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Nathan Reed

@reedbeta

πŸ“ Seattle. 3D rendering at Adobe; formerly at 343i, Sucker Punch, NVIDIA. Math & coding blog writer, sometime musician, sci-fi & physics nerd, cat dad, coffeeholic.

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Latest posts by Nathan Reed @reedbeta

Preview
For ICE to build concentration camps quickly, they're leaning on this Dept. of War program WEXMAC TITUS helps contractors bypass the traditionally lengthy government contract bidding process

NEW β€” An obscure Navy contractor program is making Trump’s plans to quickly build out and supply immigrant concentration camps around the country a reality.

Here I explain WEXMAC TITUS, an acronym you need to understand:

18.02.2026 00:05 πŸ‘ 3118 πŸ” 1765 πŸ’¬ 91 πŸ“Œ 134

www.dmagazine.com/micropost/br...

16.02.2026 17:54 πŸ‘ 541 πŸ” 126 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 8

It's a war and the American people are the enemy. Can't do the fake "no they're just after the bad guys" after you shot two people for no good reason. bsky.app/profile/ndre...

29.01.2026 14:41 πŸ‘ 3865 πŸ” 884 πŸ’¬ 59 πŸ“Œ 15
New poll β€” Abolishing ICE continues its historic surge of support.

46% support
43% oppose

80% of Democrats and 15% of Trump voters support abolishing ICE.
Independents are +8 on the question.

New poll β€” Abolishing ICE continues its historic surge of support. 46% support 43% oppose 80% of Democrats and 15% of Trump voters support abolishing ICE. Independents are +8 on the question.

New poll β€” Abolishing ICE continues its historic surge of support.

46% support
43% oppose

80% of Democrats and 15% of Trump voters support abolishing ICE.
Independents are +8 on the question.

29.01.2026 15:42 πŸ‘ 1147 πŸ” 316 πŸ’¬ 38 πŸ“Œ 86

It’s worth walking people through the logic, because it doesn’t get repeated enough from the top:
1. There is no β€œimmigrant crisis”. This is a panic instigated by racist slurs from a President’s that, even very recently, decent white people would have admitted were shocking and unacceptable.

29.01.2026 16:40 πŸ‘ 208 πŸ” 60 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 10
aasha_thewriter
Β© Threads

Minnesota National Guard rolled up, shot a hard stink-eye glare at the ICE goons, then stood with us, handing out pizza, hot chocolate, and coffee.

I am serious. The Guard literally just stood there, squared up to ICE: "You don't get to touch them."
But with us protesters, they let their guard down.
They were paying attention-not on autopilotβ€” reading the room, noticing fear, cold, and exhaustion, then responding with food, warmth, eye contact, and respect. Their smiles and nods said: "I see you. You matter. You're not alone."
Seeing strength used as a shield instead of a weapon was incredibly moving.

aasha_thewriter Β© Threads Minnesota National Guard rolled up, shot a hard stink-eye glare at the ICE goons, then stood with us, handing out pizza, hot chocolate, and coffee. I am serious. The Guard literally just stood there, squared up to ICE: "You don't get to touch them." But with us protesters, they let their guard down. They were paying attention-not on autopilotβ€” reading the room, noticing fear, cold, and exhaustion, then responding with food, warmth, eye contact, and respect. Their smiles and nods said: "I see you. You matter. You're not alone." Seeing strength used as a shield instead of a weapon was incredibly moving.

Minnesota National Guard bringing some relief and protection to the good and courageous people of Minnesota, an immediate de-escalating influence by the sound of it

26.01.2026 20:31 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This is great. For one thing, protesters are safer in the presence of National Guard soldiers by orders of magnitude. Second, the approach embraced by the Minnesota Army National Guard makes ICE and CBP look so incredibly small and weak.

25.01.2026 23:10 πŸ‘ 501 πŸ” 108 πŸ’¬ 11 πŸ“Œ 4
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Minnesota National Guard members have arrived at a federal building and were directed to distribute donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters. Guard members were issued reflective vests so they would not be mistaken for federal agents.

25.01.2026 20:55 πŸ‘ 56321 πŸ” 13907 πŸ’¬ 1604 πŸ“Œ 1308

BTW, if Senate Dems want technical reforms, here's one: amend 8 USC 1357 so DHS agents do not have power to arrest without a judicial warrant unless they are GS-1811, grade of GS-13 or higher.

Real criminal investigations would be unaffected, but CBP & ICE goon squads would be severely limited.

27.01.2026 20:05 πŸ‘ 1099 πŸ” 271 πŸ’¬ 20 πŸ“Œ 4

Something I've been trying to impart on people is that the ICE occupation in Minnesota is both an ethnic cleansing and an ideological terror campaign. It's clear that the second part has utterly failed; the community is not terrified. But ICE is now desperately trying to salvage the first part.

27.01.2026 18:35 πŸ‘ 4581 πŸ” 1315 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 23

Something important to understand about ICE thugs in the Twin Cities is that they're harassing innocent kids and parents at bus stops and schools every single day. Even after the Pretti shooting. It's terrorism.

27.01.2026 19:30 πŸ‘ 30803 πŸ” 10474 πŸ’¬ 635 πŸ“Œ 337

Something weird about this one, though - there seems to be a larger scale checkerboard pattern in the noise?
Or maybe it's just an artifact of downsampling?

