iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Some news: I’m (officially!) writing another book, tentatively titled TACTILE: MATTER, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE WORLD WE MAKE, working again my brilliant editor @armadilloproxy.bsky.social at @riverheadbooks.bsky.social. I wrote a bit more about it at my newsletter: buttondown.com/metafoundry/...

Publishers Marketplace
Deal Report

TACTILE
By Deb Chachra
Imprint: Riverhead

Materials scientist, design educator, and author of HOW INFRASTRUCTURE WORKS Deb Chachra's TACTILE, an articulation of the irreplaceable value of the material world and why the ways we interact with physical objects matter more than ever in a digital age, to Courtney Young at Riverhead, in an exclusive submission, by Zoe Pagnamenta at Calligraph (world).

Rights: tdussel@penguinrandomhouse.com

Non-fiction: Science/Technology

September 22, 2026

1013224

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I visited the NYPA power plant at Niagara Falls a few years ago. If you zoom into my hand in the photo you can see my commentary on it being named after Robert Moses. [it actually has a fantastic, recently updated, visitor centre with lots of fun interactive activities — totally worth your time]

A South Asian woman wearing a black tank top, jeans, and sunglasses, standing in front of the entrance to the ROBERT MOSES NIAGARA POWER PLANT and gesturing at it. It is a bright sunny day with blue sky in the background and sharp shadows on the ground. Her arms are raised as if presenting the building. Close examination of her upraised right hand reveals that she is giving the building the finger.

3381

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I’m running an experimental reading/lecture series at lunchtime on Thursdays, this fall at UBC — bring a project, and listen to me talk about technology and textiles while you work! It’s free, open to everyone, and drop-in (each session stands alone). Vancouver friends, come by!

Ears + Hands Fibres and Textiles Workroom Series with Deb Chachra
—
Thursdays from Sep 17th - Nov 27th
12:00 - 1:30 PM @ FLEET Mobile Studio (very limited seating)
—
Handwork time with informal talks

Sept 17: Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula Franklin, and Virginia Postrel on fibres, textiles, and technology

FREE and all welcome. Bring a project to work on!

Text is superimposed over a black and white etching of 19C women working at a loom.

34118

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I made these stained glass panels with randomly generated Voronoi patterns, inspired by the venation of dragonfly wings (the patterns arise from the underlying physical mechanism of vasculogenesis, similar to why honeycomb is hexagonal). But the normal vector that is gravity is *inescapable*.

030

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I must admit I was heartened by Massachusetts saying “fuck you” to this rhetorical approach at the polls earlier this week. A friend sent me this card recently (quoting a feminist and scientist) and it has pride of place on my Vancouver shelf.

A card that reads “New England is the home of all that is good and noble with all her sternness and uncompromising opinions.” on a bookshelf.

030

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

As a rule I don’t think that elected sitting politicians should have their names on civic infrastructure but I’m in Brooklyn for a few days and prepared to make an exception.

Entrance area wall of a white brick industrial-looking building with a large sign for the NYC Dept of Transportation IRON SHOP, with the NYC seal and “Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Mayor” (along with other text). A large decorative wrench hangs above the just-visible top edge of the doorframe.

3100

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

My gold standard for this: in the New Deal (1930s US), corps didn’t want to build out the grid to serve rural areas, despite federal incentives, because of the last mile problem. *Farmers* organized, got the REA legislation changed, and created the electricity co-ops that are still around.

Black and white photo (1930s) photo of a group of men on a trailer. Above them is a banner that reads: “WORKING TOGETHER DID IT
ALL THE POWER YOU WANT
AT LOWEST COST
A DREAM COME TRUE”
“AT LAST!” “AT LAST!”

14814

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

It’s suggested that this ramming behaviour might be related to orcas ramming yachts, which kind of reminds me of this old Far Side cartoon.

In a black and white line-drawn cartoon, two polar bears stand over an igloo. The top of the igloo is broken open. One of the bears, mouth full, is saying (as a caption): “Oh hey! I just love these things! … Crunchy on the outside and a chewy center!”

0321

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I took this photo of World Cup food specials at a pub in the Vancouver area on Sunday. It’s difficult to overestimate how angry Canadians are at the US.

Menu listing food specials illustrated with country flags. The menu item next to the US flag is called ‘The Tariff Burger’.

916927

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I would prefer not to. (In general I’m more excited about leadlights — the simpler, often geometric panels you see in buildings — than I am about more representational stained glass.) But how about some Voronoi patterns?

Three small panels of iridescent blue stained glass, in small irregular polygons.

1451

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

By request: this is the TV test pattern stained-glass window that’s providing the colours (I made it at a workshop I took at Corning last summer to learn how to build using lead channel).

A stained glass panel sitting in a window. It’s made of rectangular panels of coloured glass, mimicking an old-school television test pattern.

