iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

How sheepish is Europe? This map shows the distribution of sheep across Europe. Source: buff.ly/dSfHDOe

Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Did they not notice that Angie Craig got trounced in the primaries even though she had twice as much money as Peggy Flanagan, all because Craig voted for ICE funding? Or did they watch a conservative PAC torch $10 million and think "yeah, solid plan, let's do that again?" votelog.org/investigatio...

votelog.org

Minnesota Senate Primary 2026: All Funding — Craig vs. Flanagan | VoteLog

Complete FEC funding data for the 2026 Minnesota Democratic Senate primary between Angie Craig and Peggy Flanagan — campaign receipts, spending, super PAC donors, and every deduped independent expendi...

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It feels like the world is on fire, but sometimes that makes the little things feel more special and magical. Like this cool mushroom I found on a tree stump.

Dramatic-looking mushrooms grow on the cut top of a tree stump. They are flat, fan-shaped mushrooms with yellow-orange edges, a series of brownish-maroon stripes, and black centers with some areas of white near the "stem" where they attach to the tree stump.

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nick @unionnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

On the *same day* the Cornell Seven drugged and raped Jane Doe, Cornell banned four students (including the President of Cornell JVP) from campus for three years for nonviolent, pro-Palestine protests. The same Cornell officials let the rapists off with apology essays.

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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 26/09/2026

"Ever wonder why women over fifty become invisible? It’s not because society no longer values them; it’s because they’ve changed into superior lizard beings who can smell misogyny and then wedge themselves into a tight crevice until the threat passes." buff.ly/F8vQT1N

buff.ly

I Can’t Wait Until I Turn Fifty and Morph into a Lizard Person

“Ever wonder why women over fifty become invisible? It’s not because society no longer values them; it’s because they’ve changed into superior lizard beings ...

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Exactly. That's a lot of why MN's response to Metro Surge was so effective, I think. You looked around, you saw a need you could fill, and you filled it. You respected the work of people filling the needs you didn't. Because each need filled was one step closer to something better for all of us.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Pro Tip: when someone else fights the good fight on an issue you aren't super-passionate about or that doesn't impact you very much, it's both easier and more pleasant to be grateful for their work to benefit our society than it is to be mad that *your* passions aren't *their* priority.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It is genuinely scary thing to think about how fragile our bodies/health are. But it is beyond cruel (and incredibly commonplace) to be so deep in denial that you need to pretend that that disabled/chronically ill folks are simply not doing a good enough job at controlling their bodies.

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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Nobody is going to want to hear this, but a real risk we face, no matter who is president next, is that they will see no need to restore the rights lost or the executive power stolen in the last 10 years.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

In related news, we had the opposite happen for us -- we got an email from someone at Google Scholar because *our* bot-catchers were locking *them* out.

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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 12/09/2026

we tracked months of rent payments to an estimated 13,000 families. the expected cost of rehousing those families, had they entered eviction, would be north of $218 million dollars. keeping them housed cost around $38-40 million

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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 12/09/2026

i am incredibly excited to share our research about how paying people’s rent through mutual aid made an impact on minnesota this year we accidentally collected more data than anyone ever has for an effort like this, and can very seriously say we prevented an eviction bubble that everyone expected

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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 11/09/2026

we don’t teach young people short-term history, so it was weird when i realized that gen z had no idea that so many gen x and millennials spent our high school years protesting george w bush and not just because of the wars, but because mosques were being targeted and sikh men were being attacked

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Relevant to my professional interests, the Patriot Act also allowed the government to apply for court orders to produce library patron records -- so libraries stopped retaining historical use data for individual patrons. These days some libraries will keep it for you, but usually on an opt-in basis

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It also significantly expanded the federal government's ability to surveil and detain anybody they wanted in the name of anti-terrorism. It saw the beginning of mass surveillance programs (as we are seeing again with Flock and similar cameras).

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Post-9/11 legislation logistically revamped intelligence & immigration agencies, creating ICE in the process. It also explicitly sought to increase info-sharing & cooperation btw agencies (those who observed during Metro Surge might remember the alphabet soup of agencies that could appear at raids)

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It set in motion an increasingly xenophobic rhetoric that vilified an ever-growing number of people, and painted anyone who didn't participate as being anti-American and therefore anti-democratic -- remember the "freedom fries" moment? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom... for those who don't)

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I wasn't in a place at the time to fully grasp the breadth and depth of what was happening, but even my half-baked adolescent brain in a pretty conservative environment was pretty sure the Patriot Act and DHS weren't great ideas. Even at the time, I knew we were trading in freedoms for "security."

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This is absolutely true on both a logistical (governmental organization, policy) level and on a philosophical (political rhetoric, cultural discourse) level.

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Dr Florence H R Scott @florencehrscott.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Bayeux Tapestry good but massively upstaged by seeing a cat in a ruff right before

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I'm working on a task I've been struggling with & it's visible to colleagues (so embarassing), but they're lovely about it. As I'm waiting for my computer to do stuff, I take a peek at Bluesky and this is at the top of the TL. Just a perfect reminder that I also need to have patience with myself.

