I’m seeing more and more responses to my higher-viewership posts here that are obviously bots. They’re always two or three sentences that land smack dab in the uncanny valley. They’re language shaped, but without a human mind behind them. I just wanted to mention that I hate this trend. 1/?

You know how sometimes a word just becomes idiotic in your sight and always appears to be misspled no matter how correct the dictionary or lord-spellcheck claim it is? The word "Committee" just got there for me, as I enter hour N of several of prepping for a meeting. Stupid double letter word.

We should always think twice before using public shame to change behavior, but I think we can allow this one. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/n...

The New York City Parking Sticker of Shame Is Back (Gift Article)

After 14 years, the city has returned to slapping bright stickers on cars that do not move for street sweepers.

nytimes.com

"[Mass State Police] failed to respond to the vast majority of all requests it received in 2022, 2023 and 2024" and "often fails to answer requests until it is sued." Aligns with my experience. www.masslive.com/news/2026/08...

Mass. judge finds State Police engaged in pattern of records law violations

A Suffolk Superior Court judge found Massachusetts State Police engage in a “pervasive” pattern of violating public records law. The agency has been ordered to develop proposed reforms to improve reco...

masslive.com

Flags on pickup trucks Punisher or U.S.A Are always red flags

It always bums me out to see perfectly functional furniture sitting on the curb getting ruined by the rain.

The free market is undefeated when it comes to allocating scarce resources among our unlimited wants in the most efficient manner possible

Chris Dwan (he/him)@somershade.bsky.social · 3d ago

Why did people give this child billions of dollars to play with? Well, to start with he’s “a tall, thin man who combed his hair into a sweeping coif and wore fleeces over turtleneck sweaters.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/b...

Why did people give this child billions of dollars to play with? Well, to start with he’s “a tall, thin man who combed his hair into a sweeping coif and wore fleeces over turtleneck sweaters.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/b...

Leopold Aschenbrenner Built a Hot A.I. Hedge Fund. Then it Melted Down. (Gift Article)

Situational Awareness, led by a 24-year-old, exploded onto the artificial intelligence scene — and then nose-dived.

nytimes.com

Blocking traffic to help keep folks safe on group rides is called 'corking.' It's usually pretty ordinary and nice, but sometimes it gets spicy. It got spicy at last night's critical mass. 1/?

The harvest begins.

www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=... We find that the introduction of collective bargaining rights significantly increases the number of civilians killed by police, particularly among non-White civilians, while having limited effects on officer safety. 1/?

Collective Bargaining Rights, Policing, and Civilian Deaths

(August 2026) - Using an event-study design, we examine whether states' introduction of duty-to-bargain requirements for police unions led to meaningful changes in civilians killed by law enforcement....

aeaweb.org

Critical mass, forming up. It’s a good crowd tonight.

I've mentioned in the past that I'm the chair of a city committee to review city committees. I would like to invite folks with direct experience serving on Somerville's committees to provide comment - either public or private. 1/?

We’re doing critical mass on Friday. Grieve, celebrate, protest, connect, do wheelies, cry as you pedal <- (this will be me), or just jam to the tunes. We roll at 7pm from Copley. We’re not blocking traffic, we are traffic. C’mon out.

So I’m riding home from working in Watertown, and I decide to take Western Ave. just like every day there’s this shit,

I saw a headline today, credulously worrying about the war in the Mideast ‘widening.’ Folks, the war has widened. Putin invaded Ukraine, Netanyahu attacked Lebanon, Trump started a war with Iran and -all- the simmering regional conflicts are going hot at once. 1/?

Chris Dwan (he/him)@somershade.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I do wonder, when the histories are written, what future historians will pick as the initiating spark that kicked off the third world war. 1/?

Cat, amid books

From ‘Amusing ourselves to death’ - published in nineteen-fucking-eighty five: “It is my intention in this book to show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense.” 1985 yo.

If anybody wants to smear some AI on your civics and get misleading, context free answers to questions you could just as easily ask of a real live human being who does this for a living (or, you know, read the actual text) ... a neighbor made this. www.somervillebeacon.com/p/introducin...

Introducing the Somerville Law Bot

A free way to ask an AI about Somerville law

somervillebeacon.com

A couple of weeks ago I rode to Newburyport MA and saw this COVID memorial and realized this is the only one I have ever seen anywhere. And the fact that I nearly broke down seeing it is something I still think about.

I deny these pumpkin beers in the end of July.

Happy combined sewer overflow, to all who celebrate.

1) Giving the agents a duress code and calmly watching them wipe the phone? Baller as hell. 1.1) Good thing they didn't have GrayKey. (2) This case has major 4th (search and seizure) and 5th (being compelled to testify against yourself) amendment implications. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/u...

A U.S. Citizen Deleted His Phone’s Data. Now He Faces a Felony Charge. (Gift Article)

Federal prosecutors charged a man returning to the United States with obstruction because he gave them a passcode that erased his smartphone during a customs search.

nytimes.com

Normalize making fun of people when they’re all proud of having used generative AI to do some trvial task. Yesterday’s example: A colleague made a sign that said ‘USE THIS DOOR, OTHER DOOR IS BROKEN.’ Yup. AI for that. 1/?

An ORDER of the CITY COUNCIL: That the webmaster add a link from somervillema.gov/budgurt to somervillema.gov/budget because I have mis-typed it enough times that my web browser is now auto-correcting to the wrong one and I don't want to have to like buy a new computer over this.

Since we're talking about police salaries again, may I commend to you this piece I wrote in 2020 breaking down the various non-salary line-items that make up the bulk of the compensation for the police. medium.com/@fdmts/the-o...

The “other” in Somerville’s Budget

In support of our long-overdue public conversation about police and policing in the US, I’ve been digging through city data, making plots…

medium.com

It turns out that I’ve had a deep fryer filled with oil way in the back of a cupboard for at least 8 years. The oil has become super viscous and has an absolutely dazzling deep amber color. I feel oddly bad discarding it because it’s weird and beautiful, but I’m not sure what else to do.

I kinda miss the Scots.

It will not surprise anybody that the truck was idling.

Here’s my comment from the meeting last night. Re-reading this morning, it still works for me. Sure, buy the cameras … but let’s not fool ourselves that just that one step will make us safer or heal the inflamed divide between badge and town.

Chris Dwan (he/him)@somershade.bsky.social · last wk.

Here's what I said just now: I'm Chris Dwan. I live on Ivaloo Street in Ward 2. I urge the council to go with your decision from just three weeks ago and table both the policies and the grant before you tonight. Nothing has changed, and they need more work. 28/?