James A. Hodges

🚨 New article out now in Internet Histories! 🌊 A History of water quality data on the web, from 1997-2025 🤔 How do we know what's in our water? Through web-based data dashboards, which have changed a LOT in the last 20 years ➡️ Free eprints available now! www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KS8KK...

When someone becomes a Professional Contrarian, do they realize it’s happening?

Neighbor’s pit bull is wearing a Shen Yun t-shirt

The goal is training sheep to be reliant on wolves' tools www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

Friday the 13th is a crappy movie that spawned some good sequels. Halloween is a perfect movie that spawned absolutely awful sequels.

Colleges everywhere are addicted hiring new bosses. I need a management genius to explain why. Is it because the economic model relies more on seeking grants than teaching classes? www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2026/10/16/u...

Rutgers mentioned 🥳 www.nj.com/news/2026/10...

Haven’t seen the capoeira guy or the voguing guy at my gym lately, not sure what this means for gentrification

The intro to reggae singer Yabby You’s 1975 “Man Who Does the Work” sounds remarkably similar to the startup music from Pac-Man (1980). Is it a coincidence? (Note that you need to hear the bassline on Yabby’s track to get the full effect, so phone speakers aren’t ideal)

Halloween thru Easter are the “candy holidays” The candy holidays also contain the “obligation holidays” (Thanksgiving thru New Year’s, arguably extending to Valentine’s)

I love living in New York City. Where else could I walk outside and find that my entire block smells like a litter box?

One room in this conference center randomly smells like cigarettes. Secret room where employees hide to rip cigs? Or perhaps a time portal to 30 years ago

🌎Just arrived in Toronto for #4S2026! 🌊Come by tomorrow (Weds) for my talk (w/ @robarcand.bsky.social) on the history of surf prediction 🌎Part of a three-session panel “Environment as Information, Information as Environment”

"The Turing Test is one of the worst technologies in computing. It’s so fraudulent... it promises something like truth, but uses mimesis, which since Plato has been defined as an anti-truth technology" New interview w/ Alexander Galloway diffractionscollective.com/2026/09/20/a...

“Mutton isn’t as tasty as pork: Why the sheep should all trust me, a wolf”

I honestly think we could reduce vaccine hesitancy by emphasizing their protein content

Starting very shortly! Let's talk about paradata, aka processual metadata.

We should question the construction of decade-based periodization in historical narratives. Y2K and 9/11 make more sense in the middle of 1995-2005 than they do at the end (or just outside) of 1990-2000

This is coming up soon! I'm honored as always to discuss my collaboration with the late Ciaran Trace

Terms that would go hard in a new Sokal hoax today: surface n-dimensional intelligence lift token

My main recollection from 9/11/01 was seeing smoke over the horizon in my hometown 50mi away at the Jersey shore. But I always doubted myself-- was I just imagining it? Today I can confirm, that plume blew due south and was visible from space. Image from CBS17 in Raleigh NC, shared via FB today

Shared this "Art of DJing" article with my students because it's a fun way to discuss knowledge organization: ra.co/features/3392 Upon review, I learned something new: Avalon Emerson appears to be left-handed. One of us, the rarified 10%

”Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property… which is alleged to be the ground of personal freedom… There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is destroying it daily.”

I can’t wait to talk about my forthcoming book at UIUC next month: #PsychedelicSoftware 📀🌀 Revised manuscript went off to press yesterday! 🥳

This train conductor seems to have a tasteful reverb and delay combo on his voice???

New form of sportwashing just dropped, now with 24hr video www.surfline.com/surf-news/ev...

finished revisions on my book manuscript last night 🥳

The big reason indie sleaze 1.0 could never happen today is that downtown parties are all sponsored by financialized junk like private equity and crypto, instead of Pabst Blue Ribbon

Can't wait! I'll be talking about processual metadata as a key to documenting the function of complex systems (like LLMs).

I don’t understand why any swim trunks would have an elastic waistband, ever. They will fall down if you actually swim, or even if you put anything in the pockets.

SJSU mentioned! 🥳 (from Benjamin Breen's "Tripping on Utopia)

i don't know how yet, but i assume eric adams has something to do with this too www.reuters.com/world/protes...

I went to a new “listening bar” in downtown Vancouver last night. I’ve now been to several “listening bars” around North America. They are generally not cool, no matter how hard they try to convince you otherwise

No matter the format, recording music has always carried environmental costs. That’s to say nothing of the carbon emissions that an international concert tour can generate. @robarcand.bsky.social considers a new book on climate and culture.

Bumping this post because I had fun working on revisions today

"No human musician could stay in time counting as slowly as these whales do."

Not actually surprising for anyone who paid attention when it launched dronexl.co/2026/06/09/p...

"No one knows anymore whether a door opens to the imaginary or to the real. We are all unhinged.” -Bernhard Siegert

new blog post on my website: www.jameshodges.net/blog/coming-... on substack: jameshodges.substack.com/p/coming-soo...

It is the last day of my Preserving Information Resources through Media Archaeology class and students are reading @jameshodges.net new article on historicizing data from Surfrider. The article is 🔥 or perhaps more accurately 🌊. Either way, it is worth your time! www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Wearing wired earbuds like a scarf

Returned to the site of my PhD for an IMLS symposium on provenance

Greetings from Silicon Valley! Enjoy the funny dance now because these things will probably be committing atrocities in a year or two 🥳