iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

guests hosts and contributors Paula Bialski, Gretchen Von Koenig, and Javaid Sofi . . . and more! We're always on the lookout for potential topics and guests, so please be in touch if you have thoughts. 😊

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It's a project that's been in the work for a few years now. It's a team effort that includes the work of the production team at Virginia Tech's Athenaeum, a center for academic media creation in Virginia Tech's Newman library as well as . . . .

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Later this week, we'll have our second episode on privacy and digital technologies posted, featuring Farzaneh Badiei, PhD, Founder of Digital Medusa, and Martin Eiermann, Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Wisconsin - Madison.

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YouTube video by How to Think About Technology

Our first episode on our present AI moment features conversations with Adam Wynne, Founder and Principal Engineer of Wynne Technologies, and @zephoria.bsky.social, Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University. www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kB...

youtube.com

H2TAT 01: Our AI Moment

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

We are super excited to share the launch of our new talk show, How to Think About Technology, on which we examine . . . well, how to think about . . . .

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Sugar! Great band. I envy you.

Marc Aidinoff @maidino.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Reposted by Lee Vinsel

I am strangely optimistic that AI offers a framework to build the state we want. I argue in @dissentmag.bsky.social that progressives must not dismiss the energy and opportunity produced by technology’s productive amnesia to reimagine the state and society. dissentmagazine.org/article/ai-u...

dissentmagazine.org

Can the Welfare State Survive AI? - Dissent Magazine

The U.S. welfare state was built in moments when technical innovation collided with political reality. It can still offer the infrastructure for social protection under an economy reconfigured by AI.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Special episode of Peoples & Things this week, a talk I gave called "Accounting for Computing, or Why We So Badly Need a New Social and Economic History of Everyday Digital Technology Use," which considers how little we know about the effects of widespread computer adoption.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Good question. It's been a long time since I was immersed in standards studies, sadly, but back in the day I would have turned to Andy Russell's histories of computer networks for this.

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Reposted by Lee Vinsel

Patrick McCray @patrickmccray.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Stoked to see that Liz Petrick's new book will be out soon via @hopkinspress.bsky.social www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Truly tis the season. I will be introducing a new batch of graduate students to the Sandage Method for reading in grad school in my Intro to Science and Technology Policy seminar just next week. Always with an eye to making grad life *HUMANE*, as the story Scott tells in the link below says well.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The great historian of science, environments, and animals Mark Barrow has launched a new Substack, Wild History. Check it out! markvbarrowjr.substack.com/p/leave-it-t... It's leading up to Mark's new book, _Gator! The Making of America’s Iconic Reptile, from First Encounters to Florida Man_.

markvbarrowjr.substack.com

'Leave It to Beaver' and the Heyday of Mail-Order Pet Alligators

Americans once routinely ordered baby alligators through the mail. This improbable pet became so popular that it inspired a "Leave It to Beaver" episode.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

One of the podcasts I am working on is looking for scholars who are writing about the history and culture of "Gen X" in a serious way. Anyone come to mind?

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Some colleagues are running a workshop called "What Has Driven Our Elites Insane?" and I had fun working up an abstract for a potential paper this morning, "How, Precisely, Does Elite Insanity Matter?: Getting Specific About Behaviors, Mechanisms, Effects, and Problems."

Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Cory is an incredibly generous and sweet guy. A Dutch friend also sent me a screenshot of Cory mentioning me on a Dutch documentary last week. He's taught me a lot about how to diligently spread the word about other folks' ideas.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This week on Peoples & Things, I chat with the wonderful @lanalanalana.bsky.social about _New Money: How Payment Became Social Media_ and her other current, highly-creative projects. I love how Lana thinks through things. It's a really fun chat! newbooksnetwork.com/117-lana-swa...

newbooksnetwork.com

Lana Swartz on Digital Money and Digital Cultures of Money - New Books Network

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I'm teaching a graduate seminar on global science and technology policy this fall, and I would like to assign some stuff on "sovereignty" around digital technology, including AI. Do we have a good piece that explains where this specific policy use of "sovereignty" came from and how it spread?

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Is that quotation from @costasamaras.com's MIT Tech Review piece? That's still my favorite thing written on the topic. I think it's held up well.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Great thread as usual from Costa on where data centers fit in concerns about climate.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I get the anti-binary instinct and largely share it. But I don't know of any strong syntheses of these two traditions. And one of the reasons I wrote it is because there are lots of people today who say they are materialists but are reasoning like cultural pessimists.

Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Some months ago, I began typing an email to my friend historian Richard John and quickly realized I was writing an essay I had wanted to do for years. I published it this morning and call it, "Two Forms of 'Technology' Criticism: Cultural Pessimism Versus Materialism." Link below.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Yeah, after I read your piece, I went back and looked at the comment you were referring to. I wasn't into the way that comment went . . . sigh.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

BIG topic, but my general sense is that the F-School isn't usually a good model to look to. This John Levi Martin article is very important to how I think about the world. www.jstor.org/stable/3791902 But I'd be happy to hear from others what they find useful in it.

jstor.org

"The Authoritarian Personality," 50 Years Later: What Lessons Are There for Political Psychology? on JSTOR

John Levi Martin, "The Authoritarian Personality," 50 Years Later: What Lessons Are There for Political Psychology?, Political Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 1-26

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Wow. I will be returning to and chewing on this one for quite a while. A *lot* of great stuff in here. The only part I'm not sure about is the bit about "fascism," but that's probably because I don't find that word useful as an analytical concept in general.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Stewart Brand joined The Maintainers listserv in 2019 - see below - and he attended the Maintainers III conference, also in 2019. He knows there are entire scholarly communities studying maintenance and repair. He's not ignorant; he's just a dick.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

It just keeps getting better. Thanks to my friend Dr. @olamichael.bsky.social of the Hype Studies crew for inspiring the improvements.

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Yeah. The folk beliefs about air quality and illness are super interesting. The environmental qualms are answerable. HVAC is a human rights issue in some environments, and it's wild to say but Northern Europe is becoming one of them.

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Right. The transaction costs sound high as hell. Probably only the wealthy will have the bandwidth to deal with this, in most cases, and they will deal with it by hiring others to take care of it for them. When we need to GET AC to people who need it!

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Yes. My friend and I were just talking about how this is a new problem for Northern Europe that is exacerbated by the very long summer nights there. 100% agree. Maybe the only disappointment is that adaptation, including in thinking, isn't happening faster.

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Yep! It's wild. I really feel for poor people there. For me, this is yet another argument for why we have to modernize our electricity systems.

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Yep! My friend has been following these developments closely. He adds, for him, there are two impediments: 1) historic preservation laws about facades 2) laws that stipulates that installing a split unit requires approval of all other building residents.

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I can try to get more legal detail. One of my best friends lives in Vienna and I have learned a lot from his experience.

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hahahahaha. I missed you and Kev when I was at UVA last week. Hope we can catch up soon.

I have friends who live in European cities where procuring air conditioning is basically illegal. One theory I've heard is that part of the problem is that the elites - who, let's be real, control environmental policy - have summer homes they escape to when it gets too hot.

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Lee Vinsel @leev.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Working on a short post called "Notes on Boomer STS" on the problematic twins of a) critique of "technocracy" and b) thinking "participatory democracy" is *the* solution, but now I think my prompt that led to this beautiful image may be my greatest contribution to the field.

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This is so funny. Thank you.