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David Hsu

@dhsu.bsky.social
11K followers 1.2K following 994 posts

Professor studying cities, infrastructure, climate, energy, long bike rides, the Boston Celtics, & the drop serve. Personal account representing only me. Likes, reposts ≠ endorsements.

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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
An Odyssey of Middle-Aged Pain, Hope, and Woe, All in a Single Hour.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The MIT report is very good, I recommend it. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/u...
nytimes.com
Universities Sound Warnings About A.I. Even as They Embrace It (Gift Article)
As A.I. upends education, university leaders have been all over the map about how to respond. It can be very confusing for students.
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Reposted by David Hsu
Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Love this map of where world cup players were born umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/birth...
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
I'm not sure if this means that much but occasionally I get entranced by packing as much information possible into one graph. Plotting on a map would just reveal most of the coastal and north-south differences between energy consumption, production, climate, wealth, and politics.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I'm not usually into fashion, but my daughter and I were chatting about electronic fabrics and I then later found this. ANREALAGE 2025-26 show: things really light up at around the 4:00 mark. youtu.be/U8_Fa4Cdb_0?...
youtu.be
ANREALAGE AUTUMN/WINTER 2025-26 COLLECTION “SCREEN”
YouTube video by ANREALAGE
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Academics on the morning of June 1, after Commencement, sitting down to a clean desk and (mostly) empty calendar for the summer stretching ahead ...
static.klipy.com
Bird Jumping For Joy
ALT: Bird Jumping For Joy
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
This is extremely cool, be sure to watch the video! news.mit.edu/2026/three-s...
news.mit.edu
It took 40 years for technology to catch up to this zipper design
A new system developed at MIT CSAIL helps users design three-sided fasteners called “Y-zippers,” then 3D prints them. The devices can be attached or embedded to camping equipment, medical gear, robots...
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...
nytimes.com
F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Here's my full ranking because I REMEMBER THE ORIGINALS before they were polluted: 1. The Empire Strikes Back 2. Rogue One 3. A New Hope 4. Return of the Jedi 5-10. Seen some of them, but I can't remember which, which says it all.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
@mlamster.bsky.social Congratulations!
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
You should try making bacon in the microwave.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Oof, i just saw the most predictable crash in Cambridge. Person wearing headphones jaywalking between stopped cars. Noisy motorcycle going fast in the shoulder / bike lane (!?) wiped out, I think to avoid oblivious pedestrian. Everybody standing but also seems like everyone partially at fault.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Wow, this sounds really cool! Now, let me get back to “Infinite Jest”… “Palantir has sold clothing — including logo-emblazoned hoodies, shorts, caps and a T-shirt featuring Karp’s favorite motto, “Dominate” — for years.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/s...
nytimes.com
Palantir Is Making a French Chore Coat. Yes, That Palantir.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Indeed. open.substack.com/pub/statmode...
open.substack.com
Nicholas Goddamn Roerich
born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
I started thinking about how urbanization trends differ across the US and maybe went a bit too deep. Made this plot of % urbanized pop in each state versus John Borchert's model of urban evolution based on 5 epochs of urbanization in the US defined by transport tech (and AC!). YMMV.
Nine panel (3x3) graph of nine Census regions. Each panel has states plotted as urbanized percentage of the population versus year. Background shading is based on Borchert's model of urban evolution.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Hint of the AI bubble, number 9,477,615,337: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/u...
nytimes.com
Sneaker Company Allbirds Plans to Pivot to A.I. Yes, A.I.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Enjoyed reading "The Unaccountability Machine" by Dan Davies: at turns thoughtful and hilarious. Goes deep into cybernetics, history, neoliberalism, and accounting (!). A friend sent me this quote which is pretty funny and on target unless you're an academic; then the joke is on you (and me).
Book highlight that says: "A not-wholly-unfair analysis of academic publishing would be that it is an industry in which academics compete against one another for the privilege of providing free labour for a profit-making company, which then sells the results back to them at monopoly prices."
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
When I'm writing about electricity and the changes it wrought, I think about this article often by @adriennelaf.bsky.social .... written in 2015, more than a decade ago (!), this opening paragraph still rings true for AI as it did for dot coms, cloud computing, social media, crypto:
Picture of giant incandescent bulb from 2014.Article excerpt: Did Electricity Cause a Tech Bubble?

