Jack

Spending a week in SF for my spring break and wow, I was not prepared for every square inch of physical advertising space to be COVERED with AI ads.

CC @ronbronson.com @donmoyn.bsky.social (BGL gets a shout-out) and @lowande.bsky.social , as a few umich people who inspired my thoughts in some way, in addition to Mariama.

Co-creation is Innovation Without the Ick Urban Technology at University of Michigan week 290

Mariama N'Diaye came to visit the Umich Urban Technology studio to talk about her civic innovation approach at the City of Atlanta. I took a shot at writing a summary on our weekly newsletter. Take a look, feedback welcomed! #civictech #design #localgov

open.substack.com/pub/urbantec...

Trump admin launches US Tech Force to recruit temporary workers after shedding thousands this year Some of the recruits to government service will be on leaves of absence from private sector companies while working for government — a setup that raises ethical questions about conflicts of interest.

Here's the free tip about federal digital service surfe teams, bringing out of context staff & throwing them at problems solves very little unless they have a mandate, expertise in the areas where they are parachuting in.

Most of all without knowledge transfer it'll be wasted effort.

Full Steam Ahead: Funding Transformational Transit Transit and passenger rail investment in the United States struggles for adequate investment. Despite some improvements in top line figures for transit and passenger rail, federal and state transporta...

Join us @icgee.bsky.social @publicenterprise.bsky.social and @seamlessbayareaca.bsky.social for a webinar about how transit funding holds back ambitious investments like electric rail that we need for climate action & affordable transportation. January 8th, 1-2 PST.
actionnetwork.org/events/trans...

Remember. When SNAP Benefits don't get distributed Friday grocery stores won't make sales. That's 12% of all sales and up to 60% for some stores. Stores will compensate by raising prices. Halting SNAP benefits won't just endanger our most vulnerable citizens, it'll affect us all. Stop the madness!

IP address? They know where I pee? deer meme

Specifically, Trump dumps shit on No Kings protesters in this AI slop video, while wearing a crown.

But Hillary said "deplorables" once nine years ago, so let's keep talking about that for another couple of decades.

A map of year in year growth in employment by MSA

The slowdown in tech means that SF has seen the largest job losses of any metro area in the US, with employment dropping by 11.6k over the last year and down 3.8% since COVID

Nearby San Jose MSA has also suffered, though not quite as harshly, losing 2k jobs over the last year

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that their reasoning is NOT to cut down on emissions related to globalized food systems... lol

This is a direct assault on the US norms around civil military relations. It is a direct message that the military leadership either has to join a personalist regime or leave.

This appears to be the full video of the Chicago delivery worker. It actually appears that an agent tries to assault him after he curses the Dear Leader Kim il Trump to their faces.

Leavitt on Michigan shooting: "As the president rightfully put in his Truth Social yesterday, this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians. And the Trump administration is fully committed to not only investigating these crimes but prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law."

Wow, I have never seen one of those before! I see now that it's special for the contraflow bike lane on the cross-street. Wondering if this is an SF special or if this is approved by CalTrans... what a unique anomaly.

In this politics issue, we wanted you to see what we saw: Tech leaders got what they wanted—a seat at the table with a would-be king, and a chance to haggle over the rules that govern their businesses.

But remember: It’s your future that they just might gamble away.

🧵 of stories so far:

BREAKING: Elon Musk's xAI has signed a deal with the federal government to allow the integration of its Grok AI with federal agencies.

Meet the Press put together a clip of Trump vowing in January to "bring back free speech to America," followed by him saying last Friday that negative coverage of him is "no longer free speech"

When you lay it all out like that...

Btw, this was JD Vance just a few months ago back in February of this year🙃

NABI 60 BRT (greatest bus ever made)

This is my complete map for where SB 79 will apply in LA County for July 2026.

Let me know if you want to see an area zoomed in!

It's good to know that even if a new line has not been built yet, it's still eligible for upzoning. In theory, this would suggest that something like the Splvda Line could potentially open with dense housing already built around stations? That would be a major boost in ridership right out the gate!

“Roughly 20% of FBI agents — 2,840 out of around 13,800 — have been diverted to work on immigration enforcement, according to data obtained by the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute. That represents a significantly larger shift in FBI priorities than what happened after the 9/11 terrorism attacks”

Patricia J. Williams: “When AI Speaks for the Dead” Patricia J. Williams on the shape-shifting nature of generative AI and its troubling commodification of the dead—in the courtroom and beyond

AI "disrupt[s] our apprehension of epoch + dislodge[s] thought from embodiment. If evrythng is everybody’s or nobody’s, [if] all humanities are treated as jumbled masses of info w/o regard for autonomy or ⌛, [we betray] the very idea of archives as repositories of human experience + layered memory"

Week 4 of the fall semester at the University of Michigan and I've already fallen victim to sickness. Call me a speedrunner as that is the FASTEST I've gotten sick in my 3 years here.

Both of our 2 home football games so far have been #COVID superspreaders, so I'm hoping it's just frat cough!

donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-worst-...

Another fantastically nuanced, relevant and context aware piece from @davidzipper.bsky.social on the coming proliferation of autonomous vehicles on American streets.

This is our one chance to take proactive steps to redefine the automotive's relationship with the built environment.
#urbantech

Wow, this is terrible. It's unfortunate that I don't have trouble seeing the validity of these claims.

Why federal IT fails — And how budgeting by capability can fix it - Niskanen Center Federal IT teams are smart and capable. The real challenge is how funding flows and how tightly it’s bound to the work.

Insightful piece from Solitaire Carrol of the @niskanencenter.bsky.social outlining how government agencies can successfully implement the product model with "capability-based funding" instead of the mess that occurs today

#civictech #govtech #techpolicy
www.niskanencenter.org/federal-it-b...