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Margarita Nafpaktitis

@nafpaktitism.bsky.social
908 followers 1.4K following 945 posts

Librarian by day. Even more maladroit in person! Sundry book and textile arts, cross-cultural gastronomica, and ever taller piles of things on every available surface. Always hoping for funny, but ending up at earnest. she/вона/она/ona/αυτή ❌👑 ❌🤖 ✅🗳️ ✅📖📝

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Reposted by Margarita Nafpaktitis
Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 14h
As always, when a devastating new report about book bans in America is published, I challenge you to think less about the most banned author — Stephen King is fine — and more about the banned authors who are trying to scrabble together a living from their art. pen.org/report/book-...
pen.org
A Spotlight on School Book Bans
Nearly 12,000 books were banned in public schools during the 2025-2026 school year, according to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans.
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Elaine Treharne @etreharne.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Ignorance comes at a cost. Everpure's 'stuck in the Dark Ages' stereotyping (on left) shows how little they know about the early provision of data (on the right). Why does ushering in technologies mean mocking those upon whose knowledge we build? Clearly, these companies need trained humanists!
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 03/10/2026
Higher ed leaders are doing "decline of public trust" discourse in order to avoid talking about all the things they've done to undermine their institutions, including exploiting contingent faculty labor, attacking student protest, and underfunding the humanities
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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
One thing that’s fun about the passage of time is the tantalizing prospect of becoming the “doyenne” of something
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A whole youtube channel just flipping page-by-page through 1970’s/80’s magazines and catalogs. No sound except the pages turning… Genius.
youtu.be
80s Seventeen Magazine | Style, Beauty & Real Teen Life Oct 1980
YouTube video by Magazine Break
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o faquir da dor @tropigotico.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
In which @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and @emilymbender.bsky.social remind us that the risk of AI is not "superintelligence gone rogue," but human reliance on flawed systems in high-stakes situations: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender
The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I'm attending No Kings's event, “No Kings: Vote Early Berkeley” on October 17th.
mobilize.us
No Kings: Vote Early Berkeley · No Kings
Rally at Berkeley Civic Center Park **We decide who represents us. We decide what comes next.** For more than a year, millions of people have come together to reject the idea that power belongs to k...
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Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I’ve had enough. It’s time we abolished leaf blowers.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s also really clear to me this week that the people telling us that AI will transform work…haven’t seen a lot of jobs where people work.
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Nissa Ren Cannon @nissaren.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
As a person obsessed with the ways Google no longer works, I enjoyed this sancho.bearblog.dev/google-weird...
sancho.bearblog.dev
When did Google get so f-ing weird?
I recently had an experience while doing a simple Google search that was so profoundly weird that it stopped me in my tracks. Understanding this Google se...
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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It’s going to be pretty fucked up when this baby yeti starts telling people to kill themselves.
Subway display ad for meta’s muse ai product billed as “ai that gets it done.” The mascot is a little smiling fuzzy white puppet guy.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Made a "puzzle box" yesterday (which ended up more as a shadow box, because no divots or beads, which were optional) at the SF Center for the Book.  The image is from the 1922 cover illustration  of Charlie Chaplin by Varvara Stepanova for a film journal in a very Soviet avant-garde style.
A 4x4x1.5" box with wraparound cover (gray bookcloth) and ribbon (red cotton) fasteners, plexiglass top.  Inside, the background and sides are white cardstock, with red concentric circles (also cardstock) glued to them. The foreground is a stylized figure of Charlie Chaplin, swinging forward from his cane like it's a trapeze.The cover illustration of "Kino-Fot" No. 3 (1922), by Varvara Stepanova. A black and white image, very much in the soviet avant-garde style, of Charlie Chaplin (hugely popular at the time) swinging forward while holding his cane like a trapeze bar.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 28/09/2026
In the logic of the people who think, e.g. that LLMs can factually think, they have the logic backwards: they have already decided they can think. So it's like already deciding the pyramids were built by aliens... you will under such a frame find things that seem to you to be "evidence".
