Michael Muller (he/him)
Michael Muller (he/him)
@michaelmuller.bsky.social

I do research at the hybrid intersection of HCI, AI, critical computing, and social justice. Co-chair of ACM SIGCHI CARES. Member of Fempower.tech, AccessSIGCHI. My posts do not reflect the views of my employer.

Business 35%
Computer science 14%

fingers of first light--
wake birds who wake leaves who
wake me

#haiku

Sometimes a #haiku is like a long-form #kenning. Perhaps

winter's teeth

or, reusing your image,

winter's fangs

or, as one of the other poets wrote,

frost bite

glinting hungrily
pine bough's icy open mouth--
winter's appetite

#haiku

"memories have teeth that become fangs"
--Nikita Gill @nikitagill.bsky.social
It’s the oldest story in the world. The Epstein Files reminded me of this piece I wrote on a devastating anniversary.

Reposted by Michael Müller

I'm a very proud Puerto Rican today 🇵🇷💙

Reposted by Michael Müller

Good discussion about the Willow Project & caribou from an Inupiaq leader. 2nd half of the show is about an Indigenous Russian activist who is facing jail time. The hesitancy of the guests to speak out against Russia, even tho they don't live there, is what I am worried will happen in the US.
Thursday, February 5, 2026 – Can caribou slow the drive for oil and mineral development in Alaska? » Native America Calling
An Iñupiaq village on Alaska’s North Slope is suing after the Trump administration removed protections for an area important to subsistence hunting. The suit by Nuiqsut Trilateral Inc. says the action...
www.nativeamericacalling.com

Reposted by Michael Müller

It’s the oldest story in the world. The Epstein Files reminded me of this piece I wrote on a devastating anniversary.

"Right now, Justice is down, but she’s not out. She needs help from people like Alex [Pretti], who are willing to risk their lives to lift her up because they believe in her.”
--Topsy, quoted in an article by Sara Barnes

mymodernmet.com/topsy-alex-p...
Street Artist’s Tribute to Alex Pretti, Nurse Killed by ICE, Becomes Public Vigil Near Seattle Hospitals
“Painting Alex as an ICU nurse, using his strength to uplift a downtrodden justice, felt both sad and hopeful to me.”
mymodernmet.com

Cornelius Eady quotes James Baldwin:

"The place in which I’ll fit
Will not exist
Until I make it.”.

and also writes, in his own voice:

"Who tried to change your name
To invisible?"

poets.org/poem/proof-2
Proof
You have to imagine it:Who said you were too dark/tooLarge? Too queer/too loud?Who said you were too poor/Too strange? Too fat?You have to imagine it:Who said you must keep quiet?Who heard your story,...
poets.org

"You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut"

--Mahogany L. Browne

poets.org/poem/my-face...
My face is an iteration, but the song in my belly is ancestral
The Slave Castle in Elmina isn’t as beautiful
poets.org

"Both hands empty
my right hand grabs a pen, the left holds memories
Although memories now yield to the pen
tears run ceaseless between the lines
a trampled dignity"

--Tsering Woeser (Fiona Sze-Lorrain, trans.)

wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
Only This Useless Poem—For Lobsang Tsepak - Words Without Borders
Tsering Woeser’s melancholic poem mourns the lives lost to the violence of an unfree Tibet.
wordswithoutborders.org

"we are beset with the ideology of maximising having while minimising doing."
--Rebecca Solnit

“the tyranny of the quantifiable”
--Rebecca Solnit

Reposted by Michael Müller

"I feel embarrassed when I say feminism and people do not think revolution in service of every living thing. I think I will spend my life trying to rectify this." - Lola Olufemi, Experiments in Imagining Otherwise
Experiments in Imagining Otherwise | LIBRARYSTACK∎
www.librarystack.org

Reposted by Michael Müller

My position at The Post was eliminated, along with many other journalists of color hired after the 2020 racial reckoning.
NEWS: The cuts were so severe that at least one department head asked to leave The Post rather than be included in the planning.

Peter Finn, The Post's international editor, requested that he be laid off once he learned about the scope of the cuts to his section.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...
Washington Post Begins Sweeping Layoffs
www.nytimes.com
always bears repeating that this is NOT a financial decision. jeff bezos is worth over 250 billion dollars. he can afford to lose many millions and never even notice it. this is, at its core, a political and personal decision by bezos to destroy the post
WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington Post says one-third of its staff across all departments, not just the newsroom, is being laid off.

Government-supported racist death squads were operating here since before the US was a country upstanderproject.org/films/bounty . $12,000 (in today's money) for a dead Native man. $6000 for a dead Native woman. ICE continues the colonial crimes on this continent. We have to stop this. All of us.
Bounty — Upstander Project
upstanderproject.org

In case this is useful -
I write the intrusive idea onto a notecard or into a device, and I promise myself that I will think about it in the morning. Sometimes the idea is actually important, but often it is not.

Good luck

Reposted by Michael Müller

February is a time to honor the generations of Black Americans who fought, and continue to fight, against injustice to achieve equal rights.

May we reflect on our nation’s past as we continue working to build a society that lives up to its democratic ideals.

Reposted by Michael Müller

1/x 🧵

ICE has booked at least 3,800 children +

(Drawing by a 5-year-old detained in Texas with her mother. “I am 5 years old” is written at the top. Lower down, next to stick figures, are the words “let us go.” You don't have to know your Bible to hear myriad echoes here, but phew, those too.)

Reposted by Michael Müller

A Métis artist is taking her loom-weaving kit on the road to teach students about an iconic staple in her ancestors’ wardrobe and promote school spirit.
Sash projects weave together school spirit, Métis culture
A Métis artist is taking her loom-weaving kit on the road to teach students about an iconic staple in her ancestors’ wardrobe and promote school spirit.
www.winnipegfreepress.com
Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.

Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

Reposted by Michael Müller

Reposted by Michael Müller

A Spokane school is reviving an ancestral language to build a community of n̓səl̓xčin̓ speakers.

Read the article on our website to learn more about how the Salish School of Spokane is working to accomplish this goal. buff.ly/S4stnx5

Reposted by Michael Müller

however, sadly, the paper pitches this as a "trust issue" but people are right now to trust this stuff! Also complete failure to recognise that tools need to be worthy of trust, not that people should give their trust more freely

Reposted by Michael Müller

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember the six million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis, as well as countless other victims.

We honor their lives by rejecting the evils of antisemitism, dehumanization, and authoritarian violence wherever they appear.

Never again means never again for anyone.

Reposted by Michael Müller

In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.

–Frank O’Hara, from Meditations in an Emergency (1957)
#everynightapoem #fragment
Bovino was forced out of Minnesota because the American people stood firm. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in below-freezing temps to peacefully defend their neighbors & freedoms.

We’ll keep fighting. No more deaths at the hands of rogue DHS agents.
Greg Bovino Loses His Job
The Border Patrol chief has been ousted from his role as “commander at large,” and will return to El Centro.
www.theatlantic.com
Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...