iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by John Dumas

"Refine this self-portrait of Dorian Gray (socialite, dandy, patron of the arts, hedonist). Touch up silvering temples. Darken eyebrows. Add a silk ascot to cover the rumpled, crepe-like folds on his hideous neck." (Happy b-day, Oscar!)

mcsweeneys.net

The AI Pictures of Dorian Gray

Prompt 1 Create a timeless late-Victorian oil painting of the most beautiful boy in the world (me). Comely features. Lovely. Fair. Debonair and aristocratic.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Cis straight people also must stand up for our trans siblings because it's the right thing to do. Everybody should stand up for our trans siblings because to do otherwise is wrong.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

This was my thought. Cis gay people must stand up for our trans siblings because it's the right thing to do.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I will not pay it with a groat. I will not pay it in a coat. I will not pay it with a note I will not pay it in a boat. I will show I have a spine. I will not pay your library fine.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

If we really want to commemorate what went wrong in New Orleans in 1891, maybe we should start celebrating immigrants. Immigrants have helped America grow. We really should be thanking them. Here's to the immigrants!

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I think people are largely good with Italians these days. I haven't heard an anti-Italian slur in a while. [Full disclosure: despite the French name, I'm mostly of Italian descent.] Demonizing immigrants is still in vogue . There's no shortage of unfounded beliefs that immigrants are criminals.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Columbus Day was that attempt to show that we didn't hate Italians, but they missed the mark. I mean, the people of New Orleans didn't have an issue with Italians, per se, but with a new immigrant population. It'd be nice to say that 135 years later we've changed our views on immigrants.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

In March, 1891, 10 Italians and an Italian-American were murdered in New Orleans. Eventually, people came to see that maybe this wasn't such a good thing after all and that maybe we—as a society—needed to show that we didn't hate Italians. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_Ne...

en.wikipedia.org

1891 New Orleans lynchings - Wikipedia

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Perhaps had the lynching happened in some other year, we would have a holiday based on some other Italian figure. As it is, while putting Columbus Day in place, people were also trying to figure out how to keep Italians out of the country (my ancestors got in anyway).

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Easy history. In 1891, 11 Italians were murdered by a mob in New Orleans. The next year was coincidentally the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage, so they came up with a holiday to show that they were sorry. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_Ne...

en.wikipedia.org

1891 New Orleans lynchings - Wikipedia

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Did some shelf reorganizing to make room for more stamp albums. The two upside-down ones are empty, but I needed to get them on a shelf before I could fill them. #philately #stampCollecting

Wow, a whole bunch of green Leuchtterm stamp binders. The first seven are overfull and the two upside-down ones will take up some pages. The tall one at the end is for oversized albums. Then there's a variety of second-hand albums (I have more) that probably need to give up their shelf space.

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Reposted by John Dumas

ACLU @aclu.org · 09/10/2026

Secretary Hegseth announced that the Pentagon plans to livestream the military's first execution in more than six decades, carried out by firing squad. Turning an execution into a public spectacle only exposes how cruel, barbaric, and immoral the death penalty is. We must end the death penalty.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I was once reasonably in the front of economy when an announcement like this went out. Someone in first class said loudly enough that he was heard in the cheap seats, "fuck them, I paid for this." I stayed in my seat. All of first class was off the plane before the tight connections were.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I find it grimly amusing that the political ad where a woman said "and then I did my research" was paid for by Sergey Brin. I guess she asked Google. If I had $98 million that I could spend on ads, I'd do some good with it, not pour it into funding an attempt to avoid a tax on billionaires.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Colonoscopy is not a painful procedure. Without going all TMI, I have a far more painful exam annually and sedation isn't an option. If you need sedation, fine, but sedation is not without its risks.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I did mine without drugs (just the prep). I stayed off social media that day since just from the prep and the loss of sleep (mostly due the the prep leaving me cold and cramping) I was too cranky and out of it to post.

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Reposted by John Dumas

Neil Vigdor @gettingviggy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The episode briefly disrupted operations on Tuesday at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif., where the man went onto the tarmac, the authorities said. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/u...

nytimes.com

Delta Passenger Steals and Crashes Airport Tug in California, Officials Say

The episode briefly disrupted operations on Tuesday at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif., where the man went onto the tarmac, the authorities said.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Congratulations on becoming a fellow uranium glass owner. We should have you over for tea.

It only glows like this under black light!

A stack of uranium glass cups and saucers (and a plate for cookies or something like that). It's the Cambridge pattern, which we bought (appropriately enough) in Cambridge.

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Reposted by John Dumas

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 05/10/2026

"Seven former Cornell students are accused of sexually assaulting another student who says she was incapacitated. Messages allegedly inviting other frat members were sent to a group chat during the assault. Everyone is talking about the seven. I keep thinking about the others." buff.ly/z7yWbR2

buff.ly

An Open Letter to Cornell University from the Mother of a Prospective Male Student

“Seven former Cornell students are accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting another Cornell student who says she was incapacitated. Messages alleged...

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Translation: Our wealthy backers know that abortion bans won’t inconvenience their female relatives, but a ban on same-sex-marriage might ruffle some feathers.

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Reposted by John Dumas

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 04/10/2026

The Rare Woman (Tokenius femala) HABITAT: 30+ years with a weekly opinion column. CALL: “Hillary the Hawk, Donald the Dove.” DISTINGUISHING FEATURE: Wants to take Thanksgiving off each year, so she lets her cranky conservative brother lecture her readers.

buff.ly

A Field Guide to Legacy Media Pundits in the United States

The Family Values Pundit (Divorcio moralisticus) HABITAT: New York Times bestseller list and a weekly column. DISTINCTIVE CALL: “As a man with a deeply unhap...