28.01.2026 00:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I live an hour north of Minneapolis and they’re here too. They’re rounding up workers in chicken processing plants and breweries.

27.01.2026 22:44 πŸ‘ 1325 πŸ” 594 πŸ’¬ 17 πŸ“Œ 8
Preview
Opinion | I'm a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here's how ICE observers are helping. Research into how violence occurs shows that disapproval from the people around you can help reduce it.

For @msnownews.bsky.social, I wrote an article about how ICE Watch is grounded in sociological theories of violence prevention.

The reality is that most men will only commit public violence in extremely specific scenarios and ICE Watch disrupts the conditions necessary for escalation.

16.01.2026 18:55 πŸ‘ 7937 πŸ” 3338 πŸ’¬ 95 πŸ“Œ 281
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Ben Damberg protest volunteer: β€œNone of us want to be doing this β€” I don’t, but we simply cannot stand by as other Minnesotans are being hurt β€” we will march, we will protest, & we will do it all peacefully above all else”

23.01.2026 20:58 πŸ‘ 10959 πŸ” 2952 πŸ’¬ 187 πŸ“Œ 145

Another question I came here with was: how effective are the whistles and honking? Does it stop abductions? And the answer is, surprisingly to my cynical self, yes, and often. I have talked to so many people who have successfully interrupted kidnappings.

23.01.2026 19:20 πŸ‘ 8690 πŸ” 2468 πŸ’¬ 63 πŸ“Œ 71

I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. Minneapolis is not accepting what's happening here. ICE fucking murdered a woman for participating in this, and all that did is bring out more people, from more walks of life.

22.01.2026 03:58 πŸ‘ 15221 πŸ” 3131 πŸ’¬ 25 πŸ“Œ 138

I've been here 24 hours, but already with what I've seen, well, I genuinely believe we're going to win. People here are well aware that what happens here impacts the entire country, that it sets the tone for resistance. ICE is angry, ICE is terrified, of how deeply unpopular it is.

22.01.2026 03:58 πŸ‘ 8150 πŸ” 1162 πŸ’¬ 20 πŸ“Œ 44

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

22.01.2026 03:58 πŸ‘ 15489 πŸ” 5779 πŸ’¬ 141 πŸ“Œ 1555

National media should really be covering the fact thay every major school, museum, and arts institution in the Twin Cities, and hundreds of local businesses are closed tomorrow to protest federal occupation.

Nothing like this at this scale has happened anywhere in America anytime in living memory.

22.01.2026 20:25 πŸ‘ 15420 πŸ” 5848 πŸ’¬ 167 πŸ“Œ 239

In practice I've just used the quadratic formula to get one of (u, v) and then there's a rational-linear expression for the other, but that always seemed a little inelegant.

Exterior algebra is handy for setting up the quadratic formula for this tho!

13.12.2025 17:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I don't know if there's a way to do it all in vector / GA arithmetic since it's a nonlinear mapping (just as there isn't really a way to transform to polar coordinates and solve for (r, ΞΈ) as a vector). It does seem like there should be a way that's more symmetrical between u and v, though!

13.12.2025 17:36 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Folks have really turned out this afternoon to speak against expanded surveillance in Seattle.

09.09.2025 21:37 πŸ‘ 253 πŸ” 21 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 2

This is a staggering amount of money. It’s bigger than the Department of Transportation spending on all infrastructure. It’s bigger than all of the federal R&D done for both the military and all federal science agencies. Disgusting.

02.07.2025 12:21 πŸ‘ 765 πŸ” 366 πŸ’¬ 25 πŸ“Œ 19

anil isn't kidding. this level of transparency and detail β€”Β talking to voters like adults β€”Β is remarkable. i would imagine it also helps people feel like they are part of something bigger. and, christ, mamdani is insanely charismatic and good on screen. like, you just want to watch him talk!

01.07.2025 18:24 πŸ‘ 10903 πŸ” 1952 πŸ’¬ 165 πŸ“Œ 67

We don’t live in a neutral marketplace of ideas. We live in an attention economy shaped by algorithms, tribal identity, outrage incentives, and profit models that reward engagement over accuracy.

27.06.2025 06:58 πŸ‘ 901 πŸ” 227 πŸ’¬ 14 πŸ“Œ 12

The danger isn’t just that people believe lies. It’s that entire communities become locked into belief systems that can’t be challenged, where loyalty replaces evidence, and disagreement feels like betrayal. That doesn’t just distort truth, it breaks trust.

27.06.2025 06:56 πŸ‘ 755 πŸ” 177 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 16

The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world.
They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.

07.06.2025 20:39 πŸ‘ 5696 πŸ” 1824 πŸ’¬ 159 πŸ“Œ 271

posters going up in Philly and some other cities

11.06.2025 16:55 πŸ‘ 1136 πŸ” 327 πŸ’¬ 7 πŸ“Œ 9

printing out a copy of this post for every Member of Congress, hand-delivering it to every office, and then performing my own personal interpretive dance version in the House Rotunda just to drive the point home

20.05.2025 13:21 πŸ‘ 198 πŸ” 38 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1