iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Erik Johnson

Aaahh!!! bstract Tesseract @abstracttesseract.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I feel like part of what's going on with "AI" products is that tech people heard the user research phrase "you are not your users" and have taken it not as a call for epistemic humility, but rather as an injustice that they need to correct at all costs

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

we do road trips in this family

Map of Places I've Been in the United States.
Never been: 5 (Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Maine)
Passed Through: 15
Visited: 23
Stayed a While: 4 (CA, CO, KS, MN)
Lived there: (MT, NJ, NC)

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Gen Z didn’t know they needed to fight for their right to party… if only there was some enduring cultural message to communicate the need for this

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

- from “The World Goes On” (László Krasznahorkai)

I DON'T NEED ANYTHING
FROM HERE
I would leave everything here: the valleys, the hills, the paths, and the jaybirds from the gardens, I would leave here the peacocks and the priests, heaven and earth, spring and fall, I would leave here the exit routes, the evenings in the kitchen, the last amorous gaze, and all of the city-bound directions that make you shudder: I would leave here the thick twilight falling upon the land, gravity, hope, enchantment, and tranquility, I would leave here those beloved and those close to me, everything that touched me, everything that shocked me, everything that fascinated and uplifted me, I would leave here the noble, the benevolent, the pleasant, and the demonically beautiful, I would leave here the budding sprout, every birth and existence, I would leave here incantation, enigma, distances, the intoxication of inexhaustible eternities; for here I would leave this earth and these stars, because I would take nothing with me, because I've looked into what's coming, and I don't need anything from here.

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Also a huge drag on actual small businesses, who have to pay exorbitant prices to offer comparable benefits to larger corps

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

The Onion @theonion.com · 22/07/2026

“Despite our security team’s best efforts, a loincloth-wearing invader with the handle TwinkPunisher was able to gain access to the shoot through the use of a Festering Bloody Finger, disrupting production for the foreseeable future,” said a spokesperson for the studio

theonion.com

A24’s ‘Elden Ring’ Film Stalled After Red Phantom Named TwinkPunisher Invades Set

BLÁSKÓGABYGGÐ, ICELAND—Expressing regret that the interruption would delay the highly anticipated video game adaptation, the producers of A24’s upcoming Elden Ring film announced Tuesday that the proj...

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

The Upshot @upshot.nytimes.com · 14/07/2026

How Regimes Rely on ‘Loyal Losers’ New research sheds light on how low academic performers with poor career options tend to be assigned the most brutal tasks, including torture and murder. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Players fighting over 1/8 vs a 1/16 instead of kicking it like an adult lol

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

If you stutter-step, it should only be 1/2 a point

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

As a social experiment, I’m considering taking a week and seriously responding to every low-effort spam email I get:

Email text: “Hi Erik, saw you guys have this cool focus on user research and high fidelity design really makes a difference for your clients. I’m curious,”

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

as this spirals into total insanity, it gets funnier and funnier to keep reading the title: “Noel Goes To Hooters Part ##”

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

*passenger on the Titanic watching the iceberg getting larger*

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

If only this existed during the Golubitsky era (before they changed the flick timings)

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The fact that Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish is a straight banger and well worth watching for people of all ages is one of those things that sounds absolutely fake and I can never really begrudge someone for just flat not believing me when I say it.

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Jordan aka Jirdan @slclunk.com · 28/02/2026

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

I’m sorry, did you put those cards in your deck bc you wanted to cast them???

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Probably me, the guy who always recommends Raven Tower. glad you liked it! (Took me two reads before i picked up it was a hamlet homage)

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Years ago, I stopped by a fencing meet at my Alma mater and - looking over a field of 16 masked fencers bouting at once - immediately said to my old coach “who is THAT???” It was (collegiate) Lee Kiefer. Instantly recognizable as someone operating on a whole different level

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Matthew Highton @matthighton.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

If Bilbo had Chat GPT

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

Pretty sure he’s getting auto-inducted into the hacks

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Being Liberal ®🗽🏳️‍🌈 @beingliberal.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

WOW! This ad cuts clear to the bone. 11 years to the day after Sandy Hook massacre... and a day after Brown University shooting and... I lived just 25 miles away, and a few days before a guaranteed next mass shooting in America. Fuck "thoughts & prayers!" mothersfordemocracy.org/

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Since everyone has Frankenstein on the brain: more people should read Ahmed Sadaawi's Frankenstein in Baghdad.

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

JosABats @thejoshbanks.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Raleigh, NC

The Rialto Theater
Marquee reads “DETAIN BOFA DEEZ”

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

at least there’s some justice in this world

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

I hate murakami’s novels w a passion but drive my car is an amazing film, 100% recommend

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

pork, cheese, broccoli rabe @garlicbuffalo.gobirds.biz · 21/06/2025

amtrak’s marketing team gets it

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Definitely hiring this group for lead gen, their precise, real-time data seems excellent

email: "Hi Erik, Looks like Purpose UX's core work revolves around dental care. Spending time on outdated leads or wrong contacts affects your bottom line. Our personalized data service offers precise, real-time contact data on dentists."

