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sara m. b. simon

@sarambsimon.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.2K following 1.6K posts

phd student in us history (quantification & govt data, esp. vital statistics) • former newsroom software engineer & data journalist • she/her • chicago smbsimon.github.io

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Reposted by sara m. b. simon
whet moser @whetmoser.com · 03/10/2026
'That was the last time she heard from him. David Sopys, 46, died 31 years after his own father died at the same age from the heat. “He was a ‘95 heat stroke victim,” Tanja Sopys said about their father. ”So he died the same way — from the heat.”' jesus
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 11h
lately have been encountering a lot of "feedback will be provided at least 24 hours prior" and "discussion questions must be posted at least 24 hours prior" for my packed monday schedule and can i just say, as a person with a life and family outside of grad school, spending sundays like this sucks
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 03/10/2026
A truly stunning set of children’s books for the book historian or printmaker in your life. We just got a full set for the library @skeuomorphpress.org
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aelang.bsky.social @aelang.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
kudos to Peter Bentley at the excellent makerlab at @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social who put me onto the Open Press Project openpressproject.com where you can get your own 3D-printable model
openpressproject.com
Open Press Project – The 3D-printed printing press
Use printmaking for your art whenever and wherever you want. This little 3D-printed press fits into your backpack and gives you the ability to print outside, on vacation or in your living room! We are...
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Alisa Bokulich @alisabokulich.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
History Dept @ University of Texas Austin invites applications for a TT assistant professor, specializing in modern history of science, technology, & medicine. Committee will consider applicants who specialize in any scientific practice in any part of the world since 1600. Deadline Nov 30 #HPS
networks.h-net.org
The University of Texas at Austin - Assistant Professor (TT) – History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | H-Net
Preferred qualifications include research and teaching records that will complement one or more of the department’s strengths including: African History, Asian History, British History, Digital Humanities, Latin American History, U.S. History, and related fields.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 02/10/2026
NEW: We’re reporters, not teachers. We have no business running a private school. But to show you just how easy it is to start one, we decided to test the process ourselves.
propublica.org
Almost Anyone Can Start a Private School. We Put This to the Test.
Our reporting has shown how easily people — some with questionable backgrounds — have founded their own private schools in barns, strip malls and other places. That led us to an experiment: If the hur...
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Robert Loerzel @robertloerzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Just announced: The Uptown Theatre has been added to the Chicago Architecture Center's Open House Chicago. "Visitors will enter though the main lobby and take a short guided tour of the auditorium. No photography will be permitted." 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 17 and 18.
openhousechicago.org
Uptown Theatre
The Uptown Theatre is the crown jewel of theater developers Balaban and Katz and renowned movie house architects Rapp and Rapp. Built in 1925, the Uptown is the largest freestanding theater in North A...
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Something that's surprisingly useful is asking my students to draw their research papers. They make all sorts of interesting diagrams and some always say they find it clarifying in unexpected ways (realizing a side point is the main point kind of thing). Low tech, done in class, no outsourcing.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 30/09/2026
My cofounder Rich and I are making a bold attempt to become the Car Talk of software (enterprise or not, AI or not) which means we need YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CODE AND CAREER QUESTIONS (anonymous is fine). docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Ask Aboard
On The Aboard Podcast, Rich Ziade and Paul Ford discuss how AI is changing software development—and everything else. We're introducing a new segment, "Ask Aboard," where listeners send in questions ...
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Rachel Cole @rmartincole.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
With both the Cubs and the White Sox playing in the MLB Wild Card Series today, here's a baseball-themed cover from CTA Transit News, the CTA's employee newsletter, from March 1968. www.instagram.com/p/Dd674z8Grkw/
Cover of March 1968 CTA Transit News, with a baseball-themed illustration of a runner sliding into base with the baseman about to catch the ball. An inset photo shows signs reading "BASE BALL WRIGLEY FIELD TODAY" and "BASE BALL COMISKEY PARK TODAY."
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Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My department is hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor of Public History! I am on the committee so please let me know if you have questions and please feel free to share! Job ID 303951. campus.kennesaw.edu/faculty-staf...
campus.kennesaw.edu
Careers - Human Resources
find your next great career opportunity by finding jobs through the Department of Human Resources at Kennesaw State University!
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Rachel Cole @rmartincole.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Found while flipping through CTA Transit News v. 38 no. 9, 1985 today: the product model for the classic "Mr. Clean" campaign was an employee of the @chicagocta.bsky.social. We've digitized these volumes and you can flip through them yourself in the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/ctat...
