James Endres Howell

Teaching Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology in Society, large university USA, SEIU local 668. Opinions mine. #Teaching with #Emacs.

Born 326 ppm CO₂ Unix Epoch 21,450,000 he/him

#Evolution #Science in #Humanities #Scicomm #Biochemistry #MolecularBiology #Microbiology #CellBiology #Academia #HigherEd #Education #Unions #Solidarity #PSFA #SEIU #Debian #GNU #Linux #GNULinux #FreeSoftware #LibreSoftware #FLOSS #FOSS #GrapheneOS #OrgMode #EmacsLisp #antifa #noai #nobot #fuckai

blog: https://jamesendreshowell.com/
Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/jamesendreshowell
PeerTube: https://fediverse.tv/a/jamesendreshowell/video-channels

Public Key

npub1selld64yjlhcl2n9kafzlqn0z9kt2swqyy8xh8tk4dgy9hf82ququ2cs58

NIP-05 Address

jameshowell_at_fediscience.org@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgvllka2jf0mu04fjmw530sfh3zm94g8qzzrntn4m2k5zzm5n4qwqprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntpwmkmw

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1selld64yjlhcl2n9kafzlqn0z9kt2swqyy8xh8tk4dgy9hf82ququ2cs58

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Published at

2026-10-13T19:20:39Z

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Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-08-16 18:09:56 UTC

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At my university they took our phones away too. Officially replaced by ... I am not kidding now ... Microsoft Teams

2026-08-16 03:41:01 UTC

It's 2026. I do not have a home phone number. I do not have a work phone number. I am housed and employed.
I can adjust to it—I much prefer it! But it still feels strange.

2026-08-12 18:26:16 UTC

Forty years of laughing at Microsoft fucking things up royally and honest to god the best times are ahead of us
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/083/935/251/476/476/original/12d011d40320fd3f.png

2026-08-11 18:21:25 UTC

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https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/078/257/278/049/901/original/c91401842115bc2f.jpg

2026-08-11 18:15:10 UTC

https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/078/226/564/133/487/original/78b66fc48cb0b30f.jpg

2026-08-04 21:15:30 UTC

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@marcusgreen/117014169837075652
"EVERYBODY HOLD ONTO YOUR ASS BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING AND WE GOTTA CRASH AROUND AND I MEAN YESTERDAY WE GOTTA THROW EVERTHING AT THE WALL NO MATTER HOW FUCKING DUMB AND EXPENSIVE BECAUSE WE CANNOT, REPEAT CANNOT, AFFORD TO GET LEFT BEHIND"
... 2014 edition
#note1gqg…8r53

2026-07-30 23:24:15 UTC

Poor guy didn't even reach his sixties before he slipped into the loathed octogenarian gerontocrat category
Okay snark aside for five years now there have been two kinds of Fetterman headlines, without pause:
"More anonymous staffers tearfully come forward to share gruesome details of Fetterman's debilitating stroke sequelae"
"Fetterman boasts again publicly that his sharp rightward turn is God revealing His truth through debilitating stroke sequelae"
https://truthout.org/articles/fetterman-is-so-unpopular-that-he-loses-to-someone-else-by-18-points-in-poll/
#Fetterman #Pennsylvania

2026-07-30 17:35:20 UTC

Rousseau: "The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!"
#anarchism

2026-07-22 17:34:28 UTC

RE: https://social.coop/@cwebber/116963692432270169
I like the governance model even more than I like the decision.
#note1n0y…lsfw

2026-07-13 17:44:49 UTC

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Whenever I see more stupid digital legal fuckery outta the UK my kind replays the propaganda clips from Children of Men.
So pretty much daily now

2026-07-04 13:15:22 UTC

NO YOU'RE UPSIDE DOWN
#caturday
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/861/881/755/878/790/original/81ef2bc14b0f40bb.jpg

2026-07-03 19:19:43 UTC

RE: https://fosstodon.org/@tarsius/116857447830546754
I admire @npub1dwh…rnvt so much. I wish I had more money to send him. You know he makes his living this way, right? Come on, #Emacs, support him however you can.
#note1cq7…fyx2

2026-06-29 01:05:51 UTC

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asks "Is anyone even pretending anymore that America isn’t fascist?"
Besides the fascists?
Only the leadership of the Democratic Party.
And the corporate media.
Wait a minute! How come Clark Kent is never around when Superman shows up?

