Mita Williams
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copystar.bsky.social
Mita Williams
@copystar.bsky.social
Law Librarian at Windsor Law.
https://copystar.neocities.org/
Pinned
I don’t have a tagline for my newsletter, but I’m workshopping “Reader’s advisory for the utopia of the dimmer light” www.uofwinds.com
University of Winds
Three links to wonderful and thought-provoking things every other Saturday morning from Mita Williams.
www.uofwinds.com
📚Librarian of Things: The internet was designed to route around gatekeepers

We can create space where students grow in confidence as they develop their own abilities as they gain new ways of understanding. But that space will require gate-keeping.

librarian.aedileworks.com/2025/11/25/t...
The internet was designed to route around gatekeepers
We can create space where students grow in confidence as they develop their own abilities as they gain new ways of understanding. But that space will require gate-keeping.
librarian.aedileworks.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:19 PM
I am into this.

See also: Jack Cheng's Digital Mending Circle: www.jackcheng.com/sunday/450-r...

See also: Ain’t no party like a LibGuides Party: ’cause a LibGuides Party is mandatory crln.acrl.org/index.php/cr...
November 26, 2025 at 3:17 PM
We have known that the monetization of Internet traffic has been incentivizing fictional news for *years* now: www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverm...
November 24, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Friends — after a lengthy hiatus, I am finally rebooting my newsletter, Metafoundry. If you’re already a subscriber, you should have received your first newsletter from my new provider, Buttondown. Otherwise, you can learn more and subscribe here: buttondown.com/metafoundry#...
Metafoundry
The newsletter of Deb Chachra's work and ideas. Musings on infrastructure, technology, culture, design, education, and more. Low volume, no spam, no tracking, unsubscribe whenever. Want a taste of wha...
buttondown.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:53 PM
This is your periodic reminder that I have a newsletter called “The University of Winds” that is sent out every other Saturday morning which you can subscribe to either via rss or by email 🪁
November 23, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
This is weaponized petty and I'm here for it.
In Monrovia, California, protesters are purchasing 17¢ ICE scrapers from Home Depot and immediately returning them to create long lines and slow down the entire store. Their aim is to disrupt sales and convey a message opposing ICE raids occurring in their neighborhood.
November 23, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
If you have been sharing that Malwarebytes article on the Gmail thing, you should note the giant correction up top.

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
November 22, 2025 at 9:44 PM
This is my new favourite newsletter. I learn something new and meaningful every issue.
November 23, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
November 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
“Rather than believe the women he had collaborated with, and so be forced to revise his image of the respectable men in his midst, he chose to maintain that respectability by refusing the validity of his own observations.”

aworkinglibrary.com/writing/beyo...
Beyond credibility
To believe in supremacy is to refuse to see what’s right in front of you, over and over and over again.
aworkinglibrary.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
You’ll never guess who the article was about
The account owner of @sarahkendzior.bsky.social was suspended for 72 hours for expressing a desire to shoot the author of an article. The post, made 11/10, stated: "I want to shoot the author of this article just to watch him die." 1/2
November 12, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
I want to restate something I said in a lot of replies yesterday, which is that this move is not going to reduce replies yelling at the Bsky team—and that should not be the goal.

What it does is clarify how moderation works here so that people can assess that and act accordingly.
The account owner of @sarahkendzior.bsky.social was suspended for 72 hours for expressing a desire to shoot the author of an article. The post, made 11/10, stated: "I want to shoot the author of this article just to watch him die." 1/2
November 12, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Some weeks ago, I found on Pinboard's most popular bookmarks, this interactive essay called Build Your Own Database: A step-by-step guide to building a key-value database from scratch." www.nan.fyi/database

From it I learned that memory management is very important in building a database!
Build Your Own Database
A step-by-step guide to building a key-value database from scratch.
www.nan.fyi
November 12, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Today I was able to make it into one of the rounds for FIFA World Cup tickets. I was in the queue for a very long time.

Once in, I was unable to get any for Toronto except one opportunity to purchase tickets for $2755 *each*.

I did not purchase these tickets.
November 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Presumably a mistaken suspension of a journalist who is a very anodyne poster over here, @aaron.bsky.team and co. What's the best way to reach the team who can look into it?
In a rare case of Substack notes usefulness, I just learned that Sarah Kendzior (author of They Knew and a brilliant writer) got bounced from Bluesky. What the hell? new @sarahkendzior.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 4:53 AM
"How I use Signal (and Why)"
librarian.aedileworks.com/2025/11/11/h...

This blog post is part of a larger series that might be of interest: librarian.aedileworks.com/tag/howandwhy/
How I use Signal (and Why)
This blog post will go into why I use Signal as my personal messaging app of choice and to point out its features in hopes that it might convince you to use Signal as well.
librarian.aedileworks.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
In a rare case of Substack notes usefulness, I just learned that Sarah Kendzior (author of They Knew and a brilliant writer) got bounced from Bluesky. What the hell? new @sarahkendzior.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
I love that the Boston cop slide never got fixed and now people just willingly go down it in tribute. It’s basically a national landmark at this point
November 8, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Hi Bluesky 👋

Small life update: I’m at the centre of a multimillion dollar lawsuit in Alberta launched by a failed candidate for Jason Kenney’s UCP

It may be the longest and most expensive media trial in Canadian history

I’m ready to go public about it and I want to share more details with you 🧵
November 7, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.
October 30, 2025 at 8:21 AM
November 4, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Reposted by Mita Williams
Absolutely amazing: they've got so much solar in Australia that they need more people to use more of it, so the gov't has instructed energy retailers to offer *at least three hours of free power* during the middle of the day.

Meanwhile fossil-addled US struggles with an energy-price crisis ...
Energy retailers to be directed to offer free power three hours a day
Saying there is enough solar power for everyone in the daytime, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will direct retailers to provide three hours of free power every day to consumers.
www.abc.net.au
November 3, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
I’m quoted in 3 important media stories from last week. All different but share a common theme: how do we push back against surveillance that is undermining dignity, relationships, the possibilities of collective liberation? Not exactly CBCs framing but it’s a noticeable trend in public discussions:
November 3, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Mita Williams
The Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research is launching a US-style attack on EDI in Tri-Council funding.

As part of this attack, they are demanding disclosure of confidential demographic info + reviewer comments of all Canadian researchers who have applied b/w 2000-2025.
October 31, 2025 at 2:33 PM