Article from CTA Transit News 1985 v.38 no.9 titled "Mr. Clean" with a photo of the classic Mr. Clean ad campaign and a headshot of the model, CTA employee Bob Ryan. Text describes Ryan's role in the ad campaign and as a special projects employee for the CTA.
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
couldn't choose one, here's my list: - black in blues, imani perry - plantation goods, seth rockman - in the shadow of liberty, ana raquel minian - african pharmakon, nana osei quarshie - the tablet computer, elizabeth r. petrick
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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Come to think of it, Bluesky is like the Chicago or Philly or Pittsburgh of social media. Clout chasers don't tend to seek it out, and they don't fit in when they try, but that's primarily because we're not all that relevant to a wide audience, which we must make peace with
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Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
2023: White Sox lose 101 games 2024: White Sox lose 121 games 2025: White Sox lose 102 games 2026:
Pope Leo in a White Sox hat.
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Liz Covart @lizcovart.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’m teaching a workshop this weekend about how historians research. #Skystorians, what are your favorite or most important research tips and tricks? What is your favorite method for finding archives and archival material?
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
i have a blanket rule with myself to avoid the daily because michael barbaro used to steal my team's candy but as a new mom, i made an exception to listen to this episode and wow, am i now angry
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It is breathtaking. Like many things these days it is hard, but necessary, to figure what is a continuity and what is a rupture. EdTech has always been a private sector parasite feeding off the public sector. The rupture is AI EdTech is experimenting on the rich instead of the poor.
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Emily Grubert @gruberte.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I think I’ve underestimated how radical it is to be an “actually, we don’t need more data” guy in the age of AI
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
we passed!
baby on a tumble mat staring at a semi-circle of u.s. history books
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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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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
alma mater code school slack is currently the site of a heated discussion about the struggle to find dev jobs at companies that aren't all in on AI. folks talking seriously about pivoting to trades like plumbing. everything comes full circle
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Call for Abstracts — "Software Libraries: Following the Infrastructures of Code" — exploring software libraries as sociotechnical objects, the political economy and platformization of libraries, libraries as epistemic and normative infrastructures, and creative and critical (re)appropriation!
computationalculture.net
CFPs & Events – Computational Culture
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Seth Rockman @sethrockman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is a big one: Brown University is searching for the next director of the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Please help us identify excellent candidates to lead this signature program into the future. Please write me with ideas; please share in your networks; please apply.
networks.h-net.org
Brown University - Professor and Director of the Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice | H-Net
1. Academic Accomplishment. We seek a scholar with a strong scholarly record, including excellence in both research and teaching, appropriate for appointment at the level of full professor in a social science, humanities, or arts department at Brown.
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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Thirty years ago we as a country committed to digital technological exceptionalism—the idea that innovation linked to digital technologies is so vital to our economy that regulation would thwart growth & imperil the nation’s welfare. And now we’re here paying to mine data from our friends for Apple.
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Charlotte Garden @charlottegarden.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This feels like a Labor Day gift that is specifically for me: newly digitized & posted back editions of the Guild Reporter, going back to its founding in 1933 newsguild.org/guild-report...
newsguild.org
Guild Reporter Archives | The NewsGuild - TNG-CWA
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professor tools for commensality (red scare edition) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 07/09/2026
them: we need you to get with the program, be expert tech-embracers me: i have a literal PhD in something literally called Science & Technology Studies and i actually think this tech is bad them: not like that (it's almost funny to me. *almost*)
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/09/2026
We know how to teach books in the age of AI: small classes, close reading, research-engaged learning (which is how you ’let students see you struggle’). The issue is nobody will hire and pay the requisite # of faculty to offer this.
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Prof. Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I flunked algebra and hated math, but this story was inspiring, and a testament to working collaboratively. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/s...
nytimes.com
The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice (Gift Article)
Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
relevant to everyone in chicago this week
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Erin Dwyer aka Ginger Is A Construct @erindwyer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This is framed as a crucial intervention for students, and it is, but this is also a GENIUS way to retain and attract educators to NYC, especially in an era of teacher shortages. So much of my job in the past five years has become redesigning assignments to be “AI proof” or policing for AI use…
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MoMA Paintings and Sculpture @moma.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
László Moholy-Nagy, EM 2 (Telephone Picture), 1923 botfrens.com/collections/14377/cont…
Gift of Philip Johnson in memory of Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
emily mariko in ray-ban meta glasses, doing some sponcon while making blackberry cobbler, and wow are the normies in the instagram comments pissed
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Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"Garry isn’t accepting new doctoral students, because he can’t guarantee funding their work, and he’s spent the past two years nudging his researchers into jobs elsewhere."
bloomberg.com
A Top Virus Scientist Stared Down Covid Lab-Leak Proponents. Now His Life’s Work Is at Stake
The battle over Covid’s origins has come for Bob Garry, who’s faced some of the world’s deadliest viral threats.
