Lucia Walinchus

20 Nov 2024

According datajournalism.com, 60% of data journalists in their last survey were male. And a recent @pewresearch.org paper showed about 2/3 of "news influencers" are men. So please share this with anyone who might be interested in broader horizons. Representation matters! go.bsky.app/8gob51T

These political ads are relentless. Never thought I would long for the day when I could just be annoyed by car insurance and desperate pleas to talk to your doctor about superfluous pharmaceuticals.

This is exactly how we got the notion that you shouldn’t put a preposition at the end of a sentence. The next time someone suggests as much show them where this is at.

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🧵This is a great series. Nominally about England's Medieval queens but keep in mind this is a time when when contemporary chroniclers often left women out, even if they had considerable political influence. So I would call it, a more inclusive history. A few highlights: #histbookchat #booksky💙📚

en.wikipedia.orgExchequer - Wikipedia

I always thought the Exchequer evolved from "the person who wrote the checks" but no this book casually mentions that actually it was originally... a table with a checkered tablecloth. I looked this up though and apparently it helped illiterate folks to add things. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchequer

And all my usual caveats. A few folks who might enjoy these: @zachary-shirkey.bsky.social @5alexander.bsky.social @jwshoemaker.bsky.social @womenknowhistory.bsky.social @whpt.bsky.social @ourlore.bsky.social @julieinstitches.bsky.social @historicwomendaily.bsky.social @littlemswitty.bsky.social

Wow William the First got rid of the death penalty actually. But he replaced it with castration.

His son Henry I makes George R. R. Martin sound like Dr. Seuss.

Queens had their own lands and taxes for income, and often acted as regents for husbands and spouses away at war. Many had influence at court. A few successfully invaded England by themselves. To read a history that downplays their role is to read a history with a big chunk missing.

This is an era before standardized spelling, but good Lord researching Queen Adeliza must have been a nightmare as her name appeared nineteen different ways.

And yes I say series and not book. I read them out of order as I saw the second at @columbuslibrary.bsky.social and then read to the end and back again. The second and third were probably the best, though of course you don't have to read them all, or in any particular order.

Freshman boy talking to my daughter: I want to be a misogynist. Daughter: Uh… WHAT?! Boy: a misogynist. You know, someone who gives other people massages.

nbcnews.comLess than 4% of sex crimes end in conviction, NBC News investigation showsData from eight major cities shows that less than 4% of sex crimes result in convictions.

Apropos of nothing, I thought you might want to read this previous investigation I did that took over a year. For legal reasons, we could only use documented complaints of rape and SA. I stitched together >60 gigabytes worth of records from 16 different agencies. Conviction rates were about 3-4%.

Lucia Walinchus@walinchus.bsky.social

1/6 #BehindTheStory: Boston Officials said the very existence of all violent sex crimes was a secret. We appealed under MA's public records law. Read this story, which was only possible as a result! #FOIA #PublicRecords www.nbcnews.com/specials/sex...

#SPJ26 by the numbers: 🤠Members at the conference: 377 👥Members last year: 3,879 ⬆️Membership this year: 4,425 😱Percent increase: 14%

🧵 This is one of the best histories I have read. Immigration law can charitably be described as held together with band-aids and glue- this book is like oh yeah and it we made it out of popsicle sticks. A few highlights: @unlawfulentries.bsky.social #booksky 💙📚 #histbookchat #LawSky

goodreads.comThe War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggl…This book tells the story of America's original sin--sl…

Lastly, this book is a fantastic history of the legal battles that ensued over slavery before the Civil War. People are people unless they are property in which case sometimes they are people again? This unfurls the knots of legal logic that twisted America. www.goodreads.com/book/show/38...

And all my usual caveats. Funny aside- Me, reading the dedication: Oh wow her dad's last name is Law! I thought- she writes about law... and is a lawyer... that must be a pseudonym. My kid: Seriously?! Your initials are LAW & you're a lawyer! Me: yeah I guess it's the subliminal advertising. 😂

goodreads.comGods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthrop…A dazzling group portrait of Franz Boas, the founder of…

This book is the true story behind when the federal government paid researchers to study different races. They originally thought they could use the reports to enact more racist policies. Mild spoiler: the actual data did not back up their preconceived notions! www.goodreads.com/en/book/show...

This is not to say that those prejudices didn't persist. For example, the federal government would go on to restrict immigration in the 1920s using some very explicitly racist language. But it is fascinating to read about how birth of anthropology challenged many hardwired assumptions.

nbcsandiego.comNew data shows San Diego ICE arrests hit record high in JulyRecords obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act request and analyzed by NBC 7 show ICE has arrested nearly 10,000 people in the San Diego area this year, more tha...

And this story goes into the chart above in more depth. bsky.app/profile/wali...

Lucia Walinchus@walinchus.bsky.social

You will want to check out this @shelbybremer.bsky.social @nbcsandiego.com story: we waited 5 months for the release of this data! Thank you to the @deportationdata.bsky.social who obtained the #FOIA. www.nbcsandiego.com/video/videos...

goodreads.comOne Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Ove…The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants…

A few other books I would recommend if you like this one. This book is a little dry but goes into the details behind major points in federal immigration law history. www.goodreads.com/book/show/53...

The very first federal immigration law was actually a restriction on black sailors entering southern ports to preserve slavery.

