Albert S. Fu
#Sociology prof that plays video games & studies the #BuiltEnvironment. Taiwanese American in PA. Irvine + Binghamton alum. Author of Risky Cities: The Physical and Fiscal Nature of Disaster Capitalism tinyurl.com/jkvbxcn4 Views are my own
- Cool. Professional wrestler Raven mentioned the looking glass self during his interview with Chris Van Vliet. Pour one for Cooley for being cool.
- I added The Origins of Totalitarianism to my audiobook listening list. It's been a while since I've engaged with some Arendt. The irony is that it's on Audible. That's late capitalism for you.
- Every year during my annual physical, my doctor asks how the state system is doing. Thankfully, he does it after blood pressure and other tests are complete.
- I should have invested in high quality "No Blood for Oil" signs decades ago. I'd be able to dig them out for use every few years.
- I never really liked unleashing disasters on my cities. SimCity probably shaped a lot of urbanists in both good and bad ways. For me city building games, including parts of Civilization, certainly made me think about the role of infrastructure and systems in the real world.
- I thought the Stranger Things conclusion was generally satisfying except for the poor use of Linda Hamilton's character.
- Pictures of high school and college papers from 1990s. AI-generation do not know the struggle of working hard on a paper only to get a B-.
- Except for the Berlin part, basically my world. Oh and my wife demands I take her to this doner place every time we visit family in California.
- Not coincidentally I clicked on a NY Times article on the ideal age to retire. Who knows what higher Ed will look like in 3, 5, 10, much less 20 years.
- I wish students understood that they might be citing the acquaintance or friend of the professor. So when they include AI hallucinations, it totally stands out.
- Honestly, I'm not feeling the first few episodes of new Stranger Things. It feels redundant. I'm ready for all the loose ends to be resolved. Please don't go out like Lost
- Higher ed is clearly under a disingenuous assault. Yet it long had an accountability problem. Pres & coach salaries, Title IX, Varsity Blues, outsourcing, etc. If we survive, there must be some change. The easiest step is to clarify the mission of R1s and everyone else to the general population.
- this, from @kevinbaker.bsky.social, is a better analysis of the intersection between LLMs and academic science than 98% of what's out there.
- My 9 y/o daughter and I are bonding watching #SNME and John Cena'a farewell.
- Soon some of these fields will only exist at elite institutions
- It's finals week. I don't have access to faculty areas of banner eg. grades. This is the state of academic tech. Head over to social media and reddit. You'll see it's not only your institution. Such is tech in ed. We are dependent on systems which extract public monies for mediocre fixes.
- It's complicated, but driving down retention will drive down quality of service. That just furthers the agenda of anti-public transit lobby.
- People compare AI to a calculator. This is a different animal. Calculators don't generate formulas, at least you need to know which formula to use and its applicability. I know some educators are trying to keep human decision-making important, but the problem is that students are skipping the "why."
- This is one of the reasons the phrase "shared governance" kind of bothers me. Universities are often gerrymandered. I'd prefer phrasing with words such as participatory or stakeholder.
- Something I've been thinking about is how higher ed. isn't a typical hierarchical bureaucracy. Lots of committees with psuedo-decision making power distributes accountability in such a way that it's hard to pinpoint.
- The rich already found ways to get richer despite Mamdani's election. Some are ignoring the fact that capital always finds ways to profit even in social democratic systems.
- History repeats itself 100 years later: in the 1920s California tried to ban wood shingle roofs after major fires like the one in Berkeley. However, the law was quickly repealed due to the lumber lobby and fans of the craftsman bungalow pushing back. www.fastcompany.com/91423034/as-...
- Educators who are fully embracing AI without serious skepticism are essentially saying the following things: F- the environment. F- labor/human rights. F- the intellectual property of your colleagues. Readings below 👇 1/4
-
View full thread
- Watched Freakier Friday with extended family over the Thanksgiving weekend. The immigration scene certainly hit different given recent news.
- American politics is like a bad TV show that keeps jumping the shark
- It's national. It's reading. McLuhan & Postman saw this coming. Long form reading improve writing & analytical skills. They aren't doing it. This is "bear on a treadmill." I fully admit to skimming & reading reviews (written by other academics). But #CheatGPT skips that.
- Yet for about a week Android Auto refused to take my voice navigation requests. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/t...
- This is already bad, let's hope the land isn't sold off to private developers. www.post-gazette.com/news/educati...
- [Not loaded yet]
- Sad 😭
- The fact that this was published says a lot about our world right now. people.com/depression-e...
- Daughter and Turkish wife are sticking the meat in mantou 饅頭 steamed buns. Fusion!
- Social media is either great or horrible. I'm trying out a homemade döner kebab trick I saw. Let's see how this turns out. If it fails, the lentil soup is good to go
- Rally for higher ed. in Philly w/ my @apscuf.org union siblings.
- Making changes to your syllabus, even a little, results in a butterfly effect. Ripples mess up due dates and other things. Ugh
- [Not loaded yet]
- Happy 27th as a reader since LoP days.
- It looks like I need to completely revise my final paper assignment due to the government shutdown. Of course, this is minor compared to all the workers who aren't being paid and are threatened with being fired.
- I'm enjoying a new project buzz. Excited about my research right now. I've been digging up archival material, putting together flow charts, putting data into Excel, etc. It's all fun, because it's all new.
- "She told the student newspaper that Ursinus took steps... to better align academics with experiential learning and career prep." - If every admin is saying the same thing, how do they compete?
- This is kind of hilarious. In the 1950s, drywall producer National Gypsum used Muzak to ease "worker tension." Despite the claims, it didn't stop their factory workers and miners from striking.
- Going through old labor/union publications for my book project. On my head I'm saying f- Gompers repeatedly for the anti-Chinese stuff that keeps popping up.
- Still experimenting with Zotero + Obsidian. I'm finding the Obsidian is a great place to organize archival material and data.
- [Not loaded yet]
- You can import references and notes from Zotero to Obsidian, which is helpful with additional note taking/brainstorming where you want to see the relationship between items
- Reading some old school: Baran and Sweezy, Braverman, Chandler, Gouldner, etc.
- 9 y/o just asked me if I "properly quoted people in my book," because "they have a copyright" (Fu, 2025). She insisted I quote her correctly for this post.
- I only met Kent once in person. Yet, it really shaped how I reconcile the history of AANHPI exclusion in pockets of labor and the power unions can bring to the community. I even had a draft email to Kent that sadly did not get sent before his passing. Rest in power.
- What is also sad about this is we are only a few degrees of separation via Benita Roth who also recently passed.
- Today, 9 y/o read an excerpt from CLR James, On Dialectics. Of course, I had to explain dialectics to her. Yes, I'm starting her early.
