Cynthia Heider

👋 Introduction: I'm an educator and library worker in Philadelphia with expertise in digital projects, humanities data & archives. I'm invested in praxes of care, maintenance & repair. Hobbies include videogaming, watching horror movies, swimming, and knitting. Formerly on Twitter as comebackcities.

Busting out my handy @fullstorybaltimore.tours “Baltimore says #NoKings!” sign today. See ya in the streets, y’all

📚 See incorrect book information online? You can help fix it. ✏️ Open Library is a collaborative catalog. Volunteers can improve records, add information, correct metadata, and create records for unrepresented books. Help make the catalog better. openlibrary.org

Are you registered to vote? Have you moved since the last election? Did you recently change your name (due to marriage or divorce, for example)? The deadline to register to vote or update your registration in PA is Oct. 19! Don’t wait- check TODAY to see if your voter registration is up to date 👇🏾

Trying to explain an Internet freedom issue to family or friends? Check out EFF's page with a bunch of one-pager handouts to help you learn about different subjects and share with the people around you! www.eff.org/pages/eff-o...

This scares me particularly for what it means for K-12 educators who to some degree rely on test scores as a metric for how "good" they are at teaching, and whose jobs may be at risk when students' test scores tank despite getting high grades throughout the semester because they've been using AI

Have a smallish piece of new research at the intersection of humanities & machine learning or cultural analytics to share? Pitch it to @lbmcgrath.bsky.social, the special features editor of @culturalanalytics.bsky.social!

Our new zine, 'How to Spend Ten Years Repairing a Computer and Why You Should Too', is here! We'd like to send out some free copies, so the first 50 emails with the subject line "Zine, please" to mediaarchaeology+zine@proton.me will get a copy (U.S. only, sorry folks)

Looking for a post doc? Come join us at the Machine Visual Culture Research Group, which “combines digital and computational art history, critical AI studies, and the history of art and visual culture.” www.biblhertz.it/3815269/2909...

BREAKING: The Trump administration is using a grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the US to funnel their ongoing collection of Flock, Axon, and other ALPR data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, 404 Media has learned

I talked to the librarian at a tiny upstate NY library where the flyer for drop-in event where she'll help you remove the AI features of your phone has gone viral www.businessinsider.com/library-bye-...

This is the activity we did with students today, and we'd love to hear your responses as well... 1. Pick an older device you have access to.

We’re hiring! Join the PCW team as our Development and Communications Manager - leading development strategies, managing communications+marketing, and supporting community engagement with stakeholders. Priority given to applicants who submit by Oct 15, 2026. Visit our job posting - link in our bio!

Any new acquaintances want to grab a late lunch today or tomorrow to complete your #WorkofRevolution bingo card @ncph.bsky.social? 😁

Does it get any cuter than these awesome digital humanities zines developed by Now & Here? 😍 nowandhere.org #WorkofRevolution

Cosplaying as a Serious Business Person on this Acela to Providence for #NCPH2026 #WorkOfRevolution. Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones! Message me if you'd like to meet up 🍻

If you’re confused about the difference between “age verification,” “age estimation,” “age assurance,” and “age gate” — you’re not alone. Let’s help you make sense of it all. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Philly and Philly-adjacent Bluesky friends, come have lunch with me and chat about #DHMakes at @pricelab.bsky.social Mon 9/14 at noon, free to register!

Anyway, remember that things are inevitable right up til the moment they’re not. “Inevitable” describes potential, not reality. It is a nightmare of the future coming to bully those who are asleep—not a description of some kind of logical or pragmatic reality, as some would have us believe.

🤔 Not in Texas

Pluto TV in Canada has an All-Women's Sports Network! I just watched Alexia Putellas' final game for FC Barça! ⚽

If you have a Gmail account, you need to read this. Google's AI now scans your emails and attachments, bank statements, tax files, medical letters, all of it. It turned on by default, and there's a class-action lawsuit over how. Here are 5 moves to shut it off, the switch is hidden in two places:

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Johns Hopkins + the AHA are hosting the AI and History Conference 2026 -- Oct 15-16 in Baltimore. Whatever your take on AI (excited, skeptical, curious, already using it), there's a place for you in this conversation. Learn more at: proflouishyman.github.io/ai_conferenc...

Philly folks, join us Saturday for "Preserving Your Family's Keepsakes," a free knowledge-sharing event about how to care for your precious stuff and preserve it w digitization. Presented by Taller Puertorriqueño, Penn Libraries and the U of Delaware. Register @ www.eventbrite.com/e/preserving...

When are we going to talk about how class shapes conferencing in academia? And how conferences exacerbate the wealth gap btw folks with unlimited research funds vs those of us with the funds to attend/belong to just one org a year?

CFP: Public History Projects www.villanova.edu/university/l... grants up to $7500 deadline Sept 25 @lepagevu.bsky.social #PublicHistory cc @ncph.bsky.social

The ultimate nostalgia event

We work hard for Penn! That's why we'll continue our #FightFor4!

German broadcast. Nailed it

Sign the petition! c.org/cVMG6VvqPS

When a license plate is captured by an automated license plate reader (ALPR), it’s instantly compared against a list of vehicles that the police are actively looking for, known as a “hotlist.” EFF has learned that one of these hotlists targets immigrants on behalf of ICE. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

The change at the President's House happened overnight, allowing the government to switch out the displays and shutdown the television screens while avoiding public scrutiny during the takedown.

Kinda... concerned... that no other movies have showtimes at any of my local theaters after The Odyssey releases this Friday. Did Nolan buy out every screening room in the country?

does anyone know how to log off

Delightful to look up from Cherry Street Pier and watch the hundreds of pedestrians crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge between Camden and Philadelphia, which is closed to traffic today for its 100th birthday celebration 🎂

PSA!

Buck up, US fans. The women’s World Cup is less than a year away.

Oh hey emerging from a daylong migraine just in time to go to bed. What did I miss?

I interviewed a former prosecutor yesterday who said this one thing that I cannot stop thinking about : “I think the most radical thing I learned from becoming a prosecutor is how much violence women face in this country and how little people care.”

We’re supporting We Want More History!, a coordinated day of #history programming on Sept. 26. Timed to align with #America250, "it ensures that national commemorations reflect the full, complex story of the people and places that make up the U.S.” Get involved: https://www.wewantmorehistory.org/.

The Office of Management and Budget’s proposed new rule for federal grants would allow the federal government to make loyalty to the Trump administration a key factor in deciding what #history work gets funded. Join us on July 10 to take action. https://community.ncph.org/event/JulyComment-a-thon

Funding Opp: We (Data Theatre Collaborative) wabt to see what you think community data theatre can be! With Association of Theatre in Higher Education we're offing pilot grants for faculty, students, artists, community orgs, and civic folks. 📆 Apply by Oct 1 www.athe.org/page/dtgrants

Never a bad day to quietly participate in a subtle work of achieving socialist utopia via careful attention to the craft of producing useful beauty in the world