iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

and is now trapped grindset-posting from minimum security, cast out from her would-be peers and powerless. i don't immediately find pointing a camera at her and going, 'look how disconcerting her manner is, look how she behaved oddly in front of us, haha' all that compelling.

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- how ill-equipped for the authority it demands in the guise of progress - and how holmes is of a kind with a dozen vc-groupchat-poisoned narcissistic billionaires who continue to do much greater harm and will likely never be punished. but holmes herself is a liar who got caught, went to jail -

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- the business advancing a scammy product in credulous spheres, then immediately collapsing once they couldn't dodge regulators. there's definitely something to be said about how the transparency of her grift illuminates something about how credulous sv and vc culture is -

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Jaws Slayer 🎃 @jesawyer.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

the thing is, as far as i've seen the whole theranos thing mostly affected investors large investors like the murdochs and waltons and some pharmacies and clinics that put money in to test the product and find out it didn't really work. its almost a classic case of regulatory success -

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Reposted by Sam

you cannot make me learn anything more about Elizabeth Holmes. please seal her an oubliette. thank you.

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Sam @acertainsam.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A sort of related question would be, "What Star Wars does Zero Company expect you to bring in?" Is it the prequel movies? Is it Clone Wars? Is it Clone Wars and Bad Batch and Maul: Shadow Lord etc? Those audiences have very different levels of buy-in to the central ironies.

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Reposted by Sam

Fansplaining @fansplaining.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

On July 8th, we published a piece on AI in Heated Rivalry fic fandom. On July 30th, the New York Times ran a piece on the same subject. We weren't surprised—because we knew a Times reporter had read our coverage. A tale of two fandom articles, part of a longstanding dynamic in the media industry:

fansplaining.com

Lessons From a Heated Media Rivalry

How we learned that the New York Times has a Fansplaining account.

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Sam @acertainsam.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

One thing these shows have done is really clarify how painstakingly narrow the visual style of games that need to persuade the audience they're for real has become.

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That's not everything but it's enough to keep you invested, and between that and the kinetic if frequently repetitive fight scenes I'm not surprised it was received very well. Will definitely try the second season when it comes.

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The characters are the characters, and when that calls on them to fail each other, or fail themselves, or fail our hopes for them, then that's what they do, and we are allowed to know the consequences of those failures.

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What just about carries it - and it does just about carry it - is its absolute commitment to itself. It doesn't try to pretend the things it's showing aren't happening.

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In terms of the resources put behind the animation and the skill with which that's been deployed, it's really quite something - not really ever in a "wow, that's a really brilliant shot" way, but it's very nice to see good animators with the time and money to do their shots very well.

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Not the first story to massively oversimplify its "katanas vs guns" history, though in this case its silliness on that subject really does nearly ruin the climax.

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Sam @acertainsam.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Blue Eye Samurai (season 1) thread: It's... pretty deece. Massively overlong, overwritten, and self-indulgent, not quite as smart as it thinks it is, and often overboard in bad taste, but it has intentionality and well-built bones.

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Honestly kind of incredible that he deliberately got in an embarrassing himself contest with the guy most famous for embarrassing himself in the entire industry and managed to win it in two days.

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Sam @acertainsam.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

'According to concertgoers who wrote of their experience online, “RedRed” — the lead track to their second EP “GreenGreen” — was performed four times in different arrangements, while the side track “YoungCreatorCrew” was performed five times.'

koreaherald.com

Cortis’ first concert divides fans over atypical format

Cortis wrapped up the opening concerts of its first world tour over the weekend, but the performances have sparked debate online over whether the group’s unconv

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Sam @acertainsam.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

It's a revealing story in just how much it's the opposite of those headlines - they're doing it because after over a year they've found exactly zero takers, and it's an oops-all-tones post-irony puddle set in a virtual world because they can't make it not absurd in any remotely grounded context.

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what do they want to do with bond? or what do they want to do with this specific bond universe they have created? probably the reality is that even if they get a sequel, we're never going to see them push on that as long as they're focused first, like here, on not losing the golden license.

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generally they have really been trying so hard to execute on james bond and they are mostly succeeding impressively. it is well-executed and high-production as bond fanfiction. it's just that you could not say much about it except that it's a james bond game.

probably that residual leering is something that would be ironed out over time were this to develop into a series. certainly bond has been much grosser than this. i'm just noticing ways this tickles the brain.

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is that... better? worse? i don't know. just noticeable. but 007 first light is way to the pg end - the violence is bloodless, it's low-nudity, it's very early on the sexy fadeouts - but it still positions us to leer, and it feels like leering along with the devs more than leering along with bond.

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this bond is... kind of... sexless? obviously that's not literally true, but while this bond is sexually open, he's not suave, not the kind of guy who can get a woman to make bad decisions. he's more a guy with a decent haircut, a cute butt, and a smile that says "i'll be a very uncomplicated lay."

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this bond doesn't own any room he walks into. he needs basically everything explained to him. he doesn't problem-solve, he needs constant direction. is that concessions to the game format? yes. is that because it's an origin story? also yes. still weird.

but here, "james bond" is such a flexible character that they can go, "and here, he has become our james bond." what are you supposed to say, "nuh-uh, that's not my bond?" so anyway, "nuh-uh, that's not my bond" lmao; some things about their bond are unfamiliar to me, if not necessarily bad.

like many reboot/adaptation origin stories, it doesn't actually do the thing the origin story promises. the character has had the general arc of being harrowed but not an arc that brings him to a recognizable characterization.

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would call this a certain thing about the female characters, but also, separately from that, tell me bond isn't the least compelling character in this story. tell me you wouldn't kinda rather have a prequel spinoff about greenway than a direct sequel to this.

she was a doll to move bond around. even moneypenny is ultimately stabbed to escalate bond's motivation and is not so much as heard from again, not literally fridged but the next best thing.

cressida disappears from the story at the funeral and is never heard from again, her purpose reduced to bond taking revenge on her behalf. lorca disappears literally at the moment she is rescued from the fire and is never mentioned ever again.

the most egregious of these is the way that characters - especially female characters - never come into the foreground, even when they have more at stake than bond and are more central to the action, and ultimately disappear from the story, their stories never engaged with.

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at a certain point literally everyone in the story just stops saying anything other than "wow, james/player, you're so cool and awesome and special. just so solicitous of the player's approval.

bond is kind of the perfect license for ioi to get away with a bunch of stuff that's convenient for them that would draw a lot more criticism without that license. the rampant product placement is the most obvious but far from the only example.

the upside some games get from the longer runtime is strong attachments to the characters. but here, being bond, the characters are stock and can't do much but repeat the same beat. some key moments are great cinematically but don't land with weight because the game can't sustain the jeopardy.