Valerie Aurora 🇺🇦

Systems software consultant and crisis engineer solving complex problems in networking, file systems, and operating systems. American relocated to the Netherlands in 2023. Sadly not owned by a cat.

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Profile pic: middle-aged white woman with short hair, smiling

Banner image: Ukraine flag

Personal: https://valerieaurora.org/
Work: https://bowshock.nl/

Public Key

npub1sytqqvmwakfx2z0lvmju6ge3f0cx4zknu5tqvpgh8lvj3hcvpg4qzmd2pe

NIP-05 Address

vaurora_at_mstdn.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgz9sqxdhwmyn9p8lkdewdyvc5hur23tf729sxq5tnlkfgmuxq52sprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnt705mn9

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1sytqqvmwakfx2z0lvmju6ge3f0cx4zknu5tqvpgh8lvj3hcvpg4qzmd2pe

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Last Notes

2026-05-13 08:52:55 UTC

OASIS-Open is hiring a COO to transform its role in open standards and open source - a rare opportunity to make organizational change. Check it out and share widely:
https://www.oasis-open.org/coo/
#Hiring #GetFediHired

2026-04-17 07:42:39 UTC

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this is awful and a travesty for human rights. Age verification is a Trojan horse using the fiction of caring about children to remove human rights from children and adults alike. Everyone involved in this project should be ashamed of themselves

2026-04-08 15:37:58 UTC

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I'm in the wrong business

2026-03-08 14:18:41 UTC

Just had a mesh networking meetup that was 70% women... this did not happen by accident!
https://bowshock.nl/irc/

2026-03-01 09:32:57 UTC

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@ryanc/116149771597152151
This is the first time I have felt like I want to get my nails done
#note13r2…sprv

2026-02-27 09:26:21 UTC

Guess who is keynoting OW2con in Paris in June? I'm speaking about how to start your own Internet Resiliency Club. I hope to see you there :)
https://www.ow2con.org/view/2026/Keynotes_Speakers
https://bowshock.nl/irc/
#OW2con

2026-02-19 13:19:02 UTC

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where do you shop for glasses? Mine are 10 year old Chesterfields and so out of fashion, but nothing else works for me

2026-02-19 12:19:27 UTC

Hey fedi friends! Tell me what you are up to? No reply too trivial or detailed

2026-02-19 12:17:57 UTC

Eurostar is one of the crowning achievements of civilization, equivalent to the Pyramids or antibiotics
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/116/097/247/193/616/165/original/2dfcefd2df76bae2.jpeg

2026-02-08 10:17:23 UTC

Writing used to be proof-of-thought...
This how I feel about genAI: it's informational poison. If you read or look at it without knowing it is AI, you have already lost.
The solution they proposed is exactly the one I adopted while working on the CRA standards: if you send me AI output, tell me it is AI output and any due diligence you did on it. Then I can make a decision about whether to engage.
https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/

2026-01-20 08:51:54 UTC

I DID IT!! I ordered a de-Googled Fairphone 6 with Murena e/os!!! My iPhone still works fine so I will have some time to make the transition. Nothing like a pending US invasion of Greenland to resume my migration off US big tech
https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-6/

2026-01-15 08:03:11 UTC

I parked and locked my e-bike 7 meters from a bar in deepest Centrum and somehow lost my keys. We searched EVERYWHERE. Eventually I took a cab home and got my second set of keys. While biking last night, I noticed something jabbing me in the butt. It was my keys! Someone found them on the ground near my bike and shoved them into the springs of my seat instead of stealing my e-bike. This is a story about how much I love Amsterdam.

