iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 17/06/2026

I recently re-read the original "Worse is Better" from 1989 (see dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBette...). It reminded me a lot of current discussions around AI in programming. In particular, it seems to me that Anthropic and OpenAI have built a whole business plan on building things "New Jersey style" —

dreamsongs.com

Worse Is Better

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 29/05/2026

I've seen lots of conversation recently about AI and preaching, both online and in my own social circles, in part because of this week's encyclical, in part because my two worlds are church and programming, and in part because things are moving so fast that people are talking about AI everywhere.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 09/04/2026

This is true but the most fun part is that there's a typo* in the Greek

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 27/02/2026

Reading the news in 2026 is like:

Donnie Darko "I made a new friend today" meme, with text: "Elon reinvented communism." "Communism or slaves?" "Slaves."

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 27/01/2026

I check Fox semi-regularly to see what people I disagree with are being told. Just now: "The New York Post reported that an accidental discharge of Pretti's...pistol, which was being held by an agent after it was taken away from him, may have made authorities believe their lives were in danger."

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 28/10/2025

Their defense, by the way, is "We didn't know we were essentially paraphrasing Hitler, we were just expressing a common nationalist sentiment." I'm not sure that "We weren't being edgelords, we just substantively agree with some of the principles of National Socialism" is that effective an argument

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Missing The Point @missingthept.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Choose your fighter.

DC Sandwich Guy throwing sandwich at officers

Chicago priest being assaulted by troops

Guy carrying American flag surrounded by gas.

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Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 01/10/2025

The funniest and most frustrating part of old Twitter/new Bluesky is that it consists largely of smart and well-educated people having arguments about things outside their areas of expertise, in ways that rehash the contents of intro classes in the subject, with no self-awareness about it.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 16/09/2025

unbothered. moisturized. happy. in my lane. making friends for myself by means of the mammon of unrighteousness. flourishing.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 15/09/2025

Many people don’t know that Kristallnacht was unleashed in response to the assassination of a German diplomat in Parish by a German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. His parents were Polish migrants whose legal status had just been revoked by both Germany and Poland, leaving them trapped in a camp.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 14/09/2025

I'm willing to believe that the best chatbot spiritual counsel could be *better* than the worst human forms. There are plenty of clergy who will say things that are net harmful. On the other hand, it comes nowhere near the *best* human spiritual counsel, which is also grounded in empathy.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 05/09/2025

Honestly, this is one my favorite church buildings in the entire world, in every season. What an odd thing to be the Rector. I randomly took the photo on the left yesterday to replace the one on the right on our website, after our administrator pointed out it was a bit snowy for September.

St. John's Episcopal Church in the neighborhood of Charlestown in Boston, an early Gothic revival church built in 1841, shown in September 2025, with green leaves on the trees and bright blue sky.

St. John's in January 2025, with snow-covered trees and a grey sky.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 29/08/2025

I've lived in Boston my whole life, and people really are like this... and it's what makes Massachusetts great. +++ "The only thing that really needs to be done at South Station is clean the bathrooms, they really need some attention," said Linda Radzvilla of Mashpee.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 26/08/2025

From: Donald John Trump Subject: I want to try to get to Heaven. ... That's why I've launched a 24 HOUR TRUMP FUNDRAISING BLITZ, and I'm asking everyone to chip in $15 to make it one for the record books! ... Sincerely, Donald John Trump

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 25/08/2025

One of the potential problems with the rapid adoption of LLMs in fields like education is that the entire ecosystem depends on a handful of products by very large companies that are currently losing huge amounts of money on them, creating a classic “too big to fail” situation. Perversely (1/2)

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Samuel Pepys @samuelpepys.bsky.social · 24/08/2025

There hath been a disturbance in a church in Friday Street; a great many young people knotting together and crying out “Porridge” often and seditiously in the church, and took the Common Prayer Book away; and did tear it; but it is a thing which appears to me very ominous.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 22/08/2025

Today was example number 137 of the principle that the longer you give something to cook in your brain, the less time it takes to type at the keyboard. It turns out spending all week thinking about something without having a chance to write it does in fact make the writing much faster!

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 20/08/2025

There is a crisis of masculinity in America, and it’s that a large number of men are terrified, all the time, of ordinary life. Like these guys are… so scared of being asked for money in a train station that they have called out the National Guard to protect them? Man up, bro.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 17/08/2025

Tried the new “EpiscoBOT.” I don’t think I need to throw out my diploma yet, chat. (Or my calendar, I guess.)

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 12/08/2025

Posting on Bluesky, if you are active in circles related to your vocation or profession, is not like texting your friends. It is like writing a letter to the editor of your local paper. Discerning whether something is for a public post or the group chat or your journal is a really important skill!

