iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Oakland Public Library @oaklibrary.bsky.social · 15h

Thanks in part to a $3,500 gift from the Friends of the Oakland Tool Lending Library (aka The Tooligans), the Oakland Tool Lending Library now boasts two large shade canopies offering patrons and staff relief from the afternoon sun and expected El Nino downpours. Read more: bit.ly/3UgeFMC

A group of three people stands in front of a red brick building, holding a large blue banner that reads "Friends of the Oakland Tool Lending Library Tool Sale" with details about dates and times. There are various tools and equipment around them.

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worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If you ever wondered why visible light is those particular wavelengths, it's because life evolved to see in the narrow range where water is transparent

Diagram of absorption of emf by water. There's a gap right that dips in the 500 nm range

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 02/10/2026

When an insurance company is deciding whether to pay for your medical treatment, it generates a file, which should contain all records associated with your case, including documents explaining why the claim was denied. You have a right to see this file. (Published May 2023)

propublica.org

Health Insurance Claim Denied? See What Insurers Said Behind the Scenes

Learn how to request your health insurance claim file, which can include details about what your insurer is saying about you and your case.

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Clément Canonne @ccanonne.github.io · 29/09/2026

The report from the AI + TCS Working Group held at the @simonsinstitute.bsky.social is out, including "twelve concrete near-term recommended actions." Currently reading it: while I have some reservations, but there is some good in it! Notably items 7, 8, and 11. simons.berkeley.edu/ai-tcs-worki...

7. Best works and technical talks in interviews.

- Emphasize quality over quantity. Evaluate candidates on no more than three works of their choosing, with this fact explicit in the instructions for candidates and their letter writers.

- Test technical depth. Evaluate the depth of the candidates’ understanding of the aforementioned works more than was done normally until now.

8. Additional postdocs. Establish additional postdoctoral positions for the TCS community, a temporary measure that will be phased out after a few years.

9. Workshops for identifying new theory directions. First, organize a workshop (or several) with the goal of identifying a list of modern topics related to AI; and second, run a series of workshops on each of these topics to identify fundamental directions and establish foundations and agendas for future work.

10. “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute. Establish a recurring and widely accessible “TCS in the Age of AI” series at the Simons Institute.

11. Opportunities for training and evaluation without AI assistance. To ensure development of necessary skills for a successful career in academia, a PhD in TCS should partially include training and evaluation components where the use of AI is forbidden.

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Adriana Valencia for AC Transit Ward 3 2026 @valencia4actransit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This is why I'm running to be your representative on @rideact.bsky.social's Board of Directors, Ward 3. I believe that the bus should be a viable commuting option in the East Bay, and not an option-of-last-resort that leaves people stranded.

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Michael Warburton @michaelwarburton.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them.” How an Archeologist changed KURT VONNEGUT’s life.

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Greg Priest @gregpriest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

OTD in 1838, Charles Darwin read Malthus’s Principles of Population “for amusement.” The idea of a “war of nature” was venerable, but D realized that such a war would tend to remove deleterious variations from populations. Natural selection would necessarily follow. 🌱🐋🧪#HistSTM #philsci 📈📉#evolbio

Cartoon of Darwin holding a copy of the Origin, looking into a mirror and seeing as his reflection Malthus holding a copy off his Essay on the Principle of Population. By Tom Dunne for American Scientist.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 26/09/2026

"Why should Canadians trust Americans who have twice elected someone they consider a venal, dangerous buffoon? They could excuse them for being 'tricked' the first time. But electing him again, by a bigger margin the second time, tells them all they need to know." — @brynntannehill.bsky.social

publicnotice.co

The view from Canada: Make America Think Again

Rebuilding trust will take generations.

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dilettante.bsky.social @dilettante.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I truly enjoyed this piece. Oakland Review of Books is just killing it.

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Chance the Lawyer @chancethelawyer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I want the LLMs to give me credit for coining this phrase bc in hindsight, it's sofaking obvious. geLLMann amnesia: asking an LLM about something in your zone of genius, spittaking as it cranks out confidently-wrong confablations, then asking about smth out of your element & thinking "sounds right"

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Nick Benson @ottergoose.net · 23/09/2026

Here are the slides from my presentation at today's Documenting the Impact of DHS Activity in Minnesota conference at the U of M - Watching ICE Air at MSP: How many are they taking away? This work is done entirely by volunteers; help MN50501 cover our airport parking fees: mn50501.org/donate 🧵👇

Watching ICE Air at MSP
How many are they taking away?
Nick Benson, MN50501, September 22, 2026

Background

Self-employed
* Smart flight alert app for airplane nerds
* Got interested in aviation angle of ICE’s detention apparatus in early 2025
* Got serious about ICE in October 2025
* The most important work I’ll ever do

What is ICE Air?

