Jeffrey Yost
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justcode.bsky.social
Jeffrey Yost
@justcode.bsky.social
4.9K followers 320 following 140 posts
Writer I Professor I Historian I Ctr. Dir.
Director, CBI for Computing Info. & Culture
Prof. HSTM/STS, U. of MN.
Co-edit JHUP Computing & Culture bk. srs. Research: Social Study of HCI, AI, Privacy, Security, Labor, Race, Gender & Inequality. JUST CODE
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justcode.bsky.social
Our special issue is out! "Automation by Design: Politics, Culture & Landscape in an Age of Machines That Learn"! Eds. Colette Perold, me, Gerardo Con Diaz. Authors: David Dunning, Christos Karampatsos, Polyxeni Malisova, Eliza Pertigkiozoglou, Jason Ludwig, Megan Wiessner, & Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal
Cover of Automation by Design special issue of IEEE Annals. The image is the US Census' FOSDIC installation with three professionals at a desk and two behind by the mainframe computer in the background. B&W image.
December 19, 2025 at 12:53 AM
justcode.bsky.social
New Interfaces essay! Toni Weller et al.'s rich & insightful historiographical essay on information history...

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces

"Reflections on The Routledge Handbook on Information History." Framing the Field: Reflections on The Routledge Handbook of Information History" #HistSci
Book cover with watercolor or watercolor like red, blue, green and yellow design of two spheres on a surface but oriented horizontally.
December 18, 2025 at 6:22 PM
justcode.bsky.social
So grateful to be a guest at UC Davis' STS today & to share my "Of MYCIN Men: Medicine, Mottos, & Meanings in Symbolic & Generative AI". Such a wonderful, helpful,& generative conversation!!! #histsci
UC Davis STS conf room and title slide
December 9, 2025 at 10:21 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Very grateful to Yale's (& CBI Research Fellow) @lmesseri.bsky.social for her brilliant talk today (a CBI & UMN Anthro event) on the history & ethnography of VR in LA & more broadly, social imagineries for good in tech! Also, I am grateful for the terrific audience, Qs & coversation. #histsci
Prof. Lisa Messeri at podium giving a talk at UMN.
November 14, 2025 at 11:55 PM
justcode.bsky.social
CBI & UMN Anthro are delighted to host Nov. 14th lecture (noon to 1pm, Andersen Lib. 120) by Yale U. Prof. of Anthropology & CBI Research Fellow @lmesseri.bsky.social Lisa Messeri!!

"IN THE LAND OF THE UNREAL"

Free talk & lunch, reg. req.

Registration:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#HISTSCI
Flyer with elements from her book design and portrait photo of Lisa Messeri.
November 4, 2025 at 5:08 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Latest Interfaces... Dr. Lea Beiermann's "From the Backroom to the Ballroom: (Re)framing Open Source for the Public Sector" offers a fascinating & insightful essay looking back & looking forward with Open Source Software (OSS) in Europe. #histsci

Essay article:

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
Guests (including the author, left) at the black-tie cocktail reception following the European OS Awards Ceremony. Photo courtesy of the European Open Source Academy, https://europeanopensource.academy/.
October 30, 2025 at 8:04 PM
justcode.bsky.social
So enjoyed Rice U.'s. Liz Petrick's engaging, insightful lecture at UMN HSTM yesterday!! "Embodiment and Mobility in Online Technologies: From Computerized Conferencing to Tablets." #histsci
Rice U.'s Liz Petrick delivering a lecture holding a tablet.
October 25, 2025 at 6:01 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Delighted that Rice University's Elizabeth Petrick will be joining us at University of Minnesota for the HSTM Colloquium Talk: "Embodiment and Mobility in Online Technologies: From Computerized Conferencing to Tablets" October 24th
216 Pillsbury Drive, Room 125 (3:35 pm), Minneapolis, MN #histsci
Woman at EIES terminal (circa 1979), b & w photo, she is seated with her right hand on the keyboard looking at the screen. EIES was a pioneering bulletin board and conferencing networked system.
October 15, 2025 at 6:16 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Just published in Interfaces-- tremendously insightful & timely essay by U. of Toronto's @hopelatta.bsky.social "People-in-Progress: 'Debate Escrow,' and the Language of Delay in Tech Research on Adolescent Digital Health." #histsci

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
1960 Lucky Strike ad with woman smiling as she holds a lit cigarette--Wikimedia Commons
September 22, 2025 at 5:32 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Grateful to Pavek Museum Curator @pelithehistorian.bsky.social for inviting me to speak on AI history today at The Pavek Museum & UMN HSTM colleagues & family making the trip to the burbs for it-- @honghongtinn.bsky.social, @waynesoon.bsky.social, & Jennifer Alexander !! #histsci
UMN HSTM group photo from the Pavek Museum today!
September 20, 2025 at 8:11 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Talk tomorrow on history, power, & ironies & paradoxes of rhetorical & infrastructural appropriations of AI. #histsci
Flyer of talk w headshot
September 19, 2025 at 5:56 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Esteemed colleague in HSTM & CBI Asst. Prof. of HST & ECE, UMN @honghongtinn.bsky.social is giving ECE's Colloquium talk from her tremendous book Island Tinkerers on Sept. 4th 4 to 5:15 pm C. in 3-230 Keller Hall, U of MN MPLS. #Histsci
Cover of Island Tinkerers, which is an illustration of Taiwan on a map with cartoonish images of digital tech and people using digital tech.
August 29, 2025 at 9:22 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Just Code, just published!!! Open Access of full book is now freely available, see link below, made possible by @sloanfoundation.bsky.social grant to CBI! Am so honored to partner w Con & work alongside 19 stellar, fellow interdisciplinary authors on this book! #histtech

cse.umn.edu/cbi/just-cod...
Front cover of Just Code: Power, Inequality and the Political Economy of IT. Black lettering in bold with trailing pastel colors.
August 27, 2025 at 3:07 PM
justcode.bsky.social
New Interfaces Essay, Aug. 2025. A super creative & insightful essay by Eóin Phillips, a Prof. of History and Sociology of Sci/Tech/Econ at La Salle-Ramon Llull Univ.