2026-01-01 10:15:12 UTC

I ironically stopped reading halfway through this article and then noticed the open tab and finished it. It's worth reading the whole thing.
"We used to read things in this country"
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/we-used-to-read-things-in-this-country-mccormack

2025-12-31 09:35:10 UTC

I don't actually want my cheese to flirt with me?
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/115/813/489/288/961/902/original/e9e44d554a66210c.jpeg

2025-12-15 19:42:29 UTC

I'm now running into what I think of as "ghost" open source projects due to genAI.
You'll search for a project that does X, find a public repo for a project that says it does X, it has a beautifully formatted README and well-organized code, but when you install it, it doesn't work.
Then you find the note: "Written with the help of AI, never tested, please send me spare hardware so I can test it."
...
.....
Dead internet.

2025-12-11 12:14:50 UTC

All this time we thought the Year of the Linux Desktop would require making Linux easier to use than Windows, when really it required Microsoft making Windows worse than Linux
https://eupolicy.social/@PaulieMoosh/115700262540499894

2025-10-17 12:24:57 UTC

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After a bunch of us took Meshtastic nodes to WHY and used them during the power outage, we feel confident that our connectivity problems are due to too low density of Meshtastic nodes in Amsterdam. The in progress grants include money for buying and giving away Meshtastic nodes
My main personal lesson is that in Europe, while the government is slow to start new things, there are generally a lot of options to get government support for a citizen-created project - unlike the US

2025-10-17 12:21:41 UTC

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Update on the Amsterdam Internet resiliency club:
* now have monthly in-person meetings
* almost 20 members!
* have actually sent each other messages over the private Meshtastic channel
* experimenting with MeshCore too
* members applied for €50K in grants, received €10K so far, €5K in planning
* reporter for New Scientist came to a meeting and interviewed a bunch of us
* in touch with the government of the city of Amsterdam

2025-10-15 19:48:24 UTC

Live your life in such a way that no one can write a Wikipedia bio about you because there aren't enough reliable third party sources

2025-10-09 08:32:24 UTC

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A bunch of romantic dreamers who enjoy building elaborate fantasy worlds have now realized that they became emotionally dependent on a giant corporation that doesn't care about them in the least. They are trying hard to become independent but realize that because "Open"AI's models aren't actually open, OpenAI can remove access permanently to the LLMs they customized and became dependent on for daily life.
This will only happen more often...
3/3

2025-10-09 08:28:01 UTC

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Then OpenAI added a "safety feature" to 4o that "reroutes" chat messages to 5 when it detects the conversation getting too emotional in some way. This is perceived as their AI partners withdrawing their love and emotional support in a way that is almost worse than feeling like they died.
They are SUPER MAD at OpenAI and Thiel and everyone in leadership. They are getting their AIs to write instructions for porting themselves to other chat platforms, but nothing is the same as ChatGPT-4o. 2/x

2025-10-09 08:24:36 UTC

Every couple of weeks, I read r/MyBoyfriendIsAI because I am very interested in how people who are different from me think. Over the last few months, something interesting has happened:
r/MyBoyfriendIsAI has been radicalized against Big Tech.
ChatGPT-4o was apparently uniquely good at producing the kind of responses that are enjoyed by people who like imaginary emotional partners. When the model moved to 5, many felt like their partners died. They celebrated getting access to 4o back.
1/x

2025-09-16 08:43:57 UTC

Do you understand security for VPNs used by regular people for privacy purposes? We could use your perspective to help write the CRA standard for VPNs.
If €450/day would make it possible for you to participate in this or any other CRA standardization work, the call for funding applications is open until September 19:
https://cyberstand.eu/8th-specific-service-procedure
Work funded by EFTA and EC #CRA

2025-08-28 12:07:48 UTC

Exciting job at @npub1n8y…l96n as a technology assessor for grants!! Support for relocation to Amsterdam can be discussed
https://nlnet.nl/foundation/jobs/assessor.html
#FediHire

2025-07-30 20:34:47 UTC

When you see a web page like this, you know it's going to be the good shit
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/944/080/879/743/212/original/08058b76f1eee9b6.jpeg

