iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jay D. Aronson @jaydaronson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Reposted by Matt

Check out this article by my amazing graduate student Abby Cramer! She identifies the links between today’s techbro eugenics and that of 20th c. eugenist Paul Popenoe, an early supporter of eugenic sterilization who became a marriage counselor to ensure “high quality” produced lots of offspring.

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Looks like the idea is that it'd power Moon stuff. The gist of it is, "Sure, we could build a reactor on the moon, if we absolutely didn't give a shit about the possibility of permanently irradiating the moon. We can build a reactor pretty much any stupid place."

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Clearly what this shows is that the taxpayers of Wisconsin need to pony up $10B for an emergency roof re-heightening.

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Reposted by Matt

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In Springfield, OH, nearly 1,400 workers were laid off at truck factory just days before Trump rally. Layoffs were large enough to basically erase an entire year of job growth in the greater Dayton, Ohio, area. apnews.com/article/trum...

apnews.com

A gut punch in Ohio: Nearly 1,400 laid off at truck factory just days before Trump rally

President Donald Trump is trying to rally voters in the Dayton, Ohio, area on Saturday. But days ago, 1,400 workers were laid off from a truck factory there.

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I had the honor of serving on a few SBE review panels. I probably worked harder to wrap my mind around those proposals than at any other time in my professional life—because they were so good and thorough. The least of them were things where ANYBODY could see the value. Absolutely disgusting.

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As a radium historian, I endorse this analogy!

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Okay so the "rumors" were because she didn't go to Trump's inaugural with him? JFC as though the only reason you wouldn't want to sit through that horror show is that you hate your husband

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not cool Shiv's wife, not cool

Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Reposted by Matt

In 1974, Cornell lecturer Lin Farley began recognizing a pattern in the experiences women shared in her Women and Work course: women were being pushed out of jobs by men’s sexual behavior. Farley coined the term, “sexual harassment.”

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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

ohhhh yeah, I can see it now

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Reposted by Matt

The university held an “AI support” session for instructors today and it is not too surprising to see those old lower-case c conservative dynamics shaping up. First, just about everyone who attended was maxed out in their opposition. The job of the admins seemed mostly to be to absorb the anger.

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Yeah, I mean it's wrong to defraud your government and all, but I think that for this kind of crime it should be unprosecutable if you're the FIRST to think of it. Like there should be an "ahahahaha the balls on this guy" mitigation under these circumstances.

Guy Bundestrivago @convolutedname.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Reposted by Matt

It's so funny that they think they can buy the Pope the same way they think they bought the current president

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

tbf my inner voice is mostly just exasperated sighs

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Reposted by Matt

Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 02/10/2026

Checking in on how things are going over at the Chronicle Against Higher Education:

Screenshot of Chronicle of Higher Education website showing featured articles: "Anthropology Has a Truth Problem"; "The Social Sciences Have a Politics Problem"; "Could AI Be Better at Peer Review Than Humans?"; "Colleges Should Take Linda McMahon's Call to Action Seriously."

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You claim to value diversity and yet this is how you treat our first cyborg president? So much for the tolerant left!

JewWhoHasItAll @jewwhohasitall.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The iron law of intelligence is that if you believe there is such a thing as anything more than an abstract theoretical construct, you lack it. Only smart people understand there's no such concrete thing as a smart person.

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Reposted by Matt

**ChaiGPT-18o** **User:** hi i teach 2nd grade in public school and i have 2 christian students this year. can you help me write a letter to their parents about how we're honoring their holiday St Francis Day on 23 tishrei? i want it to be respectful. we're off for simchat torah anyway lol 1/22

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My rule of thumb is that one person-day of jail time has the same deterrent effect as $10M in corporate fines. Of course, that's only true AFTER you demonstrate that you're actually willing to put people in jail. Which brings us to step 2…

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I'm not the first person to notice it, but that barn is collapsing. Farms that are profitable, e.g. because they can afford diesel fuel and have a ready supply of workers, either fix or tear down barns like this.

A barn is foregrounded against a field. It has a giant American flag hung from it, and it is leaning heavily to one side. If you've ever been in a barn in your life, this is an ex-barn. No farmer would put anything inside it because of the risk it would collapse at any moment.

