iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

If it is, it’s in extremely poor taste. (But I don’t think it is, for many reasons.)

Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Cornell admin has been increasingly toxic toward its own faculty for decades. The current president is an absolute monster to almost everyone, and I think the admin is still essentially retaliating against, well, everyone, over the fact that the grad students were able to unionize recently.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

But they really want the faculty to question whether they can choose *not* to.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I truly think this is a ploy to try to keep Cornell’s faculty from asserting itself. Or considering unionization. No one at the top actually believes that campus is full of faculty members diligently working away on non-teaching tasks. Some might choose to, sure.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The American understanding of what labor is has been tied so thoroughly to manufacturing, trades, and the industrial revolution that we can really be manipulated into believing that some work doesn’t count as work.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

University administration needs - desperately needs - its own faculty to believe they are not workers. That they are not laborers. Because universities, Cornell included, have eroded faculty supports and power structures. But they need faculty to believe otherwise.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I’m still thinking about this. It’s so bizarre to me, but I think there’s something about how the US defines labor that is really being exploited here, namely the assumption that having a four-year degree means you are not part of the “labor class”. It’s an us-versus-them mentality.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I just… what? Who thought this was a good idea?

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Hey Cornell faculty. Sweeties. Honeybunches. Y’all need a union. Because what the hell is this?!

Screenshot of an email message sent at 9:33am on Labor Day from Cornell University’s Dean of Faculty Office. It opens with “Dear Colleagues, Labor Day is today, which Cornell observes by cancelling classes, thereby giving the faculty a nearly uninterrupted day in which to work.”

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Dr Abolish ICE @pwr2dppl.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

does anyone know how to learn slowly? does anyone know how to learn? does anyone know?

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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hey, guys, when the librarians get pissed about the destruction of books, it’s time to put those listening ears on. Because we are very comfortable with the idea that books are tools that can be retired. What’s happening right now is not that.

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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

404media.co

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

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Dr. Laci Brock 🪐 @stellerarts.com · 15/06/2026

I wanted my Cat’s Paw Nebula to capture the essence of image processing & how we study the universe in different wavelengths of light. Visible light painted using only black & white is combined with colorized infrared from JWST (the rectangles). Prints & the original available next week! #SciArt

24x24” oil painting on easel of a nebula in black and white with 5 vertical rectangles in colors of orange, light blue, and browns

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 13/06/2026

They built the scaffolding too high in an attempt to reach God Now God has made it impossible to communicate So they're just still going off their last orders and building more scaffolding The crowd is telling them to take the name down but tragically they don't understand anymore

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

At any rate if I know anyone on here who has knowledge of Epic Systems MyChart implementations, I’d love to chat. My community’s entire health system has collapsed and there are a bunch a fraudulent documents in the MyChart system - NY state if that helps.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Ok I know search engines (and particularly google, which I am avoiding) have been deteriorating for a while now, but I feel like every platform I know has completely collapsed in that past week. Searches that worked a month ago return complete garbage now. Anyone else noticing this?

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Ellen Prager, PhD @elprager.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Excellent piece about second highest tsunami on record in Alaska fjord 2025, link to climate change, and increased risks to cruise ships and tourists in the region. Based on Science article led by Daniel Shugar, Univ. Calgary (DOI: 10.1126/science.aec3187). 🧪 eos.org/articles/the...

eos.org

The Forensics of a Skyscraper-Sized Tsunami - Eos

A landslide in Tracy Arm Fjord in Alaska created the second-largest tsunami on record. A new analysis links this abrupt event to the retreat of a glacier and, ultimately, to climate change.

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 02/05/2026

For no reason at all the email for cornell alumni affairs is alumniaffairs@cornell.edu

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Yeah I’m coming out of social media retirement for this one. This man is an absolute monster. But so are some of the trustees who were/are his staunchest supporters. Cornell needs to clean house.

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Shane Liesegang, SJ (シェーン|شَيْن|เชน) @sjml.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

What's amazing is that in the 80+ years since WW2, simply opposing every war, knowing nothing else about it, has shown it will become the correct, accepted position over time. It's the political stance equivalent of investing in the S&P 500: safe, a little boring maybe, but outlasts all others.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

People were always flabbergasted when they found out a math degree but hated arithmetic. There are whole fields of math that don’t use numbers at all, really. Those are the ones I like the most.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Same. That attitude was and is so gross.