191065133

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Sure — from a weekend workshop in Corning last summer where I learned how to make a proper lead-channel window. (There’s some tweaks to the test pattern to make it physically more sound — straight lines without T-junctions are actually kind of a problem in stained glass because it can hinge.)

180

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

My cat Leroy always relocates to the most dramatically lit spot in the house for her evening snoozes. [the colour bars are from a stained glass piece I made that’s a TV test pattern — it’s sitting in the west-facing window]

A grey tabby lying on her side on a grey ottoman. She is snoozing while bathed in coloured light, also visible on the wall behind her.

530923

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Some Vancouver World Cup transpo, as seen while I was biking home from dinner yesterday. (Those are the Vancouver SkyTrain tracks leading to the stadium and the Science World dome decked out to look like a World Cup soccer ball.)

Sunken train tracks with trees on either side, dramatically lit by a sunset through clouds. In the distance, a stadium and what looks like a giant World Cup soccer ball.

0203

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Saw a post: “250 years old? How cute! The pub down the road is a century older!” Gee, I wonder if there’s anything in UK history that explains why there’s so little physical evidence of human settlement in North America that’s more than a few hundred years old…? native-land.ca/maps/native-...

Map of North America with coloured overlays showing traditional territories of indigenous/First Nations peoples.

411427

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I can’t find video, but the clam-themed childhood TV sketch that is permanently lodged in my head is “Clyde, the coool claaaam from Cleeeeveland” and it looks like it was (or at least, someone else remembers it as) on The Electric Company? muppetcentral.com/forum/thread...

Xerus
Well-Known Member
Nov 1, 2021
#310
Does anyone remember this cartoon? Two clams see a third clam with sunglasses. Clam one asks, "Who is that CLAM?" The second clam replied, "That's CLYDE.
The CLEVER CLAM from CLEVELAND. Clyde took out a suitcase and a shower popped out soaking Clyde, while he started gargling soap. When the shower stopped, Clyde made a huge toothy smile. His suitcase went back to normal, and Clyde picked it up and started scooting away. Clam 2 said, "The CLYDE, he's CLEAN." And Clyde made two cute jumps and went
away.

330

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

@mikell.bsky.social I went to the Royal Tyrell Museum a few weeks ago (which is incredible, unsurprisingly) and I feel like you would appreciate seeing microscopically small fragments of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

3181

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

How it started / how it’s going. [At the phenomenal Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta]

A fossil of a gingko leaf, with its characteristic fan shape, black against rough grey stone. The museum label below it reads:

Ginkgo sp.
~69 MILLION YEARS AGO
Late Cretaceous, Horseshoe Canyon Formation Horseshoe Canyon, Alberta
ORIGINAL
TMP 1984.014.0006

Section of gingko biloba trunk with branches and green leaves

2275

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Did someone say ‘giant pile of sulphur’? [Vancouver Harbour, at dawn on New Year’s Day this year.]

A grey-blue sky over grey-blue water. On the water’s edge, in the mid-ground, is a processing facility with cranes and lights. The brightest element of the scene is a light yellow pile of sulphur.

0102

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Watching the northeast coast roll by under the spring sunshine. My favourite bit remains the staging area for (I presume) the Block Island Wind Farm — all the giant components on the New London State Pier (and across the river from General Dynamics Electric Boat).

Huge tubular wind turbine components are standing on end. A crane is next to them. In the foreground are smaller components.

1151

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

It’s 17776 Day! @jonbois.bsky.social created one of my favourite works of science fiction of the 21st century, ft. immortal humans humaning together, sentient space probes, friends, and American football (which I have zero interest in, and yet.) Like nothing else. www.sbnation.com/a/17776-foot...

1222

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

The button on my coat collar (from @margaret.bsky.social, lo these many years gone) says all I really want to say for Trans Day of Visibility.

A rust-spotted white button on the knit collar of a black jacket.

The button reads:

I WILL DO MY
BEST TO FUCK
UP ANY BIGOT
WHO FUCKS
WITH YOU

1395

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I just heard that Tracy Kidder passed away this week — I read his THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE as a teen, and it’s one of a handful of books I can point to as having a significant impact on my life, starting with going to engineering school. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Mass market paperback edition of THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE (in glittery, boxy grey-blue letters] by TRACY KIDDER

3277

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I’d planned to visit Vancouver museums over the winter, while the weather was bad, and mostly failed to. Needed to go to the UBC Museum of Anthropology this afternoon for research and was kicking myself on the way over because the atmospheric river had just, finally ended but…this was pretty okay.

View of a number of totem poles inside a high-ceilinged, glass-walled atrium. Outside are trees and a blue sky.

070

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

There’s a coffee chain here (Doe) that really foregrounds ‘no tips’ and I guess that’s why. [I’m agnostic (all those years in the US, I guess) except when the minimum tip prompt is 18% and I’m getting a 12oz drip and a >$20 bag of beans, in which case I hit ‘no tip’ and drop a toonie into the jar.]