2026-06-27 22:11:54 UTC

Elizabeth had her Corgies, Nutmeg has her pink crocagator
#caturday
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/824/354/133/426/256/original/c6c8c4d30642ff0d.jpg

2026-06-10 17:18:19 UTC

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The only qualms they have over nuclear weapons are fear of public opinion. And they've painted themselves into a strategic corner where a couple escalation steps could lead to blind panic. Also, they've built a police state to stamp out the threat of public opinion. It looks as though it will keep getting uglier.

2026-06-10 17:00:52 UTC

Imran Khalid in CounterPunch: "[The Iran] campaign, lasting just over a month, absorbed multiple years of the entire production capacity of America's premier precision munitions lines. The ultimate guarantor of [post WWII] global stability was the myth that the American 'arsenal of democracy' possessed a bottomless, rapidly deployable inventory of high-tech, precision deterrents capable of suppressing multiple global crises simultaneously. The West built its strategic posture on this myth, and its collapse marks a civic and geopolitical inflection point."
(Which comes at the same moment the world realizes the NATO/Zionist order runs not on elections but on perverts blackmailing each other.)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/09/the-dwindling-arsenal-and-the-twilight-of-the-western-shield/
#uspol #iran #collapse #counterpunch

2026-05-29 06:50:46 UTC

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I know what I am talking about! I got the idea for this scam when my Erdős number dropped from 7 to 4 in 2018. Jeff Brodsky, a biochemist at the University of Pittsburgh with whom I did an undergraduate thesis that led to a couple of publications, collaborated with Ziv Bar-Joseph (2) at Carnegie Mellon.
By that means I leapt past Alan Turing to join Carl Sagan and Noam Chomsky
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006651
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/656/528/959/913/119/original/41ff4bb3719597b8.png

2026-05-29 03:06:03 UTC

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a crude and obvious Erdős-number reduction scam

2026-05-07 23:49:22 UTC

"We are currently experiencing a disruption to #Canvas [Learning Management System] related to an ongoing security incident affecting the vendor."
DID YOU KNOW THAT IT IS FINALS WEEK?
"Out of an abundance of caution, users should avoid interacting with or clicking on any links, messages, or content that may be posted by threat actors or appear suspicious during this event."
GOLLY Y'ALL FUCKED THIS UP REAL GOOD
"We understand the importance of Canvas to teaching and learning activities and recognize the disruption this may cause."
HO, HO, YOU DIPSHITS UNDERSTAND AND/OR RECOGNIZE NOTHING
I AM OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER BEFORE EVERYTHING HAD BEEN OUTSOURCED AND WE HAD STAFF RIGHT ON CAMPUS ON CALL 24/7 AND WE WERE NOT HELPLESS LIKE NOW BUT YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN RARRRR A;LSKJASDHFWOOWIEH'ASDKLDAFS1234JKLASDF

2026-04-27 02:26:37 UTC

https://share.joinmastodon.org is a tool that allows you to put a "Share to Mastodon" button on your website.
#mastodon #fediverse

2026-04-24 17:01:44 UTC

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I used #freesoftware to slice up and merge PDFs from various textbooks to produce reading packets. (#TeXLive's #pdfjam, also recommend @npub1z97…2gj3).
Took the trouble to get them approved by the copyright compliance police in University Libraries. Been distributing them with a clear conscience and a light heart for many years.
I hope I have students who will remember me the way you remember that teacher of yours.
https://github.com/pdfjam/pdfjam

2026-04-24 16:34:44 UTC

In this field, in my field, in every field, textbook publishing is little more than a vortex of circular plagiarism.
The whole thing is an extractive scam. I haven't required textbooks for fifteen years. Fuck those greedheads.
https://www.psypost.org/psychology-textbooks-still-misrepresent-famous-experiments-and-controversial-debates/
#academia #highered

