanksgiving Council meeting … but apparently the guy who shot a protester last September is at city hall with a big crew and I’m just not convinced it’s a good idea to be present tonight.
1/?
1/?
November 25, 2025 at 11:14 PM
I was going to go up to City Hall tonight for the pre-Thanksgiving Council meeting … but apparently the guy who shot a protester last September is at city hall with a big crew and I’m just not convinced it’s a good idea to be present tonight.
1/?
1/?
Hopefully we can all agree that it’s been a truly great and memorable fall … at least so far as the turning leaves are concerned.
This foliage season has been a long slow burn
November 25, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Hopefully we can all agree that it’s been a truly great and memorable fall … at least so far as the turning leaves are concerned.
Another set of companies where there’s just a fantastic case for divestment and boycott.
Your friendly reminder that Elon's DOGE cuts have already resulted in mass death.
Impact Dashboard - Impact Counter | Impact Counter
Visualize the human impact of funding changes for aid and support organizations.
www.impactcounter.com
November 23, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Another set of companies where there’s just a fantastic case for divestment and boycott.
Reposted by Chris Dwan (he/him)
DOGE was created for data theft and infrastructure dismantling and it wildly succeeded on both counts within the first few weeks of its existence. It will take a generation to rebuild what it destroyed and the breach of data is unprecedented.
Bye bye, “DOGE”.
It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...
It no longer exists as a “centralized entity”, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
@reuters.com
www.reuters.com/world/us/dog...
November 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
DOGE was created for data theft and infrastructure dismantling and it wildly succeeded on both counts within the first few weeks of its existence. It will take a generation to rebuild what it destroyed and the breach of data is unprecedented.
We’ve got such great rail to trail infrastructure around here.
November 23, 2025 at 4:15 PM
We’ve got such great rail to trail infrastructure around here.
Fantastic long-form analysis of how, without exactly lying, NVDIA is concealing the fact that they have saturated the market for their products, their customers are paying slower, they’re fudging depreciation in their favor, and it’s all a circular stack of cards.
open.substack.com/pub/shanakaa...
open.substack.com/pub/shanakaa...
The Algorithm That Detected a $610 Billion Fraud: How Machine Intelligence Exposed the AI Industry’s Circular Financing Scheme
On November 20, 2025, trading algorithms identified what may become the largest accounting fraud in technology history—not in months or years, but in 18 hours.
open.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Fantastic long-form analysis of how, without exactly lying, NVDIA is concealing the fact that they have saturated the market for their products, their customers are paying slower, they’re fudging depreciation in their favor, and it’s all a circular stack of cards.
open.substack.com/pub/shanakaa...
open.substack.com/pub/shanakaa...
If a politician texts me asking for money right now, they better be asking for -bail- money so they can get out and commit more civil disobedience.
November 23, 2025 at 12:04 AM
If a politician texts me asking for money right now, they better be asking for -bail- money so they can get out and commit more civil disobedience.
What if we took the money we’re shoveling into building data centers to make AI slop that nobody wants, and that’s putting our whole creative class out of work, in a way that will inevitably crash the markets … and instead built housing and provided social services that people actually need?
November 22, 2025 at 12:53 PM
What if we took the money we’re shoveling into building data centers to make AI slop that nobody wants, and that’s putting our whole creative class out of work, in a way that will inevitably crash the markets … and instead built housing and provided social services that people actually need?
Reminder.
Since we announced the closure of our bar, people have been asking to buy one of our pint glasses which state explicitly how a person can get one without paying us for it.
November 22, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Reminder.
Watching the US government merrily set aside well established science on vaccines brings to mind this thread I wrote [checks watch] 10 months ago about the famines in Russia and China caused directly by politicizing planting policy.
Like, we all know what’s gonna happen next, right?
Like, we all know what’s gonna happen next, right?
Most folks don’t appreciate (a) the degree to which science feeds the world (as well as helping to keep us healthy and safe from all sorts of harm) and (b) how -very- much facts matter in science.
