iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 24/09/2026

This fascinating, grim and utterly necessary story from my old chums at Tech Review: zillions spent on high-tech US border surveillance and yet thousands of people still dying within a stone’s throw of towers. A horrible reminder of how the promises of a technology often fail.

011

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 17/08/2026

If you want to see how unusual it is, hit up Madelyn Leembruggen's TikTok. The joy at being asked questions along the way is real!

010

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 12/08/2026

This was a fun conversation!

000

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 06/08/2026

Surprised how upset people are about AI companies destroying books. They'd be shocked if they knew how little publishers actually care for books as a physical object. (not surprised people care about secret slurping up of text by hungry language models, however) bobbie.net/2026/08/05/g...)

bobbie.net

Gluttony and the guillotine

If you live in the continental United States and get bitten by a bat, or a raccoon, or a fox, your doctor will probably advise you to go and get rabies shots. Rabies isn’t common, but it&#821…

000

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 04/07/2026

Seven years ago my friend Lyra McKee was murdered while reporting on rioting in Derry. Three men were just found not guilty over their involvement in killing her, despite a bench trial that took more than two years. She deserves better than this. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...

theguardian.com

Three men found not guilty of murdering journalist Lyra McKee

Family of woman who died after being hit by a bullet as she observed rioting in Derry say justice system has failed her

010

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 05/06/2026

Late to it, but Anna pointed out this quote from Steve Rosenbaum, the author of a book on AI destroying truth that contained half a dozen made up quotes. “It’s like saying, do you beat your wife? It’s one of those accusations that there’s no response to.” Sorry, WHAT?? www.wired.com/story/future...

Quote from Wired magazine in which Steve Rosenbaum. "Rosenbaum would not weigh in on the accuracy of Pangram's results. In fact, he didn't want to talk about them at all. "I don't participate in that conversation," he said. "It's like saying 'do you beat your wife?' It's one of those accusations that there's no response to."

010

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/06/2026

Excited to say that our pick of the month for June is @adambecker.bsky.social's storming MORE, EVERYTHING, FOREVER. From AI apocalypse to immortality, if you've ever wondered what strange beliefs the Silicon Valley really hold... this is the book for you. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cu026-anno...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Get your mind blown with June's pick of the month

Adam Becker's "More, Everything, Forever" will leave you shocked and awed.

001

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 03/05/2026

Our book of the month for May is “Feed the People!” by Gabriel N Rosenberg and @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social — a provocative argument in favor of mass food production and the pleasures of “democratic hedonism” Read more: newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur025-ann...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Get your teeth into May’s book of the month

“Feed the People!” by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg.

033

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 14/04/2026

Just 3 hours left to support this indiegogo campaign! I've been working with @locusmag.bsky.social to ensure that coverage of science fiction, fantasy and horror publishing stays independent. Great rewards here for voracious readers + aspiring authors. www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/...

indiegogo.com

Locus Mag: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror 2026 by Locus Publications - Indiegogo

Celebrating and uplifting authors, artists, and story -- the guide to the world's imagination.

000

Reposted by Bobbie

Rahawa Haile @rahawahaile.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

For those who've enjoyed COYOTE and want to support us, we're offering 50% off your first month as a subscriber. The deal is good until midnight! (Our scrappy worker-owned media outlet thanks you!) 👉 www.coyotemedia.org/local-news-day

01811

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 05/04/2026

One of the most impressive things about @alexclapp.bsky.social's "Waste Wars" is his journey to document the afterlife of our garbage. Here are some of the locations he visits in our April book of the month. Get ready, it's genuinely shocking. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/photo-essa...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Inside the world's ghastliest garbage dumps

A visual tour of the locations in "Waste Wars".

111

Reposted by Bobbie

William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Feel like winning yourself some personalized limited-edition Wm. Gibson while helping Locus continue to do its wholly admirable and increasingly essential thing for sf and fantasy? Step right up!

418762

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 25/03/2026

Six months ago Sora made me feel so sick to the pit of my stomach that I wrote about it in the NYT. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/o... What was it for? Just to generate slop and confuse people about what’s real and what’s fake? Now it’s been shut down. Good riddance! www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...

nytimes.com

Opinion | What Is Sora Slop For, Exactly?

