Deb Chachra

@debcha

Engineering professor. Infrastructure, nature, education, language, design, intersections. She/her/hers. All enthusiasm is 100% genuine. I block mansplainers.

Cambridge, MA
tinyletter.com/metafoundry
Joined September 2008
2,696 Photos and videos Photos and videos

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  1. Pinned Tweet
    22 Mar 2019

    I wrote "Gratitude for Invisible Systems" for the Atlantic, to capture the idea that these systems are how we take care of each other at scale:

    3 replies 57 retweets 219 likes
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  2. Retweeted
    8 hours ago

    BREAKING: DEPORTATION MORATORIUM TO START JANUARY 22

    34 replies 754 retweets 2,478 likes
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  3. 18 hours ago

    Reminded, as I am during all formal events, of enduring power and longevity of the Great Male Renunciation:

    13 retweets 30 likes
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  4. 18 hours ago

    Tacos from the truck on the corner for lunch, everyone! 🌮

    2 retweets 45 likes
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  5. 19 hours ago

    I am so glad that none of this speech will become a meme, a catchphrase, a rallying cry, a t-shirt, or indelibly etched on our brains.

    1 retweet 35 likes
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  6. 19 hours ago

    Woody Guthrie, who wrote "This Land is Your Land," with his guitar.

    4 replies 203 retweets 565 likes
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  7. Retweeted
    23 hours ago

    Fascinated to read about survivorship bias. You don’t reinforce the most damaged parts of the planes that make it back, you reinforce the least damaged. Whose are the voices we’re not hearing right now because they didn’t ‘make it back’ to tell their story?

    Whenever I hear someone say, “we did it! we survived the last four years!”, all I can think of is this.
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    17 retweets 44 likes
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  8. Retweeted
    Jan 20

    Mi utopía favorita es una Europa cosida por trenes de alta velocidad ultra cómodos que nos permiten cruzar el continente, disfrutando un viaje más lento pero mucho más agradable, emitiendo 6 veces menos C02 que en avión

    7 replies 14 retweets 61 likes
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  9. Retweeted
    Jan 20

    THE GREEN BEAR, Lucy Qinnuayuak and Eegyvudluk Pootoogook, 1961

    30 retweets 122 likes
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  10. Retweeted
    Jan 19
    Replying to

    Saw this on the same scroll as

    Again and again.
    19 retweets 221 likes
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  11. Retweeted
    Jan 19

    Of all the ceremonies, this brought this incorrigible medievalist to tears. Requiem aeternum dona eis.

    0:27
    The funeral bells of the National Cathedral have started ringing. They’ll toll 400 times, each representing 1,000 victims of covid-19
    5 replies 47 retweets 124 likes
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  12. Jan 19

    Closely related: “You Are Witness to a Crime,” Debra Levine’s essay connecting this pandemic to an earlier one.

    51 retweets 451 likes
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  13. Jan 19

    [If that diagram is unfamiliar: ]

    10 replies 27 retweets 500 likes
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  14. Jan 19

    Whenever I hear someone say, “we did it! we survived the last four years!”, all I can think of is this.

    59 replies 2,581 retweets 12,874 likes
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  15. Jan 19

    [hyper-local friends, I plan to be at Cambridge City Hall, if you’d like to join me]

    1 reply
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  16. Jan 19

    US friends, if you missed it, there is, *finally*, a nationwide time to collectively honor and mourn the many lives lost to COVID-19. Please join me in lighting a candle and taking a moment for the at 5:30pm, local time.

    1 reply 12 retweets 26 likes
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  17. Jan 19

    Maker and materials nerds: you may also find the to be an enjoyable distraction.

    Round one is complete and the people have chosen: BSI Cyanacrylate Gel. E6000 gained a lot of ground overnight but it was not enough.
    5 retweets 12 likes
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  18. Retweeted
    Jan 19

    Word of the Day ᐅᖃᐅᓯᓕᕆᔾᔪᑎᕗᑦ ᐅᓪᓗᒥ ᕿᓄᐃᓵᕐᓂᖅ/ᐅᑕᖅᑭᑎᐊᕐᓂᖅ Qinuisaarniq/Utaqqittiarniq Qi-nu-i-saar-niq/U-taq-qit-ti-ar-niq Patience (Image: Tim Pitsiulak’s Sedna's Repose) Listen here: ᓈᓚᒃᓯᐅᒃ ᐅᕙᓂ:

    34 retweets 91 likes
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  19. Retweeted
    Jan 18

    Remember back in the summer when hospital data got moved from CDC to HHS and everything was chaos for a bit? Here’s the behind-the-scenes story on what led to that—and the improbable story of the really good dataset that emerged from it.

    This looks like a 4k word story about a database, but it's really about how the government *can* build capacity to battle the pandemic. We didn't know which hospitals were in trouble. Now, we do. How'd that happen?
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    3 replies 32 retweets 90 likes
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  20. Retweeted
    Jan 19

    Relatedly, this is more and more how I think of the Biden administration:

    In 2016, wrote that if you genuinely want to see change in the world, then you're not voting for a friend, or even a champion--you're voting for the better *enemy*. For leaders that will be more likely to move in the directions you want them to go. Not your buddy.
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    3 retweets 9 likes
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  21. Jan 19

    USians! ’s THE HOUSE ON VESPER SANDS is finally out here and you should get it, and also this free convo (today at noon PT, thanks !) will be fascinating and funny, possibly also sweary.

    Today! Come and join us
    1 reply 2 likes
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