What investors can learn from the frenzy around the new technology a century ago

ADRIENNE LAFRANCE
NOV 10, 2015
TECHNOLOGY

Silicon Valley often finds itself faced with a difficult question, one that’s asked so often it’s practically a parlor game: Are we in a tech bubble? In other words, is the volume of money pouring into technology companies sustainable, or are we on the brink of a dot-com-esque collapse?

In The Atlantic’s recent survey of dozens of tech thinkers, entrepreneurs, and executives, there was a curious response to this question that came up more than once. This isn’t a bubble, more than one respondent insisted, in the same way that there wasn’t an electricity bubble a century ago: People might have said it was a bubble at the time, but they were wrong.

That’s a compelling comparison, and it requires a bit of unpacking to properly assess. Was there an electricity bubble? Did people at the time even claim there was?
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Did you know that Guyana has a GDP per capita of more than $70,000? Me neither! Statistics say this is from oil extraction, but what is Guyana like? To compare: US $72k, Saudi Arabia $63k, Germany $62k, Australia $60k, Japan $46k. Plot from @ourworldindata.org , ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-...
Map from Our World in Data showing the highest-income countries in the world, with Guyana highlighted.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Another profile in memoriam. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/31/m...
bostonglobe.com
‘It’s a big void.’ Remembering Tracy Kidder, a Pioneer Valley icon. - The Boston Globe
For many in Williamsburg, it’s hard to imagine the place without him.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Excellently written and argued, as always by @author-calnewport.bsky.social. (One author where you can't ask, 'where does he find the time?'.) www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Technology Weakens Our Minds. We Can Fix This.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
I was featured on a short podcast episode for Ask MIT Climate talking about the grid of the future, sometimes (micro), and community choice aggregation. climate.mit.edu/podcasts/e5-...
climate.mit.edu
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
I met him in high school at a book signing, and read his first five or six books before the even more recent and successful ones. I still think about the people he wrote about all the time. Rest in peace. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/25/m...
bostonglobe.com
Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author who expanded nonfiction’s reach, dies at 80 - The Boston Globe
Mr. Kidder’s best-selling books, such as “Among Schoolchildren” and “The Soul of a New Machine,” expanded the range and popularity of narrative nonfiction.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Enjoyable on multiple levels: the thought, the patience, the local economy, the apples, the many adjectives for flavor, all to adapt to climate change and global competition. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/u...
nytimes.com
After Cosmic Crisp, Scientists Unveil an Apple for the Climate Change Era
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Strong evidence in favor of academic conferences: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/t...
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Liked this. Running on basic competence in government and anti-corruption draws a nice contrast with incumbents in both parties. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Scrappy Mayor Showing Democrats How It’s Done
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Daryl Morey, MIT graduate: "Bill [Simmons] famously coined the conference name of “Dorkapalooza” and sadly then called me Dork Elvis, which has stuck with me and is a little frustrating. You don’t get to pick your nickname." www.theringer.com/2026/03/06/n...
theringer.com
Dorkapalooza: The Oral History of the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference
This is how the revolution was quantified
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
This visualization tool for urban land value is pretty neat, though the Azure data feed for some cities are presently disrupted (maybe a temporary cyberattack I heard mentioned this morning). open.substack.com/pub/progress...
open.substack.com
Just Put It On a Map
An underrated strategy for urbanist persuasion, powered by open source tools
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
"The goal, according to Matter Neuroscience, the company that set up the phone connection, is simply to get younger and older people to talk to each other ... to provide a connection between two groups that studies show are the loneliest in the United States." www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/11/m...
bostonglobe.com
College students can ‘call a boomer’ from a new phone booth on Comm. Ave. Here’s the idea behind it. - The Boston Globe
The BU Pavement Coffeehouse was a natural location for the phone booth, with its college-age clientele and high foot traffic.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Nice to see this 10th anniversary conference for David MacKay's untimely death. I generally do not believe that anyone remembers our work after we die, but it also helps to be a "smart, generous, and committed person". statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/03/01/r...
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu
Remembering David MacKay | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
This photo essay (by bicycle!) has everything you probably wanted to know about energy infrastructure in Everett, MA: histecon.fas.harvard.edu/climate-hist...