020

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 23/02/2026

Amazing to chat with @craigmod.com about his book Things Become Other Things, his friends, his mentors, the Japanese language, being an old man whisperer, AI, purpose... oh, all the stuff! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/craig-mod-...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

"Purpose is being denuded from every aspect of society"

Talking with Craig Mod about his book "Things Become Other Things".

0104

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 09/02/2026

Most concerning part of the case of Seamus Culleton, an Irish man on a green card path and legally able to work, but imprisoned by ICE for 5 months? He says agents presented docs agreeing to deportation that were "signed" by him that he'd never actually signed. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Screenshot of text saying "When his attorney appealed to a federal court, two ICE agents said that in Buffalo, Culleton had signed documents agreeing to be deported. Culleton said he did not agree and that the signatures were not his. "My whole lfie is here. I worked so hard to build my business. My wife is here."

020

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 07/02/2026

When I tell ppl that moving to Substack is a terrible idea, this is why. It doesn't just host Nazi newsletters, it promotes and makes bank off them. This isn't new information—folks have been reporting on it for years—but if it's new to you, act accordingly www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

theguardian.com

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters

Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

110

Reposted by Bobbie

Tom Usher @tomusher.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

The funny thing about a certain type of angry conspiracy guy is that they’re literally being confronted with an elite paedophile ring and a tyrannical government at the same time right now, and because it isn't being done by the people they wanted it to be done by they’re all being pussies about it

6481521971

Reposted by Bobbie

Mia Sato @miasato.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

The violent occupation of Minneapolis started with a vlog. I've wanted to find a framework to describe Nick Shirley & others like him: "Influencer" is too quaint. "Journalist" is obviously wrong. I landed on "slopagandist." Gift link (open in a web browser) www.theverge.com/news/869824/...

theverge.com

What is Nick Shirley?

Slop doesn’t need to be AI-generated

782742811

Reposted by Bobbie

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)

From Senator Chris McDaniel: “Lately, some folks have taken to calling ICE “the Gestapo.” It sounds fierce. It feels righteous. But it isn’t true, and it isn’t harmless.

The Gestapo was a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanished in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer meant anything. The knock on the door was the sentence.

ICE isn’t that. Not even close.

ICE is a public agency enforcing laws passed by elected officials. Its agents file reports. They seek warrants. They lose cases. Judges stop them. Lawyers challenge them. Some detainees go home. That’s not tyranny. That’s bureaucracy, for better and worse.

You can hate immigration policy. You can argue enforcement is too harsh, too sloppy, or too broad. You can work to have the law changed if you wish. That’s a republic doing what it’s supposed to do.

But when you call ordinary law enforcement “the Gestapo,” you cheapen real evil. You turn history into a slogan and suffering into a metaphor. And once every badge is tyranny, no tyranny is left to recognize.

In Mississippi, I was raised to believe words should earn their weight. This one hasn't yet. It throws around the language of dictatorship while living under a system where courts still rule, lawyers still argue, and the government still loses.

That difference matters.

Because the day enforcement becomes secret, unchecked, and answerable to no one, we won’t need to borrow names from history. We’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.

And we’ll wish we’d kept our words honest.”

1542225846060

Reposted by Bobbie

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Fraud is a serious crime that merits laying siege to an entire city and collectively punishing every immigrant from Somalia. It's also a crime for which you can be pardoned and relieved of compensating your victims, so long as some of the money you stole finds its way to the president.

nytimes.com

Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time

352515802

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 16/01/2026

I wrote a bit for @ffdweb.org looking at some of the work being done by Rick Prelinger (@footage.bsky.social) and @archive.org. The ambition? To save the past and give it away. "That’s the highest destiny that an archive can aspire to… when you give up control." ffdweb.org/digest/issue...

ffdweb.org

Preserving the Past on a Decentralized Future | FFDW

How archivists are using decentralized storage and blockchain to preserve fragile cultural history and expand public access for future generations.

000

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 15/01/2026

We’ve now reached the “then they came for the middle aged suburban dudes who have to go to work in the morning” part of the poem

010

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 13/01/2026

This regime is stuffed with folks who are still living in the long 1980s. They're led of course by Trump, who could revel in his gold-plated life with abandon, but also by those who fantasize about cheap goods, rampant bigotry, falling taxes, regular moral panics and Latin American interventions.