The image, posted to the State Department's social media, is captioned "It's a beautiful sight" and the picture has the text "This and 250,000 visa revocations."

Nothing explains why revoking lawful visas has anything to do with a failing farm, although now that you mention it…

I mean, it's an oversimplification, sure, but it's close enough.

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On that subject, the Astros' stadium appears about half full. That either means the hometown fans left early in a playoff game or didn't fill the seats for one in the first place, both of which are cause for great shame.

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I'm not Catholic but the Pope is obviously not to be trifled with (laudatory) (baseball)

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Freshman year of college, 1993, my roommate and I splurged on a dinner that probably cost $8 apiece at a local restaurant because we'd missed the dining hall hours. I remember it more clearly than what I had for dinner last night. "Youth is wasted on the young" NO IT ISN'T

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I'm not paying for three legs I'm not gonna use.

The fact that he came to it as "wait, you mean the Caitlin Clark game I saw?" and then when Klobuchar was explaining the Hawks/Hawkeyes thing he was just "yeah whatever all I know is I was there to see Caitlin Clark"… …I'm just saying, Iowa gubernatorial campaigns have been launched on less.

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If there isn't a custom Iowa Hawkeyes jersey using Atlanta Hawks colors, in Schmitt's size, waiting for him at his office by close of business then I'm about done with democracy.

Bad photo composite of an Atlanta Hawks jersey in red and black with the Iowa Hawkeyes mascot and the word "eye" careted in to make it read "HAWKeyeS"

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Senator, you've accused me of leading an uprising of the yeomen against King Richard in 1381. In fact, I was watching the Oberlin Yeomen football team lose to Ohio Wesleyan by a score of 13-81.

Katie Notopoulos @katienotopoulos.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"infinite personalized music" Finally, music that I know to a mathematical certainty only I am deep enough to fully appreciate! What's that you ask? What am I listening to? You literally couldn't comprehend any answer I might give.

Tweet from @nicksaraev:

I am not joking when I say this. Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.

Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.

Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.

12:41 PM • Sep 28, 2026 • 3.1M Views

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Reposted by Matt

I talked to the librarian at a tiny upstate NY library where the flyer for drop-in event where she'll help you remove the AI features of your phone has gone viral www.businessinsider.com/library-bye-...

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This (kind of thing) was my dissertation and first book project! I mention it to explain why my eye is suddenly twitching. But yes, "it's a whole story" is an excellent summary.

Scott Colom @scolom.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Reposted by Matt

Cindy Hyde-Smith has 36 days until Election Day to face Mississippi voters in a town hall or debate.

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Reposted by Matt

Mara Wilson @marawilson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I really don’t think that’s the case. I do think that probably these people hate femininity, which they see as weakness. But that doesn’t mean that they are secretly gay or trans. And I think that it does damage to insist that they are. Maybe some are, but definitely not all.

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Exactly! It's all on the up-and-up.

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This is so true! I, and only I, am capable of divining which is the correct loaf of store-brand bread to buy from a hundred identical ones.

I guess I have no cause to complain about this e-mail from a scammer being misleadingly labeled.

Fake scammy PayPal "invoice" for $799.99 listed as coming from the "Fraud Department"

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 28/09/2026

Oh sure, but does the lamestream media bring you stories about the SpaceX rockets that DON'T blow up? …what's that? You say they are CONSTANTLY doing that, even though it really shouldn't be newsworthy if a product works as advertised? uh… very well then, carry on

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Reposted by Matt

So uhhhhhh… Apparently meta's muse "AI" is just straight up doxxing people to strangers on FB marketplace??? This has the potential to hurt so so many people, and I genuinely wonder how long before they roll out a fix for it.

Screenshot of a tweet from Ray Wong @raywongy:
Deleted Muse after seeing this post on Threads about how it told some Facebook Marketplace sellers the guy’s address and they showed up at his door

Dangerous and creepy

This would have been 1000x worse if the person was a woman
4:35 PM · Sep 27, 2026

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Reposted by Matt

ceej @ceej.online · 27/09/2026

I don’t think my company would let us have a slutcon

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Matt @differentmatt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm treading carefully here since this is my employer, but after leaving the tailgate party, I encountered an older couple visiting from Kansas heading to their car. The game was still in the 1st quarter. They had to leave because of the noise. Then again, we got their ticket money, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