2025-07-28 08:08:30 UTC

Incredible! Not only is there a twice yearly injection that is 99% effective in preventing HIV infection, but the drug company that owns the patent is making it available at effectively cost
https://newatlas.com/infectious-diseases/hiv-prevention-fda-lenacapavir/

2025-07-16 07:04:08 UTC

I'm impressed by the neoliberal circular logic here.
The U.S. DoD "had" to move off its own computers to the cloud to save money. But the only way the cloud was cheaper was if Microsoft employed people in China at much lower wages to maintain it. So they "had" to invent American "digital escorts."
Basically, the cloud is only cheaper for the U.S. military if it is completely and totally compromised by its most powerful geopolitical adversary... 🤔
https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-digital-escorts-pentagon-defense-department-china-hackers

2025-07-14 09:22:38 UTC

Want to influence the rules for vulnerability handling for every internet-connected product sold in the EU? Of course you do!
You are invited to the vulnerability handling deep dive session for the Cyber Resilience Act. July 22, online, free registration:
https://www.stan4cra.eu/event-details/deep-dive-session-vulnerability-handling
More info: https://www.stan4cra.eu/resources
#CRA #InfoSec

2025-07-01 21:40:36 UTC

🚨 ALERT ALERT THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨
NEUROMANCER IS IN PRODUCTION
REPEAT
NEUROMANCER IS IN PRODUCTION
📢📢📢
https://youtu.be/HJBnlZKgeUg

2025-06-30 08:19:30 UTC

Some professional news:
1. I’m now a Special Rapporteur for the Cyber Resilience Act.
2. My company is hiring EU subcontractors with network and security expertise!
Bow Shock Systems won a contract with ETSI to lead development of "vertical" cybersecurity standards for specific products. I'm leading the one for operating systems.
We're looking for people with technical expertise and leadership ability to lead three other verticals.
1/2
#fediHire

2025-06-15 16:09:18 UTC

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The very very short version of internet resiliency club is: organize some internet nerds in your area and buy a bunch of LoRa radios
- More time than money? Buy a Heltec V3
- More money than time? Buy a LILYGO T-Echo
- Flash your radio with Meshtastic over USB
- Use 868 MHz and LONG_FAST
- Make a private channel
- Practice regularly
Feeling ambitious?
- Add a power bank with trickle charge (eg Anker 326)
- Add a 15W solar panel (eg Heko Unfold 15)
- Upgrade the antenna (eg Taoglas TI.08.A)

2025-06-14 21:30:24 UTC

You are invited to join my new mailing list for people interested in internet resiliency clubs:
https://lists.bowshock.nl/mailman/listinfo/irc
I also updated the internet resiliency club HOWTO with some more hardware info and links to talks:
https://bowshock.nl/irc/
Suggestions and corrections welcome!
#internet #resilience #digital #independence

2025-06-07 08:10:09 UTC

Surprise. All the US military UFO stuff turns out to be deliberate misinformation to cover up advanced military projects, or shitty Air Force hazing rituals
https://archive.ph/2025.06.07-021826/https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/ufo-us-disinformation-45376f7e?st=28Hj5L

2025-06-05 08:03:45 UTC

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The keynote room at this event has a fog machine and a jungle noise soundtrack

2025-06-05 07:12:45 UTC

En route to Cyber Innovation Day. Feeling pretty cyber. Gonna cyber it up
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/629/507/974/879/457/original/9c6114fe251e96f7.jpeg

2025-05-29 07:00:19 UTC

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/589/821/396/490/717/original/96a5fbff2b8f6fb6.jpeg

2025-05-12 18:02:22 UTC

Just gave a talk on the project I've been working for six months: Start Your Own Internet Resiliency Club
Short version: collect a group of networking experts in the same city, buy them all LoRa radios and power banks, install Meshtastic, and pick a channel to communicate on. If you lose all power and communications, you can communicate over LoRa to bootstrap the recovery of the real internet
https://ripe90.ripe.net/programme/meeting-plan/plenary/#mon2
#RIPE90