2026-04-11 00:08:17 UTC

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NERD DAD FRIDAY NIGHT WITH @npub1zeq…sqek
If I'm honest, there's a bit of faffing around to get #mu4e configured (see footnote¹). But golly, it sure is worth it.
Just being able to compose emails natively in #Emacs is very OHHHHHHhhhhh **THAT** FEELS BETTER
and then being able to capture Org tasks that link to messages is very UNLIMITED POWER!!!! (see figure)
and then over the next couple years gradually smoothing and polishing your email workflow with little customizations just exactly for little old you is very [wildebeest-levitating-in-blissful-meditation]
If I were to presume to provide advice it would be: consider it a gradual transition, and resolve to savor the process and enjoy each incremental improvement.
___
¹There's a separate binary, which requires a separate quirky compile-from-source installation and configuration. Like most Emacs mail clients, it relies on mbsync to sync local copies with your IMAP server. And then there are countless quirks in its UI, endlessly customizable in the good/bad way to which we are all accustomed.
@npub1q4d…dyel
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/383/128/702/450/186/original/ab3aa04001c8054d.mp4

2026-04-09 16:55:04 UTC

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Okay, totally get it. Never had the version/update thing bite me ... that I know of

2026-04-09 16:33:44 UTC

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But what's the objection to MELPA? Lack of licence requirement? Lack of quality control?
[@ramin_hal9001](https://fe.disroot.org/users/ramin_hal9001 ) @npub1kvh…yv0e

2026-04-09 15:38:48 UTC

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"try to avoid MELPA and install direct from Git repos when I can. My Emacs package manager only installs from ELPA or Non-GNU ELPA."
Genuinely curious. What's the issue/advantage here? Is MELPA unreliable somehow?
@npub1kvh…yv0e

2026-03-31 04:05:40 UTC

Uhhh, guys? This looks real bad
"GNU Emacs: Multiple Remote Code Execution Vectors on File Open"
https://github.com/califio/publications/blob/main/MADBugs/vim-vs-emacs-vs-claude/Emacs.md
#emacs

2026-03-28 23:43:25 UTC

"Setting aside the moral arguments---"
You mean the power and water.
"Setting aside the power and water, and---"
Don't forget the industrial-scale plagiarism. The brazen theft.
"Setting aside the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"
Don't forget the maniacal, suicidal inflation of the bubble. Arguably the greatest single mis-allocation of resources in history, aside from war.
"Setting aside the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"
Don't forget the willful destruction of creative livelihoods, the willful destruction of education itself.
"Setting aside the destruction of art, writing, and schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"
Don't forget the purposeful degradation of human cognitive capacity. The planned and designed addictive dependency.
"Setting aside the cognitive degradation, the destruction of schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water, and---"
Don't forget the ghoulish ethical camouflage used to obscure, indeed to erase, the responsibility for decisions in budget austerity, insurance claims, regulatory oversight, medical decisions, court filings, and even real-time combat.
"Setting aside the monstrous mechanisms of official irresponsibility, the cognitive degradation, the schools, the financial madness, the copyright fuckery, the power and water---"
Are you going to say it doesn't work?
"IT DOES NOT FUCKING WORK"
#ai

2026-03-12 16:30:18 UTC

RE: https://social.bau-ha.us/@raganwald/116216625816514769
Think this through.
Marco #Rubio is walking around, allowing himself to be photographed, wearing shoes that are two sizes too big.
He can afford to buy those shoes in the correct size and save his boss and himself the embarrassment.
But Rubio suspects, fears, knows in his black tiny heart, that #Trump gave him shoes two sizes too big on purpose, in order publicly to humiliate him, in order to force him to broadcast his blind self-annihilating loyalty before all the world. It is literally The Emperor Has No Clothes, except with the humiliation transfered to the courtiers.
#uspol
#note13n6…03x3

2026-03-02 16:51:44 UTC

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I teach large university science courses. Hundreds of fairly privileged students in the room. It has been my habit to ask them to raise their hands if they have ever seen the Milky Way.
The results have always been disappointing. Over the past 20 years it has gotten worse and worse. Recently many students don't even know what I mean by the question, and I have to explain what a dark sky looks like.
"Raise your hand if you have ever been awed by a clear dark sky full of countless, countless stars." Always less than 5%.

