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Meghan Lafferty

@lafferty.bsky.social
747 followers 824 following 828 posts

Libraries, STEM (chemistry!), higher ed, MPLS. Pronouns: she/her/hers. 🐦: laffertylib; 🐘: livelaffertylove@mspsocial.net

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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 30/09/2026
BREAKING NEWS: “Do geese see God” is a palindrome
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Chelsea Harvey @chelseaeharvey.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
NEW - Conservative orgs are filing records requests by the dozens at public universities, demanding documents from climate researchers. @lesleyclark.bsky.social @corbinhiar.bsky.social & I have uncovered more than 100 requests, a campaign targets/allies say is an effort to derail climate litigation
politico.com
Inside the anti-climate campaign against researchers
A POLITICO investigation reveals more than 100 open records requests demanding documents from climate scientists nationwide.
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
Meredith Lowry @meredithlowry.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
THE PUBLIC SHOULD BE ABLE TO ACCESS PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. No one should have to verify their identity (much less send their ID information to a tech company) to access patents. <END RANT>
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
taylr @taylordahlin.com · 28/09/2026
mukhtar ibrahim, founder of the sahan journal, and ubah ali, a former WCCO reporter, have just launched the somali brief, an independent media outlet where somali americans can tell their own stories www.thesomalibrief.com
thesomalibrief.com
The Somali Brief
The Somali Brief is a digital-first media platform covering the stories shaping Somali American life.
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Dr. Jim Getz @jimgetz.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Televangelist meme of a man saying "Jesus, I see what you've done for other people, and I want that for me."
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia — the oldest natural history museum in the U.S. — has closed its doors after nearly 200 years 6abc.com/post/philade...
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Carrie Baldwin-SoRelle @carriehbs.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
the way people just blindly trust the Plagiarism Machines with everything they work on is so confusing to me, given the number of conversations I had with researchers who refused to consider open access because it was going to get them scooped
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease&nbsp;outbreak risks&nbsp;are ubiquitous&nbsp;worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Alexis @offalcute.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Anyone have recent info about names/gender markers on trans folks‘ passport renewals? There was a lot of news around this when EOs came thru last yr & I remember a few well-known trans ppl were impacted (Hunter Schaeffer, maybe?), but I’m trying to find out if there’s been a discernible pattern.
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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
THREAD. Did you know that Minneapolis police deployed 101 personnel to a 7-person vigil held one morning at Renee Good's memorial? The cops generated $1.92 million in overtime cash for themselves.
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 21/09/2026
Every big tech company is attempting to normalize some form of always listening, recording, and/or watching. It’s the only way to sell a product that people largely don’t want but companies are heavily invested in.
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Librarian by Day 🏳️‍🌈 @librarianbyday.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Beloved friend and colleague JJ Pionke, librarian, library and information studies educator, and advocate for people with disabilities, has died. jj-pionke-memorial.org/in-loving-me... #skybrarians #medlibs
jj-pionke-memorial.org
In Loving Memory
JJ Pionke 1978 – 2026 JJ Pionke, librarian, library and information studies educator, and advocate for people with disabilities, has died. JJ was born in suburban Chicago to Wayne and Rita Pi…
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NSF has reduced the research budget for all atmospheric, ocean, and earth sciences by ~80%. 80%! A lot of us will not be conducting new research or training new students for the foreseeable future.
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
David Hughes @usernameerror.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Clarivate gave me a quote yesterday for a product that was 297% higher in price than the quote they gave me for the same product in 2023. For comparison something I have from one of their competitors has risen in cost 20% since 2022.
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
Internet Archive @archive.org · 08/09/2026
Knitting machine punch cards are a living form of computing history. 🧶💾 In "Punch Card Knitting," Nichole Misako Nomura explores how these binary codes are still used today, and the challenges of preserving them. 📚 Read it in VANISHING CULTURE, FREE: archive.org/details/vani...
What can knitting machines teach us about the history of computing?"They're an important piece of computing history—and crucially, one of the few that isn't only history because a broad community of people, on- and off-line, are still sharing knowledge on how to hack, restore, and use "Knitting punch cards are an important part of any feminist computing history, and surprisingly resilient." Quote graphic on a dark greenish-black background with light gray text and pixel-pattern bars above and below. Attribution reads Nichole Misako Nomura, Digital Humanities Scholar, with the Vanishing Culture logo."Working with knitting machine punch cards reminds me that the cloud is a metaphor, and lets me own and manipulate my code in a way I find both challenging and creatively liberating." Quote graphic on a light gray background with a dark green vertical bar and pixel-pattern accents on the left edge. Attribution reads Nichole Misako Nomura, Digital Humanities Scholar, with the Vanishing Culture logo.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 08/09/2026
The purpose of these gadgets is to amass data about the user. That they do anything else is mostly irrelevant.
bloomberg.com
Wearable Companies Gear Up With AI Watching, Listening, Learning
The wearable industry is giving itself an AI makeover that it hopes you like and trust
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Star Tribune Going Out @stribgoingout.startribune.com · 03/09/2026
Threading the 2026 MN State Fair 4-H Llama and Alpaca costume contest contestants here because you deserve it 😇
Llama and owner dressed up in a Mamma Mia theme 
Llama and owner dressed up in back to school theme Llama and owner dressed up in curious George theme Llama and owner dressed up as thing 1 and thing 2
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 03/09/2026
has everyone gone insane or what www.alilleybrinker.com/blog/1passwo...
alilleybrinker.com
1Password Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe — Andrew Lilley Brinker
1Password has committed $300,000 to Omarchy. This is unacceptable and must be rescinded.
