iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jessica Ritchey @jmritchey.bsky.social · 1h

Hegseth's whole deal snapped into place when I learned he has a wife-mommy who follows him everywhere and without whom he would be unable to tie his own shoelaces.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 5h

Definitely not one of the projects of the LLMS to devalue expertise and provide apparently legitimacy for things that are said _often_ without any critical understanding of the accuracy of those things. I mean, who would pay for a Big Lie machine designed to launder misinformation to the public?

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Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 6h

My third novel, HERO COME HOME, officially has a cover! Preorderable from the usual places us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

The cover of my third novel, HERO COME HOME. Four human figures centred, the main image being that of a bearded man looking back over his shoulder (that's Oro, the protagonist), with a circle of symbols behind him. We can see a swan and a key. In the foreground are three people: two women, one with a mysterious marking? scar? who knows!? on her cheek and the other carrying a sword, flanking an older, balding man holding up a pistol. The possibly-scarred woman looks ever so slightly amused, and that is certainly very like her. Everybody else is not happy to be here, or indeed, anywhere

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Matthew Jackson @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social · 6h

Caravaggio's birthday was yesterday so happy belated birthday to a certified badass.

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Indrapramit Das @indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's Caravaggio's birthday again, good excuse to get people to watch Derek Jarman's extravagantly marvellous CARAVAGGIO (1986) (and look at some Caravaggio paintings).

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Cautionary Tale in Motion : 👍 🏳️‍🌈 ✡️ 🇨🇦 @noncompliant.myatproto.social · 8h

Real talk #CanCon, it’s Truth & Reconciliation Day in Canada, www.canada.ca/en/canadian-... & 2 days ago, masked Nazi thugs tried to intimidate an Indigenous community and promote residential school denialism, so today is a great day to wear orange, but even more so, to go, read and learn from

canada.ca

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - Canada.ca

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is observed September 30. The day honours First Nations, Inuit and Métis Survivors and their families and communities and ensures that public commemoration of the tragic and painful history of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 9h

Those arguing for mass-adoption of AI art always seem intent on proving the wrong thing; that AI tech will change beyond all recognition. They seem less inclined to prove their argument's much wilder claim; that human nature, and all previous modes of taste, emotion and investment, will change too.

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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 10h

So much of the lens on culture has been turned into a numbers game, where everything is about chart placements and streaming numbers and data. Its a horse race to who gets to do data best, and all of these dorks forget that people just want a song that will make them cry at the grocery store.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 9h

Tech industry is laser focused on solving the problem of humans enjoying each other’s company bsky.app/profile/down...

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 6h

I... was not aware of this.

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Jay Edidin @edidin.bsky.social · 21h

I am an AI doomer inasmuch as I feel strongly that AI is doomed and that it is our responsibility to accelerate that doom.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 19h

What's a poster you had in your room growing up? I was introduced to Kate in Grade 9 drama, and the world never went back.

UK promo poster for Kate Bush's The Ninth Wave (a.k.a the back half of Hounds of Love).

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Zack Ford @zackford.bsky.social · 23h

Okay the screenshots other people shared did not properly prepare me for what happens when you tell America.gov to "play Minecraft." Here's the full response I got. (1/2)

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Doctora Malka Older @older.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"causes stir" should not be a headline

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 29/09/2026

New TTRPG campaign starts tomorrow. I am having so much fun getting ready. Trying some different stuff this time—set up a wiki for tracking lore, people, places, things, session notes, pc sheets, etc that the players can edit, but also with the ability for me to add secret GM notes to any page.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 29/09/2026

Can this bubble JUST POP already? Also, if I had $12.6B I am confident I could run a company that would only make $4.6B in revenue, but A) a whole lot of solar/wind installations would've been built, B) a shit ton of affordable housing would've been built, and C) every library in North America wou…

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 29/09/2026

Reuters got some of the IPO docs. Anthropic is a total dog of a company. Spent $12.6bn to make $4.6bn in revenue in 2025, $7.33bn of which was compute costs. Operating loss of $8bn. Losses getting worse year over year. Amazing stuff www.reuters.com/business/fin...