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 08/08/2025

My favorite gerrymandering fact: Massachusetts has a 60-40 vote split and a 100% Democratic Congressional delegation, not because it’s gerrymandered but because it’s so uniformly divided at around 60-40 throughout the state that you can’t make a single contiguous district that a Republican could win

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Gabby HC @scriblit.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Patient, sobbing: But Doctor, I AM Pagliacci! ChatGPT: Apologies. I didn't realise when recommending Pagliacci's epic show to cure your depression that you were the genius himself. I'm impressed! With regards to your initial question, I can recommend seeing the Great Clown Pagliacci.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 31/07/2025

This is a great example of the way in which non-technical people have been duped into pulling LLMs into areas where traditional computing is really good and LLMs are really bad… like generating invoices and payment records.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 28/07/2025

For my Rust/web programming followers: here’s a short video introducing the code-splitting features released in Leptos this week youtu.be/w5fhcoxQnII?...

youtu.be

Lazy Leptos: WASM code splitting for fun and profit

YouTube video by Greg Johnston

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Jordan Haynie Ware @godwelcomesall.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

I don’t think it’s likely to help us treat humans better if we become more used to talking to computers

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 20/07/2025

Honestly if someone had asked me whether “Yeti Blood Oath Seminary Follies” was a Mountain Goats track title before I’d seen the story, I’d have been like 50-50. Maybe a B-side I didn’t know? Gives “Maize Stalk Drinking Blood” title vibes, you know?

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 19/07/2025

One of the cool things about early medieval history is that there are both many more weird Latin names and many more weird Germanic names than we use today, along w our names. So eg I just read a page that included Bishop Sagittarius (v Latin), Queen Radegund (v Germanic), and also a Gregory.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 19/07/2025

update: the protagonist has punched the Devil in the face

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 16/07/2025

Simultaneously reading The Fellowship of the Ring (to my kiddo) and Perelandra (myself, for the first time) and I’m reminded of why Tolkien thought Lewis’s writing was a bit too… obvious. “Okay so there’s a WOMAN. She’s the only person except this MAN. And she DOES NOT KNOW GOOD AND EVIL.” k Jack

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 13/07/2025

Turns out a lot of people who actually believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ don't think getting thrown into a concentration camp, deported to a country they're not from, or eaten by gators is a fitting punishment for working under the table.

thebulwark.com

A Religious Rebellion Against Mass Deportation

American Christians are showing increasing discomfort with Trump’s signature policy.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 02/07/2025

I am genuinely confused about the Google AI search result situation. Google now regularly shows obviously-inaccurate answers at the top of the page (and less-obviously-inaccurate answers more often), above ads. How does this make $ sense? And how does anyone working on this have any self-respect?

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 30/06/2025

I just saw someone write "Hey can anyone help me with this issue? It's really a blockading point for me" and I was absolutely charmed... "Blocker" = corporate, tech-bro, 🤮 "Blockading point" = chivalric, piratical, 🤩 Then I looked back and saw I just misread it. I'll still be using "blockade" tho

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 17/06/2025

A really great video by John Green that some of my friends in the Narthex ⚓ might enjoy.

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Jeff Lazarus @jlazarus.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Not an original point but worth saying again - there is not a single element in this picture that identifies any of these folks as law enforcement agents. No badges, no uniforms, no vests. Out of context it just looks like a bunch of random guys are kidnapping a mayoral candidate.

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Gwyllm Llwydd @gwyllm.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Turtle Mutual Aid:

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 12/06/2025

Oh thank God, Susan Collins thinks it's "very disturbing"

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 01/06/2025

Crazy life hack: when the self check out at the grocery store has a long line you are actually allowed to go to the register with human cashiers that has no line. Just skipped the 10-person self-checkout line and had a nice chat with the cashier. (You’re not required to chat though.)

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 31/05/2025

An odd etymological quirk I find interesting and illuminating: “Man” really *was* the gender-neutral term in older forms of English, as opposed to “wer” (male) and “wif.” Today we only have these in compounds like “werewolf” (man-wolf) and “woman” (originally wif-man, “a female person”)

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 29/05/2025

Guys you just need to be better at prompt engineering. The key thing is to project confidence here. No, a computer can’t tell you the year. Don’t be silly. But a computer can pick up on the confidence *you* have about what year it is and isn’t that what matters in the end?

Google AI Overview for the search “is it 2025,” replying “No, it is not 2025”

Google AI Overview for “it’s 2025, correct?” replying “Yes, it is currently the year 2025.”

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 22/05/2025

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” - Lev. 19:32 #EveningPrayer

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 13/05/2025

Note also that the Trump admin had immediately cut off reimbursements for refugee resettlement, and all refugee entries, leading Episcopal Migration Ministries (whom Matt Y was criticizing here) to lay off all its staff so it could spend remaining funds paying rent etc for refugees.

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 12/05/2025

BREAKING: The Episcopal Church has announced it will end its decades-old partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by the Trump admin. religionnews.com/2025/05/12/e...

religionnews.com

Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, ends partnership with US government

(RNS) — In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,' the pr...

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 05/05/2025

Hypothesis: church people (in my context in progressive Christianity in the US) tend to both overstate the extent of cultural changes in the status of Christianity and understate the church’s own role in/responsibility for those changes, in a way that leads us to double down on bad choices.

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Greg Johnston @gbj.dev · 01/05/2025

I think people (in the US at least) have a profound ignorance of history, in particular an ignorance of *just how bad* life was until *very, very recently*, in a huge variety of ways.

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