iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jen Briselli

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026

Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I really fought the urge to embed both Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home” and Faith No More’s “Epic” in this one. medium.com/topology-ins...

medium.com

You Can’t Get There From Here

Even with directions.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Hello, if anyone has told you you need to increase your uncertainty tolerance or comfort with ambiguity lately, or you find yourself wishing someone else would do the same, here ya go: medium.com/topology-ins...

medium.com

Tolerating (Uncertainty) Intolerance

On mistaken identity and mislocated capacity

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

When you hear "better than nothing," ask whose responsibility the "nothing" is, and whether the "better than nothing" solution simply lets them abdicate that responsibility & check the box. AI is the ultimate "better than nothing" technology. Don't negate this argument — reject the whole framing.

productpicnic.beehiiv.com

The incredible value of "nothing"

"Better than nothing" rhetoric hides the opportunity costs behind the bare minimum. Reject this framing.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

I keep trying to keep a rhythm with BlueSky, but of all my internet things, it ends up feeling the most doom-scroll-y and I drop away. I've worked hard to curate my feed and yet the smart people I like hearing from nonetheless contribute. How are you guys doing this thing everyday? Pro tips welcome.

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

A lot of advice for improving team velocity looks like speedrunning: sequence break as much as possible, any% everything in between. But life isn't a video game, and shoveling crap at colleagues and customers is not a winning long-term strategy. No LLM can stand in for actual human teammates.

productpicnic.beehiiv.com

The people ARE the process

Cutting down on collaboration tricks you into thinking you're going faster, but it destroys the divergence effects that make the design process valuable.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I've been re-watching Monty Python's Flying Circus over dinner the last few weeks and when I hit episode 12 I did a spit take. If I was teaching history right now, I'd ask my students to watch this sketch and reflect on current events. 🫠 "Well, I think he'd do a lot of good for the stock exchange."

youtu.be

Monty Python - Mr. Hilter

YouTube video by Caio Badner

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

“To hell with the future. It's a man eating idol.” Ivan Illich

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I spend a lot of time explaining what I mean by #complexity informed. I enjoy it, but I wished there was a video (more invitation than explainer) to help me do the job. After hunting for something that didn't really exist, I decided to just make it. Maybe it'll help you too: youtu.be/o-gOyaXZLqo?...

youtu.be

What is Complexity Informed Strategy?

YouTube video by Topology

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

I've fallen into lurker mode with this site lately but I'm still here... and this week I wrote this thing that seemed to resonate with a bunch of folks, maybe if you're into #SystemsThinking or #Complexity you'll dig it too:

medium.com

Letter to a Young Systems Thinker

Don’t search for the answers.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Hi. I wrote a thing about learning and apprenticeship that intersects a bit with #edusky and #complexity and would love to hear from you if it resonates...

medium.com

Apprenticeship Is Dead. Long Live Apprenticeship.

Expertise is a group project.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't

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borderless @borderless.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Y'all pick a lane. Then make a little progress in your lane each day. Every serious, experienced organizer I know is Doing Their Thing. Instead of freaking out about each bit of bad news, we're in our lanes rapidly building dual power infrastructure and networks that don't rely on the goverment.

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

😈Miss Hell Batkeeper😈 @mishellbaker.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce. Bear with me for a second while I try to explain.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Do these folks not realize that something being "allowed" or "not allowed" on social media platforms is, uh, not quite the same as something being completely and socially acceptable? Also... xkcd.com/1357

xkcd.com

Free Speech

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

This guy gets it. www.instagram.com/p/DE24GKTNRA...

Cartoon image of twelve progressively evolving desire paths in a neighbor green space.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Last year, my health insurance company refused to negotiate a reasonable 2025 contract rate with my doctor's org, so in November I got the dreaded "we're no longer in network with your insurance, starting 1/1/25" letter. My options are now to pay out of pocket (not feasible) or find a new doctor.

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Dinosaur Comics! @qwantz.com · 23/12/2024

What is a man? A reasonable little pile of facts, sorted reasonably. qwantz.com/index.php?co...

T-Rex: It's time to learn about history! And what IS history? EASY:

T-Rex: History is all the stuff that happened in the past!

T-Rex: Luckily, since it IS the past, we can all ABSOLUTELY agree on what happened. Since events are knowable and non-changing - just like ourselves! - there is never any disagreement on what or even IF something happened, and these disagreements don't THEMSELVES change over time, suggesting the need for a "history of history", or "historiography", if you will.

Utahraptor: Sounds like you're kinda suggesting there ARE those things.
T-Rex: No! Of course not!!

T-Rex: Facts are facts, and what ARE people but an internally-consistent collection of facts?
Utahraptor: Nothing! We are all NOTHING if not a knowable, objective, and invariable subset of facts chosen from a larger set of immutable facts, and our actions reflect that!!