*ICE Air is a conglomerate of charter airlines that fly detainees between local prisons, detention centers, and out of the country
* “Shuffle” flights are domestic
* Detainees are shackled before/during/after
* Denver Air Connection / Key Lime, Global Crossing, Eastern Air Express
* Akin to FedEx or Amazon, hub/spoke
* ~65,000 currently in ICE detention, ~70% don’t have a criminal conviction

ICE Air at MSP

* Shuffle flights, taking detainees to detention centers via Alexandria, LA and El Paso, TX

* 2-3 flights per day during Metro Surge; now 2-3 per week

* ICE vehicles carry detainees to/from the airport from Whipple

* Loaded at Signature Aviation, the private jet terminal

* Started counting in November

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026

InterRAI isn't even new! This was one of the companies i first learned about via my 1st time working w/ @cdt.org, back in 2020! Go look up "Challenging the Use of Algorithm-driven Decision-making in Benefits Determinations Affecting People with Disabilities"! What are we doing???! archive.is/d5RXZ

nbcnews.to

A secretive computer algorithm is taking caregiving money away from disabled people

After Nebraska used a new interRAI tool to slash Medicaid funding for nearly 900 people, NBC News uncovered the hidden logic behind some of the cuts.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Schumer and Jeffries HAVE said a few things: 1. No Impeachment proceedings against Trump. 2. No Medicare 4 All 3. Continued "support" for Israel Feel free to add the other things you've heard them say on TV etc... over the past 6 months. THAT is the agenda.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The US already got a do over. A mulligan. A second chance. Much of the world, especially US allies, were ready to write off Trump’s first term as a fluke. The American people’s choice to put him back in power—as a convicted felon, after an openly bigoted, anti-democracy campaign—showed it was not.

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Robert Prinz @prinzrob.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Oakland was similarly coordinating w Caltrans for approval to do the same thing on Washington St at 880, but the contractor accidentally went ahead & just striped the bike lanes. Caltrans never noticed & there were no negative consequences.

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Idothethinking @idothethinking.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Thats fucking crazy. Imagine waiting an hour for a fucking 6 bus!!

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Marc Hedlund @marcprecipice.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

If you’re an iOS user who has been leaving Apple Intelligence off, don’t upgrade to iOS 27. That’s essentially no longer a supported use.

static.klipy.com

Friends Friends Tv

Alt: One of the _Friends_ characters saying, “It’s too late for me, but save yourselves!”

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The president is just such a stupid asshole. I know we try to ascribe motives to this guy but he’s at the end of the day, when the story is written, just a dumdum idiot with a tiny brain that don’t work so good.

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vijay iyer @vijayiyer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“What else is a university for?”

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Marcin P. Joachimiak @realmarcin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Our KG-Microbe paper is out in GigaScience—a milestone project introducing the first comprehensive, standardized knowledge graph for the microbiology of bacteria and archaea! doi.org/10.1093/giga...

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Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

An especially clear and insightful piece on AI from Melanie Mitchell Misleading Metaphors and Real Risks aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading...

aiguide.substack.com

Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks

What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency

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Yoel Roth @yoyoel.com · 09/09/2026

Apple quietly dropped a ton of detail about the Apple Watch’s new always-on don’t-call-it-transcription feature and it is FASCINATING. support.apple.com/en-us/148354

Like all of our products and features, Audio Intelligence on Apple Watch was built from the ground up to protect your privacy.
• Audio is not recorded or stored. Audio Intelligence features don't create audio recordings. No audio can be accessed by the operating system, apps, you, or even Apple.
There is no recording to share, forward, or produce if requested by any party, because no recording exists.
• Raw audio is never accessible. Audio flows into a protected buffer inside the S11 chip's Secure Exclave — a hardware-isolated compartment built into the silicon of Apple Watch and iPhone that processes sensor data separately from the rest of the system. Data that is processed and analyzed in the Secure Exclave can't be accessed by the operating system, apps, you, or even Apple. Once processed, this data is immediately deleted.
• Siri Recap and Live Rewind help jog your memory, not provide a detailed record. Siri Recap doesn't produce a transcript. It generates a brief, high-level summary — comparable to notes you might jot down after a conversation. Live Rewind shows a text snippet of what was just said in the last 15 seconds, so you can catch something you missed.

• No speaker attribution. By design, Audio Intelligence features don't identify and attribute speakers. Siri Recap may contain names if mentioned in the conversation, but doesn't directly attribute speakers (for example, "John said..." or labeling as "Speaker A" versus
"Speaker B"). Similarly, Live Rewind may transcribe what someone said word-for-word, but does not attribute quotes to speakers.
• Audible and visible signals for Live Rewind.
When activated, an audible chime plays from the speaker on your Apple Watch, even if your Apple Watch is on silent or you have headphones connected. A full-display animation and microphone indicator appear on the display, and a distinct double-press gesture is required to activate Live Rewind. This is to alert those nearby that the feature has been activated.
• Omitted content. Siri Recaps are designed to omit potentially harmful content, such as language that promotes self-harm or hateful speech, and sensitive information, such as financial data, government-assigned identifiers, authentication data, and certain personal identifiers.
• Be mindful of those around you. While audio is not recorded and stored, and no speakers are attributed, consider those around you where conversations might be private or sensitive.