2026-02-27 12:37:09 UTC

Ramzy Baroud in #CounterPunch: "The implications for our understanding of power are profound. If the primary driver of high-level policy is the preservation of opaque, transnational networks, then our current democratic models are essentially obsolete. We are forced to admit that the political theater we witness daily may merely be a superficial layer designed to distract from the deeper, darker mechanics of the global hierarchy."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/27/the-other-lizard-people-why-the-epstein-files-are-shattering-global-theory/

2026-02-12 01:04:00 UTC

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And what would you rank as the two most difficult European languages to acquire as a second language?
COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT

2026-02-08 21:56:18 UTC

More snowshoeing.
#snowshoe #pennsylvania #outdoors
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/037/228/541/347/768/original/2979d27f2abea53f.jpg
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/116/037/229/935/430/351/original/070359163ddf558c.jpg

2026-01-08 23:45:08 UTC

#FediHelp Hey you guys, how do you say "Lysenkoism and death squads" in English LOL
oh wait oh fuck
#uspol #fuckTrump #fascism

2026-01-07 22:17:30 UTC

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You must be prepared to be shot. You must be prepared to go to jail. You must be prepared to lose your career. You must be prepared to have your neighbors give you dirty looks. You must be prepared to have any of these things happen to you with a significantly lower probability anyway, even after you were obedient and silent.
You must choose where you fall on this spectrum. History, your children's consciences, those who risked more than you did, we all have a long memories.
@npub1ccq…sjhu @npub1h39…uy95 [@Robbe_Duesseldorf](https://mastodon.social/@Robbe_Duesseldorf ) @npub14zm…7uu3

2026-01-07 12:35:24 UTC

It's been more than twenty years since I've had a piece in #CounterPunch. Making up for lost time
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/07/the-cowardice-of-the-powerful-educational-leadership-in-dei/

2025-12-30 19:33:29 UTC

@npub1g8v…xav6 Finland. The little harbor town on Lake Erie right next to where I grew up had a colony of immigrant Finns. I know four words in Finnish, the four most important words: is it mere coincidence they all begin with S?
sauna
Suomi
sisu
Satana

2025-12-30 19:18:09 UTC

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Anybody else old enough to remember Atom? Anybody else remember those years when Atom fanboys would BLAH BLAH BLAH INTERRUPT US TALKING ABOUT EMACS to share how much better was Atom?
And then Microsoft were like "Whoops! Fuck you! ha ha" and then [wobbly fart sound of air leaving balloon] ... [silence of death] because all the Atom enthusiasm just flew off and alighted upon the next shiny thing.
I promise I don't mean to be a hater. In all seriousness, my default plan for retirement is to learn Emacs lisp well enough to volunteer as a maintainer. It will be fun to get enough skill to contribute even marginally, but the point is I am dead certain that #Emacs will outlive me.
https://atom-editor.cc/

2025-10-25 19:09:16 UTC

Thinking of you, @npub1ppe…qv2g, on a visit to Phipps Conservatory in #Pittsburgh
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/436/372/164/791/245/original/62fdb2c2792c04ed.jpg
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/436/375/235/655/269/original/59c60cfbe799c0cb.jpg

2025-09-20 16:52:43 UTC

#caturday
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/237/654/669/105/020/original/ef73f686220bdb5f.jpg

2025-09-04 11:32:54 UTC

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"Tachyons are bad - take my word for it."
That's funny ... Trek writers love them

2025-08-25 17:37:13 UTC

We are organizing.
#union #organizing
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/090/608/534/512/233/original/284cbd51ef02b4f9.jpg