Summary
Companies
• Anthropic IPO could value the company at more than $2
trillion
• Anthropic lost $42 billion in 2025
• Al lab spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure last year
• Operating loss widened to $8.06 billion in 2025 from $2.98 billion in 2024
• Execs, industry analysts have expressed concerns over harms of Al tech
Sept 28 (Reuters) - Anthropic is making a massive bet that Al will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet, according to its IPO prospectus seen by Reuters.
But the cost to get there will be staggering. Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming year, according to the
prospectus.

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weeder @weeder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

God, grant me the courage to change the things I can and incredible new powers to change the things I can't.

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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I have separated the art from the artist and am now whipping the art to stiff peaks, after which I will gently fold it into the artist before baking at 350 til golden and puffed

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Lisa Wade @lisawade.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

All the news about the Cornell 7 has inspired some folks, like the fantastic @jessicavalenti.bsky.social, to re-up their calls for banning historically White fraternities. 10 years ago I reviewed the history of these orgs, arguing they were un-reformable. I stand by my argument. In my new book...

time.com

Why Colleges Should Get Rid of Fraternities for Good

'Reform is simply not possible'

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Leon Simons @leonsimons.com · 04/09/2026

🚨The most important NASA graph in the world has another 6 months of data, and it looks even worse. 🚨 NASA CERES satellites measure how much sunlight Earth absorbs and how much heat is radiated back to space. The difference is heat accumulation, which has more than tripled over the past 26 years!

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Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

For all that it's been barely reported in the UK press, it's still hard to understate the importance of the stance @labourunionsuk.bsky.social has taken on trans and non-binary rights this week. Every single trade union affiliated to the party of government has stood up and said we will not comply.

Joint statement from National TULO

Solidarity with the trans and non-binary community

Labour's 11 affiliated trade unions stand in total solidarity with the trans and non-binary community.

Trans rights are human rights, and trans rights are workers' rights.

We in the trade union movement will do all we can to stand up for our trans members and all our trans siblings, to protect them from persecution, harassment and attack.

The government must act now to protect all trans people, to make sure their rights are protected, expanded and upheld in our workplaces and communities.

Labour Unions

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 28/09/2026

So, Ontario has announced GA of this year's flu and COVID shots starting Oct 26th. While I'm glad the shots are still included in public health, I am irked on three fronts; 1) No real campaign to get people to go. Should be a major public health effort/ 2) That's 2 weeks after Can*Con

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John Orquiola @backofthehead.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

We should have listened to King T'Challa 8 years ago.

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Ben Prunty @benprunty.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I don't love dunking on folks but it's so fucking funny to me that Trump was convicted of 34 felonies 2 years ago, faced no punishment, and went on to win the presidency a second time and journalists are still like, "hmm, I have an inkling that maybe he believes he's above the law for some reason."

Post from NYT reporter Eric Lipton

"What an odd moment in United States history.

A U.S. president is running an overtly political campaign advertisement, right before midterm elections, paid for by the U.S. government.

Trump appears to believe he is immune from any kind of legal limit."

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Jennifer Shin - WTAF @jennifershin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Wakefield was a fraud who engaged in deliberate data falsification. Investigations revealed that he had altered patient medical histories, fabricated data, and reported false onset times. He lost his license to practice medicine in the UK in 2010. www.immunize.org/clinical/vac...

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Goodnight from The Elusive Lady pub, where there’s much talk of the Empress Eel slithering the fields. Goodnight from Geoff Allot, his shade hanging around the sign appealing for witness to a road traffic accident, unable to quite work out what is going on. Goodnight from Hookland.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

Don't usually get mail on Sunday but I guess, given the load of stuff that showed up yesterday, it's a rains/pours situation. Anyway, this just arrived, and I'm delighted. Can't go wrong with @stephengrahamjones.com .

