iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dowser

New Story Day: "Congratulations on your Magic Sword™" is now out in Lightspeed Magazine! Magic weapons keep turning against their owners over "improper usage." This story is a list of tips to keep you on your magic sword's good side! Legendary weapons, man. They're a real double-edged sword.

lightspeedmagazine.com

Congratulations on your Magic Sword™ - Lightspeed Magazine

Congratulations on your Magic Sword"! For all inquiries as to its powers and perils, please consult the Virtue Exercises Manual". However, we know new users sometimes get in over their heads. That’s w...

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 4h

Spoilers in that video, if you're concerned with such things.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 5h

They failed spectacularly to rip it apart. Quite the opposite! "This is just sooo good." "I think we're going to look back at Mohamed as one of the best writers of this period." "Ludicrously strong all the way through" "This is the one that to me felt the most, in some ways, like a Le Guin book"

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 7h

Also, they have elephants.

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Catherynne M. Valente @catvalente.bsky.social · 17h

I don’t care where you started out on the political spectrum If your kid comes out as trans & you don’t become a rainbow-clad, parade-cheering ally & rock-solid supportive girl/boy/enby dad/mom? You were never a parent at all You were a doll collector furious they didn’t stay in their packaging.

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 15h

The Constitution allows it. South Korea has proven it works. If you want to make impeachment viable—and so much else is pointless if you don't—then it can be done by a simple majority adopting a simple rules change: vote on the verdict by secret ballot.

theunpopulist.net

A Democratic Senate Should Adopt Secret Impeachment Ballots on a Priority Basis

Such a change, requiring no constitutional amendment, would free senators to vote their judgment instead of their fears

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Do you have a set list this year, or just winging it each night?

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yep. Alien and Jaws unintentionally benefitted from that same principle by dint of low budget and technical problems, respectively. You didn't get to see much of the scary thing, so it made it scarier.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I don't get a ton of info from quick clips, but I also definitely notice that work meetings don't run at 1.25x speed.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Every so often I'll get this stuck in my head, relearn it, and play it for a week or two straight, much to the annoyance of former roommates. Of course, it must be sung in the Kermit voice, although I have a rough time of it with the key change these days.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

If I learned anything from "The Metamorphosis" it's that getting out of bed is hard for bugs, much less putting on pants.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Separate from doxxing, as in most things, Trump is wrong about this. The villainous sun is a deadly laser. It means us no good in the end. If we're going to abolish the clock changes, get rid of the "spring forward". Let folks have their sleep! He's _literally_ trying to rob us of our dreams.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

TBH, whenever you ask yourself in a video "is that mean?", I've never considered it to have been mean. Not the same as being Dolly levels of thoughtful. But, then again, not everyone merits such consideration.

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Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

this is by far the best "I quit my AI job over safety concerns" essay yet because it is the first one that is able to talk about safety concerns in practical terms and that understands "safety" as a topic with extensive literature in analogous fields www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Two changes are urgently needed. First: AI companies need to rely more on the safety expertise that already exists in other fields. And second, before we create systems significantly more capable than the ones we have today, we need new science to ensure that more capable models (and their successors) will make safe choices when we aren’t looking.

Given today’s risks, frontier labs need to run like nuclear-power plants or busy airports, with layers of redundancy and careful, time-consuming planning, so that the occasional and inevitable human error does not open a door to disaster. Right now, AI companies don’t know how—but other people do. In a nuclear-power plant, the technical systems and rules people follow are set up so that, if equipment breaks or someone pushes the wrong button, we still won’t risk a meltdown. OpenAI and other labs are growing and deploying frontier AI with far less redundancy and rigor than this, even though the harm from an irreversible loss of control would be much greater than the harm from any single meltdown. Even short of a full loss of control, we could see autonomous swarms of AI agents that act without human permission. Imagine “rogue” agents that work like teams of hackers (for example, holding hospital computer systems for ransom) but never need to sleep.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I feed my crow friends unsalted peanuts. It's kind of funny to be able to summon a murder of crows in your back yard just by making a sound that means "food is here" to them.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The generations that came after CRT TVs are going to be so confused by the color of the sky over the port.

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M Meerkat @kackbro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Naomi Klein Is Spot On.......

