Deb Chachra

Four panel b&w Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. In panels 1-3, Calvin has a watering can and addressing himself to a few flowers in the ground, with increasing stridency: “SO YOU WANT SOME WATER, HUH? WELL, IVE GOT A BIG CAN OF IT HERE.” “ITS UP TO ME TO DECIDE IF YOU GET WATER OR NOT! I CONTROL YOUR FATE! YOUR VERY LIVES ARE IN MY HANDS!” “WITHOUT ME YOU'RE AS GOOD AS DEAD! WITHOUT ME, YOU DON'T....” In the fourth panel, it is pouring rain. Calvin looks nonplussed.

Came across this old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon today and immediately thought about the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

*glances at headlines*

No, no reason.

We all hate the time change, and this is your semi-annual reminder that permanent standard time is better than permanent daylight time

www.cbc.ca/newsinteract...

[this has been Deb’s idiosyncratic and global cultural calendar]

End of Greatness — Theatre Replacement Join collaborators and friends Veda Hille and Maiko Yamamoto on a mythological/mycological wild hunt!

Vancouver friends, tickets are on sale now for THE END OF GREATNESS at the Cultch, a theatre piece about moss and mushrooms and synthesizers and the Voyager spacecraft and cake. (I’m the Consulting Scientist on this show and it is super-fun.) www.theatrereplacement.org/projects/end...

Frankfurt friends, please go to Basis to see INFRASCAPES, the first solo show from LA-based Kaya + Blank (I wrote a short piece for an accompanying print reader).. basis-frankfurt.de/en/show/kaya...

Vienna friends, please go to the Weltmuseum to see THE CRAFTOCENE, the new solo show from London-based (speculative) design powerhouse Superflux. (I’m writing a piece this month for the museum.) www.weltmuseumwien.at/en/exhibitio...

EIGHT BRIDGES. 2026. Directed by James Benning | MoMA EIGHT BRIDGES. 2026. Directed by James Benning. North American premiere. DCP. 82 min. Concluding an unofficial trilogy that began with his beloved Ten Skies and 13 Lakes, EIGHT BRIDGES is the legendar...

NYC friends, please go to MoMA to see EIGHT BRIDGES and spend eighty minutes sitting quietly looking at bridges across the US in the new James Benning doc. www.moma.org/calendar/eve...

Chicago friends!

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Library of Congress Innovator in Residence graphic

Calling all technologists, artists and other creative visionaries:

The Library of Congress has opened the call for the next Innovator in Residence!

Apply by 2pm ET April 10

newsroom.loc.gov/news/library...

yeah. I know it feels like you should just be able to write the perfect words first time. if you go slow enough, you should be able to just find each next perfect word.

but it's not like that. it's like a bicycle. too slow & you fall. it has to be in motion even awkwardly to get where you're going.

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

I tell my students international law lays bare both the artifice and the promise of all law, but I’ll admit I was hoping they wouldn’t get more real-time examples this semester

The Manacle, the Network, and the Tree New Epstein revelations have many in science asking me “how can things be different?”

Amidst overwhelming Epstein revelations, I've heard from many scientists, especially women, about the deafening silence from so many corners. Many ask "how could things be different?"

In this post, I answer with three metaphors, grounded in the science he tried to own

medium.com/p/61a537ee8e...

template comic from "get your war on", but there are no characters or dialog

The talk to your friends app and the witness the horrors app being the same app is not great for the mental health is it

goes to scream into void. hears gentle sobbing from void. sits down next to void and strokes its vast emptiness. "you doing okay, kiddo?" void sniffles, rests nothingness in lap. "yeah, me too."

In my utopian vision of the future, instead of offloading all the pointless, annoying work tasks (like reports that none one will read and needlessly opaque forms) to robots, we restructure work and society so that the pointless tasks don't happen at all.

Tools for Change Showcase & Meetup Come see what our residents have been up to and learn about the Tools for Change residency program.

I'm nearing the end of a two-month residency at MakerLabs, a community fabrication space here in East Vancouver. I'll write and share more about it soon, but if you're in the Lower Mainland, please come out on Wednesday for eats and greets! Link + RSVP: www.eventbrite.ca/e/tools-for-...

Tools for Change Showcase & Meetup Come see what our residents have been up to and learn about the Tools for Change residency program.

I'm nearing the end of a two-month residency at MakerLabs, a community fabrication space here in East Vancouver. I'll write and share more about it soon, but if you're in the Lower Mainland, please come out on Wednesday for eats and greets! Link + RSVP: www.eventbrite.ca/e/tools-for-...

I'm drafting a new piece for Hilobrow, and realised I've been writing posts for them about my assorted enthusiasms for exactly fifteen years today! The first one was about Vera Rubin, dark matter, and Kirby Krackle, and you can read them all here: www.hilobrow.com/author/dchac...

In the US (and Canada), you would need to cross-reference these data with immigration pathways which select for education — many South and East Asian families are here only *because* they have college degrees and speak English. The numbers say at least as much about immigration policy as religion.

Satellite proposals threaten the night sky In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for authorizing satellite launches and operations…

The FCC just opened public comments on SpaceX's plan to launch a million satellites to do AI compute in space. Under the current proposal, an environmental review won't be required. Please consider submitting a public comment to oppose this damaging plan.
darksky.org/news/two-sat...

have to endorse this important message. the mango flavor distribution runs from "mild upgrade on cantalope" to "proof of the existence and boundless love of God"

Yeah, this is a person whose understanding of (vastly increased) technological complexity and material culture is on par with thinking that meat comes from a grocery store on a styrofoam tray.

But my other question is always: you know there’s a good chance she’d die in childbirth, right?

Roses are red
A baby bird cheeps
Linguists love ambiguity
More than most peeps

Roses are red
Violets are grue
In Ancient Egyptian,
Pashto, and Zulu

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue%E2...

That old saw about how "good times make weak men" is true in the sense that stable times with material abundance create reactionaries who want to destroy the systems that protect them because they're too sheltered and stupid to understand that things can get meaningfully worse. Jason CO @jasonc_nc. 2/8/25 I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much of their overall lifestyle and relative certainty is backstopped by a steady, boring stability of systems they don't understand or even realize exist. • 24 L7 1.8K 15K Ill 399K ... Max Dubler @maxdubler True decadence looks like people who are three generations removed from the cultural memory of polio refusing to vaccinate their children against deadly communicable diseases because they don't like needles and don't think there will be any consequences, not queer

So much of our present crisis is coddled, ignorant, and short sighted people tearing down the institutions that protect them because they don’t understand that bad things can happen.