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Andy Rivkin @asrivkin.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: We try to keep fresh fruit around, though it can be challenging out of season, yeah. CHOTNIER: So the icebox, obviously, would keep things from going bad as quickly. WCW: Exactly, yes. C: Is the food communal? Do you just grab whatever's in there? WCW: Isaac, look.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I shattered my left shoulder by tripping over my own left foot, trying to stumble and then tripping over my own RIGHT foot. Went airborne, landed on my outstretched arm. This happened in a state park, on father’s day. Soooo many people saw it all.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Almost exactly the same, except it was during a school museum trip. I think of that piece a lot.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Reached one year cancer free. Went to Iceland, accidentally witnessed an erupting volcano. Learned to solder.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

This book this was based on is pretty great. Actual murder mystery, not for kids really.

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Fen, moss goblin @fluidfyre.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

'Unfurl', 2023, acrylics on 20x24-inch canvas. Part of a small series of macro ostrich fern paintings. #ArtAdventCalendar

A large realistic acrylic painting of a macro look at an unfurling fern leaf. A large curving spine is dappled brilliant blue through turqoise to dark green, a reflective white teal highlighting the top to mimic light. The same colours are featured in the other spines that curve down from the main stem, each one covered in tiny leaf lobes. Darker shadows in navy greens give contrast, as do the stippling all over the stems to give the impression of fine hairs. The leaf stems on the right are less detailed and make it seem out of focus.

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 23/10/2025

Remember those times i said we were headed for an epistemic crisis because bad people were gonna use deepfakes to make propaganda & conspiracy theories & destabilize consensus reality-making & how the central paradigm of "generative AI" enables, encourages, & was indeed built on this premise? Yeah.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

I’m so jealous. I almost took a “living Latin” course before the program was shut down. In high school I took Japanese (there was a Japanese company that purchased a factory in our tiny southern town).

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Same. I had a friend once comment that he was surprised I was taking a French class, and not something more interesting/obscure. I duly showed him all my research into tutoring for Gaelic and the Cayuga language.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

For what it’s worth, I started following you and ultimately subscribed to your fantastic newsletter because of the brouhaha. ❤️

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Note: we were *very* far away and left when the wind shifted in our direction. The gas cloud is extremely toxic!

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Without planning on it at all, we caught part of the eruption in the Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland a few days ago. Also saw some of the lava scars from last year. What an otherworldly place.

Volcanic eruption viewable from the road. Channels of lava cooling to the left of the active crater.

Second vantage point of the active eruption

First vantage point of the eruption on our way back from the Blue Lagoon.

Tongues of crumbly lava reaching across a destroyed road near the Blue Lagoon.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

I met some puffins yesterday! They are much smaller than I expected, though just about as cute as I expected. They all had adult coloring, but many of them seemed to be rather new to adulthood :)

A tired looking puffin tucking its beak under a wing, but still keeping an eye on the sky.

A puffin family just outside of a cave nest.

A puffin family watching humans watch them.

A moment of reassurance - two of the puffins seemed young and unsure despite having adult coloring.

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Brad Proctor @bdproctor.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

I just have to say, as a historian of the Reconstruction-era Klan, that masked paramilitaries are very bad and masked vigilantes are even worse and there are causal links between the two and none of this is good for democracy.

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julie gourinchas @literaryfey.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

To groups like ICE/police this is a feature not a bug.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

I get that, I really do. But I grew up in a part of the country where unauthorized paramilitary groups flourished, and I think it’s important to both recognize and fight back against state sponsored violence *as well as* the fact that these groups often aim to infiltrate “official” organizations.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

That may be true but there were also guys there wearing patches with white supremacist-associated iconography. And my point about anyone being able to buy badges and patches online still stands - how many of them were actually employed by the agencies they were claiming to represent?

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

Like literally anyone can buy tactical gear online. Patches too.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

At this point if I see a guy in tactical gear of any kind my first thought is white supremacist paramilitary, and “official” patches are so easy to obtain online that it doesn’t matter to me if they’ve got them.

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Saramoira Shields @mathematigal.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

I’ve been watching all the videos out of Minneapolis and LA and at this point I’m wondering if the majority of armed dudes in masks wearing “ICE” gear are even employed by them. Like ICE should be abolished *and also* most of these guys are just claiming to be them in order to terrorize people.

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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Read my brilliant pal Matthew.

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Annalena Kofler @annalenakofler.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Two LIGO sites are essential for independently validating observed gravitational wave signals. Without the second site, we can't constrain the sky position well enough for electromagnetic follow-up searches of binary neutron star mergers. This would be devastating for the whole field ...

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