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Started on @aptshadow.bsky.social's Green City Wars last night. It's giving Bladerunner and a splash of Neuromancer, if all the principals were genetically engineered small animals. It also feels like it could be the seedy underbelly of a Becky Chambers story.

goodreads.com

Green City Wars

Philip Marlowe meets Redwall in this superior adult noi…

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Haha, you're definitely more of the caveat part of Caveat Frogs.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I guess the most germane question for most players of WoD games is how does this affect development and release of new editions and expansions of Vampire, Werewolf, and Hunter (and c'mon, gimme some Mage!)?

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I really wish @kenwhite.bsky.social were still active on here so I could ask him how the hell OpenAI & co are not legally liable for their agents going around hacking everyone and everything.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

@maxlovecraft.bsky.social, you're the one I thought of when I first saw this.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What's a pithy portmanteau for the opposite of Brexit?

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Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 30/09/2026

[SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT]: So you’re telling me under oath that you've never played World of Warcraft? [JACK SMITH]: Correct [SCHMITT]: WELL THEN *unveils poster* please explain this picture of you farming gold in Eversong Woods! [SMITH]: That is Elden Ring, sir.

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Riker Googling @rikergoogling.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

why don't combadges have headphone jacks anymore

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

He again proves the truism that his every accusation is an admission.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 29/09/2026

Slab Graveyard xkcd.com/3303/

4-panel comic. (1) PERSON 1: Any plans for Halloween? PERSON 2 with beret: Me and my friends are gonna check out a slab graveyard! (2) PERSON 1: What’s that? PERSON 2: When dense crust subducts, geologists think it might pile up at the bottom of the mantle. [illustration of Person 2’s related theory] (3) PERSON 2: We’re going to hide in the crust and ride it down to see. Wanna come? It’s gonna be spooky! (4) PERSON 1: Won’t that take millions of years? PERSON 2: Lots of time for ghost stories! PERSON 1: I think I’m good. PERSON 2: Too spooky? I understand.

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J. L. Westover @mrlovenstein.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

back my book kickstarter ❤️ kickstarter.com/projects/mrlovenstein/mr-lovenstein-presents-fun

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All Kinds Of Nope @woozleweasels.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I feel like whoever named them Red Delicious apples has never actually eaten a delicious apple.

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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 27/09/2026

Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck!

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Does Fox News think this weird attack on how she identifies somehow lands with its viewers? Because I guarantee if this were 1950s Alabama, Fox News viewers would be outraged if Kamala refused to sit in the back of the bus.

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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 27/09/2026

You taught me language, and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse.

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Mina Kimes @minakimes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Unironically the PNW mindset lol

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I lol'd. But also, been there.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/09/2026

Voyager Instruments xkcd.com/3302/

3-panel comic. (1) [Person with shoulder-length hair gestures at diagrams on wall in front of table with three people.] PERSON 1: As the radioactive power source on *Voyager 1* weakens, we’ve been turning instruments off to conserve power. (2) PERSON 1: Only two instruments remain. Do we want to lose the plasma wave subsystem or the magnetometer? (3) PERSON 2 with ponytail: You know, if we just turned off Greg’s LED underlighting– PERSON 4 with short hair: Absolutely not. PERSON 3: Dammit, Greg. PERSON 4: I will *not* allow us to look uncool in front of aliens.

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Abigail Larson @abigaillarson.com · 25/09/2026

Happy Autumn 🍂

illustration by Abigail Larson depicting the ghost of a woman walking under a ruined stone arch. Three goblins watch her from the top of the ruins. The image has an Autumnal atmosphere, dead leaves are falling.

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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Glad about the result, but I don’t think it speaks well of us as a country that after two years of human rights violations, war crimes, naked gangster corruption, and contempt for the Constitution, he’s finally unpopular because gas got expensive.

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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fake. USDA. Seals. Used by an NC meat processing plant on 83.5 TONS of meat. Produced entirely outside the federal inspection system, according to news reports. We are pretty close to The Jungle (second ed.) now, no? www.scrippsnews.com/life/recalls...

scrippsnews.com

Interactive: Meat recall linked to fake USDA labels

Pork, beef and goat products are being recalled after a company allegedly used fake USDA inspection labels. Explore our interactive guide to see which products are affected and what to look for.

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Dowser @dowser.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I believe it was due to a writer's strike.

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Brian Box Brown @boxbrown.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

honestly my anaconda is not that picky

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