iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Also, for whatever it's worth, I think "accountability" and "transparency" qualify as "glittering generalities." They are vague but have positive connotations.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

We need something like the 18th century Royal Navy's campaign against piracy - hanging the pirates and rooting out their strongholds.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"Battletoads meets Tomb of Horrors, only less forgiving."

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"18 day visit to heaven" puts me in mind of Mark Twain's short story "Extract from Capt. Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" which is one of my all time favorites:

en.wikipedia.org

Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven - Wikipedia

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

>>When: Friday, September 25, 2026. 8:00 p.m. EST<< That probably ought to be "Saturday, October 3, 2026. 8:00 p.m. EDT." (Who among us hasn't cut & paste from an earlier template?)

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I used to think rich people were the "elitists." But, by watching who is good and bad in the estimation of right wingers, I've come to learn that (when not referring to rootless cosmopolitans) "elitist" really means those people who open books.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Thanks for posting this link! I'll pass it along to Harper who is a zine maker and loves the DIY scene.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes are quite different in some ways.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Haha. Same! Those early years, we'd have been grateful for my son to go to the Snoop Dogg Bowl or whatever. (Though, a playoff game in South Bend wasn't exactly what we had in mind.) But then, he's speed running Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl, and Natty! (And we had to tag along, naturally.)

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I started paying close attention to IU football when my son joined the Marching Hundred four years ago. Those first 2 years, his experience was a 7-17 record. Even with the NU game being less resounding that has become custom, I'm not going to get upset about Cignetti's 31-2 record any time soon!

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In Otter News @in-otter-news.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Here is a picture of a baby otter and you should probably look at it.

A close-up photo of Steve, a newborn otter, curled up and sleeping in a pair of cupped human hands.
There is no text baked into the image.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I was thinking about how pirates were treated in the 18th century (based on my limited, probably error-ridden knowledge) and thinking we should take a similar approach to Internet scammers, hackers, and so forth.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Probably entirely different things, but this puts me in mind of some ideas by Julian Jaynes about the bicameral mind and consciousness that showed up in Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" (and a bit earlier, I believe, in "The Bid U.")

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I remember when my buddy got an entire megabyte of storage for his Commodore 64. That seemed profligate.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Clicked through to the comments and it's a bunch of Millennials letting loose with various observations about "kids these days." Circle of life!

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'm not sure my English predecessors would approve, but I married a woman with a good bit of Irish ancestry, and my children seem reasonably vigorous.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Years ago I recall a report from one of the deep red southern states. It described a Democratic machine that was ineffective at winning races but provided some power and money to the entrenched leadership such that they were not inclined to embrace new voices or ideas.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 22/09/2026

Glamour Of Lamborghini Negated By Indiana Plates

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Grills you say? Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Just a little reminder, since history gets fuzzier faster than it used to, the conflict with Iran was an unforced error by this administration. No need for it. There is no real upside for the average American if we "win" as compared to the status quo ante. And we are experiencing a notable downside.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Somewhat related: In Indiana, they use a "money follows the student" formula for school funding. There are a number of problems with this model, but among them is the reality that some students require a lot more resources to educate than others.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

At its heart, I think it's immature thinking. Big ideas without a lot of nuance or confounding variables are entertaining, don't require a lot of work, and feel important. When I was young, big ideas seemed all-consuming. Now, getting the details right on little things seems like enough.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I believe it's traditional to let the thousand pages of policy gather dust in a binder on a shelf until counsel for plaintiff brings it up in a deposition.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Even though the people who made the show misspelled his name on the text card.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Yup. Unlike the other Great Lakes states, it was initially settled primarily from the south, from the Ohio River northward. The Whitewater Valley was a notable exception in the early days. You had a prominent Quaker influence and anti-slavery sentiment in that part of the state.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I've seen it phrased as "the middle finger of the South thrust up into the North."

