Matthew Kollmer

Matthew Kollmer

@matthewkollmer.com

PhD student, info sci at UIUC. Lecturer at Berkeley. Doing research in digital humanities—NLP, AI, cultural analytics, Python—to ask questions related to place studies, activist histories, US lit, creative writing, and rhet/comp. I also own a bookstore.

4.4K followers1.6K following674 posts

Penny, Frank, and Harper were robbed

Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com

Our annual Halloween Pet Costume Contest once again showed off the creativity of Minnesota pet owners, and the cuteness (and patience) of their furry friends. Here are some of our favorites.

Matthew Kollmer reposted

Several books I can’t seem to stop thinking about: - Thousand Plateaus - Place and Experience - Pedagogies of Crossing - Dialogic Imagination

Matthew Kollmer reposted

The Cultivator’s Handbook of Marijuana. Inscribed by Bill Drake. First Revised Edition, First Printing. Agrarian Reform Co. Eugene, 1970. SOLD

It’s spooky season and I’m tryna watch spooky movies, but it is so difficult to find something that 1) is spooky, 2) haven’t seen before, and 3) is good

Staples Copy & Print Center, Las Vegas, 2015. I made it about two months one summer, then quit. I had to donate plasma at the same time to make enough money for rent. Plus the job was horrible. Horrible.

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Training involved an 8-hour shift just watching anti-union videos in the back closet. We had to say "my pleasure" at the end of every customer interaction, or else get reprimanded. The day-to-day work, nothing but dealing with finicky printer hardware. And cranky customers. Horrible.

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“Hunny, call the appliance doctor… the fridge caught Claude again!”

mr. TIM@timkellogg.me

small models will soon be able to self-replicate Anthropic finds that 30B models can currently do most of the tasks required, but not end-to-end. they think models as small as 9B (9-18 GB) may be able to do it on edge hardware, like IoT devices, within months www.anthropic.com/research/sel...

Exhibit A for why white ppl in the US need to address our collective history of pogroms, lynchings, and white terror. Trump’s post should be an impeachable offense.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Trump tries to start a race war: "The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants ... The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back!"

Repeatedly muttering “theory” as I write which iPhone hears as “Siri” which then has me turning off Siri which then makes me open my iPhone, and now I’m on bluesky. Damnit!

I just stepped inside a Barnes and Noble for the first time in ages and tbh idk if this is even a bookstore anymore. It’s more of a hobby and media shop encasing a Starbucks. Didn’t mind it, but also kinda sad. Serves as a kinda crappy third space.

Occasionally I look at retail spaces for Evening Land. They’re almost always prohibitively expensive, owned by corporate entities. I’m convinced if this wasn’t true, there’d be 10x more small businesses and third spaces everywhere. Ones better than this shell of a community space at Barnes & noble.

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Seven Pieces of American Currency. Pieces Issued by U.S. Treasury, Augusta Savings Bank, and Unknown College. Various Places, 1861-Circa 1870s. SOLD

My wife’s grandmother, a navy vet and very spicy lady, has taken to calling all the conservative bigots in her elderly living community “pissants,” and I can’t get it out of my head. They’re all pissants now.

When the midterms approach and my "plz god let good things happen" anxiety kicks in, I try to channel that energy by writing postcards to swing states, texting/calling old friends abt life and politics, and studying the candidates on my ballot.

Digging through old files and I found these. They're from a decade ago, from a trip down the Mississippi River. I was a little baby deckhand, thinking I'd maybe work toward a pilot's license. But then I got a chance to go to grad school. My how time flies, how life changes!

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Bluesky has got to be the quietest social network I've ever used. I don't get much engagement here, but I always find something interesting, often intellectually engaging, and occasionally something soulful. Unlearning my social media expectations might be the whole ball game.

This may be my new fave in shop—a designation that changes daily, but this one may hold my heart for a good lil while

Evening Land Books@eveninglandbooks.com

Recently acquired a collection of Mark Twain editions, quite excited about this one (cataloguing in progress)

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Here's a listing of all the right-wing humanities academic jobs that have been advertised so far this 2026-2027 hiring season. Suffice to say, conservative investment in the university humanities is not being matched by the peer-reviewed humanities community: asheeshksi.substack.com/p/tracking-c...

asheeshksi.substack.comTracking Civic Thought Hiring in the 2026-2027 Academic Job CycleI wanted to put together a post that tracks how right-wing civic thought programs have rapidly been taking over the academic hiring space in the humanities, especially in fields like history (mostly A...

Matthew Kollmer reposted

Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