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beeps @beeps.gay · 08/09/2026

My accessible colour contrast checking tool now has a proper name: Battenburg. battenburg.app Cuz the icon I made for it looks like the cross section of a Battenburg cake and I like to give my projects fun names.

battenburg.app

Battenburg - WCAG contrast ratio color checker

A quick and simple tool for comparing an entire palette of colours for WCAG accessible contrast.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Awesome! I'm most familiar with nettle (we already have quite a few in our yard, and I went to a workshop from an MNHS Native American artist in residence). I would love it if you could forward anything, but I'll also check the Weaver's Guild website!

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

...we should talk about that fiber lecture! Did they talk about nettle? Any other plants?

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Actual names @actualnames.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Jesus Bitches Spouse Argentina, San Juan, Catholic Church Records, 1655-2013

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

This is how we do in Minnesota. We make art. We embrace kitsch and silliness. And (at least in my circles and especially since 2020) we don't shy away from uncomfortable truths, even if we come at them indirectly (that passive-aggressive vein runs deep). This manages to do all of that at once.

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LarryLegend @bwtrainer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

if someone tells you you don't need a union, you 100% need a union

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

For non-MN folks, a beloved part of the fair is a pond outside the DNR building, stocked with native fish. It's got signs so you can learn to identify them and there are always at least 3 random middle-aged men who will happily tell you which "have some good eatin' on 'em."

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 25/08/2026

a roof over every head food in our stomachs healthcare for all bodily autonomy freedom to love/marry who you want safety to be yourself freedom to worship, or to not clear air, water, soil safe roads accessibility in all spaces a living wage fair taxes to fund the public good our radical agenda

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Dr. Ben Mitchell @drlibraryben.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

207 now, and #NeuroGLAM2026 is today!

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tweety fish oh wow like a chimera or something spoooky @sifu.tweety.fish · 20/08/2026

I'm sorry but "a huge number of NYC cabs now are remaindered EVs running grey market software written by some dude in a garage" is the most cyberpunk thing I've ever heard

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Phil Salvador @philsalv.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Not only do digital things not last forever, digital objects are even more fragile than physical ones! You can put a piece of paper on a shelf for a century, but you probably can't read a Unity project from 10 years ago

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Lolol that tracks! Meanwhile I was out there learning about primogeniture and entails for funsies 😂 Related: I also know a weird amount about types of carriages and the economics/culture around tea.

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Stacey Burns @wentrogue.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Just when I thought I couldn’t love MN Secretary of State Steve Simon more

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

A thread in which my professional world of IP rights meets my personal world, namely my deep and abiding love for Regency romance novels in which a previously normal guy has to become a duke due to inheritance stuff and he absolutely hates it.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Another solid reason to follow @infinitescream.bsky.social -- they somehow always manage to show up at just the right spots in my timeline.

A post from a Bluesky user about an "expert witness" in a court case using ChatGPT to write a report from a foregone conclusion -- being that a company was not at fault for an explosion that killed 3 people. It is followed immediately by a well-placed scream into the void from the Endless Screaming bot.

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Quinn Daedal @quinnanya.me · 12/08/2026

I keep trying to tell people that a website is a pony and you either have to keep feeding and cleaning up after it or put it down and there's usually no magic option where someone else handles all that. Same goes for archives, but stakes & responsibility are heavier. Don't take it on lightly.

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Liam Davis Temple @liam2manynames.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Grateful to live in a place where over 80% of my neighbors are smart enough not vote for someone who helped unleash ICE on our community. Tonight’s results affirm what we all went through this year & sent a clear message that no matter how much money you spend on ads you can’t rewrite our history.

Senate
Precinct
Peggy%
Peggy
Angie
1-1
81.16%
336
75
1-2
81.84%
320
68
1-3
87.08%
337
45
1-4
86.59%
949
133
1-5
76.78%
721
211
1-6
77.72%
1043
287
1-7
80.69%
1128
253
1-8
77.32%
467
127
1-9
84.62%
864
149
1-10
75.32%
708
224
1-11
86.73%
686
100
Total

7559
1672

81.08%
17.93%

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

No utilikilts in my suburban precinct, but this is pretty much the vibe. Shoutout to the kid who really wanted to "vote" so we gave them a sample ballot to fill out, it absolutely made my day.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

So far I think my personal record at work was someone who picked up an email thread after 5 years of silence, and it was fine! I have a coworker who had someone come back 10+ years later. And it was fine!

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I only ask that if you get back to me months/years later, please do me a favor and assume that I remember nothing about what we were originally planning/doing. Because I probably don't.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

If I need something from someone who isn't responding I usually ping them a couple of times with a simplified ask (when possible) and/or outlining what I'll do in absence of an answer and just let it be after a few gentle pings. It's just not the right time, and more emails aren't going to fix that.

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Personally, I don't mind if you pick up an email thread months or even years later. It happens ALL THE TIME in archives. Sometimes you think you're ready to tackle something, but you find out (surprise!) it's way bigger & more complex & emotionally loaded than you originally thought. That's okay!

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spider ::::) @publicsexforest.golf · 01/08/2026

literally every time we've gotten our car stuck in the snow in the twin cities <3

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dr. e. katherine @actualkatherine.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I just want to say: ARCHIVISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Sarah Barsness @sarahbarsness.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Playing DnD for work purposes and it's rad

A table in the library makerspace covered in character sheets and dice

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Reposted by Sarah Barsness

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Just want to remind folks that this keeps happening. Burials of assumed-important ancients discovered to be women via genetic testing, after decades of them simply being assumed to be male. The patriarchy is incompatible with reality.

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