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David Brauer @dbrauer.net · 28/08/2026
Sucks that the Univ of Minnesota libraries are closed to the public. If the past several years have taught us anything, it’s that knowledge is necessary to fighting stupid bad fascists. So here’s a helpful doc on how to assist good U people who want knowledge freed: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
UMN Libraries Public Access
THE CONTEXT After slowly closing parts of campus off to the public over a handful of years, in January of 2026 amidst Operation Metro Surge, the University of Minnesota’s upper administration decided...
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
missing context for stories like these is that Canadian universities are in a crisis of their own -- including McGill, which recently laid dozens of staff and faculty off this isn't about Canada's enthusiasm for bettering the human condition; it's about poaching stars while casualizing the rest
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Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
this Mpls early voting map is a downer, given that Craig is supposedly +2 in the polls — the low turnout wards are where ICE abducted our neighbors who she doomed with her votes Remedy: vote early and help with AUG 11 GOTV in the low turnout wards vote.minneapolismn.gov/results-data...
Map of Minneapolis early voter turnout (both by mail and in-person). The poorer, more diverse neighborhoods have lower turnout so far.
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silas denver 🍎 @sweatermuppet.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
completely real question i had to answer for the hospital im getting top surgery at
a surgery form. the question being asked is "what are your pronouns?" the only answers are yes or no.
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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
If you can squeeze out a little for Soraya Nadia McDonald, please do. So she can get over this hump. @soraya.press
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 28/07/2026
Israel is giving Trump's former campaign manager millions of dollars to fill the internet with pro-Israel articles written by AI, not so that anyone will actually read them, but so that *LLMs will train on them* & regurgitate their perspective. This is the future of the information environment.
dropsitenews.com
Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It's Working.
Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel, with the goal of infiltrating artificial intelligence.
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
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Steph Noell (they/them) @librarianstebbs.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
AI companies are ensuring rare books are about to get a whole lot rarer. futurism.com/artificial-i...
futurism.com
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale, Even If Almost No Copies Remain
AI companies are quietly obtaining rare books, ingesting their contents, and then destroying them -- even if they're exceedingly rare.
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 27/07/2026
So, what happens if I'm a parent and I know that my kid needs highly paid teachers, a library full of books with diverse characters, trans-inclusive bathrooms and extracurriculars, and a curriculum unpacking topics like systemic racism, colonial oppression, economic inequality, and climate change?
Facebook post from the U.S. Department of Education, saying "Parents know best" with a picture of a cartoon White, two-parent, heteronormative family, featuring a dad in a tie and sweater vest and a mom in a dress and pearls.
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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 21/07/2026
AI companies are buying, scanning, and destroying older books to improve their models' training data & avoid problems of "model collapse" (wherein LLMs choke on their own slop). One of their suppliers is Better World Books, which partners with public libraries. www.404media.co/ai-companies...
404media.co
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
You could get mad about dead senator discourse *or* you could enjoy this video of sea lions who have retaken an island with a decommissioned lighthouse off the coast of Oregon and now use the staircase as a giant slide.
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 12/07/2026
Amy Klobuchar’s eulogy for Lindsey Graham was 390 words long. This was 390 more words than she has said in support of trans people
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Why are car-centric transport systems so difficult to undo? Because automobiles represent the dominance of private property over public space. In this @urbancyclinginstitute.org essay, I look to history to uncover how we got here. #StealingCars
urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com
Stealing Cars: Property, Automobility, and the Colonial Crisis of Car Culture
Long Ride | Historian John Munro delves into the past in order to understand how the primacy of private property shapes mobility hierarchies in the present
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Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net · 08/07/2026
if you only looked at the use of “working class” by people who opine on the democratic party’s “need to win back the working class” you would never suspect that every historically feminized profession is working-class
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dr. thrasher, an american writer in ex(archia)(xile) @thrasherxy.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
film — “When the Sun Rooster Came Home to Roost: Europe Must End Racist Ideas About Air Conditioning!”
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Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 24/06/2026
Oh now Thiel is talking about the "reproducibility crisis" in science, amazing Wait these guys are all myna birds, aren't they. They hear a few words said by someone else and they just grab them and repeat them without understanding. Now I see why they love LLMs so much.
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Sandy Ernest Allen @sandyernestallen.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
🧵 … Hey all … I’m in search of story sources who’d want to interview for an upcoming feature about trans folks who’ve moved from red states to blue ones, especially since the last presidential election. Signal boosts appreciated.
