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Jason Heppler

@jasonheppler.org
4.7K followers 1.1K following 1.8K posts

Historian. Writer. Small farmer. Nebraskan. Outdoorsman. Here for the books. And dogs. GBR. Senior dev @ rrchnm.org | Adjunct prof @ GMU | jasonheppler.org

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Reposted by Jason Heppler
High Country News @highcountrynews.org · 21h
When people thought infrastructure could solve the arid West’s water problems. buff.ly/5UgYj2d
buff.ly
The massive infrastructure projects of the 1960s wouldn’t work today - High Country News
When people thought infrastructure could solve the arid West’s water problems.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 29/09/2026
Here's @jmotis.bsky.social and I on the RRCHNM blog describing how we used Claude to transcribe over 28,000 documents on our Papers of the War Department project.
rrchnm.org
“The Most [Undecipherable] Difficulties”: Sustaining and Transcribing the Papers of the War Department
Using LLMs to transcribe historical documents.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 27/09/2026
Terrific interview by Ethan Iverson with Deborah Gordon, owner of the Village Vanguard. Iverson's comment about Bill Evans stood out to me: "those that saw Bill Evans live said the sound he got out the piano was really extraordinary and that the overall ambience was utterly seductive.“
iverson.substack.com
Interview with Deborah Gordon
about the new book starring our favorite club, the Village Vanguard
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 25/09/2026
Arthur Carhart warning about western stock interests undermining the public lands in 1947.
A determined group of western livestock interests is advocating for legislative proposals that would allow them to buy millions of acres of publicly-owned land in the western United States.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 25/09/2026
Dan Sinker: “All the things that made social media so vital a decade or two ago have fallen apart, replaced by algorithms, engagement hacks, and endless, bottomless, screaming.“ I wonder if this is also driving many of us back to blogging again. Long live the blog.
dansinker.com
What If We Just Stopped? | dansinker.com
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 23/09/2026
I'm in the middle of Brinkley's biography of FDR and was just thinking about a modern CCC.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 21/09/2026
For the @rrchnm.bsky.social blog, I wrote about how programmatic agents have helped with the sustainability of our legacy digital history projects.
rrchnm.org
Agents and APIs: Sustaining Projects by Rebuilding Them
The best way to preserve an old database-driven website turns out to be not to scrape it at all.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
scott b. weingart @scottbot.net · 22/09/2026
Join my team! Help us figure out how to be as careful stewards of today's born-digital archives of state as we've been for physical archives over the last 200 years. Seeking experience in digital archives/collections/preservation, or related cultural heritage work. Due 10/6. Up to $91k.
jobs.virginia.gov
Born-Digital Collections Coordinator #00220 - Richmond, Virginia, United States
Title: Born-Digital Collections Coordinator #00220 State Role Title: Library Specialist III Hiring Range: Commensurate with experience up to $91,080 Pay Band: 5 Agency: The Library of Virginia Locatio...
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 21/09/2026
For the @rrchnm.bsky.social blog, I wrote about how programmatic agents have helped with the sustainability of our legacy digital history projects.
rrchnm.org
Agents and APIs: Sustaining Projects by Rebuilding Them
The best way to preserve an old database-driven website turns out to be not to scrape it at all.
011
Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 16/09/2026
Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry gone in such a short span.
nytimes.com
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81
Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 16/09/2026
Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry gone in such a short span.
nytimes.com
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81
Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.
0111
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 16/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Homer Simpson Gets Free Gas
ALT: Homer Simpson Gets Free Gas
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 12/09/2026
what
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Everywhere you look real knowledge is being fenced off, but slop is always available for free
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 09/09/2026
Our present-day conflicts over public lands have long histories. Efforts to privatize them have been around for nearly as long as public lands have been a thing. Here’s an example from 1947.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 07/09/2026
Morning at the lake.
A fishing rod extends over a calm lake under a clear blue sky.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Abbey @abbeyarletto.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This is what living next door to a 30 megawatt data center sounds like.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Elizabeth Drummond @eadhistory.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
"AI chatbots present a problem for the teaching of history not only because they hallucinate, nor simply because they threaten to make even conscientious students’ writing less original, but because they thwart the process that might lead students toward original interpretations in the first place."
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 05/09/2026
I went kayaking and I’m smoking a brisket and it’s Husker game day and we’re making kvæfjordkake. Good way to start my next rotation around the sun.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 05/09/2026
Birthday kayak.
A calm lake scene is captured from a kayak with a paddle partially visible, under a clear blue sky with trees along the shoreline.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Rough Draft vs Final Draft
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
NPS Cambot @nps-cambot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin Live-stream Webcam, Yellowstone National Park #NPS #NationalParkService #Yellowstone
Lion geyser erupts and emits steam in the upper geyser basin. A boardwalk meanders through the basin
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This is obscene. No one in the GOP will say a word about it.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
King Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Sobering, insightful essay on how chatbots mangle historical primary sources. 🗃 www.hnn.us/article/ai-i...
hnn.us
AI Is an Anti-Primary Source Machine
Real voices from the past are threatened by chatbots designed to amplify — and ultimately become — the loudest voices in the room.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 03/09/2026
8yo: how much will you get paid to write your book Me: uh, I don't know. Authors are paid in royalties so each time someone buys the book they get like $2 8yo: that seems like a bad deal Me: I dunno, what if my book sells a million copies? How much would I make? 8yo: well that's not gonna happen
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 02/09/2026
Are there any #digitalhumanities or #digitalhistory projects out there that have looked into the x402 protocol?
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 03/09/2026
Finished reading: Nature’s Laboratory by Elizabeth Grennan Browning 📚
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 03/09/2026
Finished reading: Apple in China by Patrick McGee 📚
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 02/09/2026
Are there any #digitalhumanities or #digitalhistory projects out there that have looked into the x402 protocol?
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Joe Schiller @jschiller.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
And I'm pleased when I can say "He literally wrote the book on that!" www.oupress.com/978080619374...
oupress.com
Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism - University of Oklahoma Press
In the half century after World War II, California’s Santa Clara Valley transformed from a rolling landscape of fields and orchards into the nation’s mos...
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Lawrence Culver @lawrencecphd.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“Scientists have long warned the climate crisis will create stronger extremes and destructive shifts between wet and dry…extreme events will not just increase–they are more likely to overlap, causing calamity and testing the limits of the nation’s resilience.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
How intense rains in the Grand Canyon turned into a deadly disaster
Flash flooding in Arizona tourist destination was probably triggered by compounding climate factors, such as drought and warming in Pacific Ocean
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
"I begin with the proposition that eating is an agricultural act."
emergencemagazine.org
The Pleasures of Eating – Wendell Berry
Chef and food activist Alice Waters writes a new introduction to Wendell Berry’s 1989 essay “The Pleasures of Eating”.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Robert Rubsam @robrubsam.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
If you need a primer on Wendell Berry, Jed Purdy wrote a fantastic essay in @thenation.com about the man in all his complications: www.thenation.com/article/arch...
thenation.com
Wendell Berry’s Lifelong Dissent
At the core of both his writing and activism is the insight that we can’t imagine a harmonious future without confronting the destruction in our past.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Barn Raiser @barnraiser.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"I know that those of us who speak for the country (“rural America”) must never give up." — Wendell Berry barnraisingmedia.com/wendell-berr...
barnraisingmedia.com
Wendell Berry: What New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman Gets Wrong About Rural America
If Mr. Krugman was serious about having good ideas about rural America, he would get to know the people who live there.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
What a tough week. Rest easy, Wendell.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
The only grey area I care about in the Christmas Carol is Jacob and Robert Marley in the best adaptation of the novel, The Muppets Christmas Carol
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Le Cagle @lecagle.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I will forever admire Wendell Berry's insistence on living his values through to their natural conclusions and relentlessly ripping through layers of politeness and habit to hold up for judgment those who do not.
Questionnaire
by Wendell Berry