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'm not a fan of football, but as I've seen the trailer for Digger, if I were told I either had watch Digger or a football game, my only question would be, "which team should I root for?"

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

“Let’s have the newly-minted JD do the research and write the draft” isn’t that surprising. My understanding is that as a staffer she was involved in this. But it is ridiculous. And if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon, maybe the GOP would have been purged of Nixon acolytes.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I remember that when Bill Clinton was elected, one prominent Nixon ally still in Congress said that he would shake the President's hand, but there was no way he would shake the hand of the person he thought responsible for Nixon's impeachment.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I am 100% convinced that the GOP went after Bill and Hillary Clinton because they were slavering for revenge against the Congressional staffer who wrote the brief that it was appropriate to impeach Nixon. Ms. Rodham was thought to have a bright political future ahead of her.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Only one of my great-grandparents was born in the United States. As for newer immigrants, I say bring them in! Invariably they love the country more than people who romanticize the Confederacy.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

No, of course my great-great-great grandfather didn't die at Gettysburg. He died at the Battle of the Wilderness, almost a year later. He was an immigrant, fighting for the Union. His daughter married the son of immigrants. Their daughter married an immigrant…I'm not even up to 1900 yet.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Except the beginning of the consular year was moved to January nearly 150 years before Julius Caesar was born. The months of Quintilius (5th month, but 7th) and Sextilius (6th month, but 8th). Quntilius was named July after Julius Caesar's death. August was renamed in 8 BCE.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Obama *absolutely* knew this and knew what he was doing. I remember him telling an LGBTQ rights group that their job in the whole thing was to hold his feet to the fire. I keep telling my progressive friends the deal isn't "deliver and I'll vote for you," but "I voted for you: deliver."

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Of course he’s real. I have seen him in person. He was on a stage. There was a tall bearded man next to him, but I don’t remember what he was doing. Probably nothing important.

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Reposted by John Dumas

Mike Ginn @shutupmikeginn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

porn is so deeply misogynistic. i just watched a video with dozens of performers going at it, and they literally hadn’t bothered to hire a single woman.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Look, if OMB can withhold or disburse funds without Congressional approval, it undermines Collins's ability to engage in pay for play or even a politicians honest "I brought money to my constituents." If it's all just Vought and Trump, she's got nothing.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

And just as mysteriously, it's begun synchronizing again.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It won't even download pics when I try to edit them.

Window from iPadOS Photos showing photo that will not download.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For a while, as I scrolled through things, thumbnails were populating. Now it seems to have stalled and I'm not getting new thumbnails. I'm sure it'll start syncing again, but the whole process is hugely frustrating.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

When Apple tech support said I needed to log out of my AppleID on my iPad, I knew that it would not help solve my issue and it and it would leave my iPad regenerating photo thumbnails for days after I logged back in. Right on both counts.

Screenshot of Apple Photos on an iPad with blank thumbnails for the photos. Don't worry, I only have about 250,000 photos. That won't take long, right?

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I’ve long said that if you want to piss off a medievalist, say that you read Shakespeare in the original Old English.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

There is no indication that Ware tried anything but pepper spray. What kind of preventative measures you expect? Everyone needs to surrender their cell phone and their pepper spray before seeing a movie? Absent any proof that the theater would have failed to enforce rules, you seem obtuse here.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

In the intervening time, I had forgotten that Ware was apprehended. There is no indication that he attempted to see if venue would enforce rules. Instead of informing an usher or other theater employee, he just sprayed. Why should we think Ware was forced to take matters into his own hands?

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If caught, the guy with the pepper spray will receive some reasonable consequences for his unreasonable behavior.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

In your view, we can't take gun violence off the table because specifying "reasonable" is moving the goalposts, when I had already rejected unreasonable ways of dealing with interpersonal conflict. Pistols at dawn then, sir!

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Oh, then let's go for the unreasonable then! I had assumed that we were discussing the reasonable ways to deal with people using their cell phones during movies and other such things. If you want to put everything on the table, we're back the the Florida man who shot a fellow move patron.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Available reasonable recourses do not consist of pepper spray, guns, knives, fists…

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Honestly, my point was that making it a police matter was something that the police might not look favorably upon. If a theater thinks it appropriate to evict a patron for cell phone use, that certainly would be their right. Back to talking to the usher and hoping for more than a blank stare.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Available recourses for people irritated by other people’s behavior do not include pepper spray or guns.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I’m saying the available recourse (talking to an usher) may be ineffective. I’m also saying that feeling a need that People Must Be Punished For Bothering Me is a problem. There was that guy who was shot after a verbal interaction with a man who was pissed off he was texting with the babysitter.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Arrested them for what? It’s not illegal to use a cell phone in theater, just rude. It isn’t legal to pepper spray people who aren’t posing a threat. Should the police be arresting people for rudeness? That seems a bit too much like a police state.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I didn’t say that you could expect much (I mean, maybe they’d tell the cellphone-using patron to knock it off, but they don’t want to risk getting pepper-sprayed by some asshat who insists on using a cellphone in a theater), but it is pretty much the sole option.

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John Dumas @johndumas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Cell phone use in a theater is rude. Pepper spray is assault. They really don’t compare. Tip: If someone is using their cell phone in a theater, contact an usher. (Though this may only result in an apathetic look from the usher.) I’ve never felt a need to bring pepper spray to a theater.

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