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Bill Corbett @billcorbett.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
A friend of mine is trying to help an immigrant family hurt by the ICE raids in Minnesota this year. Please join me in donating if you’re able to spare a few dollars. If not, just boosting the Go Fund Me helps too! Thank you. gofund.me/982017cea
gofund.me
Donate to Help Jenny's Family Build a Better Future, organized by Pearce Bunting
Hi friends, my name is Pearce Bunting and back in late January of 2026, durin… Pearce Bunting needs your support for Help Jenny's Family Build a Better Future
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Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 15/06/2026
You don't have to answer the door for the Feds. Do not voluntarily talk to the Feds. If they have a warrant signed by an actual judge, then they can do precisely what the warrant says. But DO NOT TALK TO THE FEDS. Do not answer the door. If you're arrested, your only words are "I want a lawyer."
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Kyle Tran Myhre @guante.info · 25/05/2026
An opportunity to support someone who gives so much to this city; please donate and/or share:
chuffed.org
Queer Motherhood Legal Support
My name is Junauda Petrus. I am a community member, novelist, soul sweetener and poet laureate of Minneapolis. But my most favorite, transformative, magical and joyous thing I have ever got to be was ...
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Reposted by Meghan Lafferty
NPR @npr.org · 13/06/2026
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new sunscreen ingredient in the U.S. for the first time in 20 years. It's been used for decades in Europe and Asia. n.pr/4opPFx7
n.pr
4 things to know about the new sunscreen ingredient the FDA approved
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new sunscreen ingredient in the U.S. for the first time in 20 years. It's been used for decades in Europe and Asia.
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Elle Ess @viamarsala18.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
If you want to attend the annual DFL feminist caucus meeting, the registration deadline is TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT according to an email sent at 12:55pm today
DFL Feminist Caucus
12:55 PM
to DFL, Party, bcc: me v
Hello DFL Feminist Caucus Members!
We will hold our 2026 Annual Meeting virtually on June 22, 2026 at 7pm. Head to our website Annual Meeting page to register and see the agenda details.
Annual Meeting Registration and Info
All are welcome to attend our meeting, we are excited to introduce you to our endorsed candidates for the MN Senate!
Please note that only active members will be allowed to vote on caucus business, including the election of directors, and the Vice Chair #2 position. All those who activate their membership by filling out the membership form and / or paying membership dues by 11:59pm tonight, June 12, 2026 will be allowed to vote at the annual meeting.
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JustHere4Coffee @justhere4coffee.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
While Pink News has the best headline, GoMag has the best pictures, i.e. pictures of the actual ex-nuns, not just random stock photos:
gomag.com
They Met In A Convent, Now They’re Married - GO Magazine
“If there is a Cupid in the world, ours was God,” Francilia Costa said.
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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I suspected there was a reason the Bosnian players weren't singing along to the anthem and it turns out it has no official lyrics because they can't come up with a set of lyrics the country's various ethnic groups agree upon
Following the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War in the mid-1990s, Bosnian state symbols were mandated to be inclusive of the country's main ethnic groups and not make any overt references to a specific one. The Bosnian national anthem that was in use at the time was considered to be insufficiently inclusive towards all of the country's ethnic groups and thus the United Nations, which oversaw the country as part of the Dayton Agreement, decided to replace it with an instrumental one, which was considered by it to be more inclusive. In the two decades since its inception, various attempts have been made to adopt lyrics for it, most recently in 2018, but due to political disagreements, none have been successful as yet.
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Jake Berg @jacobsberg.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Some small measure of justice is about to happen, happy Friday.
youtube.com
LIVE: See Donald Trump’s name come off the Kennedy Center as it happens
YouTube video by MS NOW
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Michael Okun @michael-okun.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇
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Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
How do you control unruly academics? Through their trustees, of course. This right-wing group has a national network to push their agendas on universities across the USA. @aaup.org www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...
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Meghan Lafferty @lafferty.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I think she's a front runner for worst alum of my high school in terms of people harmed by her actions
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Matt Baume 🏳️‍🌈 @mattbaume.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Happy Pride to this Caravaggio self-portrait that made one man so gay he had to go to the hospital
Caravaggio's Baccus painting, featuring a lush fruity spread and leaves bedecking a pasty twink who only works out his armsArticle screenshot that says:

The most extreme examples of
Stendhal syndrome share a sensation of
self-fragmentation. Magherini
describes the case of a 53-year-old
German man who was hospitalized
after repeatedly viewing Caravaggio's
Bacchus at Uffizi Gallery. The patient
felt "an attraction closer and closer to
an intimate sexual arousal of
ambiguous nature that invaded him
and made him feel good and bad."
Unmoored and distressed, he sought
medical attention. After treating the
subject's initial episode, Magherini
writes that he came to recognize his
latent homosexuality. Another case...
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Eric Rauchway @rauchway.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
It's okay to use citation software. It's okay not to. Using citation software isn't even a little bit like using Gen AI to write, read, or summarize (citation software is deterministic: same inputs, same outputs). These are actually easy things to know and understand and avoid Discourse about.
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