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Sedmikráski (Daisies). Also directed by a woman. Also pre-1970.
youtu.be
DAISIES (Věra Chytilová, 1966) - 4K Restoration Re-release Trailer
YouTube video by JANUS
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
1. Backing into empty space is better than backing into occupied space. 2. You are backing into traffic either way. 3. Backing in takes longer & is less precise, greatly increasing interference with other drivers & parked cars. 4. You are not as good at it as you think. 5. We live in a society.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I'm afraid the Doomer discourse has persisted for another week (UN "AI" briefing, etc) so in case you missed this when we first put it out earlier in this bananas news cycle, I'm reposting it: buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social
buttondown.com
What To Read To Stay Grounded Amidst AI Doomerism
Our recommendations for the anxious and perplexed By: Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna and Decca Muldowney There’s a subculture within the “AI” industry that...
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Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?
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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.
A crowded broadsheet with way too many fonts. It says:
Forget ChatGPT Flyers
Say it with 
Broadsheets
Unlimited fonts
Stretch them
Or cram a really long sentence into one line for no good reason
No whitespace
Mix capital and lowercase
Pointing hands
(They're called manicules!)
Don't be left behind
Broadsheets are the future
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🧵
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Rachel Midura @rmidura.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
hot tip: instead of reading a thousand pages of commentary on Tacitus, you can read the censor's report and get all the juicy bits and sick #earlymodern burns 👀 🫖
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🤣
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In case you’re interested: I wrote about pneumatic tubes a long time ago :)
wordsinspace.net
Puffs of Air: Communicating by Vacuum
Words in Space is the work of Shannon Mattern.
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Belinda Archibong @belindaarch.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Me: Trying to quadruplecheck all my claims for this economic history paper, asks Google Google with AI: You are the reference and proceeds to reference all the archives I referenced with me as source Me: Back to slogging through the archives I go 😭
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
About 29% of our daily cognitive load could be eliminated if we lived in an opt-in only culture.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Also, Mart's relationship with Raffles the squirrel (from Tana French's "The Keeper") is absolutely correct:
"...But before I get stuck into that nonsense," Mart adds, on a different note, "I'm going to seal up them eaves tighter than a duck's arse, and see what that Raffled fucker makes of that." He holds out a hand for his backup frying pan. "D'you know what you oughta do? You oughta train them rooks of yours to hunt squirrels. They might as well come in --" 

Midway through turning back towards his front door, he freezes like a pointer dog, his whole body aimed at an oak tree in the corner of the yard. A gray squirrel is spreadea-
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Tana French does weather better than any other author I've read.
An early passage from Tana French's "The Keeper": To the bafflement of his neighbors, who consider bitching about the weather to be a national duty, Cal likes this time of year. Autumn is when Ardnakelty comes into its own. Its summers and winters are half-assed by Cal's standards, but autumn is meant for nuance and there this place is expert, layering the air with the smells of earth and wet leaves, shading the land with every subtlety of green and gold, coding its weather hints in the slightest twist of breeze or shift of cloud. The last geese, straggling southward, send up their forlorn clamor. In the main street of the village, the colors of the little mismatched houses are muted; the air smells of turf smoke, and tentative piano notes weave through the rain from behind some lace curtain where a kid is practicing. When Cal pushes the shop door open, the ding of the bell is blurred by the damp air.
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
I really believe that if Tana French wrote another Dublin Police Squad book it would fix me.
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The Distributed AI Research (DAIR) Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
@timnitgebru.blacksky.app and @emilymbender.bsky.social puncture the latest AI hype, addressing everything from "hacking" to "math breakthroughs" to "superhuman" machines (and possibly break a record for scare quote usage along the way). www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...
technologyreview.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype
Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Wonder how long it’ll be until profound mortification overtakes everyone involved (admins, department chairs, candidates)…
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Sarah @thebasementtan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell) stands on the stairs, raises her arms, and beckons Agnes Gooch to LIVE.
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The Humanities disciplynes are beautiful & useful by cause thei amplifye our humanitye. Undir the care offerid by focused & specialized researche & studye, workes of the present are given more momentum, and thryve. Artefacts of the past blossom ynto newe ydeas. The Humanityes care for the worlde.
