iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

My cat is quickly warming to my newborn girl and it’s just the most wholesome thing ever also go Knicks

Me wearing a black Knicks snapback and a plaid shirt sitting outside holding a newborn girl in a swaddle while a black cat sit on my lap

Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I never use AI in writing (in case you were wondering, ha). On a whim I just used Pangram for the 1st time on this text, and was unexpectedly delighted to see it (correctly) rated it as 100% human written. Have heard horror stories abt such tools being wrong, but my sample size of 1 is gratifying

Screenshot of the AI detection tool called Pangram reviewing the final text for this Guardian story I wrote ... it correctly rated it as 100% human written. I was steered to it after hearing about this crime novel being yanked due to concerns flagged by such software and was curious to try it out on my own stuff which is probably the only new writing I can be 100% sure is AI-free. (Aside from things prior to 2021 OFC, and other writers I trust)

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

AI is ruining people’s perceptions of reality. I’ll admit I was fooled at first by this video. OP, care to explain yourself? Otherwise will report and block

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I’m at the Severe Storm I’m at the Smoke Alert I’m at the combination Severe Storm and Smoke Alert

Screenshot of headline that says: Severe storms, wildfire smoke likely in Upstate NY today

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

sorry that’s not accurate www.msn.com/en-in/sports...

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Anybody know what species this is? Upstate NY

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Illinois RiverWatch, a community science program, is being discontinued without warning and everybody fired. Trying to learn more, but this is very much bad news.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

This sound like greenwashing to you? "The shredded turf will then be delivered from California to Texas, where Cyclyx International, headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, will further reprocess it before sending the turf to ExxonMobil’s Baytown, Texas, advanced recycling facility."

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Still proud of this story I did a decade ago for Newsweek that interviewed ornithologists about that time Randy Johnson vaporized a bird. "I remember it well," one researcher said. "I was appalled, as I study mourning doves." www.newsweek.com/ornithologis...

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

chat are we cooked? (Hemingway edition)

Photo of a page from A FAREWELL TO ARMS: “We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the wat. We had another drink. Was I on somebody's staff? No. He was. It was all balls. We were alone in the club sitting back in one of the big leather sofas. His boots were smoothly polished dull leather. They were beautiful boots. He said it was all balls. They thought only in divisions and man-power. They all squabbled about divisions and only killed them when they got them. They were all cooked.
The Germans won the victories. By God they were soldiers. The old Hun was a soldier. But they were cooked too. We were all cooked. I asked about Russia. He said they were cooked already.
I'd soon see they were cooked. Then the Austrians were cooked too. If they got some Hun divisions they could do it. Did he think they would attack this fall? Of course they would. The Italians were cooked. Everybody knew they were cooked. The old Hun would come down through the Trentino and cut the railway at Vicenza and then where would the Italians be? They tried that in
'sixteen, I said. Not with Germans. Yes, I said. But they probably wouldn't do that, he said. It was too simple. They'd try something complicated and get royally cooked. I had to go, I said. I had to get back to the hospital. "Good-by," he said. Then cheerily, "Every sort of luck!"

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Kinda like this photo Williamsburg, Brooklyn 16 February 2026

A photo of a tree in front of a massive wall that is partially painted over. Dirty snow piles abut a sliver of street in the foreground. Two figures walk right to left in coats.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

This is so weird man. AI characters are not actually people! OFC the ai, made by a dude, looks like an attractive woman. Everything about this skeeves me out. blog.mindvalley.com/eliza-the-ai/

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

What does at 14/86 female/male equity rate mean? doesn't seem like a good thing but I dunno (this is a Dutch artificial turf company) www.tencategrass.com/our-story/at...

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Another observation: U of I young Republicans have a photo of smiling youthful people on their page. It's a stock photo from Unsplash, which you can find a the link below. "A group of friends at a coffee shop." unsplash.com/photos/a-gro...

A screenshot of the Univ. of Illinois Young Republicans page, which shamelessly uses a stock photo of "friends in a coffee shop" (see next photo)

The source of the stock photo of "friends at a coffee shop" from Unsplash: It shows four students smiling and talking, including three young women presumably. Definitely not members of U of I young Republicans.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

in case u were curious here are some archimandrites

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

it’s much worse than that, e.g.:

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Because when you bring up these details without extreme care, you get comments like this. Imagine this being your takeaway.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

BUT, IMO, we don't need to entertain the idea that microplastics might actually be helpful / positive in some way (!) These details are a mere curiosity, not worth exploring seriously in such a piece without extreme care to language used.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

The dirty tricks crowd hard at work trying to let a Chilean company mine in Minnesota’s famous Boundary Waters wilderness. My question: why the f-ck didn't the Biden Admin file the mining ban in the Congressional Record? Is it really this simple / stupid? www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Meet the world’s only known parasitic conifer, known as Parasitaxus usta, found in New Caledonia. It gets its energy from its ”host,“ another conifer, from whose roots it sprouts, but also likely from fungi. A dark purple color, it lacks functional chlorophyll. Fascinating and bizarre!

A photo of Parasitaxus usta, a parasitic conifer that lacks functional chlorophyll, and appears dark purple. It sprouts from the roots of its host, another conifer. Credit: Kristal Watrous.

