Historian of technology, professor, former sysadmin, current rabbit owner. I write books about labor and technology. I also tell dad jokes. They/them. Chicago.
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2026-08-30T02:59:58Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Wow. The organizers of the Grace Hopper Conference just canceled it, with only 2 weeks notice, due to a shortfall of money owing to a smaller number of sponsorships and registrations this year. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks On Futurama there was this concept of a death clock – jam your finger in it, and it tells you when you’re going to die (it’s sometimes off by a few seconds here and there, due to free will). npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks “A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contract—Flock refused to take its cameras down so Elgin Community College covered them. The company snuck back to uncover them” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I really wonder if this Waymo was under remote human operator control or going by its programming as it did this dangerous (to the work crew) maneuver npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks What is the best (least buggy) app for mastodon? I used to use toot but I can no longer upload media to posts reliably when I do so. Tootle seems worse, and the official mastodon app is kinda clunky, so I could use some suggestions. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks As of today, the CDC has changed (reverted) their Covid guidance to make the vaccine recommended for all people over 18. In addition to being a smart public health move, this recommendation also means insurance must cover it. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks lot of that going around npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Rabid baby goats have now exposed a bunch of people to rabies at a mobile petting zoo (is a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever write) https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/29/us/nc-petting-zoo-rabies-exposure npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Tell me your stories of jobs you left before they got so bad you had no choice. How did you know when to leave? npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks It’s true🥲 npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks squad goals npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Enormously looking forward to this event on April 21 at 6:30pm ET (online) with the amazing Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about their new book, The AI Con. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Look at this baby beaver and feel better briefly npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks The best advice I can give you if you are lucky enough to be employed in academia as faculty is to never mistake coworkers for friends and to never believe institutions are capable of caring about employees—except in the sense of how the butcher cares about the animals he's cutting up for sale. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/802/168/386/939/767/original/a129191ad75c6181.jpeg npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Some good news! npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks What’s the opposite of formaldehyde? npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I recently wrote about people who’ve spoken truth to power in tech over the past decade. Given the events of this week, I feel like this history is very relevant—we didn’t arrive at technofeudalism without a very long on-ramp. And (some) people have been saying and showing what’s happening all along. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks The city of LA is trying to get free n95s from grassroots covid mutual aid groups while leaving disabled people behind in the fires (at least 3 of the 12 dead so far have been disabled people who couldn’t evacuate without aid). This is what eugenics looks like. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Camouflaged perfectly✨ npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks “Despite creating one of the foundational technologies of the digital age, Christensen maintained a low profile in his life, content with his long-standing career at IBM and showing no bitterness or sense of missed opportunity as the Internet age dawned.” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Not sure how many who follow me here are receptive to this message but: covid is surging rn across the US. If you haven’t been wearing a mask, please start. It’ll help break transmission chains & make it less likely your actions disable or kill someone. It’ll also protect you, of course. 3M Auras are an N95 you can get at most Home Depots. They’re very effective. If you prefer black they also sell BNX N95s in black. I’m not a fan of Home Depot but it’s ubiquitous so I’m using it as an example. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Submitted without comment npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I keep hearing that at some point threads may become able to/open to federating in a way that integrates mastodon accounts… how likely or far off is that? npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks “At Microsoft, the share of senior employees as a portion of the company’s overall workforce declined more than 5 percentage points after the return-to-office mandate took effect, the researchers found. At Apple, the decline was 4 percentage points, while at SpaceX — the only company of the three to require workers to be fully in-person — the share of senior employees dropped 15 percentage points.” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks @npub1yyt…t6x9 tysm for reading! And I’m jealous of all the birds you hung out with🦆🪿🕊️ npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Online Conference➡️ npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks What a coincidence me too npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks At first, I thought this poster couldn’t be real. Silly me. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks On the last day of Black History Month & the eve of Women's History Month, I wanted to commemorate a someone who is a part of both: the late Professor Halcyon Lawrence of Towson University. Please feel free to leave your own memories of her in a comment on the post if you want: https://marhicks.com/blog/ npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Roses are red🌹 npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Please read this whole thing, and take the actions Alice is asking for. The way she was treated at the hospital is unacceptable, awful and also—spoiler alert—the way we will all be treated as we become increasingly disabled (note that she was accused of having “anxiety” when she advocated for herself): npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks “The CDC has stopped reporting excess mortality, after manipulating their own data. Insurance companies are changing their eligibility guidelines and denying claims. In many cases, your health insurance provider now requires you to report Covid infections, and they use that information to reject coverage.” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I keep getting an error message when I try to follow people now? npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks @npub1typ…c8hh sorry about your mom :( I can definitely relate. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Nowadays we see this for the major problem it always was, but few would admit that it was at the time—and fewer still back then were ready to accept the solutions that needed to be legislated to solve this huge public health problem. And yet, we know this was a major public health victory and a positive change looking back. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I’m old enough to remember when smoking (and smoke) was everywhere, and the idea that smokers might ever be asked or made to stop was seen as absurd. Many kids (including me) got horrible bronchitis every single year and had other sorts of breathing problems all the time. Many parents (and other adults) died early. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I am constantly reminded that roughly a quarter of a century ago Futurama stated, satirically: “the internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people’s ideas.” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Well, this sucks. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/09/media/jezebel-go-media-spanfeller-suspend-publication/index.html npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks “become unscrapeable” https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/23/1082189/data-poisoning-artists-fight-generative-ai/ npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks @npub13d8…ycpx DM’d you npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I have a bunch of bluesky invite codes if anyone still wants one. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks TIL that in February a massive Eurasian eagle owl named Flaco escaped (or was let out) of his “bus stop sized” enclosure in the Central Park Zoo and has been flying free around the park ever since, evading all of the zoo’s attempts to recapture him, much to the delight of birders npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I wish all npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks After more than a decade in Chicago I’m leaving for greener professional pastures: as of this fall I am a tenured associate professor in the new data science school at UVA. I’ll still be doing the same critical and historical work, just under a different disciplinary umbrella. I look forward to making connections with folks in multiple departments at UVA, particularly history, STS, & gender studies. If you’re there, hmu! npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Grandma finally got the last word npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Please remember that the response able bodied people accepted (& are continuing to accept) to the pandemic is exactly the game plan for getting the vast majority of US residents to accept the worsening results of climate change as “endemic” & “just something we have to live with” npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks People in Chicago are getting emails today saying we should work from home due to the forecast for extreme heat. I guess this is an effort not to overtax the grid as well as not to injure people commuting by public transit. The high for today is supposed to be 98 degrees. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks What a time to be alive and on 16 near-identical microblogging services npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks I have a bluetooth equipped cassette tape that makes my newest phone backwards compatible with my oldest car stereo and it’s one of the neatest and most scifi-feeling technologies I own. npub1l5vr8undrq37mxsev76pmky5mqa05x3v5d6hdetts87wna7pl43q75fqq4 Mar Hicks Mountains aren’t just funny. They’re hill areas. #dadjokes #sorrynotsorry