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
writing about complicated and tragic cause-of-death data in pennsylvania used to be my literal job, and let me just say, i'm relieved it's not anymore
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
the year is 2026. our miss america, in her final days of being miss america, just posted a gleeful photo with tom cruise
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Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Tonight on #FridayNightZillow, the ultimate fantasy mansion for a model train maven. A MASSIVE *outdoor* train set + a HUGE indoor train set with a model of Chicago, inside its own 'train station' building, and much more! 10K sf on 10 acres w/ a private lake. $2.25M. www.zillow.com/homedetails/...
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Cameron Blevins @cblevins.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This MIT report on AI and teaching is rightfully getting lots of praise: aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/. There's a ton to like, but it exemplifies a trend I see on Bluesky around AI + pedagogy conversations: they tend to leave out online learning entirely.
Screenshot of MIT report on AI and education:
3.1.4. Build structured in-person social learning
into subjects
Because Al tools are disrupting longstanding patterns of social learning at MIT, every subject should include a regular in-person social component (not just sitting in lecture or recitation and quietly taking notes). Instructors should intentionally structure such interactions to achieve desired learning objectives and maintain quality, even in large classes.
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Rainesford Stauffer @rainesford.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
For a story: Is there a teenager in your life who would be up for keeping a screentime diary & being interviewed about it? The goal is to capture a week in teenagers' digital lives and center their experiences. Happy to answer questions. We will protect privacy! rainesford.alexandra@gmail.com or DM
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Stanford University Press @stanfordpress.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
In New World Calculation, Molly Farrell (she/her) tells the story of colonial America as a testing ground for new ways of conceptualizing numbers, uncovering overlooked forms of numerical thinking. ow.ly/ZptB50ZEXVb #ReadUP
Book cover of New World Calculation: The Making of Numbers in Colonial America by Molly Farrell
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Rachel Cole @rmartincole.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Chicago Scene, board game from 1977. The Board Game Geek description is amazing: "A variation of Monopoly. Players choose to be a different type of Chicago power broker. They can be a union leader, a lawyer, a politician, or the Chairman of the Democratic Party." boardgamegeek.com/image/790782...
boardgamegeek.com
Chicago Scene
Close up of Box Cover
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I wrote about Dolly Parton in my latest @nytopinion.nytimes.com column. Thank you. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Greatest Story Dolly Parton Ever Wrote Was Herself (Gift Article)
She didn’t see herself as a saint; she identified as something we needed even more: a writer.
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
a very cronon day! grain elevators, department stores, world's fairs, chicago—all my favorite things. i loved the meat packers chapter most, i think. especially the line about bologna's capacity to "hide such a multitude of sins"
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Violet Miller @vimiller.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Shout out to @davistint (on instagram), who made these incredible hand-printed signs after seeing posts about our fight for AI protections last week! union journalists 🤝 local chicago artists NO AI USE
A light blue sign with lines alternating blue and red ink reading:

“Chicago deserves authentic journalism not artificial content”
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
marry someone who will gladly take all baby care duties the day you have to put your head down to read nature's metropolis. cronon as self-care, a genuine gift
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Julia Haslanger @juliajrh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Yes! There was one at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. torchbearer.utk.edu/2017/03/cour... This podcast visited the class: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dol...
wnycstudios.org
Dolly Parton's America | Dolly Parton's America | WNYC Studios
Assignment:  What is Dolly Parton's America?
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
has anyone made a syllabus for an undergrad course on dolly? i bet it would be so popular
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Imagination Library was a gift, a gift that meant anyone could have books delivered to their house, for their kids, for YEARS. Your kids would have books that were THEIRS, in THEIR room, so they would grow up knowing what it was like to live in a house where reading was valued.
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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I recommend to you this podcast series about Dolly Parton by Jad Abumrad (creator of Radio Lab). You may ask: how did a MacArthur Award winning pub radio guy meet Dolly? Because she personally funded his father's vaccine research, that's how. www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dol...
wnycstudios.org
Dolly Parton's America : Episodes | WNYC Studios | Podcasts
The story of a legend at the crossroads of America’s culture wars.
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