iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 8h

Coffeemate is one of those things that has always baffled me, as I have always taken my coffee black. Is shitty coffee really improved by shitty styro-benzine-color-lightener? I will take my shitty coffee for caffeine purposes, but giving it extra with an equally-terrible additive seems odd.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 12h

"If only we had an LBJ who could just knock heads togeth-" No, no, no. It does not work that way any more. No.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Best argument I saw for data center construction was from the head of the IBEW. I'm not going to object to them getting a piece of this boondoggle.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Welcome to the Steve Bartman Circle of Hell, soon to be no longer anonymous Yankee fan.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Cripes, these kids never heard of a potato chip omlette? Some salsa to ward off the scurvy and you're all set.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Something so uniformly and obviously disastrous that even Tobias Fünke mostly nails it.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Years ago, had an ex-girlfriend die suddenly. I doubt that a solved math problem means years of self-reproach and questioning whether you are actually a good person.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The "Vintage Tesla: Before Elon Went Nuts" stickers are not uncommon in Oak Park.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'd like to join a political party that's not quite so annoying and pathetic.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The teen dance party episode of "Wednesday" had sort of a trubute to "Monster Mash," called "Goo Goo Muck." So in an infinite universe, anything that can happen, will.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In every respect, the Pentagon is just another bureaucracy. Like any of them, it's gonna have its types. WW2 sub commanders: our torpedoes are effed. They keep circling back on us and sinking our own boats. USN Bureau of Ordinance: does this mean I gotta do something?

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I remember one of the meta episodes of Seinfeld, where the NBC execs talked about it being a "watercooler show." The concept wasn't as dated as the term, but you could see it from there.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The fun thing about S01 of Murderbot is that it is a fair cross-section of Bluesky plus a killer robot.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The important thing to remember about the President of the United States is that nothing he says actually means anything, and nobody really thinks it does. That no one is particularly perturbed by this is, I guess, a separate issue

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I learned from my short time in southern Illinois that the core competency of the horseshoe is soaking up VAST quantities of cheap beer.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

After, Emmitt Smith will cleanse the venue with an exorcism.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The big bads are ultimately thwarted by the comic relief, who have taken all the copper wire.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In a shocking twist, one of the seeming protagonists wants to wipe the AI, but save the hardware and geothermal tap, for zero-cost crypto mining.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The sequel involves a town experiencing mysterious tremors. Everyone (reasonably) assumed that it was the nearby fracking operation. But no! The abandoned data center has developed paranoid tendencies and is digging itself a geothermal tap.

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Reposted by @doughoff.bsky.social

Carlos Yu @carloshasanax.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Andy Richter tweeted about the La-Z-Boy Hastert set up in the locker room to watch boys shower

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"Seventy hours a week stepping on buggy software and all your free time shooting bots will do that."

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Plus, we need cheap irony! The protagonists are people whose jobs were obsoleted by AI who are now trying to put down an AI, itself obsolete. At the climax, after a heartfelt conversation with the AI, everyone has qualms, except for the game developer who pulls the trigger on the EMP bomb.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

("Look, I got millions of retiree stockholders counting on me, so don't call me a traitor to my species!") Bonus if the centers are in rural areas, holding small towns hostage with their fleets of sword drones (maximum bloodiness).

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Seemingly abandoned data centers hosting rogue AIs that don't "want" to be turned off, running on zombie energy contracts sounds like an elevator pitch. Their sinister human enablers are the seemingly most boring humans alive - utility executives.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Heh. The other standout thing about it was that (IIRC) she never stayed up that late watching TV otherwise.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Funny, I remember my mom watching it every year when it was on TV.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Now I want an episode of What We Do in the Shadows guest starring Timothy Olyphant and noting, without explanation, their visceral fear of Stetsons.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It can be vexing to defend things like the bankers of Gringotts, who are obviously the "gnomes of Zurich" and not, you know. For whatever else JKR is, this is not that.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I would be happier if people set the standard of proof pretty high for this sort of thing, i.e. it is almost an inevitable conclusion that the Noble Savage Centaurs of the Wide Plains are, well, you know.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Looking around at 2026 tech oligarchs edgelords, I think the old bit about SF having a positive social impact deserves a long silence.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I do have some hope that the born vs made distinction will keep this sort of thing from gaining a lot of traction in the genpop. That the people supposedly in charge of the future are true believers is definitely troubling.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Talk about lack of self-awareness, such childish outbursts are supposed to make me trust their opinions more? (Also complicates those "redemption" arcs, the monsters lurking in our closets emerging with other correct opinions.) But nuance is suspect, as it may be their own evil seeping out.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Thinking that a chatbot is conscious seem like a step back towards carving a statue and believing it is a god.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Oh, I was thinking more about how people's definitions of consciousness are more informed by religious or philosophical belief. And the hazy line we see between humans and, say, sign language chimps or dolphins who mourn.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I guess the question is: has there ever been a society which has?

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For everyone struggling with content generation.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A friend of mine spent a few years administering the bar exam. From what she said, tough to see oral college exams surviving ADA accommodation requests. Maybe if the institution is willing to fight it out, but what are the odds of that?

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Seems like now would be a good time for TAs to get unionizing.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

True - if these had disintegrated, I probably would have been angry enough to just go fash.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

No, there will always be a critical mass who need to get in on the attention and approval (or disapproval in the AITA) and not realize (or not care) that they are part of ruining what makes it fun.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It is an odd Big Take from something like that, but I do think one of humanity's basic problem is not being able to let it be. Like, the widespread inability to recognize that "this is the reason something is actually good and fun and I should just watch it happen and enjoy it."

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Even the guys with very short haircuts and neckties tucked into the space between their shirt buttons in the US Army were tasked with "OK, seriously, WTF was wrong with these people?"

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Consumer-created media that started out real become popular then become fake and/or staged. I guess it is inevitable? Noodling about pre-internet precedents but I am having trouble. TV like America's Funniest Home Videos, maybe? Heh. I doubt that letters to Penthouse were ever real...

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Retiree day: sleep until a reasonable hour, putter around, go to doctor, go to pharmacy, putter around, volunteer for a bit of pro bono and look into that, and make some enchiladas for dinner. Why are all the olds so angry? This is pretty awesome.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The opening crawl: "It is a time of deficit spending in the galaxy, with the approaching expiration of a continuing budget resolution and a restive galactic bond market threatening to crush the New Republic's dreams of fiscal solvency ..."

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

For the record I would just like to say that, notwithstanding the US Senate's most prominent example, there are St. Louis University School of Law grads who can manage a competent cross-examination.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One of the most true to life things in The Sopranos was them picking their favorite restaurant because of the great onion rings appetizer.

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doughoff.bsky.social @doughoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If representatives in Congress worked like local alderman, and decided that actually responding to things that impacted their constituents was the way to keep their jobs, there'd already be a massive ICE-level effort against this.

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