ink

... update from code4lib slack (since this post has circulated a bit more than my usual posts): it sounds like the conference organizers are considering alternative venues, and that the conference will likely be fully virtual if that falls through.

... despite CMU's decision it looks like the code4lib 20215 conference IS ON https://lists.clir.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind2512&L=CODE4LIB&P=40998 in #philly

Their website has an animation of migration patterns for different species. Here is the one for the White-throated Sparrow, which confirms that the ones outside my window are headed north into Canada for the summer. (I honestly wish I could follow them) https://science.ebird.org/en/status-and-trends/species/whtspa/abundance-map-weekly?week=52 (zoom & click the play button)

@akkartik @jack

• https://gutenberg.org/
• https://archiveofourown.org/
• https://wfmu.org

@alex hey, thanks for sharing that--it is nice to see them here in the fedi as well: @FloraIncognita_DE I had been using PictureThis but didn't want to pay when they switched to a subscription. Then I had been getting by occasionally with Google Lens (in Google Photo) But it is geneic and isn't tuned to sharing information about the natural world, and well it is Google. I am going to give Flora Incognita a try!

@swib ok, the barrier to entry for a lightning talk is pretty low, so I added myself to the list: https://forum.swib.org/t/swib25-lightning-talks/937/7?u=edsu Thanks for the encouragement & ideas @acka47 @dbs @dr0i @dsalo @hugh @julsraemy @lissertations @osma @rieyin you are excellent people!

... and if there is a showing near you, be sure to watch https://thelibrariansfilm.com/

@jamesbridle Thanks for sharing it. You were very generous in your responses to questions that would have made me bristle. I want to quote something beautiful you said in response to the somewhat ridiculous question of whether it is possible for computers to ever be conscious, if the latest Opus model or whatever isn't already: --- I think all things are possible. But I don't think our contemporary computation is producing anything that can meaningfully or usefully be talked about in terms of consciousness. I think that's a wild and possibly dangerous mistake. I am someone who ascribes consciousness to mountains, and oceans, and to blades of grass. I fundamentally believe that consciousness is a vast universal field that underlies all living things. And so I have no problem with the idea of machines being conscious.

@thatandromeda@ohai.social @misty@digipres.club I know :-( have you seen any discussion of moving 2026 online and having local "hubs" or "watch parties" like what the LIMITS conference has been doing? https://computingwithinlimits.org/2025/

@raffaele@digipres.club wow, this is sick! It also lets you run CSS selectors on archived HTML content?!

In my brief experimentation it looks like the max_results option is important, depending on what kind of query you are doing.

@robincafolla 💯 🎯 https://robertreich.substack.com/p/minnesotas-general-strike-and-americas

@kdriscoll@aoir.social wish I was a fly on the wall for that, or better yet, gettin' a haircut too!

@rmdes@indieweb.social hey, look at that! I am so pleased to hear you are continuing to work on this problem--it's importance is evergreen as long as the web exists.

@steve@social.technoetic.com if you run across any examples of how this has proven useful, please share!

@julsraemy @acka47 that's a good place to be!

@julsraemy @acka47 apologies, I didn't mean to stick an unwanted label on you. I worked in a DH lab for 8 years while doing my research, and came out the other side considering myself to be an #sts practitioner more than anything else, so I am projecting :-) But yes, it is hard to get more #sts than Actor Network Theory!

@simon@fedi.simonwillison.net it does suck, and to top it all off the condescendingly smug and vapid announcement of the closure sucks. The attitude that a website is just marketing, and isn't an information source to be maintained over time is shockingly prevalent in society.

@raffaele@digipres.club neato, it also supports LIKE queries with a URL prefix:

@mike@sauropods.win I don't know the backroom details of what happened here, but with the Dept of Education weaponizing social justice in this way, I would say a lot more people are losing out. I don't think CMU is an isolated case.

@acka47 nice! I am definitely down to hear about what linkeddata looks like from the perspective of #sts and learn how that can inform the use of bibframe. I think many people reject bibframe out of hand because, despite years of good work, not enough effort has been made to make it accessible to people who are working with data on the web. @julsraemy

@hochstenbach it is interesting how one mastodon server "preserves" the output of others. I guess there could be tools for reconstituting posts when the original source fails?

@hvdsomp @hochstenbach congratulations Patrick!

@npdoty @riana It seems like another complicating factor here are legal efforts (in the US and around the world) to protect children from the harmful effects of social media platforms that have been engineered to be addictive? (The irony being that adults aren't worthy of protection too.) https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-139/content-neutrality-for-kids-intermediate-scrutiny-for-social-media-age-verification-laws/ Looking at the issue through the lens of sex work is important for labour and privacy rights. But social conservatism doesn't seem to fully describe the confluence of what is happening at the moment, specifically with regard to (desperate) attempts to regulate surveillance capitalism. The laws and technical mechanisms of online age verification discipline our online lives along multiple dimensions, and it seems like a much more complicated sociotechnical picture. I'll admit this knot is probably not the best topic for a digestible and actionable news piece. But I would enjoy reading something more along these lines if you have any recommendations.

@raffaele@digipres.club yes, I've seen timeouts from US too. I noticed that there is a timeout parameter for they wayback_machine() function. Default is 3 mins.

@swling@mastodon.radio this made me wonder if most boats still using the Shipping Forecast have Internet access now?

@kcoyle@mstdn.social yes, I think that's exactly right

@mike@sauropods.win sure, multiple institutions are making decisions. I'm not sure how much news about what is happening here in the US is getting out, but higher education, and education more generally, are under direct attack. Solidarity is more important than shame or winning and losing at this stage of the game.

@mike@sauropods.win hmm, yes that is true.