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The Met: Cloisters @metcloisters.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Window www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/se…
Gift of George Blumenthal, 1911
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Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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Amanda Mull @amandamull.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I think the consumer economy is set up to dissuade people from considering the impact of any of the products available to them, and to make it difficult to understand what that impact is if they do. But in general, the best choice is one that you will use for a long time, whatever the material.
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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
And so, I think that part of what draws some tech workers into doom-coded strains of GenAI hype is an unacknowledged desire to recapture the sense that they're special people working on world-changing things. Doom narratives make their work seem important, puts their bosses in front of microphones.
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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The broadest strains of GenAI hype, beyond utility that these tools have for some tasks, fixate on promises that this technology is truly transformative. It all has echoes of '90s and '00s and '10s tech narratives - democratization, upheaval, disruption. Now, though, much of it is negatively coded.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
❣️❣️❣️
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I'm 😡 of being told I should take seriously these unserious people whose *only* skills are technical. Even worse, I hate living in a society that fetishizes, elevates, incentivizes, and materially rewards these very particular skills, despite their inverse correlation with other critical skills.
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Quinn Daedal @quinnanya.me · 16/09/2026
This manifesto for #MultilingualDH is wonderful, sharing here with link.
zenodo.org
Manifesto for Multilingual Digital Humanities
We, digital humanists of various linguistic backgrounds, have assembled the following manifesto based on our conviction that: 1.  Humanity is inherently multilingual.2.  As social beings, we constantl...
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026
Reading proofs from book & remembering what I wrote in 2015: "I am very concerned about the future of AI. Not because of the risk of rogue machines taking over. But because of the homogeneous, one-dimensional group of men who are currently involved in advancing the technology.”
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Brandon Walsh @walshbr.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Embedded Pedagogies is out! Available freely online through @openbookpublish.bsky.social and for purchase in a variety of different formats. It's a tough time to teach, and it's easy to feel helpless. In this book I argue for an expansive view of teaching and the work it can do in the world.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Would you believe I spent much of the day working on a sequel of sorts? As part of the process, I reread this, and I think it holds up. And more worthy of note: Of the six strategies I name, I think faculty are vastly more engaged in four of them than they were just one year ago.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
One of the people keeping me sane is @doctorow.pluralistic.net pluralistic.net/2026/09/16/b...
When an industry that is eating itself alive through "hyperscaling" demands that the government bless a conspiracy to halt competition and ban open source alternatives, you should be suspicious. When that industry is pursuing a venture that has lost more money than any other venture in human history, you should be very suspicious, especially when its "rogue AI hacking" story turns out to be a story about how a hacking tool did exactly what it was designed to do
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"Second Breakfast" @audreywatters.bsky.social keeping it 💯. 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/click-here-t...
But that is not how LLMs or chatbots function. "Good questions" aren't necessarily what elicits "good answers" – indeed no amount of "good questions" will consistently lead to a "good answer" from a probabilistic technology. Learning how to type "good questions" into the chatbot, teaching students to think of their inquiry as "prompt engineering” – these involve demanding students bend their thinking, in form and in content, to suit the interface, the machinery of surveillance and extraction.
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Can't decide -- shady or cheeky? Academy of American Poets offered this poem "for back to school" with a lesson plan. poets.org/poem/we-real... Brooks is an undisputed genius, the lesson plan is very good, but still...?
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Margarita Nafpaktitis @nafpaktitism.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
As of May 2026 Russian attacks had damaged or destroyed 1,783 cultural heritage sites & 2,540 cultural infrastructure facilities across Ukraine (incl. 141 museums & galleries & 879 libraries & dozens of theaters, concert halls & cinemas. Hundreds of cultural workers and artists were murdered.
tol.org
Rescuing Art From Ukraine’s War Zones - Transitions
Curators and local officials keep working to save what they can amid Russia’s deliberate strikes on cultural infrastructure and theft of countless artworks.
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Once again I’d like to say fuck your metadata. The industry is not learning to live with AI. It is in fact causing an existential crisis with regards to authorship. www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
publishersweekly.com
Publishing’s AI Reckoning
The industry is learning to live with the disruptive technology, for better and for worse.
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