Posts by debcha@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AWiUcoTirKbkMdkRUG by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-06-15T12:15:37Z
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I realised this weekend that what’s been my single favourite feature since my first iPhone is not universally known, which means I get to share it! When you’re in the Calculator app and you rotate your phone in landscape, you get a scientific calculator.
(DIR) Post #AYX0WcmUmCPGKbiBKC by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-07-31T19:20:38Z
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My forthcoming book, HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS, got just the loveliest (starred!) review from Kirkus! Getting feedback that the book is accomplishing what I was hoping it would is honestly kind of amazing.https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/deb-chachra/how-infrastructure-works/
(DIR) Post #AYX0WelVOqnqU7GQ3k by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-08-02T14:47:45Z
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Publisher’s Weekly tagged HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS as one of their ‘’noteworthy non-fiction debuts for this fall, and they talked a bit with me and my editor at Riverhead, Courtney Young. I am enthusiastic and she is eloquent: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/92879-writers-to-watch-10-noteworthy-nonfiction-debuts-fall-2023.html
(DIR) Post #AYX0WfauJjv53XJTBA by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-08-08T19:57:31Z
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HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS got an amazing (starred!) review from Publisher's Weekly, with a really wonderful summary of the main themes of the book and concluding with:"Written in a distinctive style that is both conversational and erudite, this is an accessible and enjoyable account. Readers will be engrossed. " [!!!]https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-593-08659-9
(DIR) Post #AaOqrG8dfDjGiTjYCe by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-03T16:37:25Z
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On the weekend, someone I didn't know at the hot shop asked me if it was my first time glassblowing. You can tell in five seconds of observation of their body language that someone's not a newbie, just like you can immediately tell that someone who's ringside wearing handwraps and ring boots doesn't need you to volunteer directions to the heavy bags.
(DIR) Post #AaOqrH6u39w1jNvg8W by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-03T16:42:09Z
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I was thinking this week about Donna Strickland, who had neither a full professorship nor a Wikipedia page (she wasn't 'notable' enough) when she became only the third woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics. (And you can bet I have similar, although obviously much less rarefied, examples from my own career as a STEM professor.)
(DIR) Post #AaOqrI1ceHIyZISyXo by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-03T16:46:56Z
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A friend put it beautifully -- what makes experiences like these, of being routinely underestimated, so heartbreaking and infuriating is both the specificity and the cultural consistency. There are lots of equity-based reasons to engage with your internal biases, but also? They keep you from making deeply erroneous assumptions about the person with a pretty solid right cross. Or groundbreaking mRNA research.https://www.nature.com/articles/548373a
(DIR) Post #AaOqrIsRTtYXD7B9sG by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-03T16:53:59Z
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Incidentally, here’s what I was making in the hot shop on the weekend.
(DIR) Post #Ab4yatXz3GBxE7cH8C by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-22T22:46:11Z
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Wonderful, thoughtful review of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS by @annaleen for the Washington Post. I especially love this part:“The problem is that when our infrastructure works, we never think about it. We don’t vote on our infrastructure every two years, and we don’t honor our utility workers as guardians of our lives, the way we do first responders.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/10/17/how-infrastructure-works-deb-chachra/
(DIR) Post #AbIsZqExLZIrYYohRw by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-30T17:46:26Z
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Some local love for HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS: on the Harvard Book Store’s non-fiction hardcovers bestseller wall (by the skin of its teeth!)
(DIR) Post #AbIsZru7A1ouiV55F2 by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-10-30T17:46:26Z
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And some rather less local love: I’m delighted and also more than a little startled that HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS is on the Publisher’s Weekly ‘Best of 2023’ list for non-fiction.https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2023/nonfiction
(DIR) Post #Abk6T6YSifIBmqD6UC by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-11-12T14:09:17Z
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For your Sunday listening pleasure, my Science Friday segment is online! I talk about infrastructural citizenship, how we are in the early and therefore exploratory and divergent stages of the energy transition, and more. You can also read the opening section of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS.https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/monumental-infrastructure-book/
(DIR) Post #Abw4XWsNTQ6y05cvSq by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-11-18T15:45:30Z
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For the nth year in a row, I was on the kickoff panel for a workshop at MIT for women/NB PhD students and postdocs planning to go into academia.It’s on work-life balance, and I think they keep inviting me back because I say things like, “Every to-do list is, ultimately, about death.”Quoting my friend @clive’s wonderful piece about the allure, shame, and hidden truths of time-management and to-do list apps:https://www.wired.com/story/to-do-apps-failed-productivity-tools/
(DIR) Post #AbwHgk7Av8iL4OGv9k by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-11-18T18:20:59Z
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@lkanies @clive Keeping a to-do list operates in the same way as setting a timer for eg five minutes before the end of a call—It’s externalizing cognitive load so I can concentrate more fully on what I’m doing, while I’m doing it.
(DIR) Post #AcMBb1q0Z8v4gV5msa by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-11-30T01:28:25Z
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“I mean, what is corporate fraud but organized crime with a lot more paperwork?” The WGBH podcast THE BIG DIG, which uses Boston’s Central Artery megaproject as a lens on how the US builds infrastructure, past and future, is genuinely great. The nine-part series is thoroughly researched, wide-ranging yet finely nuanced, deeply human, and with the occasional laugh-then-think moment like the above. https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/the-big-dig
(DIR) Post #AcMBb3wSk7GrD67yDY by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-11-30T01:28:26Z
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[THE BIG DIG does have a full transcript but it draws from decades of archival radio and television so I highly recommend listening to it, even if you’re not normally a podcast person.]
(DIR) Post #AcRSXVbibyEMrk7E12 by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-12-03T19:14:38Z
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Hey, friends, I’m giving an online lecture on HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS tomorrow (Monday) evening EST, as part of the Smithsonian’s educational programming.If you’ve wanted to see images to go along with what I talk about in the book, here’s a chance!https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/how-infrastructure-works
(DIR) Post #AcXVhitpVnuVnUuOzQ by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-12-06T11:19:26Z
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On this day in 1989, I was a third-year engineering student at the University of Toronto, getting ready for my final exams.That day, a gunman walked into an engineering school in Montreal and systematically separated out and shot the women, killing 14.In 2014, I wrote about it. It took me most of that quarter-century to understand how it had shaped my working life.http://tinyletter.com/metafoundry/letters/metafoundry-17-twenty-five-years-later
(DIR) Post #AcsUJGZNB6f9RBpYSu by debcha@mastodon.social
2023-12-16T17:56:50Z
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Today is the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I only learned *this year* that the Great Bengali Famine of 1770 was a precipitating factor in the protest, and so I collaborated with my historian colleague, Dr. Robert Martello, to share the globe-spanning story of colonialism and corporate power that we think should be much more widely known.https://tinyletter.com/metafoundry/letters/metafoundry-80-tea-and-famine
(DIR) Post #AhttB7CdS4buprGXpo by debcha@mastodon.social
2024-05-15T00:08:44Z
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@waldoj My friend @clive and I have conversations that are to infodumps as sneakernetting a U-Haul full of terabyte hard drives is to broadband, because we are both *professionals*.