May Patricia Marx write about your earnest harebrained scheme, too! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Misery Loves Company—If There Are Snacks
Do “Admin Nights” make people more productive or less lonely?
newyorker.com
Chris Colin
@chriscolin3000.bsky.social
Stories for Atlantic, NYT, Pop-Up Magazine (RIP), 99% Invisible, NewYorker, Outside. Contributing writer Afar, California Sunday (RIP). Make José Andrés's podcast. Make music for other podcasts. Editor @ Stanford. I dunno. http://www.chriscolin.com
Happy to be among these friction/non-friction writers! Thx @longreads.com and Courtney! longreads.com/2026/06/09/f...
Friction: A Reading List on Why Inconvenience Can Be Meaningful - Longreads
Five stories that explore the risks and rewards of life's little hurdles.
longreads.com
Wired asked me to learn vibe coding. I, a cretin, DID! Come for the tale, stay for the actually cool app I built to fight the power! Or at least daylight a sliver of the power! Then use the app please! Is fun and easy. Link in story. www.wired.com/story/normie...
I’m a Normie. Can Normies Really Vibe Code?
Apparently anyone can vibe code anything these days. So Claude and I tried to make a database for tracking the petty grievances of the masses.
wired.com
Thanks @shiraovide.bsky.social. If anyone out there could use a nudge starting an Admin Night — or wants to tell me about their existing one—get in touch!
Shira Ovide@shiraovide.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe real genius in this piece was not the vibe coding, it was this: "I began having friends over for a ritual I called Admin Night. The idea is to power through your personal sludge in communion with others." www.wired.com/story/normie...
If you have a tween or used to be a tween or just saw one once, please drop everything. @annawiener.bsky.social’s latest is beautiful. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The Life and Times of an American Tween
In some ways, the world is cooked. But being a twelve-year-old still kind of eats.
newyorker.com
Donald Trump is deranged. He must be impeached and removed from office. Republicans who don’t stop him will have blood on their hands, and anyone who carries out an order to bomb civilian targets will be complicit in war crimes and will be held accountable.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo agoTrump: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will … We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end”
Addictive design and sludge are complementary forces! Easy in/hard out!
Am write book! Hit me with your awful/funny/memorable tales from the trenches of sludge/life admin, or your thoughts on the toll this stuff is taking, or dispatches from your own Admin Night-like group!
See you there SF!
Ariel Waldman@arielwaldman.com · 5mo agoSan Francisco! Help me get the word out to your friends/coworkers. I am hosting a screening of my PBS nature series LIFE UNEARTHED the day before it premieres. Tardigrades and bison and fireflies on the big screen! March 31 at 7pm. Get free tickets here: tickets.arielwaldman.com/events/order...
I wrote about an art form that fits in the period at the end of this sentence. For one diatom arranger, the work proved transformative.
Craftsmanship Magazine@craftsmanshipmag.bsky.social · 5mo agoNate Dube’s passion is the art of manipulating microscopic algae to uncover their hidden beauty. Welcome to diatom arranging, an obscure craft that’s been obsessing a subculture of the ultra-meticulous for nearly two centuries. Read “Biology’s Unseen Craft,” written by Chris Colin: bit.ly/4brg5Zp
Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.
Slash is like Dread Pirate Roberts. “November Rain” was actually eight Slashes ago.
CJ Fogler@cjzero.bsky.social · 6mo agoHow is Slash still wearing the same damn fit
Nick Miroff@nickmiroff.bsky.social · 6mo agoBREAKING Greg Bovino has been removed as Border Patrol "commander at large" and will return to El Centro Calif, where he is expected to retire soon. A stunning turnaround after Pretti killing. Bovino's traveling blue city crackdown is over www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
This makes me feel more patriotic than the national anthem ever could
CNN headline writer clearly getting paid by the word
Democrats are simultaneously beginning to refer to ICE and CBP agents as "poorly trained." This message comes from leadership. They're trying to use it as a substitute for dismantling ICE and CBP and imprisoning their current employees. Don't fall for it; don't take any Dem seriously who uses it.
AOC: I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this. You get screwed over to pay a bunch of thugs in the street that are shooting mothers in the face.
Denmark renames Greenland Epstein Island so that Trump will never talk about it again.
Thanks @longreads.com! Innies 4ever
Longreads@longreads.com · 8mo ago"Turning in isn’t turning away. It’s something more like attunement." @provenself.bsky.social shares his year in reading, highlighting Sarah Miller on ayahuasca therapy @nplusonemag.com, @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on total darkness @nytimes.com, and other #longreads: longreads.com/2025/12/11/i...
Thank you Hugh! Ten (10) full admin points awarded for this! (Must use log-in portal to redeem.)
Hugh Wallace@tumshie.me · 8mo agoI absolutely love @chriscolin3000.bsky.social's concept of an Admin Night, and am enthusiastically making it a priority for 2026. So if you're in Edinburgh and fancy tackling those never-get-done jobs... tumshie.ghost.io/admin-night/
Ryan Goodman@rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 8mo agoTextbook war crime/extrajudicial killing "Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions." Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social
Thankful for the heroic work being done by Stanford’s Three Strikes Project, getting people out of prison who shouldn’t be there. If you need some good feels this week, click on this. (Don’t miss the short vid at the end!) momentum.stanford.edu/stories/undo...
Undoing injustice
A new Stanford center is uniting astronomers and data scientists to decipher the cosmos—and reinvent the future of discovery.
momentum.stanford.edu
Thank you Don! Also, for those who are starting their own Admin Nights: Report back please! I'd love to hear how it goes.
Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 9mo agoPeople are holding administrative burden parties to collectively take on tasks www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
I invented a thing called Admin Night and I've come to recruit for it. Get hip to the tiny obligations grinding us down, isolating us and stealing our time! Wake up to the structural reasons why! Get shit done! Admin Night is fun and funny and helpful! Start your own! www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...
Essay | How to Turn the Bureaucratic Grind of Life into a Party
We all feel it: the growing stream of administrative tasks sapping our time, spirits and social lives. Admin Night represents a tiny, nerdy resistance.
wsj.com
The Post editorial page may be falling apart, but their coverage of administrative problems in Social Security has been excellent.
Rachel Maddow@maddow.bsky.social · 9mo ago"One Social Security worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said many of those she has called back don’t even answer the phone because it has been hours or even weeks since their initial call..." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...
The brazenness with which they lie is something that is hard to metabolize, even now
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9mo agoKristi Noem: "No American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those who are here illegally. And anything you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true and false reporting."
Hear @romanmars.bsky.social and me discuss sludge, sabotage and the state of Fuck It. Bonus life-improving idea at the end!