The new SST edition of SGJ's KILLER ON THE ROAD, with the book pulled from the slipcase to show the dust jacket art.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

The last prose book in this latest drop of stuff isn't either a small press edition or a crowd-funder, it's the 2nd book in the City of Shadow series. I've been reading Turtledove since he was Iverson, and I have a soft spot for noir/fantasy mashups but this wasn't available in Canada, so…

The cover for LIGHTNING RUNES in HC, the second book in Harry Turtledove's City of Shadows series.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

I mentioned some crowd-funding things also landed in this set of books. * A collection of stories inspired by Gemma Files' EXPERIMENTAL FILM * A collection of stories arising from the "Alleyman" mythos that Seven Dane Asmund has built up across projects. * Quantick/Barker having a laugh about film

Cover of EXPERIMENTAL FILES.

Gemma Files is part of that small CanHorror community, and EXPERIMENTAL FILM was very cool, so interested to see how other folks have used it as a launchpad.

The Alleyman stuff, from tarot decks to a podcast, is right up my alley. I don't know if Asmund can write prose, but I'll give it a chance since the ideas are intriguing.

Generally a fan of Quantick's novels, and of VEEP and The Blagger's Guide, so I'll give this a whirl as well.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

And now we get to @subpress.bsky.social, the company that gets the largest portion of my "fancy books" dollars. * A collection of @tkingfisher.com's three Alex Easton novellas * The sequel to @marthawells.com's WITCH KING * The second in @fondalee.bsky.social's Green Bone Saga * The latest Dresden

The Palencar cover for the Subterranean Press limited edition of THE SWORN SOLIDER, an omnibus of Kingfisher's three Alex Easton novellas.

The cover for Martha Wells' QUEEN DEMON, the sequel to WITCH KING

Cover for the Subterranean limited edition of Fonda Lee's JADE WAR, the second book in the Green Bone Saga.

Cover for the Subterranean Press HC of Jim Butcher's latest Harry Dresden novel, TWELVE MONTHS.

I've got all 18 of these, plus a couple of SubPress collections of short stories in the world. Bonkers how this has built up over time.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

New from Centipede in this latest drop were: * their edition of Zelazny's ROADMARKS (foreshadowing, one hopes, fancy editions of a lot of the slim Zelazny stand-alones) * the latest book in the effort to publish everything Woolrich * their edition of The LIttle People (with a subtler cover)

New Centipede Press limited edition HC of Roger Zelazny's ROADMARKS.

Another Centipede Press collection of Woolrich stories. I think this is the 17th or 18th Woolrich HC from Centipede in my library.

New Centipede Press edition of John Christopher's THE LITTLE PEOPLE

The cover that THE LITTLE PEOPLE had when it was published as a pulp.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

Over the last couple of years Weird House Press has published a number of limited editions of interest to me, notably including a whole lot of Jeffrey Thomas. In this drop of books there were two from them: their latest Jeffrey Thomas, and the latest story collection from Brian Evenson.

The DIN OF CELESTIAL BIRDS, Brain Evenson's new story collection, pulled out of the slipcase to show off the cover.

Jeffrey Thomas' THE IDOL, his latest to get the Weird House fancy treatment.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

A couple of years ago Valancourt put out a book from an Italian horror author Luigi Musolino, and a number of people I trust really talked it up. So I got a copy and they were right. And now Earthling has done a lovely limited hardcover of that same collection...

The very glossy (and therefore hard to photograph--you can clearly see me in the cover, my eye between the A and R in Darkness, and my phone behind the head of the figure) cover of A DIFFERENT DARKNESS.

Publisher's art of the cover, without all the glossy reflections.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

I've been following Ian Rogers since we returned to ON—he's part of the relatively small Canadian horror scene (he lives in the same town as my in-laws). When Thunderstorm said they were going to do a big HC of his 1st Felix Renn/Black Lands novel I jumped on. Can replace the old Cemetery Dance TP.