100

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 23/10/2025

If Trump has, in fact, backed down on sending a massive ICE deployment to the SF Bay Area, it would be yet more confirmation that he nearly always backs down in the face of (a) organized resistance and (b) personal contact from the rich and powerful. www.sfchronicle.com/us-world/art...

sfchronicle.com

Trump calls off planned federal ‘surge’ in S.F. but plans for Bay Area immigration crackdown unclear

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he called off the planned federal deployment to the city after speaking with Mayor Daniel Lurie.

110

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 19/10/2025

What is Sora's deepfake slop for, exactly? A little bit from me in the NYT on this awful, ghoulish invention which ultimately seems to have one purpose: to demolish the wall between the real and the unreal. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | What Is Sora Slop For, Exactly?

2366

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/08/2025

📣 Our book of the month for August is... STRATA: STORIES FROM DEEP TIME by @laurapoppick.bsky.social We loved this detailed, deliberate overview of geoscience—and its mixture of lyrical prose and detailed profiles of researchers and the things they study. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/announcing...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Deep thoughts on deep time with August's book of the month

Laura Poppick's "Strata" takes the long view on geology.

053

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 01/07/2025

📢 Our pick of the month for July is "The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog": @biologycarly.bsky.social's fun new book showing how silly science can lead to serious discoveries. Publishers Weekly called it "pop science at its finest" and they're right! newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur015-sal...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Silly science is serious business in July's book of the month

We're reading Carly Anne York's "The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog".

011

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 27/06/2025

Had a great conversation with @karenhao.bsky.social about her book EMPIRE OF AI, OpenAI, its true costs, and end-of-the-world thinking for this month's @readcurious.xyz live Q&A. I'll be sharing our chat soon in our free email newsletter. Sign up if you're interested! newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Author Karen Hao, wearing a camel jacket and black top, talks animatedly via video call with Curious Reading Club host Bobbie Johnson.

020

Reposted by Bobbie

David Gura @davidgura.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Sen. Alex Padilla, who was just forcibly removed from a DHS press conference, is the ranking member of Judiciary’s subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, which has “oversight of federal agencies with citizenship, asylum, refugee, and immigration enforcement responsibilities.”

658214147419

Reposted by Bobbie

Locus Magazine @locusmag.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

📣ATTENTION YOUNG WRITERS!📣 Henry Lien will be holding a free youth writing workshop hosted at @Chapter510 in partnership with the Locus Awards and @sistahscifi on Sunday, June 22nd in Oakland. RSVP now here or through the link in our bio! tinyurl.com/3fcz9yt7 See you there! #kidlit

HENRY LIEN next to his book peasprout chen and text overlay

013

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 07/06/2025

Mainstream media keeps laundering these “philosophers of the alt right” or “big thinkers of Silicon Valley”… And then you watch them on video and immediately see they are total chuds you wouldn’t want to spend 2 minutes alone with. Why can’t people see how utterly weird these dudes are?

000

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 05/06/2025

Request for advice: a family member of mine in the UK, a lefty in his younger days, has been Farage-pilled. Constant stream of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant posts and right wing talking points, angry responses to my comments and questions. Any tips, suggestions or guides to constructively engage?

200

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 02/06/2025

Our book of the month for June is @karenhao.bsky.social's astonishing look at the hottest company in tech: "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" It's a detailed, critical dive into what AI is, where it comes from, and what it costs. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/cur014-kar...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Get ready for some deep learning with June's book of the month

Our pick is Karen Hao's stupendous, skeptical "Empire of AI".

1135

Reposted by Bobbie

Locus Magazine @locusmag.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN! We have 9 days to reach our fundraising goal & we have a LONG way to go!! Be the reason that the Locus lights stay on! Help us out at igg.me/at/locusmag2025. We are so grateful for your support! Fundraiser link in bio #sff #scifi #fantasy #booksky

text: 9 days left to reach our fundraiser goal, we need you ! Indiegogo and Locus logos and Cluso alien

051

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 20/05/2025

Thanks to Vox for having me on Today, Explained to talk about fake North Korean workers. I'm told this goes out on many public radio stations, so hello to you all out there! (I cannot bring myself to listen to my own voice today, so please tell me if I goofed) megaphone.link/VMP4489740505

megaphone.link

My colleague, the scammer by Today, Explained

North Korea has been sending young, tech-savvy operatives to pose as ordinary American job seekers. Tech reporter Bobbie Johnson investigates the scam.

