iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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The Spaceshipper 🚀 @thespaceshipper.com · 10h

RIP John Grover (1938-2026) The English film editor worked on a half-dozen James Bond pics (including Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, Lifeforce (1985)... He was 87.

deadline.com

John Grover Dead: Film Editor On James Bond Pics, '2001: A Space Odyssey' Was 87

John Grover, a film editor who worked on a half-dozen James Bond pics, Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' and many others, died September 28 at 87.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Name a TV show from before 1980. (Mostly before anyway.)

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Post a vampire that isn't Dracula

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Michael Bettendorf @beardedbetts.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The way I try to frame why AI is shit (other than some obvious ones), but specifically in a creative context - it steals YOUR voice/vision. Creatively, your voice, experience, vision, is all we have. So I always ask people who use it if it's worth losing that. Anyway, AI is ass.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Wife to son: Do you know what "abundant" means? Me, after no reply: It's when you go to the pantry and the bread has been smooshed in one spot. My daughter: [laughs] My wife: [grimaces] My son: I don't get it.

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Patrick Ness @patricknessbooks.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Oops, just realized what I did there. It should read, "Authors! if you follow me..." That rather opens it up a little more. If you're an author, illustrator, etc, drop me a message. Thanks!

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Acedian @acedian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

🎶 Home is behind The world ahead And there are many paths to tread… 🎶 TRICK R TREAT!

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Share an actor who nailed a role so hard that nobody else will ever be able to live up to it…

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Fun Fact: it was supposed to be: "Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare for a wrongful death lawsuit!"

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Film you've watched more than six times with a GIF Watched it last night, in fact, at the request of the progeny.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Sign for the Wichita Wagonmasters Downtown Chili Cookoff

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Indie Book Spotlight @bookspotlight.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This guy is truly admitting this in public? Wow. 😶 Reminds me of this quote: ‘What is Huxley’s horrific vision? It is a world where there is no need for books to be banned, because no one can be bothered to read one.’ — Marcus Sedgwick, The Monsters We Deserve

In response, Huang agreed that student cognition is getting much worse.

“Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness,” Huang said. “Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?”

“That’s my question for you,” Klein replied.

“Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does,” Huang said in response. “We’re going to discover new [skills],” the CEO continued, “just maybe not those.”

The interview then took a bizarre turn, with Huang admitting that he lacks some surprisingly basic life skills himself.

“There are a lot of skills that don’t matter,” he said. “My first confession, I actually don’t know my address… one day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.”

Huang’s point, after some pushback from Klein, is that “we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers,” because AI will take care of those mundane details — like remembering your own home address — for you.

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Ivy @becauseivy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's Thinking Thursday, delete your robots

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

What's your "origin" video game? I feel like I'm still trapped in mine...

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Wow! This looks even better than I hoped! I love Brad Bird and can't wait to see his take on sci-fi noir.

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Isobel_Starling @isobelstarling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

THIS IS WHAT AN AMAZON AI BOOK FARM LOOKS LIKE. Horrible to see A handful of author names Over 600 AI books in ONE YEAR Disgusts me We legit authors can write with #passion But we can never compete with this slop They're farming reviews too This has to stop #vss365 #writingcommunity #readers #poem

A screenshot from the kindle store showing the first 6 titles in sports romance are by CM Maya and Fara Riva and Lira Rain, three names being used by an AI book farmer.

A screenshot from Amazon with an AI book farming collective that uploaded an 87 book series

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'll be celebrating with two breakfasts.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Top 10. Would probably answer differently tomorrow.

Ed's picks for 10 best shows in the 21st century: Battlestar Galactica, Community, Dexter, Firefly, The Good Lord Bird, How I Met Your Mother, John Adams, Justified, and Schitt$ Creek.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

If we ever get to the point where our thoughts and memories can be read by a computer, a compilation of my favorite Looney Tunes episodes that I've forgotten about is the first thing I'm asking for.