2025-08-25 00:51:15 UTC

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Gold Standard Economics
Gold Standard Diplomacy
Gold Standard Jurisprudence

2025-08-23 15:01:58 UTC

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I have never worried about the #Singularity because in the late nineties, on two separate occasions, I spoke at length with two (then and still today) fairly well-known Ayatollahs of the movement.
They both made certain to mention that they thought I was smart—perhaps even approaching as smart as they thought they were!—and so they were candid and enthusiastic with me. Neither had studied biology (ahem ahem obviously), and both genuinely were eager to share ideas with a PhD student in molecular biology.
When I pointed out that exponential growth always, but always, leads to system collapse in nature; when I pointed out that in a universe finite in space and time, this is the rigidly necessary requirement of arithmetic, they both responded nonverbally: with a dismissive wave of the hand.
In short, the entire movement is based on the belief that Technology is Magic.
At the time I had not reached the level of cynicism to see where it would go in thirty years.

2025-08-23 12:21:44 UTC

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No I didn't, and no I don't

2025-08-21 14:40:21 UTC

Sitting through yet another godawful meeting. Literally every item on the agenda is mostly "HeRe aRe aLL ThE ExTrA sTePs yOu goTtA tAkE iN oRdeR tO mAkE tHe SoFtWaRe dO WhAt yOu NeEd DeSpiTe aLL tHe bUgS"
Who says the future is shit? Because we're living this agony over Zoom so a schmuck can cope by live shitposting with my cat in my arms
#catsofmastodon
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/067/265/986/148/204/original/b91270758ddc480c.png

2025-08-19 17:11:38 UTC

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"If Sam Altman.... Wait a second, Sam Altman is just another lying sack of shit in waayyyy over his head at the front of a bubble."
fixed it for you
Sam Altman is Sam Bankman-Fried for 2025

2025-08-13 21:27:31 UTC

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Okay walk through it with me.
You're a white male child of one of the richest and most powerful families of the twentieth century. Marinated from birth not only in the most luxurious privilege, but in global adoration and power. The public refers to you as America's royalty, and your whole family live that way.
Your uncle, the sitting President of the United States, gets his brains blown out in broad daylight. His brother, his right hand in the White House, your dad, the Attorney General! believes that the CIA killed him in office. Your tender age is nine years.
(Not evaluating the claim that the CIA killed JFK. But it is an uncontroversial, documented historical fact that the family, particularly the widow and RFK, were convinced of it.)
At fourteen you watch your dad, an equally capable, charismatic, and popular politician, rumbling inexorably toward the White House. In private, his main motivation for claiming this office is justice for his martyred brother, vengeance against the CIA. You watch your dad get his brains blown out on live TV.
@npub1ppe…qv2g @npub1x3x…qwm0

2025-08-12 02:09:23 UTC

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How are the ICE goon patrols not death squads?
Because there's no verified documentation that they've killed anyone?
How will we know?

2025-08-11 21:51:55 UTC

Death squads.
That's where we're headed.
#uspol #fascism #antifa

2025-07-19 02:56:31 UTC

Black-tailed deer. North Cascades National Park.
#cascades #nationalpark
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/877/622/533/843/713/original/df107fe73f25e50d.jpg
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/877/632/002/827/156/original/f350b51ab7f9b95d.jpg

2025-06-29 01:20:45 UTC

Almost forgot #caturday
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/764/013/805/240/187/original/031daa34a8721579.jpg

2025-06-26 00:32:36 UTC

If you find it useful, consider making a donation to fediscience.org via @npub1d8e…x6ug like I just did.
Support your instance if you can!
https://liberapay.com/fediscience/donate

2025-06-19 23:40:46 UTC

#uspol #solidarity
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/712/664/118/979/447/original/a813b32500cd1467.png

2025-06-18 01:33:01 UTC

Just moved from fosstodon to fediscience.
This is the third time I've moved #Mastodon instances! I've never wanted to move, but there have been compelling reasons each time.
I am always impressed at how seamless it has been every time I have moved instances.