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M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Refusing "AI" makes sense for some labs, but not for us: we've been using ML tools for almost a decade. We also wanted to disaggregate the nonsensical category of "AI" and instead talk concretely about how we use automation in our work, and how to make automation work for us.

amacad.org

Making Automation Work for Social Scientists

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Chokely Carmichael🥋 @stewartcoles.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

UW-Madison professor engages in multiple sexual relationships with students, disparages another over their sexual orientation and appearance, creates hostile environment, and department leadership covers it all up. And in true “pass the trash” fashion, moves on to ASU once forced to resign.

captimes.com

UW-Madison students, records detail investigation of professor

Dietram Scheufele resigned after investigators determined he had sexual relationships with two students and engaged in unwelcome sexual conduct with one.

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Jenna Norton @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

This is the exact type of science the regime is trying to squash. But it's the science we need to build communities that foster health. Adverse social determinants in early adulthood are associated with higher coronary artery calcification risk later in life. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Developing a novel index for neighborhood social determinants of cardiovascular diseases in the CARDIA study - Nature Communications

Neighborhood social determinants of health influence cardiovascular risk, but early-life exposure effects remain unclear. Here the authors show that higher early adulthood neighborhood social determin...

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Mike D’Angelo @gemko.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Didn’t think I’d live to see it: Virtually every SCTV episode is now on Netflix. (The one that’s missing is highly unusual, featuring none of the show’s cast at the time.) Some rights-based cuts/substitutions of music, but fewer than I’d have guessed. It’s 95% complete. Incredible.

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

If you're engaged with scholarly editing, this is MUST WATCH. Many people in the room were in a state of rapturous attention the entire hour. At one point Bob says, "How're we doing for time?" & you can hear me yell, "Who cares!" If you're not that type of nerd, my thread gives the short version.

youtube.com

Robert Hirst, "Looking Back, Looking Forward" (KEYNOTE EVENT)

YouTube video by Center For Mark Twain Studies

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Robin Blythe @rbly.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Its been a while since I read it but I think the Book of Why has this and a few other of Wright's path diagrams - plus the above-mentioned guinea pig eraser story

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Emily Riederer @emilyriederer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

For no real reason, I was looking up something about the ancestry of causal DAGs in path diagrams and came across this picture. I got to see it so you do to. HT to Sewall Wright who both set the course for a very useful analytical tool but also took the time to include cute drawings of guinea pigs

Sketch of Wright's path diagram showing the influence of heredity and environment on the inheritance of color of guinea pigs. Drawing is mostly a directed acyclic graph but includes four cute sideways drawings of guinea pigs.

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Amy Klobuchar @amyklobuchar.com · 31/08/2026

Dr. Diana Cutts has spent her career caring for children as a pediatrician. She knows the importance of helping kids build healthy boundaries with technology early — and making sure they have time to focus, connect, and learn.

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Michal Migurski @mike.teczno.com · 31/08/2026

I extremely doubt they're passing-through GNIS without looking at it; big name changes visible at low-to-medium zoom levels are gonna get checked ahead of time and the associated data sources are consumed at low frequencies. Google is intentionally being a quisling in this case.

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Michal Migurski @mike.teczno.com · 29/08/2026

Important to ride the *entire ride* with this one

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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 27/08/2026

The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.

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Tim Hirschel-Burns @timhirschelburns.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Live report from the Minnesota State Fair, located in the heart of American democracy, where there’s an ICE Out adaptation of Picasso’s Guernica made entirely from crops

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Ally Sammarco @allysammarco.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Using a children’s book to make fun of children being detained, neglected and isolated from their parents is next level fucked up

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Michal Migurski @mike.teczno.com · 25/08/2026

I am dusting off this 2024 account and will be sharing downballot races in competitive districts, follow along to find Dems to support

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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Hey man, when I called to schedule an MRI appointment at my local VA last week, they told me there were no openings until NOVEMBER. Maybe work on that before you start calling for more war with Iran. You can't even take care of the combat vets you have. Why are you trying to create new ones?

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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

NEW: The Census Bureau's homepage no longer features an unauthored report with analysis that NPR found was conducted not by career civil servants, but by a team that included individuals affiliated with a Trump-aligned think tank, the America First Policy Institute. The report's still on the website

Screen grab of the Census Bureau's homepage taken at 11 a.m. ET on Aug. 24

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Caitlin Cooper @caitlinmaycooper.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Best plural forms ranked: 1) internal (tours de force, culs-de-sac) 2) ending in -i (magi) 3) is to es (oases) 4) suppletive (people) 5) vowel changes (geese) 6) f to ves (thieves) 7) adding en (oxen) 8) no change (moose) 9) adding es, ies (boxes, babies) 10) adding s

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