111

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Oh I know these feels. Me and Leroy still miss her big sister Zoe.

Leroy, a grey tabby cat sleeping on a grey armchair.

Zoe, a caliby cat on grey bedcovers, three thousand miles away and a couple of years ago.

010

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

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.

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.

145284

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Leroy says hi from East Vancouver and thanks you for putting your skill and energies towards the public good.

A tabby cat lies on a grey cushion on a black plastic chair, gazing imperiously at the camera. In the background are bookshelves and many books.

1120

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Leroy is blissfully ignoring the driving sleet outside the windows of East Van, distant in all ways from her feral kittenhood on the mean streets of Boston. (And a blissful and luxuriant holiday to you and yours!)

A grey tabby is asleep on her side, nestled against (and partly occluded by) the large comfortable cushions of a grey armchair.

030

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

My photo of some pomegranates near Naples — I remember seeing some large pomegranates hanging from a small tree in someone’s front yard in East LA and being gobsmacked that they…just…grow on trees? In people’s yards?

110

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

I didn’t know much about Jake Paul so I was looking at his Wikipedia page shortly after the fight yesterday. I learned enough to feel fortunate I didn’t know more, and also I LOLed.

Screenshot of Wikipedia entry for Jake Paul, timestamped 10:37 pm. The sentence “Anthony Joshua is his daddy.” is circled in blue.

092

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

"Women naturally want to do womanly things because God created us with those womanly desires in our hearts."

A woman (Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley), in a mechanical exoskeleton (the Power Loader), in a still from the movie ALIEN.

1641672

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

And this is closer to the teal that I love in mid-century government office buildings. [almost all the furniture in my flat is black or grey, you’ve now seen the exceptions].

220

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

IKEA very briefly did this metal cabinet in mid-century industrial green and I managed to snag one — it now lives in my workroom.

120

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Timeline cleanse: Yesterday I was introduced to the teporingo (volcano rabbit) — it’s like a rabbit crossed with a pika and is only found on Popocatépetl and three of the other volcanoes near Mexico City: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano...

The cutest, tiniest little round-eared rabbit you have ever seen.

5412137

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I finally had a chance to finish my leadlight, btw.]

120

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

MC Escher has, appropriately, already designed and produced a print of your living space (it’s even called “Relativity”)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/Escher%27s_Relativity.jpg

170

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Hallowe’en back in the land where Smarties are Smarties and Smarties are Rockets.

“Fun-size” box of Smarties, oblate spheroids of milk chocolate with pastel-coloured candy shelll, bearing a passing resemblance to M&Ms. Also a roll of Rockets, biconcave discs of deliciously chalky candy.

0200

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

My cat Leroy likes to sprawl supine on the floor, and my illustrator friend @brucierosch.bsky.social made this photo of her being really silly even sillier.

A large tabby cat is lying supine on a hardwood floor. An illustration of an electric guitar, in hot pink, is superimposed, so it appears that she’s playing it.

0503

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

My entry into this is extremely niche, but READ ALL ABOUT IT! was hands-down my favorite show as a child (which maybe explains a lot about me).

031

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

@rstevens.bsky.social I was in Chicago a few weeks ago, and brought back some coffee from a local roastery that gets that whole ‘coffee is infrastructure’ thing.

Front of a coffee bean bag

Graphic with stylized line drawing of a helmeted astronaut.

HALFWIT
COFFEE ROASTERS

windy city coffee pros being total pros
so you don't have to be
we got you

WWW. HALFWITCOFFEE.COM

3261

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Yeah, you may recall my response to anyone who says any variant of “we’ve been through worse and we’ll get through this.”

Line drawing of a plane, plan view, with clusters of red dots on the wingtips, tail, and central fuselage. There are no red dots on the nose, cockpit, or engines.

092

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

If you happen to have an Atlantic subscription, there’s also this 2017 piece, “Gratitude for Invisible Systems.” www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... [Sharing in the hope of contributing some ways to think or talk about these ideas and values to people who are dealing with these issues right now.]

Before asking the question of how technology can affect democracy, I'm going to ask: What is democracy for?

In a developed, post-industrial country at the start of the twenty-first century, one of the main functions of a democratic political system is to help us collectively manage living in a complex, global society. Our daily lives take place in a network of technological, socio-technical, and social systems that we barely notice, except when things go wrong.

1187

Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

I shared this a couple of days ago:

Screenshot of an Instagram post by user Lee Ramsden. In the foreground is a golden-yellow door opening outwards; a sign reads “PANIC BAR TO OPEN”. Through the open door is visible the deck and railing of a ship. Beyond that is calm blue ocean to the horizon, and a clear blue sky. Visible in the distance are several wind turbines.

040