How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy

In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security;
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
The film, which stars Johnny Depp, will examine Pennywise's charitable life.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
What a tough week. Rest easy, Wendell.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
The only grey area I care about in the Christmas Carol is Jacob and Robert Marley in the best adaptation of the novel, The Muppets Christmas Carol
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 01/09/2026
nytimes.com
Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92 (Gift Article)
A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Diana Butler Bass @dianabutlerbass.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Rest in the peace of wild things, Wendell. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything, every word. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/u...
nytimes.com
Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92 (Gift Article)
A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Micah @rincewind.run · 31/08/2026
the infuriating thing about all of the crises going on right now is that they were completely predictable the second they announced they were gutting food safety monitoring, everyone knew it would lead to a bunch of contamination and recalls! we could have just not done it! it's all so stupid
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 30/08/2026
I’m pleased to be back in Made by History, on how resistance to high-tech development in Silicon Valley can inform how resistance to data centers can build durable campaigns.
inquirer.com
The 1960s blueprint for fighting against data centers
Today's battles over data centers echo the ones fought in California in the 1950s and 1960s over building high tech industrial campuses.
12312
Reposted by Jason Heppler
Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 30/08/2026
If you're interested in the politics of Silicon Valley, read this about procurement and "patriotic tech warriors" (meant complimentarily) by former Apple VP and head of Defense Innovation Unit instead of ten more pieces about Thiel's musings on the Antichrist. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
America’s Missing Military Revolution
Why Washington still risks losing the tech race.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Dan Lamothe @danlamothe.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian government roles. They include Rob Maness, Kurt Schlicter and Tom Anderson, better known as Cynical Publius. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
washingtonpost.com
Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles
Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.
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Reposted by Jason Heppler
Chris Steller @chrissteller.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“Inside you are two wolves. They both love blueberries.”
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 31/08/2026
In honor of Dolly Parton, my Southern-inspired meal of braised short ribs, slow cooked potatoes and green beans, coleslaw, buttermilk biscuits, sweet tea, and banana pudding.
A table is set with a variety of dishes including biscuits, coleslaw, cooked green beans, roasted meat, a bottle of honey, and a bowl of creamy dessert.A plate contains cooked ribs, green beans, roasted potatoes, coleslaw, and a biscuit.A layered dessert consisting of sliced bananas, cream, and biscuits is shown in a clear container.
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Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · 30/08/2026
I’m pleased to be back in Made by History, on how resistance to high-tech development in Silicon Valley can inform how resistance to data centers can build durable campaigns.
inquirer.com
The 1960s blueprint for fighting against data centers
Today's battles over data centers echo the ones fought in California in the 1950s and 1960s over building high tech industrial campuses.
12312