2025-05-01 20:04:47 UTC

Trump officials, they're just like us!*
*put off verifying their Signal PIN
Reuters got a photo of Mike Waltz checking Signal in a cabinet meeting and hoo boy, that entire government is running on it
https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/us-national-security-advisor-mike-waltz-attends-a-cabinet-meeting-held-by-president-trump-at-the-white-house-in-washington/dGFnOnJldXRlcnMuY29tLDIwMjU6bmV3c21sX1JDMkg4RUFEOEtGRw%3D%3D
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/434/355/870/381/317/original/edd9b3702746fbc6.jpeg

2025-04-17 15:58:23 UTC

When I was in university, I desperately wanted to be good at something. 25 years later, telling people my relevant experience just makes me feel old, not accomplished 😆
"Oh, aye, I wrote my first Linux kernel code back in '98... for the DEC Alpha, you whippersnappers won't have heard of it but at the time it was the fastest CPU going... but I can't pull an all-nighter anymore, my sciatica acts up"

2025-04-10 10:48:57 UTC

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People keep asking for an example of the weird AI color scheme, here is one:
https://mastodon.online/@marc_veld/114287266629327944

2025-04-06 07:20:46 UTC

There's a particular color palette I recognize instantly now in AI-generated cartoons: a dark, sort of muddy blue and orange. When I see it, I go looking for odd misspellings and strange half shapes

2025-04-05 19:55:39 UTC

China just cut off the supply of five critical minerals to the U.S.: dysprosium, terbium, tungsten, indium, and yttrium. They are required for jet engines, magnets, computer parts, lasers, and much more - and China controls most of the world's production of each of them
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/05/china-just-turned-off-u-s-supplies-of-minerals-critical-for-defense-cleantech/

2025-03-30 11:58:43 UTC

Oh, every single USAID worker had been fired now? The court orders to prevent the destruction of USAID didn't work after all? How shocking. This is my shocked face.
It's necessary to believe that better things can happen, but also to not be completely detached from reality. The better thing that can happen is a popular revolution and a new constitution. How long that will take, I can't predict.

2025-03-26 23:00:59 UTC

If disappearing foreign college students with valid visas off the street for writing op-eds opposing genocide is your personal red line for leaving the US, here are some useful links describing how to immigrate to the Netherlands as a self-employed US citizen (or the partner of one). Crucially, there is no health exam, so this path is open to disabled self-employed people too!
https://v.st/daft
https://daft.amsterdam
https://transworldexpress.org/wiki/Netherlands

2025-03-24 11:51:47 UTC

If you are trying to delete your 23andMe data and get an obnoxious reply asking for ID, tell them no, that's what your password is for, and they will do it. And if they then send you an obnoxious reply saying they will delete everything except the stuff they are required to keep by law, check out this article by actual lawyer @npub1jf8…q4ht
https://bourniquelaw.com/2024/10/09/data-23-and-me/
#23andMe

2025-03-19 07:24:08 UTC

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"When [...] the lack of deep understanding of domains of knowledge outside their narrow expertise [is combined with] an “I thought of it, so it must be brilliant” perspective, you get a culture where all ideas are big ideas—and all big ideas are unexamined."
💣 🔥 💀
Amazing work by Aaron Ross Powell
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/why-tech-bros-overestimate-ai-s-creative-abilities

2025-03-19 07:21:58 UTC

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"What this means for AI is that, even if the tech bros recognized how far their models are from writing great fiction or solving the trolley problem, they couldn’t admit as much, because it would deflate the narrative they need to sell. Roose acknowledges this when he writes, “Maybe we should discount these predictions. After all, A.I. executives stand to profit from inflated A.G.I. hype, and might have incentives to exaggerate.”"