"Computational Schemes and Technological Routines: A Wet History of the Phillips Machine." #histsci

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
Rochdale Canal Lock 91, industrial setting with lock and water flowing. David Dixon Wikimedia Commons
August 21, 2025 at 4:03 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Sharing a book review of Thomas S. Mullaney The Chinese Computer that I just published in the British Journal of the History of Science.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Cover of The Chinese Computer, blue and gray with a woman sitting at a keyboard/machine and QWERTY keys magnified above with smaller Chinese characters on the keys.
August 13, 2025 at 8:28 PM
justcode.bsky.social
August 12, 2025 at 1:04 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Copies of JUST CODE just arrived! Partnering w Con & teaming w 19 brilliant STS authors on the vital topic of code/codes & inequality was so special! Authors (full list ToC below) On bsky: @mysdick.bsky.social @histoftech.bsky.social @dmulvin.bsky.social & blurb from @anitachan.bsky.social #histtech
Open box of books with two out showing front and back covers propped up on the balcony railing of my Minneapolis condo. Trees and sunshine are in the background. The book's full title is JUST CODE: Power, Inequality, & the Global Political Economy of IT, and it is in bold black lettering with pastel fading trails of the letters.
August 12, 2025 at 1:03 PM
justcode.bsky.social
CBI is delighted to announce that Carnegie Mellon U. Prof. of CS Brad A. Myers is co-recipient of the 2025 CBI Human Computer Interaction ( @benbendc.bsky.social )‬ History Award for his monumental book Pick, Click, Flick!: The Story of Interaction Techniques. #histsci

cse.umn.edu/cbi/news/mye...
Cover of Brad A. Myers' book Pick, Click, Flick! The Story of Interactive Techniques. black colored book with purple, white and gray design elements and computer keyboard keys in the background.
May 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
justcode.bsky.social
CBI is delighted to announce Stanford Univ. 's Tom Mullaney is co-recipient of the 2025 CBI Human Computer Interaction @benbendc.bsky.social ‬ History Award for his masterful book The Chinese Computer: A Global History of the Information Age. #histsci

cse.umn.edu/cbi/news/mul...
Cover of Thomas Mullaney's book The Chinese Computer, blue book with gray image and lettering, a woman sits at a stenography machine and in the background a QWERTY keyboard with many Chinese Characters on each key.
May 22, 2025 at 4:41 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Just published in Interfaces (May '25). Delighted to publish James (Jim) Cortada's new essay!

"When Tacit Knowledge Meets Artificial Intelligence" (drawn in part from his forthcoming book Beyond the Facts). #histtech

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
Cover of Beyond the Facts book by James W Cortada. In pastel blue and green and white it shows a stack of books with a ladder up to a light bulb.
May 15, 2025 at 4:04 PM
justcode.bsky.social
An absolute joy to read & discuss the amazing, indisciplinary research on automation & resistance at @zwtz.bsky.social @maidino.bsky.social "Shady Subjects" workshop & so honored to share my own "Of MYCIN Men" & get such generative, helpful comments! Thx to Malte, Marc & everyone!!! #histsci
Group photo of "Shady Subjects" Workshop Cornell U. April 24-26, 2025
April 26, 2025 at 8:43 PM
justcode.bsky.social
If still charged up Edmund Berkeley's Squee, "the light-sensitive electronic beast," would be dancing to the industrial beat... Oops, wrong AI & wrong Squirrely.
Radio Electronics with robot squirrel Squee 1951
April 4, 2025 at 2:36 PM
justcode.bsky.social
Just published, April 2025 Interfaces essay, "Business History Conference 2025, & CBI's Participation." In this historiographical essay, I focus on oral history, & IT, gender, political economy, & labor history (in spotlighting many CBI fellows/grantees @BHC). #histtech

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
Business History Conf. 2025 in Atlanta. Session on IBM and Work with left to right Corinna Schlombs, Jim Cortada, and David Stebenne.
April 1, 2025 at 6:19 PM
justcode.bsky.social
So grateful to the incredible Prof. @anitachan.bsky.social for her tremendous lecture (& wonderful conversation) in MPLS "Predatory Data: Feminist Resistance to Eugenics in Big Tech," on Thursday!!! Hosted by CBI for Computing, Info. & Culture & HHH Ctr. on Women, Gender, & Public Policy. #Histsci
Prof. Anita Say Chan delivering her talk on Predatory Data in MPLS for CBI & CWGPP at UMN. Prof. Anita Say Chan in Q & A discussion following her lecture, she is seated and is holding a microphone.
March 8, 2025 at 7:46 PM
justcode.bsky.social
How did television help to shape early conceptions of personal computing & computer dating? See standout media studies scholar Dr. @myrnamoretti.bsky.social 's insightful (just published) Interfaces essay "Part of Our Lives Now: The Personal Computer on "Family Ties” "!

cse.umn.edu/cbi/interfaces
Streaming shot of laptop with 1980s sitcom Family Ties playing--pictured is Alex and Mallory Keaton using an early personal computer in the family's living room.
February 27, 2025 at 3:53 PM