Austin Toombs
@altoombs.bsky.social
🎮🎲🧶🏳️🌈🏃♂️📚💻 I play video and board games. I knit, crochet, and sew. I’m gay. I run marathons. I’m an Associate Professor at IU. I study technology-mediated relationships and communities through HCI, CSCW, and Social Computing approaches.
Casper ter Kuile, author of "The Power of Ritual" and co-host of the podcast "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text", wrote about our Implicit Care research on his substack open.substack.com/pub/joyfulbe...
A well-designed table doesn’t love the people around it, but it makes lingering possible
Learning from Austin Toombs and the concept of 'implicit care'
open.substack.com
Two years ago, my colleagues and I were sued by Stephen Miller's America First Legal. The Hines v Stamos case — built atop a number of false allegations — was a central element of the "censorship industrial complex" myth. Today, that case was dismissed (by a Trump judge in LA). We won.
![UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
MONROE DIVISION
JILL HINES ET AL — CASE NO. 3:23-CV-00571
VERSUS — JUDGE TERRY A. DOUGHTY
ALEX STAMOS ET AL — MAG. JUDGE KAYLA D. MCCLUSKY
MEMORANDUM RULING
Before the Court is a Renewed Joint Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter and Personal Jurisdiction [Doc. No. 191] filed by Defendants, Alex Stamos, Renée DiResta, the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, the Leland Stanford Junior University, Kate Starbird, Graphika, Camille François, the Atlantic Council, and Graham Brookie (collectively, "Defendants"). Plaintiffs, Jill Hines ("Hines") and Jim Hoft ("Hoft") (collectively, "Plaintiffs"), filed an Opposition [Doc. No. 207]. Defendants then filed a Reply [Doc. No. 209].
For the reasons set forth, Defendants' Motion is GRANTED.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h3t5rqlvuaorq42yckpijirj/bafkreiggakmifunn64abigm63tqgz3acksb5neiyr736xtwd7dnfiodzra)
Very proud of this paper at Design Research Society, "Patterns of everyday care: Translating cultural practices for online communities" doi.org/10.21606/drs... We also just launched our website related to these patterns, though we are still adding some of the materials: c-cilab.com/care-patterns/
Patterns of Everyday Care — C·CI Lab
A toolkit of 23 design patterns naming the subtle, everyday forms of care that hold online communities together. From the C·CI Lab at Indiana University.
c-cilab.com
Woman Dives Headfirst Into Thrilling Adventure By Blindly Purchasing Different Apple Variety https://theonion.com/woman-dives-headfirst-into-thrilling-adventure-by-blindly-purchasing-different-apple-variety/
(Soon-to-be Dr.) Suchismita Naik just successfully defended her PhD dissertation, "Multi-Agent Design Patterns for Fostering Sense of Belonging in Online Communities: Insights from Fandom Communities and AI Practitioners".
#chi2026 if you’re a session chair, don’t make off-hand comments about a speaker’s methods as their q&a is ending. Even if you think you’re a B&C expert (who, by the way, that author might not have cited because B&C aren’t the only thematic analysis experts!) It’s not cool to use your role that way.
okay i am sorry to be that bitch but the one word you can't use to describe this is "unprecedented."
Donald Trump is no more the legitimate president of Venezuela than was Nicholas Maduro.
Just woke up even angrier. Impeach, convict, remove. Draft articles now. Either we have a representative government or we don’t. Do not shut up about this until there’s a vote.
if you are talking today about how bad maduro was and were alive, at all, during the run-up to the iraq war you are potentially the dumbest person to ever live
I didn't get a picture of the best sign I saw today, but I remember what it said: Somewhere in America A little Hispanic girl Is hiding in an attic And keeping a diary. #NoKings
Happy first day of the 2025-26 school year! (I didn’t teach yesterday so today counts)
Academic friends prepping for the CHI deadline: I am happy to give some big-picture pre-review feedback if you could use it! I can probably do this for three-ish papers (maybe two papers where I would be considered an expert of some kind and one paper on a topic I'd just be an everyday reader)
Trump has tried quite a few things to try to distract us, but none of them are working. Some things he should try next, which could totally work: universal healthcare, pro-earth climate change policies, federal decriminalization + legalization of certain substances, prison reform… I’d be distracted!
Our #educhi2025 papers are available now! Also, the conference has just started (today is the pedagogy workshop educhi2025.educhi.org). I'm excited about my paper, which is about using amoeba drawings to encourage sketching and prototyping within ambiguous problem spaces dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
The Ambiguity Amoeba and other Metaphors: Teaching Students to Sketch and Prototype Through Uncertainty | Proceedings of the 7th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
dl.acm.org
You can tell I turned 37 today because I watched a full ad about a nonstick pan, followed the link to the website, and got really excited to read about how it works because I’m tired of my eggs sticking. I bought it. When it comes it will be like my birthday all over again!
Wondering if your team could work with our HCI/d students? In this thread I'll list some project types that have worked well in past semesters to spark ideas.
Austin Toombs@altoombs.bsky.social · last yr.I’m teaching the “HCI/d Studio Practice” course next semester. We pair industry partners with student groups that include first and second year Master’s HCI/d students. If you know someone interested in working with a group of students next semester, let me know! More details: lnkd.in/gqUshj6C
Let’s all remember that our conferences are attended by people who speak many languages. Your presentation is a chance to explain your research as clearly as possible. It is not the time to try to show off your vocabulary, which is likely inaccessible to many in the room.
Heyyyyy, so when we pick destinations with low flight connectivity for our conferences, any kind of travel delay snowballs. All the Newark stuff from last night has me getting to the conference 36 hours later than planned. I’ll be missing the workshop I was going to be a full day early for. #DIS2025
a woman says maybe this is a nightmare nope , can 't fly away . this is real life .
ALT: a woman says maybe this is a nightmare nope , can 't fly away . this is real life .
media.tenor.com
I know I’m a bit biased, since @graydesign.bsky.social is an author, but I’m legitimately excited to read this. I’m talking myself out of bringing it to DIS with me, but I’m going to try to tackle this before EduCHI. studioproperties.org #studioProperties #studioPedagogy #prettyBooks
Don’t tell the republicans, but I used part of my sick day to turn this Totally Straight* SuperDry tank top into a SuperGay one. *I don’t get all the credit. Tank tops are already pretty gay. It didn’t take much convincing.
I’m teaching the “HCI/d Studio Practice” course next semester. We pair industry partners with student groups that include first and second year Master’s HCI/d students. If you know someone interested in working with a group of students next semester, let me know! More details: lnkd.in/gqUshj6C
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
lnkd.in
When a person becomes a billionaire, every cent over 1B should go to a world fund. Not for the specific nation, but for the Earth. They literally can't spend that much money anyway. #voteAustinForEmperor
There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