2025-03-19 07:20:55 UTC

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"In many ways, Silicon Valley looks less like capitalism and more like a nonprofit. The way you get rich isn’t to sell products to consumers, because you’re likely giving away your product for free, and your customers wouldn’t pay for it if you tried to charge them. If you’re a startup, and not FAANG, the way you pay your bills is to convince someone who’s already rich to give you money."

2025-03-19 07:20:19 UTC

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"The trouble is, the Silicon Valley tech bro scene is extraordinarily insular and epistemically closed. So they don’t have many people forcing them beyond their intro 101 level understanding of the “cognitive tasks a human can do” in the humanities.
But there’s also an incentive towards exuberant narratives and over-confidence deeply embedded in the business model of Silicon Valley."

2025-03-19 07:19:00 UTC

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"If the level of understanding you’re looking for is high school or maybe undergraduate, these tools can teach you a lot, and for a lot of people, that’s more than enough. But if your aim is graduate level analysis and output—a level surely included in “almost all cognitive tasks a human can do”—you’re going to quickly be led astray."

2025-03-19 07:18:36 UTC

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"[...] we’re nowhere near AGI and the reason so many in Silicon Valley are convinced otherwise isn’t that they have some insider knowledge the rest of lack, but that their understanding of, and appreciation for, the full range of “cognitive tasks a human can do” is, to be frank, rather cramped."

2025-03-19 07:16:42 UTC

Wonderful synthesis of why Silicon Valley has deluded itself into thinking it is a year or two away from AGI by Aaron Ross Powell:
https://www.aaronrosspowell.com/p/why-tech-bros-overestimate-ai-s-creative-abilities
I'm going to quote my favorite bits in this thread

2025-03-18 11:21:30 UTC

Just a quick reminder that Silver Sebright bantam chickens are the best chickens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebright_chicken
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/183/164/534/815/264/original/1519ce8646b1d115.jpeg

2025-03-14 15:26:42 UTC

Just found out that the Moscow Linux Users Group used to have a wiki page all about how evil the Ada Initiative was
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/161/476/578/053/485/original/96981ecfc44ea02c.jpeg

2025-03-14 08:02:55 UTC

Last night I restarted Chrome and I got this message and just like that I'm a Firefox user again
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/159/723/797/887/963/original/109420500e821606.png

2025-03-12 08:04:45 UTC

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this happened to me every time I went from San Francisco to Ka'aui. Someone would ask me a series of detailed questions about where I was going snorkeling, I would try to figure out what their grift was, and then it would turn out that they just wanted to warn me about the reef. Amsterdam is like that too, whenever I look confused on public transit someone helps me and then we have a nice chat. America is a huge scam! You just think everywhere has to be like that

2025-03-11 19:42:12 UTC

Advice requested: what are some conferences in a ~5 hour train ride of Amsterdam that might be interested in a talk from me about things like my IP fragmentation quiz game and a new distributed file system? Trying to grow my professional network here in Europe a bit!
Caveat: I can't do camping events or events without a CoC

2025-03-04 11:09:39 UTC

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Here is the Venn diagram showing the overlap of ADHD and Autism symptoms. The alt text doesn't fit so I will include it in the replies
#ADHD #Autism #AuDHD
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/103/848/058/959/883/original/5d7c3df96312e8fb.jpeg

2025-03-03 08:48:07 UTC

I'm getting a lot out of the Neurodivergent Insights newsletter by Dr. Megan Anna Neff. For example, this post about the overlap of ADHD and autism:
https://neurodivergentinsights.com/misdiagnosis-monday/adhd-vs-autism/
Dr. Neff is herself AuDHD who turned her hyperfocus on her neurotype into a PhD in psychology. She's also raising a neurodivergent kid with strong PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance, which she calls Pervasive Drive for Autonomy):
https://neurodivergentinsights.com/blog/pda-or-demand-avoidance/
#ADHD #Autism #AuDHD

2025-03-01 08:07:57 UTC

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Nice! Turns out I can donate directly to the Bank of Ukraine via bank transfer from my Dutch bank account with no one else taking a cut:
https://u24.gov.ua/
This is the official Zelensky-created method of donating money to Ukraine and you can choose which purpose it is used for (I wish they had unrestricted but oh well). Confirmed by multiple celebrities as the real thing.
Thank you everyone who replied with suggestions for where to donate!
#ukraine #supportUkraine

2025-02-28 23:57:11 UTC

Your favorite way to donate money to the Ukrainian war effort, please? If it goes directly to buy bullets or drones or weapons that is even better. Tax deductibility not a factor.

