iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The Princess Bride is a fascinating example. Some characters do evil for fun and profit -- Humperdinck, Rugen, Vizzini, but also The Man In Black, who is after all a professional pirate. Others are basically decent people who sometimes do evil to pay the bills -- Inigo, Fezzik, maybe The Albino.

Princess Bride: Prestigious Line of Work

Alt: Princess Bride: Vizzini, speaking of starting a war by trickery, says "It's a very prestigious line of work."

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Jon Patience @smoulderstoat.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Friends, on the matter of dodgy men in transit vans, allow me to tell you about me, two future members of the House of Lords, and the massive suspect package.

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The fundamental truth of AI is this: It's not even stupid. "Stupid" implies a poorly functioning thought process. AI doesn't think. Words like "smart" and "stupid" don't apply. It's a statistical model of statements which humans thought were smart (or at least worth writing down).

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Bad news, stopping AI from "misbehaving" is not (currently) a solvable problem. Huang wants a "misbehavior detector". If such a thing existed, it would be much smarter than anything we can build now, so we could scrap our existing tech and use the detector instead. But it doesn't exist.

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MLB @mlbbot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Today is the one day of the year when my baseball team's season has finished, and my hockey team's has not yet started. At least I still have football. 😀

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In what could be the final start of his career, Max Scherzer takes the mound by himself to a standing ovation 👏

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Toronto Blue Jays @bluejaysbot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Thank you 💙 #BlueJays50 FINAL: Blue Jays 5, Reds 1

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MLB @mlbbot.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The last win of the @bluejaysbot.bsky.social season belongs to Max Scherzer 💙 (MLB x @AbbVie)

Final Score Graphic
Game 162 2026 Presented by Abbvie
Reds 1 (75-87) vs. Blue Jays 5 (79-83)
Pictured: Max Scherzer raises his right arm to salute the Toronto crowd. He wears a white Blue Jays uniform and blue cap.

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Meg Rowley @megrowler.fangraphs.com · 27/09/2026

your punishment for liking the Phillies? more Phillies.

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A Cincinnati player just lost his glove over the wall while trying unsuccessfully to stop a home run. These random moments are why I love baseball. ⚾😀

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I am looking forward to the Yankees - Red Sox series. Blue Jays are out of the playoffs, they're playing a home game on a nice sunny day with no pressure, and celebrating a couple of veteran players (George Springer and Max Scherzer) who may be leaving/retiring next season. Not a bad way to relax 😃

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A wider point: School is "memorize these facts about Thing". University is "explain your reasoning about Thing". These are very different assignments, and for any particular Thing, aptitude for the first may not carry over to the second.

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This has real Manson Family vibes. It's the dark side of hippie sex-and-drugs culture, upgraded for the digital age. 😱 Funny thing is, these folks think they're the future, but they're stuck in a very specific part of the past.

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"I am a Countersphexist, no one knows what the hell that is because I made it up, but I assure you it's the most cool and important thing ever" This has "Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf" energy, but I'm not sure if even Rimmer was that pathetic.

Rimmer, a man in a beige uniform with a clipboard and a pompous expression, does an elaborate salute

Alt: Rimmer, a man in a beige uniform with a clipboard and a pompous expression, does an elaborate salute

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Guy whose business model is giving loaded handguns to monkeys, announces that he is worried about all the rogue monkeys that keep shooting people

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Dropped Mike @rebrafsim.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

it isn’t a fucking rogue agent, it’s (at best) incompetently deployed/monitored machinery

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The Shire-Reckoning @shire-reckoning.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Frodo reaches his new house in Crickhollow with Sam and Pippin. Merry and Fredegar are cooking while the other three clean up. ‘Sing hey! for the bath at close of day, that washes the weary mud away!’

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026

Being really enthusiastic about new technology and our scientific and technology industries was the USA’s brand for what, the entire 20th century? And seems like over the course of about 20 years, big tech and our abject failure to meaningfully regulate it has pretty successfully lit that on fire.

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Bill Smiley @neokefka99.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I thought he'd be bigger.

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Since this has resurfaced, I'm going to repeat that Musk stole the concept from a sci-fi novel by Iain M Banks, which has an offhand mention of "slap-drones" being used for this purpose. It's one line in a work of fiction, not a business plan, you absolute nimrod.

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The world ends, not with a bang, but with a slow gurgle as we are drowned in machine generated slop. 😒

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Great thread, and as good a reason as any to watch The Princess Bride tonight. My son is 11 years old, so I will remind him he has a duty of revenge if I am slaughtered by a six-fingered man. ⚔️

Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride: There Will Be Blood Tonight!

Alt: Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride: There Will Be Blood Tonight!

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Tom Bombeardil @rantipole.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

When I used to edit and write about pet reptiles and amphibians, there were countless times I found "breaded dragons" instead of "bearded dragons." Those are very different things.

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Oh boy, just got a new example to use for “spellcheck doesn’t help you if you spelled a word correctly but it wasn’t the word you meant to use.” No, marine biology textbook draft, I am not writing about “claims,” I am writing about *clams*.

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Jen Cross @jencross.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Who wore it better? Phillie Phanatic vs Gambel’s Quail #BirdOfTheDay #Borb

The shaggy green mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies shaking his tummy while dancing on the infield. An infielder scratched his head in the background.

A very fluffy, round Gambel’s Quail strutting his stuff. He has a black topknot, brown cap, gray chest, black belly, and stylish while and brown striping on his sides.

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Genome sequence of sarlacc cells recovered from Mandalorian armor: Implications for growth and development of a thousand year old organism. Comparative Galactic Genomics 843:12, University of Tattooine Press.

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Rex Thrillho @evanbrady.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Good thread. Also, many of these EA folks seem to believe "AI achieves godlike capabilities, destroys humanity" is the only risk worth worrying about. So in their deranged frame of reference, "AI isn't that smart" and "AI is completely harmless" are equivalent statements. 🤪

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In case you haven't noticed, it's Jim Henson's 90th birthday. Go watch some Fraggle Rock, preferably one with Cantus. You'll feel better.

Jim Henson holding Cantus the Fraggle minstrel.

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Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Facebook tells me Muse can "take over tasks from my in-tray". It then lists half a dozen things I have no wish to do. Some of which are ridiculous, bordering on offensive.

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Andrew Hickey @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 24/09/2026

DVDs aren't low-tech. They're just things you can actually own, that won't disappear overnight, that don't require a monthly subscription, that won't suddenly get reedited, that won't start putting adverts in the middle and that won't sell your data to the worst people in the world.

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TFW the one day you forget to update your fantasy baseball team roster, and the pitcher you left on a bench takes a no-hitter into the 7th inning.

Fozzie Bear's Classic Facepalm

Alt: Fozzie Bear's Classic Facepalm

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I'm watching 4 guys with leaf blowers, applying them to a patch of ground maybe 10 meters square with a thin scattering of fallen leaves. This has to be the noisiest, dirtiest, least efficient form of groundskeeping. Also, they don't appear to be picking up the leaves, just moving them about. 🤬

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Optimal efficiency of R2 unit bleep-whistle language. Journal of Applied Droid Informatics 143:2, Alderaan University Press.

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