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

This one is sweet, feels like the MTG version of exploding kittens

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

James Vincent @jjvincent.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

clear, depressing set of observations from @randomwalker.bsky.social - "The decline of reading-for-pleasure (due to video) and reading-for-information (due to AI) will accelerate each other, as reading text without an intermediary will come to be seen as a chore."

"A hypothesis on the accelerating decline of reading:

* Broadly speaking, people read for pleasure/entertainment and for learning/obtaining information.
* Reading for pleasure has been declining for a while and is being replaced by videos (very sharply among young people). This trend will surely continue.
* Reading for obtaining information is getting intermediated by chatbots. We are in the very early stages of this shift, so I think people underappreciate the magnitude of what's coming. It's not just that AI replacing traditional web search. Even when it comes to reading news articles, business documents, or scientific papers, the vision that tech companies are pushing on us is AI summarization + synthesis + Q&A.
* We don't have to accept this, but I predict that most people will. It's a tradeoff between speed/convenience and accuracy/depth of understanding — the same tradeoff that was once offered to us when it became possible to search the web to look up a quick fact as opposed to reading about the topic in depth in an encyclopedia.
* Just as most people in most cases prefer a shallow web search over deeper reading, most people in most cases will prefer AI-intermediated access to knowledge. Traditional reading won't disappear, but people will do it vastly less often, except in hobbyist reading communities and professions where traditional reading is needed.
* The decline of reading-for-pleasure (due to video) and reading-for-information (due to AI) will accelerate each other, as reading text without an intermediary will come to be seen as a chore.
* Personally, I find this sad. But while it's tempting to moralize all this, I think that's unproductive. Yelling at individuals to resist new media has been done for centuries and has never worked.
* Even if people individually rationally choose these tradeoffs, I think we collectively lose something; critical reading skills are arguably essential for a democracy. We need to figure out what to do about that.

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Nindokag daily pencil sketch comics @nindokag.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

#gentlecomishabit (inspired by the news from last month about Discord going public)

Comic titled "The Samsara of Software Suckitude". It is laid out in an outer circle and an inner circle. The outer circle has four panels going clockwise. Arrows point from each panel to the next, in a never-ending loop. The inner circle also has four panels going clockwise with arrows pointing from each to the next in a never-ending loop.

Panel 1, inner: software dev 1: "How us small new company take users from old big company?" Software dev 2: "Make good thing. Give away free."

Panel 1, outer: User 1: "We could try moving to that new <software>". User 2, shrugging: "I guess"

Panel 2, inner: the software devs are in poses of celebration in front of a chart of line going up. Software dev 1: "Line go up! Hooray!" Software dev 2: "IPO! Get rich!"

Panel 2, outer: User 1: "Seems like all my friends are switching to <software> now" User 3: "I should try it too"

Panel 3, inner: software dev 2: "Investors want more money. Get more money from users." Panel 3, outer: User 2, angry: "Ugh they were already cramming <software> full of ads, spyware, and censorship and now they're forcing AI on us too?"

Panel 4, inner: chart of line going down, software dev 1: "Oh no! Where users go?" Software dev 2 makes surprised pikachu face.

Panel 4, outer: User 1: "I can't stand using <software> anymore. It sucks too bad." User 2: "What can we do?"

(return to panel 1)

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Every company is undergoing an invisible reorg. You'll still report to your boss - but your boss effectively report to an AI, offloading the job of management entirely onto a bot and then merely communicating its wishes back to the team. This is the Nothing Manager. Their only strategy is "add AI."

productpicnic.beehiiv.com

AI is not an assistant – it's your new boss (The Everything App part 2)

As managers continue to outsource data-gathering and decision-making to LLMs, the person above you on the org chart is transforming into a chatbot's clerk – and leaving product teams with the conseque...

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

only caught it b/c i'd seen the same LI post and was like "NOT SPOTIFY TOO" so i double-checked looking forward to part 3... it's a sadly target-rich topic rn

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Great piece! One correction: I think this should be “Shopify”

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

damn, i was hype for a new percival everett book (but this is why you shouldn't outsource your content generation to Lie Bot)

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

seems like a healthy market:

Job listing for a Senior Product Designer from LinkedIn - US, remote, full time, pay range 104K - 197K. Posted 1 day ago, received over 100 applications, is no longer accepting applications.

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Went to school w Mike, he’s a good dude with good politics

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Where’s Waldo, beginner edition

A picture of a child’s bedroom with a fat fuzzy tummy and legs emerging from under the bed

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Me exploring the world in Elden ring: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me fighting a boss: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

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Reposted by Erik Johnson

Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Find joy in the simple things

Tesla Stock declining 38% year to date with calvin and hobbes sledding off the hill of falling stock

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Honestly knowing anything about the game makes arcane worse (bc you know where some arcs are going). What’s your pick for best fantasy show of all time?

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Not ever (arcane exists), but for fantasy shows, they are gunning to take the crown from Game of Thrones

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Erik Johnson @ejexpress.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

like, if you watched S1 and dropped the show, it’s time to get back on the wagon - they are CRUSHING IT

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