Map showing Everett and proximity to Boston
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
A celebration of the family cargo bike. open.substack.com/pub/nminus1b...
open.substack.com
A bucketful of memories
Some bikes are more meaningful than others.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Striking illustration showing that the *only* coast on earth that has accurate measurements of sea level rise is the Atlantic coast in North America. Is this why decision-makers in Washington DC and New York City don't feel the same urgency as everywhere else? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/c...
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
I quite enjoyed “North Woods” by Daniel Mason. A celebration of Western Massachusetts history, forests, and birds.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
The definition of corruption: "noun: dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery."
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
A Harvard colleague calls grading there: "Fifty Shades of A". www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/12/b...
bostonglobe.com
Harvard students think it’s unfair ‘when they work hard and don’t get an A,’ internal report says - The Boston Globe
Last academic year, A's made up 60 percent of all course grades given to Harvard undergraduates.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Just another perfect day, I love MA.
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Reposted by David Hsu
Alex Blechman @alexblechman.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Within 18 months all white collar workers could be replaced by a 1km sphere of flesh in Central Park
A giant sphere of flesh in Central Park towering over the city like a big gross meatball. This was made by redditor kiwi2703 to show what it would look like if you combined every human on Earth into a ball, and it’s clearly a bad idea
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
"HERE COMES DIGGINS! HERE COMES DIGGINS!". What a great call. youtu.be/IVuIoS7HolE?...
youtu.be
The first Olympic gold medal in U.S. cross-country skiing history
YouTube video by Team USA
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
I've always wanted to do this. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/11/m...
bostonglobe.com
People won’t stop going out on the frozen Charles River, despite the risks — and the many, many warnings - The Boston Globe
Walkers, bikers, skaters, even ice-fishermen have ignored pleas to stay off the ice for generations. They do so at their peril.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
An enjoyable short segment. youtu.be/qLXvYmS6jPw?...
youtu.be
The Boston accent is disappearing. In Southie, that carries a deeper meaning.
YouTube video by The Boston Globe
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Today I received what I found to be a remarkably entertaining sale notice from an online bike shop I've ordered from before. It's just goofy and funny, two aspects that I really need more in my life more than anything AI can do.
Sales announcement part 1Sales announcement part 2
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
TIL that 1 MCF ~= 1.038 MMBTU based on 2023 average heat content, so convert gas volumes to energy all you want (within +/-4%!)
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Love this.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Here's the slide I use when I talk about rising costs in BOTH gas and electricity systems. Capital expended on distribution poles, wires, and pipes is the main cost for utilities and are the main driver of your rapidly growing energy bills. Gas 4X and electricity 2X inflation between 2003 and 2023.
Figuring showing that the main category for growth in costs has been distribution, over production, transmission, and others. Capital expended on distribution poles, wires, and pipes is the main cost for utilities and are the main driver of your rapidly growing energy bills. Gas 4X and electricity 2X inflation between 2003 and 2023.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
In this season of college and graduate school admissions, I remembered this quite moving story about breaking the rules to do the right thing over enforcing selectivity. Seavey, circled, used to live in my town! www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/22/m...
bostonglobe.com
A Harvard Law professor broke the rules to let in WWII vets. They made ‘the best class there ever was.’ - The Boston Globe
Refusing to reduce veterans to their test scores, Warren Seavey accepted some with questionable academic credentials— and others who hadn’t even applied.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Got around to listening to this and catching up on 2024 and 2025, in preparation for this year. Does a good job of explaining academic issues in terms of real people and relationships. apps.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/mult...
apps.bostonglobe.com
The Harvard Plan podcast
The Harvard Plan is about the fight for the soul of America’s oldest and most prestigious university.
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Building offshore wind, despite the federal obstacles, would benefit Massachusetts and New England. www.canarymedia.com/articles/cle...
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David Hsu @dhsu.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Missed this but sounds fun.
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Reposted by David Hsu
Pabably @pabably.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Ralph Wiggum briefly refraining from tasting the knob to turn it to a negative response while crying with his head down in his arms
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