A photo of Parasitaxus usta, a parasitic conifer that lacks functional chlorophyll, and appears dark purple. Here it is sprouting from the rain forest floor in New Caledonia. Credit: Kristal Watrous.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

“reading is a vice” 👍🏼

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

All North American woodpeckers have striking colors in a limited palette of mostly black & white, with reddish accents. Why is this is a favorable evolutionary trait specifically for birds in this niche/family? Any evolutionary biologists or bird nerds wanna take a stab at this? (For a story) 🧪

An illustration of seven woodpeckers and their ranges in North America: hairy woodpeckers, downy, red-headed, red-bellied, pileated, northern flickers, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Exactly this, from @martinpeers.bsky.social: the Disney-OpenAI deal is lopsided. I will bet anybody $100 that if this actually goes thru, people will (obviously) make offensive videos with Disney characters, hurting the company's image. Meanwhile, a terrible precedent is set. What a joke.

What does Disney get out of this arrangement, other than the risk of having a deranged OpenAI user make an offensive video featuring a Disney character? (Both Disney CEO Bob Iger and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on CNBC that OpenAI would put “guardrails” in to prevent that outcome, but does anyone believe that will work?) Disney is presumably earning a licensing fee, although the announcement makes no mention of one. My colleague Sri Muppidi hears that Disney’s licensing compensation will be via the grant of equity warrants, at OpenAI’s latest valuation of $500 billion. (That’s in addition to the shares Disney is buying.) That implies Disney’s licensing payment is dependent on OpenAI’s valuation rising in the future.
You’d think Disney would be getting something a bit more solid. After all, the company deserves a huge licensing fee, one worth shouting about from the rooftops, considering that allowing the use of its characters on Sora will massively enhance the nascent OpenAI app.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Speak for yourself, a-z-animals dot com ! I'd love to hear a mountain lion in the wild

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Can’t argue with any of this

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

In case you were wondering, Joe Walsh — the former Tea Party guy who got fired from a job due to racial slurs, who proudly voted for Trump, who threatened Obama's life, who has since rebranded as anti-Trump — is a grifter. Don't love seeing him here and imagining the uninformed thinking he's legit.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

“PR priest | Preaching the brand gospel” for an AI company… [long, long sigh] don’t really know where to start with this one

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

any entomologists on here know what type of insects these might be? And what they’re up to? Filmed today, in Finger Lakes area, above a field. I’m surprised that they are so active given that it has started to get down to the mid 20s (F) at night. Some kind of stonefly?

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Here’s Schmitt, Ricketts, and Vance. Mark it a zero, dude. Between them, these guys have never cast a pro-environment vote (according to the widely-respected LCV).

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

whoever wrote this job description should be on a watch list #marketing #AI #yourescaringpeople

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

name a better Dylan album. i’ll wait

A photo of the cover of Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” on vinyl sitting atop a record player

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

This NYPost lede: "Contender, the largest male great white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic, is on the move once again." No hate, but this is amusingly bad — one of the most famous attributes of sharks is that they constantly move. It's an idiom. (I'm available for freelance copyediting.)

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Duolingo, this is a very annoying way to treat your users. I started a Navajo class yday, for fun, and less than 24 hrs later, this is the messaging? Obnoxious.

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Zohran could easily (and probably will) get over 50% of the votes So saying this so assuredly is a bad look for The New Yorker

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

Pretty dope that this enviro group in Illinois is giving away aquifer hats for donations. Could use more of this energy! (Not an endorsement) prairierivers.org/donate/clean...

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Just read this book…. it’s very good! (Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan)

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Saw this weird insect (?) swimming underwater at night in a Maine pond last month, mid-September. Anybody have any idea what species this is ??

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I know the bar is extremely low here, but if your news release has seven (7) acronyms in the first sentence, I think you ought to consider another line of work.

A news release with an extremely cumbersome first sentence: Today, the U.S. Department of Education (ED)’s Office for Civil Rights (ED’s OCR) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s Office for Civil Rights (HHS’ OCR) announced that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) are both in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX).

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Sometimes when I draw complex abstract boxes (it’s a series I’m working on), Apple image recognition thinks I’m writing in Mandarin… so weird

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Hot take: I don’t think it’s reasonable or even ethical for company to routinely gather this info, esp for a game played by kids/teens

Privacy settings for the app Roblox, which says it gathers lots of information on users, including location and search history

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

National Geographic says that "coffee naps" are the "smartest way to recharge"... Thank you... I thought maybe logging off and not continually bearing witness to the downfall of a great publication might be a better choice

A WebMD, wait, no, National Geographic headline that says "Coffee naps might be the weirdest — and smartest — way to recharge"

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Strongly recommend “Becoming Earth” by @ferrisjabr.bsky.social, really changed the way I look at the world in the best way!

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Can anybody help ID this critter seen swimming in a Maine lake this past weekend? cc @alexwild.bsky.social

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

i’ll be over here enjoying this apple cider donut & coffee

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Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

accepting feedback on my new (fake) book cover

The cover of a fake book I just made up entitled "PUMPKIN HEN: The untold story of the band that changed nothing" by one "Caleb Trepper."

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