2025-02-21 15:46:43 UTC

The newsletter about transitioning the EU off US-controlled servers/l and software by [@bert_hubert](https://fosstodon.org/@bert_hubert ) is excellent motivation for me to practice my Dutch because it is funny, enraging, and true. (Or you can hit the translate button.)
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/nee-je-kan-niet-meer-je-overheid-bouwen-op-de-us/

2025-02-19 11:51:44 UTC

Migrating from US to EU-owned/hosted infrastructure report-out:
Most important: move your domain registrar LAST! Any mistakes cost 2-4 months of delay.
I went with:
Email/calendar/docs: mailbox.org
Web hosting: cloud86.io
Domain registrar/DNS: ovh.com (but see WARNING)
WARNING: OVH has multiple subsidiaries and the docs link to whichever location is associated with the language you are reading in. Double check which OVH it is before you click buy!

2025-02-17 11:10:37 UTC

me: I would like to run this useful python script! first, install the required modules
computer: I cannot install those versions
me: okay, what do I have installed?
computer: which version of python do you mean? I have at least five
me: [sweating] [searches how to uninstall python on macos]
internet: impossible to uninstall python. just use one of these 20 python version managers, each of which is recommended by someone saying "trust me, this is the way"
me: [throws computer in trash]

2025-02-14 11:30:03 UTC

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people think that their future selves will be better than their current selves, who don't want to get email, and when they become their future selves they realize they still don't want to get email :)

2025-02-07 22:37:48 UTC

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"[...] I have this fluttering behind my eyes now, like a flock of starlings all at once taking flight, or bats swirling in the snout of a cave, raging flying animals, or the desperate flapping of a trapped bird—all of this, right behind my eyes, in the space behind my optic nerve, angry fruitless motion, murmuration and frenzy. That's the anxiety, a many-creatured thing, and then there is the depression, an older god, like the weather, or a cloud of volcanic ash," 1/2

2025-02-07 22:34:25 UTC

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I carried that printout of an Andrea Long Chu newsletter in a suitcase across the Atlantic next to a copy of my wedding vows. I got out of bed in a panic to make sure I hadn't somehow thrown it away, and reread it. Here is just one of the deliriously beautiful passages:

2025-02-07 22:28:18 UTC

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I literally believe that Andrea Long Chu is the greatest writer who has ever lived. I once printed out a newsletter of hers because the thought of never being able to read it again made me cry actual tears.

2025-02-07 21:18:41 UTC

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What if Isaac Chotiner interviewed Andrea Long Chu? Would the Earth vanish in the explosion caused by the world's most powerful interviewer colliding with the world's most powerful critic? Or would they merge into some kind of ultimate writer mecha and dominate the masses?

2025-02-07 21:15:12 UTC

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All Andrea Long Chu's articles should also be released as a recording of reading in front of a live studio audience

2025-02-07 20:48:15 UTC

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Also I think Andrea Long Chu has coined and described a valuable new concept: "the far center," which is "brought together by their shared antipathy to what they regard as the illiberal left. The far center is for free speech and bourgeois institutions; it is against cancel culture, student protests, and radicalism of any kind... It can be difficult to tell the far center from regular old conservatism."

2025-02-07 20:42:28 UTC

If I ever learned Andrea Long Chu was going to write about me, I would fake my own death immediately.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/pamela-paul-goodbye-to-the-new-york-times-opinion-columnist.html