The oversized Thunderstorm Press limited edition of Ian Rogers' SYCAMORE.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

After reading THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET a few years back I put Catriona Ward on The List. Which meant I later read her SUNDIAL among other things. Lividian has done a lovely limited edition of that, which will now replace my Tor Nightfire HC. My first purchase from Lividian.

Slipcase art, with a cutout, where the dustjacket art shows through.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

I can't resist a fancy edition of a beloved volume, and @theauthorguy.bsky.social's book LAMB is one that both Dr. Wife & I love. (I've been a fan of his since his first book back in 1992--I'm NOT doing that math--and it's been a wild ride the whole time). From Suntup.

The Suntup edition of LAMB, slid out of the slipcase to show the cover, a literal lamb wrapped in blankets/swaddling clothes, with a sun/halo behind. Very much the iconography that one would usually see for the messiah as a baby.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

In from Ireland: the 10th anniversary HC of A MAN WITH ONE OF THOSE FACES. Just in time for the RTE adaptation to air, starting... today?

The cover of the 10th Anniversary edition of A MAN WITH ONE OF THOSE FACES by Caimh McDonnell from McFori Ink (which I think is the publishing name for "Caimh & his (Wonder)wife".

Sprayed edges, like all the kids are doing, with a Dublin skyline

Inscribed title page which calls out my unforgettable face.

(I have not met Caimh in person, but sometimes you can tell just by vibes I guess.)

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

For my pretty complete collection of the works of @lairdbarron.bsky.social, the delightfully dark limited edition of stories that @badhandbooks.bsky.social put together...

The dust jacket on the new Laird Barron collection. Dark grey on black. No text (also none of the spine), just patterns suggesting nightmare forest or horrible things in the darkness or both.

Title page of the book, NOT A SPECK OF LIGHT.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

Got a whole bunch of small press and crowd-funded books yesterday. Let me show you some of them. These are the new Meteor House books to complement my heart PJF collection. Random fact: I have reread Burton's Kasîdah A LOT more times than I have reread the Riverworld books.

First HC edition of PJF's Hadon of Ancient Opar

First HC edition of the sequel to Hadon, FLIGHT TO OPAR. This one has around 4000 words restored that were cut in the original printing (I am... ambivalent about this, as I know the value of editors, but...)

An HC of RIVERWORLD ODYSSEY, which is basically a miscellanea of everything related to the Riverworld stories.

The publisher says: Clocking in at almost six hundred pages, Riverworld Odyssey is a journey through every piece of associated fiction, every pertinent essay, letter, article, and speech, every item of ephemera we could gather, in one Brobdingnagian volume, to tell the story—the history—of one of science fiction’s greatest series.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

I'd like to lay all the blame for this on Trump voters, but honestly there's that large section of the well-off Left that keeps the medical quackery practitioners (homeopathy, naturopathy, "supplements", and I'll say it "chiropractors", among many others) in business. And they all listened to Jenny.

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Kameron Hurley @kameronhurley.com · 27/09/2026

I was watching some older TV shows like Murder She Wrote and realized we've lost a lot of that "cozy, lived in" vibe in modern TV shows. Everything looks like an HGTV show home instead of grandma's cozy pad with shit from all her adventures

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David Graeber Institute @davidgraeberinst.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A reminder that all the aspects of our economic system are made up and we can have a better system if we wanted to. Homelessness for example. We could have an economy that builds homes for homeless people. It does not have to be this way.

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Chris McLaren ☢️ @chrismclaren.com · 27/09/2026

In my head there are so many that I note but I don't react unless asked, because why be that ass. (*) But the one I will respond to out loud is that "disinterested" has a distinct and different meaning from "uninterested".

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Vought is breaking the law but he is not “going rogue.” At his confirmation hearings, Vought told Republicans he would do this and they voted for him anyway. If they want to stop him, they still can via impeachment. They won’t.

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Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 27/09/2026

Nope it's still a creepy camera.

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