1/?
1/19 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 #𝗟𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗸𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮: During the years of famine in the mid-to-late 1920s in Russia, Russian agricultural scientists were pressured to produce new crop varieties. Trofim Lysenko was the Scientist who jumped at the chance and made the biggest promises. #Pseudoscience #Propaganda
November 21, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Watching the US government merrily set aside well established science on vaccines brings to mind this thread I wrote [checks watch] 10 months ago about the famines in Russia and China caused directly by politicizing planting policy.
Like, we all know what’s gonna happen next, right?
Like, we all know what’s gonna happen next, right?
Surprising nobody, it turns out that using AI is worse for learning, comprehension, and knowledge retention compared with searching the web,reading primary sources, or basically anything else.
Fuckin’ duh, but wait there’s more.
gizmodo.com/learning-wit...
1/?
Fuckin’ duh, but wait there’s more.
gizmodo.com/learning-wit...
1/?
Learning With AI Falls Short Compared to Old-Fashioned Web Search
In virtually all the ways that matter, getting summarized information from AI models was less educational than doing the work of search.
gizmodo.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Surprising nobody, it turns out that using AI is worse for learning, comprehension, and knowledge retention compared with searching the web,reading primary sources, or basically anything else.
Fuckin’ duh, but wait there’s more.
gizmodo.com/learning-wit...
1/?
Fuckin’ duh, but wait there’s more.
gizmodo.com/learning-wit...
1/?
Iran may need to move its capitol city because Tehran is subsiding by a foot a year and is running out of water.
“Protecting the environment is not a joke. Ignoring it means signing our own destruction.”
www.iranintl.com/en/202511209...
“Protecting the environment is not a joke. Ignoring it means signing our own destruction.”
www.iranintl.com/en/202511209...
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Iran may need to move its capitol city because Tehran is subsiding by a foot a year and is running out of water.
“Protecting the environment is not a joke. Ignoring it means signing our own destruction.”
www.iranintl.com/en/202511209...
“Protecting the environment is not a joke. Ignoring it means signing our own destruction.”
www.iranintl.com/en/202511209...
One could do much worse
Than to be a cats chinrest
With her tiny snores.
Than to be a cats chinrest
With her tiny snores.
November 21, 2025 at 1:03 AM
One could do much worse
Than to be a cats chinrest
With her tiny snores.
Than to be a cats chinrest
With her tiny snores.
Tonight's inaugural transit trivia competition at Aeronaut was awesome. More than 40 teams (each of up to four people) answered delightfully nerdy questions.
I'm proud that the team I was on ("Winner") took second place. Congratulations to "Bowl of Mush" on your hard fought victory.
I'm proud that the team I was on ("Winner") took second place. Congratulations to "Bowl of Mush" on your hard fought victory.
November 20, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Tonight's inaugural transit trivia competition at Aeronaut was awesome. More than 40 teams (each of up to four people) answered delightfully nerdy questions.
I'm proud that the team I was on ("Winner") took second place. Congratulations to "Bowl of Mush" on your hard fought victory.
I'm proud that the team I was on ("Winner") took second place. Congratulations to "Bowl of Mush" on your hard fought victory.
It’s completely, horribly predictable that our unaccountable, armed, masked snatch squads are doing sex trafficking.
ICE employee among 16 men arrested in Bloomington sex trafficking sting, police say.
"When he was arrested, he said, 'I'm ICE, boys,'" Hodges said during a press conference Tuesday. "Well, unfortunately for him, we locked him up."
"When he was arrested, he said, 'I'm ICE, boys,'" Hodges said during a press conference Tuesday. "Well, unfortunately for him, we locked him up."
ICE employee among 16 men arrested in Bloomington sex trafficking sting, police say
According to Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges, officers started the three-day sting on Nov. 5. They used several methods to find people who were attempting to solicit a 17-year-old girl for sex.
www.cbsnews.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:52 PM
It’s completely, horribly predictable that our unaccountable, armed, masked snatch squads are doing sex trafficking.