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Just saw something on the "heritage" talking point where someone pointed out that the Wii U lasted longer than the Confederacy.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm all too aware. A few years back, at the time of Indiana's bicentennial, I wrote a blog series sort of surveying the state's history. There were a few entries on the Klan, but this is probably the better one. (Egan's "Fever in the Heartland" is an excellent read if you haven't yet read it.)

masson.us

Indiana Bicentennial 8.9: Warren McCray (1921-1924) - Rise of the Klan - A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The Ku Klux Klan, in some ways, was like other 1920s advocacy groups like American Legion, the Anti-Saloon League, and the League of Women’s Voters. But, as historian James Madison, put it, it differe...

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I see people in Indiana flying Confederate flags, and it's a big middle finger to the memory of the 25,000 Hoosiers who died in service to our country, fighting those traitors who wanted to destroy it.

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Ej Dickson @ejdickson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

There is a corner of the internet I had never heard of before I started reporting this story. It’s called the “burnerverse”: a network of anon burner accounts ostensibly discussing college sports. But they have another goal: destroying young girls’ lives.🧵: www.wired.com/story/burner...

wired.com

A College Girl Was Exploited on Camera. A Network of Anonymous Men Got to Work

Maddie Kowalski is one of countless young women who’ve had their lives destroyed by the burnerverse, a loosely connected online community of sports fans. Now she’s fighting back.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I spent some money on a lunchbox a year or two ago, and it turns out to have been a real investment. Ham sandwiches, carrots, and blueberries are my staples. Besides the price, not having to mess around with traveling to a restaurant of some sort during the middle of the day has value too.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Them too. I don't know where the decisions start and stop. The headlines are consistently awful - despite often good reporting underneath. I don't know if that's ownership or editors either.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The New York Times managed 180 stories about Biden's age and mental acuity in the span of 10 days. That intensity of coverage is definitely something they can manage if the editors want it.

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Sickos Committee @sickoscommittee.org · 08/09/2026

Jeff Sagarin has some opinions.

Teams that appear to be tied to two decimal places in a given column are different when carried to more decimal places in the computer's internal
PREDICTOR is also known as PURE_POINTS, BALLANTINE, RHEINGOLD, WHITE OWL and is a very good PREDICTOR of future games.
GOLDEN_MEAN also utilizes the actual SCORES of the games in a different wa and thus should be a good match for the PURE POINTS in terms of predictive
The RECENT, is score-based and weights RECENT play more heavily than earli more pronounced the longer a season goes if a given team happens to have
The overall RATING is a synthesis of the three different SCORE-BASED meth and RECENT and thus should be a good predictor in its own right.
These ratings reflect a score of Western Michigan defeating Michigan 12-7.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

If abuse isn't necessary, it would mean the abuse they suffered at the hands of their parents didn't have to happen. That would make them sad, and so they have to give it meaning. So, you get a variation on: "Not only is abuse natural and inevitable, it is good, actually."

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Chernow's history of Grant was eye-opening. From school, I'd had a sort of soft-focus notion of the Johnson impeachment. Basically that he was a bad President but the radicals were out to get him for frivolous reasons - I didn't really understand that Johnson was trying to undermine Reconstruction.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

If you can hear a piano fall, you can hear me coming down the hall.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I think this is why I've soured on political journalism from local to international: "There’s no method of any kind to discourse gatekeeping, just rote glomming on to controversies as they arise, even when they’re ginned up in bad faith."

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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

they’ll figure it out if they get hungry enough

Supermarket aisle sign with items listed top to bottom: Can Fish, Microwave, Soup.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I think Tom has a sign for this.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'm just going to keep spamming you with responses to this Wayne County stuff. Family lore has it that my father went into the office that Saturday morning. But, on account of a hangover, headed home for a lunchtime nap - possibly saving his life and allowing my conception a couple of years later.

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Doug @dougmasson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Last week, my wife and I were discussing our respective high schools' most famous graduates. As a Richmond Red Devil, mine was easy. (Sorry Weeb Ewbank.)

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