The person or people who created VLC Player have done more to improve my quality of life than almost anyone else I can think of
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Nate Bowling (نيت بولينج)
@natebowling@scholar.social
mastodon 4.7.3Teaching & researching US Government and Comparative Politics at the American Community School, an embassy school in Abu Dhabi.
Maestro. Traveler. Sounder.
Host - Nerd Farmer Podcast, a civics and nerdery-centric interview show. Often on here hunting for show guests.
Author - Takes & Typos Newsletter
He/Him/Grumpy
1040 Followers
276 Following
18 Posts
Joined April 28, 2022
Personal:
Podcast:
Travelogue:
Newsletter:
I'm currently waiting out the war teaching remotely from Thailand. About half my students are still in Abu Dhabi, the remainder are as far west as California and as far east as Seoul.
Meanwhile, the messages from Washington are triumphant even braggadocious about victory.
But if we were winning, the embassy would be open and my students wouldn't be ducking out of class due to missile alerts.
Words by me.
https://buttondown.com/natebowling/archive/the-kings-speech/
Eli Cranor is a former college football quarterback turned Southern noir author. His book Broiler (2024) is social commentary about immigrant labor in the poultry industry wrapped in a crime novel.
I really, really enjoy Cranor's writing and think you'd likely enjoy his book and this (spoiler free) conversation I recorded with him.
https://nerdfarmpod.com/2026/08/02/on-broiler-a-crime-novel-and-social-commentary-eli-cranor-269/
I'm sometimes embarrassed it took a family tragedy to make me a disability advocate but it's better late than never.
Clears throat: trim your damn bushes and hedges!
Words by me.
https://buttondown.com/natebowling/archive/one-less-obstacle/
My time in the US is coming to a close. I'm headed back to a deeply uncertain situation in the Gulf, given the war. But that somehow still feels more "normal" and less chaotic than it feels here.
I keep coming back to the ecological concept of "shifting baseline syndrome": each generation mistakes the world it inherits for the way things have always been.
Anyone between the ages of 18 to 21 has spent their adolescence in a world in which options trading, sports betting, prediction markets, and crypto are commonplace activities.
That's a drastic departure from recent norms and we're all worse off for it.
Words by me.
https://buttondown.com/natebowling/archive/everything-is-gambling-now/
This weekend the US or Israel bombed two universities in Iran.
In retaliation Tehran is threatening to strike US or Israeli schools in the region.
This is obviously sub-optimal for my school community and other American schools in the region.
Words by me.
https://buttondown.com/natebowling/archive/the-war-they-didn-t-plan-for/
This is a dispatch from here in Abu Dhabi about the fallout from another US war of choice.
https://buttondown.com/natebowling/archive/another-american-war-of-choice/
Replying to
To be clear, this anecdote is meant to be read as a 1000% percent endorsement of the policy
Replying to
@Nshrubs@mstdn.social
It's an absolute no brainer and one of those things people somehow treat as unimaginable, even though lots of places are doing it successfully.
It's kinda like universal healthcare in America.
Replying to
@anne_twain@theblower.au
I think it would be grounds for removal for an executive in a functioning democracy. However, the US left that train station long ago.
Replying to
Replying to
@monkeyborg@triangletoot.party
Scammy and scummy corporate behavior
Replying to
@Rushkoff
Same. Did it today. Hadn't posted in over a year but held onto it for some reason.
Much to my chagrin, I spent much of the spring stuck in a drone war in the Middle East.
Since then I've been thinking a lot about drones.
Into my life walked @faineg@mstdn.social. They're a researcher and journalist on drone technology and policy.
This is a conversation with them about our emerging drone century.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6A9LoVxLwiRlP5TioUxxhA?si=-xtZmnqCRBO1amIrq_4ugQ
Replying to
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org of course it is, but when is the last time someone with Musk's level of power was held accountable by the legal system in the US? The best hope for accountability on this is the EU and European regulators.
Replying to
@derek@social.coop
If only there was an institution with power supreme to that of the states that controlled its own currency and could help fund renewable projects like this in CT and in other states