Iowa City Made Its Buses Free. Traffic Cleared, and So Did the Air.
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Chris Dwan (he/him)
You want to ban cars because you support public transit. I want to ban cars because I learned to drive in Greater Boston. We Are Not The Same.
November 19, 2025 at 2:47 AM
You want to ban cars because you support public transit. I want to ban cars because I learned to drive in Greater Boston. We Are Not The Same.
This rock and roll part of my life was completely unexpected, and I love it.
November 19, 2025 at 1:21 AM
This rock and roll part of my life was completely unexpected, and I love it.
I have no problem at all with companies occasionally raising prices on their services. Costs are, indeed, rising. But also ... hear me out ... maybe they could also slow the rate at which they are shoveling money into the Torment Nexus that is AI.
Also, the typo on the year is *chef's kiss*.
Also, the typo on the year is *chef's kiss*.
November 18, 2025 at 2:45 PM
I have no problem at all with companies occasionally raising prices on their services. Costs are, indeed, rising. But also ... hear me out ... maybe they could also slow the rate at which they are shoveling money into the Torment Nexus that is AI.
Also, the typo on the year is *chef's kiss*.
Also, the typo on the year is *chef's kiss*.
It is, once again, hatefully cold.
November 18, 2025 at 3:41 AM
It is, once again, hatefully cold.
I wrote a blog post on the practical next steps that Somerville should take to boycott and divest from the world’s worst companies if we don’t want it to become a fiasco.
medium.com/@fdmts/doing...
medium.com/@fdmts/doing...
Doing Divestment Right
Somerville’s ballot question number three passed last week with 55% of the votes. It instructs the Mayor and City Council to “end all…
medium.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:08 PM
I wrote a blog post on the practical next steps that Somerville should take to boycott and divest from the world’s worst companies if we don’t want it to become a fiasco.
medium.com/@fdmts/doing...
medium.com/@fdmts/doing...
Short notice, but if you want to see some music tomorrow night (Tuesday), I will be joining @smoorearch.bsky.social's band "Go!" at the Jungle at 6pm.
C'mon out.
www.eventbrite.com/e/crushdepth...
C'mon out.
www.eventbrite.com/e/crushdepth...
Crushdepth // ...Go! // CJ Red Mouth
Live Music at The Jungle
www.eventbrite.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Short notice, but if you want to see some music tomorrow night (Tuesday), I will be joining @smoorearch.bsky.social's band "Go!" at the Jungle at 6pm.
C'mon out.
www.eventbrite.com/e/crushdepth...
C'mon out.
www.eventbrite.com/e/crushdepth...
Everybody, but particularly renters, should read this short piece (by a local) about how he stood up for his rights and won against a negligent landlord.
medium.com/@brendan.sal...
medium.com/@brendan.sal...
I Sued My Landlord. Maybe You Should Too.
In July of 2024, my roommate and I let our landlord know that we intended to renew our lease for another year. Obligingly, they sent over…
medium.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Everybody, but particularly renters, should read this short piece (by a local) about how he stood up for his rights and won against a negligent landlord.
medium.com/@brendan.sal...
medium.com/@brendan.sal...
The entire selling point of cryptocurrencies is that they can’t be effectively regulated - that rules and laws, by design, are super hard to enforce.
That does create some libertarian-style ‘freedom’ … but of COURSE it’s a hub of crime. That’s why they built it!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...
That does create some libertarian-style ‘freedom’ … but of COURSE it’s a hub of crime. That’s why they built it!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...
The Crypto Industry’s $28 Billion in ‘Dirty Money’
www.nytimes.com
November 17, 2025 at 12:53 PM
The entire selling point of cryptocurrencies is that they can’t be effectively regulated - that rules and laws, by design, are super hard to enforce.
That does create some libertarian-style ‘freedom’ … but of COURSE it’s a hub of crime. That’s why they built it!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...
That does create some libertarian-style ‘freedom’ … but of COURSE it’s a hub of crime. That’s why they built it!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...