iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 20h

I'm having problems reconciling that it was 91 today with the fact that hockey has started.

Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Who wants to give me start up money to publish a line of consumer health books? Possible titles include: Your Gout and You; How to Fix a Pancreas; and, Is This a Goiter? Get on board fast losers.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

How could I have forgotten about the I need a kidney song? This piece is a good excuse to rewatch the whole series for like the 5th time.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Next year when I go to the Frankfurt Book Fair I think I'm just not going to come back. I've been home for 3 days and my back is still jacked up from the flight, my email is out of control, and I am having serious withdrawal symptoms from going cold turkey off the real food they make in Europe.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

When are you go a do a show at the county DMV?

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

From a fair use perspective: Is the tattoo transformative? Yes. Does it infringe on the rightsholder's ability to still make $$$ from the image? No. Commercial use? One could say the customer's bill was for services rendered, not selling the image. It's the entirety of the work, so 1 strike against.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

That is great. Could passengers ride the Rhubarb Express?

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

2 fun things I learned at the Frankfurt Book Fair: in England there is a region called the "forced rhubarb triangle" and there's a German cheese that if you order it with onions, the rough verbatim translation of "with onions" is "with music," which is outstanding.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Covered in dogs after being gone for almost a whole week ain't too bad. And yes, I am wearing Gritty fleece pants.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

That is wild, this bar plants are bonkers. So you play steel too then. We must be some of the very few people who play steel and saxophone. Although my steel playing is pretty rudimentary. I've got a nice pedal steel that I'm slowly diving into. It's a beast of an instrument.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I'm back from Germany. What's good America?

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The train left the station on small, indies, and UPs regarding LLMs years ago. Yes, I'm sure some smaller presses are 100% anti-AI, but the difference between making and selling a book between the Big 5 and most everybody else is just a matter of scale.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Walking down the FBF exhibit halls it was AI booth after AI booth touting services for publishers at every step of the publication, distribution, maketing/publicity, and sales process. LLMs and AI are everywhere in publishing. It's just a matter of degree as to how much publishers use it.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Other examples include: mangers "encouraging" their staff to type up their meeting notes and running them through Claude and have it spit out a to do list; creating sales conference/pitching notes; making custom Excel reports; making indexes; translation, etc. More than what is visible on the book.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

After attending this year's Frankfurt Book Fair I can almost guarantee that nearly every publisher, even smaller ones, is using LLMs in these and many other ways. Thinking otherwise is self delusion.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I've thought of doing something similar with my Eagle Scout badge and medal.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Gutenberg printing press. Or one of them anyway. This puppy helped change the world.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

In the which city has better dogs match-up, I take London over Frankfurt any day. Although I have seen a couple very good boys in Frankfurt. They are just less plentiful than their English cousins.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

When I guessed how big Frankfurt was based on the robustness of it's public transportation I guessed there was maybe 5 million people. No, only 800k. Astounding. Ah, that day 10 years ago or whenever when Duke singlehandedly killed off light rail in Durham.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Dinner in Germany: the menu had footnotes saying the restaurant had to disclose certain preservatives in a particular meal BY LAW. In America they make restaurants disclose whenever there is real food. America could have real food that didn't taste like shit if it wanted.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Fuck. Accidentally bought water with bubbles. 3 liters of it. Seriously. Water with bubbles, why? Oh well, that's what I get for not knowing a lick of German.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I guess you can list billy woods, Paul Simon, and Tortoise in the same lengthy RIYL list, but not without it making me feel very suspect about the whole thing.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I just started buying music I like and that's how I still roll.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What does it say about the efficacy of web/newsletter banner ads when I had to scroll down the page twice to see the ad that I knew was running today? I even knew where it exactly was going to be because I booked it. I still missed it the first time.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm in Frankfurt; my luggage is not. I hope my French and Polish agents I'm meeting with tomorrow to pitch books to appreciate the Tell Your Dog I Said Hi t shirt and Dickies skateboard pants that I packed in my carry on as an emergency change of clothes.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Given my brief time in the Helsinki airport I'm convinced I really am in Portland or Seattle. Coffee and pastries everywhere. Grey drizzle. Mid 50s. Lots of pale people who haven't seen the sun in 8 months. Etc.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Am I leaving for a week long work trip to Germany this evening? Yes. Do I want to get off the couch and actually go? Not at this point in time.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I've got to try this. Next somebody do this for a program that can open up and edit pdfs. Adobe Acrobat has become absolutely useless.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I've got the 5th one ready to read next. Somehow I've missed the bass jokes.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

That Terry Riley is a nice find. The droning, fluttering overdubbed sopranos on the b side are so great.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This album still blows my hair back. It's one of my favorite albums of the century. It changed what I thought was possible.

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Reposted by Chris Robinson

Paul Bassett Davies @thewritertype.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. But give a monkey a beer and some fireworks, and the weekend starts here.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's been too long since I spent time with my pedal steel. It sounds like a dream even with old strings. When I get this bloody Blindfold Test book finished I'm going deeeep into this instrument.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The first 5 or 6 times I listened to it I was totally shredding along. Then for whatever reason it stopped hitting. I did like it better than Birds of Fire, which I need to revisit because it's been ages since I've heard it.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I have never seen this in the wild anywhere. And I've bought some awfully cheap ECM in actual record stores for like $3. So if I ever see it for $2.99, I'll get it.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

No we aren't. You might be, but I want no part of that we.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I think I would consider doing something drastic if I could get the lap steel tone that whichever Gutierrez brother it is who plays it here. I guess I'm going to have to spend a shit load of time shedding my pedal steel, which is a proper instrument compared to my $300 lap steel.

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Los Ojos Del Cóndor, by Hermanos Gutiérrez

10 track album

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Even though it's a 1 run game I've had enough of the gambling and shave yr junk commercials so I'm out.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's international translation day, so here's the newest translated book originally published by @dukepress.bsky.social. This is the French edition of Jonathan Sterne's Diminished Faculties, published by Philharmonie De Paris Editions.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Tonight I learned that Copilot can rescue a failing pizza place and the lesser Kelce held up a bottle of yellow liquid, said data centers need water, and then touted some beverage's ability to make piss, which is good for data centers also, I guess, maybe. Also, ask your doctor about Skyrizi.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I loved that part of the book. Among several other parts.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"Back in my day," chicks dug the long ball, Jamie Moyer made a helluva career throwing 80mph junk, the '95 Mariners were the hottest thing going, and everybody was juicing. A simpler, more civilized age.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ok, so I wasn't crazy thinking the offensive numbers were on the low side. I thought maybe for a second I was having a "back in my day moment." Only 40 doubles, wow. But the pitching is nasty. Living in Durham I watch a ton more AAA baseball and don't follow the majors.

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I haven't followed MLB this year and I'm just now seeing that .316 was enough to win the AL batting title. Seems low. Is it because almost everybody throws 98+ cheese? Or that bullpens are used differently? Bigger zone?

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Chris Robinson @chris-robinson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Damn, every sentence in this goes hard.

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