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Adam Beltaine @maddambeltaine.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"Looks like someone's pulling double shifts at the arsehole factory" Is that a thing? Feels like it should be a thing

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This is a dance off. If you see this, post a dance!

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Richy Craven @richycraven.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

My parents' ultimate TV show would be one where a Scandinavian is brutally murdered and then Lucy Alexander has three months to redecorate and sell his house.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My daughter was TARDY to class today. Luckily the school immediately texted me about this deviancy. (I kinda hate this world we've built.)

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Share a television show that raised you:

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

What scene makes you emotional no matter how many times you see it?

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

BURN NOTICE - the first few seasons were great, but seriously diminishing returns after he got back in.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Ran across this novella and found it quite delightful! Having followed its programming for sixty-three years, a navigator bot sets out to catalogue its surroundings. Its adventure leads us to a more important theme: searching for purpose. Full review on Goodreads. 🪐📚💙 🚀

goodreads.com

To Nowhere In Particular

A sci-fi adventure about what lives at the bottom of a …

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Loved WIDOW'S BAY! It deservedly cleaned up at the Emmy's last night, too. Now awaiting its inevitable cancellation.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Grandma was Italian, and a witch.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Make a band edible: Soundgarden Salad

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Name a non-LOTR character who could resist the One Ring Wouldn't need a goddamn volcano to blow the fecking thing up either.

Bruce Willis as John McClane in DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

And, for whatever reason, I've now LOST ratings and CHIVALRY is below where it was before. The good readers giveth; the 'zon taketh away. I'm never going to get that unicorn.

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daryl "crimetime after primetime" b 🏳️‍⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...

reddit comment:

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply:

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.

Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…

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Pemry Janes @pemryjanes.com · 09/09/2026

Self-publishing is such a diverse group. Yes, unfortunately there are those just pushing out slop, but there's plenty of gems to be had as well. And it's not like the big publishers are above pushing slop either.

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Adam P Knave @adampknave.com · 08/09/2026

60 years ago today, the first episode of Star Trek aired in the US. A show of hope & change, it would be cancelled, come back, end and spawn a whole universe of media all grounded in hope. 880 (about) episodes of tv currently, 13 movies, innumerable books & comics. Here's to 60 more and beyond.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

[Checks watch] Hours, Bub. Don't come cryin' to me later.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The (gluten-free!) spam is getting fecking weird. Now, if you wanna paint some hardboiled eggs to look like my characters, we can talk. #writing #iamwriting #AuthorSky

Spam email

Subject: 100% Edible Pie Art Creation for Chivalry Will Get You Dead

Body: Hi Ed,

I hope you’re having a great week! My name is [redacted], creator of [redacted]. I bridge literature and culinary art by transforming bestselling books into intricate, 100% edible, gluten-free pie art.

I’ve been following Chivalry Will Get You Dead and would love to design a bespoke pie art piece inspired by your book, sharing the creation process with my audience of over 106k+ highly engaged readers across Instagram, TikTok, and Threads.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Psst...Bub. Yeah, you. Come 'ere. This is it, Bub. Last day. Genuine thing here. No AI. Like hardboiled noir? Science fiction? A-holes kicked in the head? Sarcasm and dick jokes? Alcohol-fueled rage? JUSTICE and CHIVALRY ebooks FREE, and 99¢ (99£?) each for the others. Link below. ⚡️📚💙 🪐📚 🚀 📚😏

Ed Robins in coat and fedora, displaying his six books hidden inside his coat.

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Ed Robins @authoredrobins.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Psst...Bub. Yeah, you. Come 'ere. Tired of this heat? Could be worse–stuck on a starship your whole life with murderers. No blue sky, but no hot days to hard boil your brain either. Maybe that ain't so bad. Read about it in JUSTICE and CHIVALRY for FREE. Only through Monday, Bub. ⚡️📚💙 🪐📚 🚀 📚😏

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