020

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 19/05/2025

It should not be controversial or complicated to say that what is happening in Gaza is wrong. But here we are. We are bearing witness to thousands of people, many of them children, being trapped and bombed and starved to death. Doctors have been killed. Aid workers. Journalists. This is wrong.

020

Reposted by Bobbie

Reo Eveleth @reveleth.com · 12/05/2025

The same reporters who won’t call the plane a bribe because it did not come with a note that says “now you will do what we want” somehow also often think that trans people are too biased to report on trans issues.

1459

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 09/05/2025

Lovely recommendation from @longreads.com today for my recent @wired.com story on why your weird remote work buddy may actually be a North Korean IT worker. "puts you on the edge of your seat for the audacity of the cybercrime alone" longreads.com/2025/05/09/t...

longreads.com

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads

Recommendations from Bobbie Johnson; Bee Wilson; Jia Tolentino; Isra Fejzullaj, Rina Chandran, and Michael Zelenko; and Matthew Ponsford.

020

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 04/05/2025

I am very much looking forward to talking to Bonnie about this wonderful book!

010

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 02/05/2025

My new story at @wired.com on North Korea's extensive effort to secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. They use AI, deepfakes and boots on the ground to steal identities, get remote jobs, and funnel money and data back to fund the Kim regime. www.wired.com/story/north-...

wired.com

Your Favorite New Coworker Is an AI-Enhanced Operative From North Korea

For years, North Korea has been secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. With AI, their schemes are now more devious—and effective—than ever.

010

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 01/05/2025

You know that co-worker who always joins meetings with their camera off? The engineer who quietly gets his work done and never says much in the team chat? What if you discovered they were in fact a North Korean agent, working to send money back to Kim Jong Un's regime? www.wired.com/story/north-...

wired.com

Your Favorite New Coworker Is an AI-Enhanced Operative From North Korea

For years, North Korea has been secretly placing young IT workers inside Western companies. With AI, their schemes are now more devious—and effective—than ever.

110

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 26/04/2025

So we have: —masked vigilantes grabbing folks off the street —for free speech, for tattoos, or just because they’re brown (including Native Americans) —moving them to rocket docket jurisdictions —then deporting them to utterly random countries —this includes US citizen children WITH CANCER

100

Reposted by Bobbie

Toby Nangle @tobyn.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Easy to be flippant, but Trump going on the record to tell the media he is not in control of his govt and is being misinformed by advisors. Someone else is running the country.

15638001233

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 19/04/2025

A question: the Supreme Court may have ruled that whatever the president does basically isn’t a crime, but does that mean anyone committing criminal acts on behalf of the president is immune? Because we got a lot of people out there just following orders.

000

Bobbie @bobbie.net · 11/04/2025

100% Mia is gonna be one of the best ever to do it (if not already)

000

Reposted by Bobbie

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Good day to remember that a US President has no inherent power over tariffs whatsoever. It’s not like war powers or pardons. It’s entirely delegated by Congress to deal with emergencies. GOP Congress cld modify that law tonight and bring this to a screeching halt.

1078332839339

Reposted by Bobbie

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

"high-profile “free speech” advocates such as Bari Weiss, Jonathan Haidt, David Brooks, David Frum, John McWhorter, and Malcolm Gladwell have either remained silent or championed the arrests."

351150263

Reposted by Bobbie

Curious Reading Club @readcurious.xyz · 29/03/2025

This week's newsletter is out, featuring highlights from our live conversation with @ayanaeliza.bsky.social. It was a fun chat: she talks about how her book What If We Get It Right? came together, what surprised her about it and what it doesn't cover. newsletter.readcurious.xyz/p/trying-not...

newsletter.readcurious.xyz

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: “I was trying to not be boring”

Our live Q&A with the author of What If We Get It Right? the Curious Reading Club book for March 2025.

0113