Narrator: LATER, T-REX CHANGES HIS MIND ABOUT ALL THIS STUFF:
T-Rex: Lol whatever, it's FINE

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” ― Simone Weil

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Garth Marenghi's Catbus @catbus.phd · 14/12/2024

the perfect rating doesn't exi...... 📽️

blu ray package showing a PG rating for

TRADITIONAL
GODZILLA
VIOLENCE

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

“Contemplative Lemmy With Lens Flare” (2024)

Photo of a dog on the photo-taker’s lap, looking cute

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Oh how I wish more folks understood how important this nuance is: “Disinformation can work by introducing false evidence, such as a forgery or a hoax event. But it can also work by shaping the frames through which people interpret the evidence they see.”

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Bubble Bobble was the first NES game I ever beat. A truly special game for me. When I met the guy I’d eventually marry I learned it was the first game he ever beat as a kid too. We later got matching Bub & Bob tattoos in place of wedding rings. You either get it or you don’t.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Conscientization =/= radicalization.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Perhaps because she’s a friend and not just a random internet “thought leader,” it’s literally never occurred to me until recently that others in my network would likely appreciate Abby’s takes. I bet some of you will. Especially now:

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Live your life such that only a relatively small number of people celebrate your death

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 04/12/2024

jpeg is the working class image format. png is for coastal elites. tif belongs to the ivory tower intelligentsia. gif is libertarian borderline sovcit and webp is the DNC

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

"Every new scientific investigation must trace this same path. You must first estrange yourself from the old ways of thinking, and then you must fall in love with new ways of thinking, and you must do both of these things before they are reasonable."

experimental-history.com

The Anarchist and the Hockey Stick

OR: "The Inquisition was right"

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Went to my high school class reunion last night, was chatting with a friend about yearbooks, found mine, and had a chuckle rediscovering this section that was written as a "20 years later" prediction back in 1999. Oddly accurate in a way I feel slightly unnerved by.

Yearbook prediction that reads: Jen Briselli was last seen as a Buddhist monk, married to a Russian spy, searching for the still undiscovered remains of Genghis Khan, and performing nuclear physics research on the weekends.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I've been enjoying a small little booklet by Darby Hudson titled YOU'RE GOING TO BE OK (BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKED NO MATTER WHAT), and this gem is one I can't help but share:

A poem that reads:
I CAN HAVE A DREAM ABOUT HAVING A MILLION DOLLARS. BUT WHEN I WAKE UP, IT DOESNT EXIST.
BUT I CAN HAVE A DREAM ABOUT A SONG THAT DOESNT EXIST AND IVE NEVER HEARD IT. AND WHEN I WAKE UP I CAN HUM IT.
NUMBERS DONT WORK IN DREAMS
BUT MUSIC DOES. AND THATS ALL I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING.
by Darby Hudson

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Your IKEA product name is your name spelled backwards with an umlaut. Refinnëj, the step ladder that somehow adds the height you need but at an increased horizontal distance making it just as hard to reach the thing.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

If you want to hear some *masterful* podcast hosting, check out this episode of BraveUX where Brendan --somehow-- weaved all my abstract tangents and messy metaphors about #Design #UX #SystemsThinking and #Complexity into a coherent interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e257...

youtube.com

Jen Briselli - Embracing Complexity and Ambiguity in Design

YouTube video by The Space InBetween

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Back when I joined Twitter, I had toes dipped in lots of not-very-overlapping follower groups: systems thinking, scicomm, UX, rhetoric, quantum physics, semiotics, education, public policy… A cool thing to see now, as I rebuild my feed here, is that so much of those worlds have since collided.

media.tenor.com

a man says " everything is connected " with his hands up

ALT: a man says " everything is connected " with his hands up

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Is there a name for the special kind of writer's block that results not from a commonly assumed lack of ideas, but from all the ideas doing this?

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

The design, systems, and complexity communities love a garden metaphor these days (and for good reason - I use it a lot too) but I’ve started to feel increasing itchy about it. This piece does a great job exploring why: www.noemamag.com/the-entangle...

noemamag.com

The Entangled Garden | NOEMA

To take a conscious step back from controlling the hybrid spaces we call gardens allows native citizens a chance to make their own choices about where and how to live.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

“We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside of the world; we know because we are of the world. We are part of the world in its differential becoming.” Karen Barad

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Jemele Hill @jemelehill.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

This explains why conservative fear-mongering is such an easy play in America. — Ppl believe trans ppl make up 21% of the population (Real number: 1%) — Ppl believe Black ppl make up 41% of the nation (real number 12%) — Ppl believe Jewish ppl make up 30% of the nation (Real number, 2%)

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

“He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single big mac.”

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

A plane full of happy meals and sad humans

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

The stairwell in the central parking garage at Logan is low key one of Boston’s best art installations. Fight me.

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16/11/2024

resolved: people who insist that all social media sites must be places where users are constantly encountering and arguing with people over fundamental disagreement do so because their actual, real lives are echo chambers where they do not encounter any meaningful difference from day-to-day.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Update: can now play Rosanna without disrespecting it, bought a double bass pedal, and committed myself to getting Limelight by New Years. Next up is figuring out how to look cool (or less dorky) while playing. A long game.

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Jen Briselli @jbriselli.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

It’s really been a tale of two dumpster messages for me lately

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Reposted by Jen Briselli

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

A lot of people asking this question and the answer is simply that the rules and laws don’t enforce themselves and the people responsible for enforcing them would just prefer not to. Bartleby the Nation

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