Here are updated numbers on this thanks to the @deportationdata.bsky.social. The author argues that most Americans are now subject to warrantless government surveillance in order to further restrict the liberty of disfavored groups, even if that, again, conflicts with the Constitution.

Racism is sometimes called the "original sin" of America and I think that's an apt metaphor here: when faced with the cognitive dissonance between the above and slaveholding, some founding fathers decided that this was actually rational if one group was subhuman.

"Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship" takes a deep dive into what "liberty" actually means in terms of the ability to stay or go & argues that at many points throughout history, the government offered incentives to some while restricting the movement of others based on race or origin.

Major changes in judicial precedent, state pressure to exclude certain immigrants, and the desire to use federal power against Native American tribes changed all this in the late 1800s. But why is it important to understand something that happened in the Arthur administration?

This goes to the question: Who is an American? On paper, it is "we the people" who "hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

A standard history textbook says immigration policy started in the late 1800s. It is, after all, federal law, and that's when the first major federal immigration laws passed. But the author argues that actually in antebellum America states controlled immigration and didn't want federal inference.

Some states even cared for newcomers quite well; recognizing their value as people and important drivers of the local economy.

15 Sept

Me, sliding into a colleague's inbox with data at the same minute she emails me asking for the data.

11 Sept

Just bought a ticket to #SPJ26 and excited to see some great speakers! Looks like they will have @nicolekraft.bsky.social @franklomonte.bsky.social @jackshuler.bsky.social @bethanybruner.dispatch.com @annastaver.bsky.social @ameliarobinson.bsky.social and a few more not on bluesky.

Society of Professional Journalists@spj-posts.bsky.social

🗓️ #SPJ26 is just around the corner! The countdown is on — now’s the time to register for SPJ’s biggest gathering of the year and make your plans to join us in Columbus. ➡️ Register, explore the current lineup and reserve your discounted hotel room today: spj26.org

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

11/ Very cool I did not know what Uhuru meant. Though DS9 is my favorite of the Trek series as it’s a little grittier. It still incorporates the wonder of exploration but not to the point of naïveté. Wow ironically TV execs almost dropped the ball until saved by Ball!

12/12 And all my usual caveats.

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

9/12 Meaning of life question – why did we break the rule of acronyms when we already had this NICE acronym?

10/12 Amateur #astronomy photography fans, I found this section very helpful if you are thinking about doing this yourself.

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

7/12 Ooh I love Emmy Noether! Check out this book (and my review of it a few days ago) to learn more about this. I actually read both of these somewhat simultaneously and I felt like they helped me understand each other.

8/12 I was thinking this the whole time and it’s casually mentioned in just a line. If a black hole a centimeter across has as much matter as the Earth, & they are very hard to see, & we can’t see inside them, isn’t that a more logical explanation for dark matter than invisible particles?

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

5/12 Lastly, I love the attitude that science is about questions and not answers. Physics isn’t just a regurgitation of facts. It’s a complex field that we are now just scratching the surface of understanding.

6/12 Though there are a few things that the book could have been explained better. For example, there’s a very detailed explanation about particle spin. But then they actually don’t spin? What?

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

3/12 for art as for science. And this book rather beautifully blends an appreciation for music and movies with an appreciation of motion and molecules.

4/12 Second, it’s awfully hard to find books with a global perspective. I thought this did a good job of branching out from solely American or European sources.

🧵1/12 Enjoyed this @chanda.blacksky.app book about the universe. A few highlights: #astronomy 🔭 #booksky 💙📚

2/12 Three things I really liked about this book. First, I have read many science books where are the author’s attitude is like: some people waste their time indulging in fiction about this subject, but I am actually furthering the knowledge of humanity! But Prescod-Weinstein has as much respect

nbcdfw.comDallas is using AI trash truck cameras to score your home and some homeowners are angryRecords show AI trash truck cameras flagged 21,000 Dallas properties and assigned blight scores. Some homeowners call it a money grab.

2 Sept

Dallas put cameras on trash trucks to identify possible property code violators with AI. @nbcdfw.com's @parksdigsin.bsky.social got the results through a public records act request: www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...

2 Sept

🧵1/6 Really enjoyed this @badphysicist.bsky.social book about a mathematician and her influential work. (Thank you @dingdingpeng.the100.ci for recommending!) A few highlights: #booksky #astronomy

5/ Noether’s personal life was as tragic as she was brilliant. She taught for decades without pay even after contributing vital research. She was forced to flee her home as Nazi forces purged Jewish academics.

6/ And all my usual caveats. In the acknowledgments, the author thanks everyone who has contributed to open source projects, which I thought was neat. I should do that more, too!

🧵1/6 Really enjoyed this @badphysicist.bsky.social book about a mathematician and her influential work. (Thank you @dingdingpeng.the100.ci for recommending!) A few highlights: #booksky #astronomy

3/6 I thought this book had one of the best explanations of general relativity I have come across. If you draw a line on a map, it looks like a straight line, but actually it is ever so slightly curved. The difference is imperceptible over short distances. But the bigger the distance, the bigger…

4/6 the problem. This is a simplification but basically: Newtonian physics works over short spans. But space-time is curved and you have to account for that over astronomical distances. This is not in the book, but it reminded me of Iowa’s attempt to have perfectly square counties. So close.

🧵1/6 Really enjoyed this @badphysicist.bsky.social book about a mathematician and her influential work. (Thank you @dingdingpeng.the100.ci for recommending!) A few highlights: #booksky #astronomy