iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 15/03/2026

Who could have possibly foreseen that a political faction based on shared values of hate, lies, and greed elevating a criminal malignant narcissist would result in concentration camps at home and disastrous wars of aggression abroad?

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 10/03/2026

We neither expect heaven nor fear hell, yet still value justice and compassion--based on secular morality and love for others. Christian nationalists co-sign the most vile cruelty, lies, and greed, yet demand submission to them and their beliefs upon threat of eternal torment. It's depraved.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 23/02/2026

That line from the Matrix about the late 90s being the peak of our civilization seems more prophetic with each passing year.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 21/02/2026

I think this means you’re his safe place.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 13/10/2025

Something that always comes to mind when I see Thiel's name mentioned is a talk he gave--"Competition is for Losers". Pretty much sums up exactly why and how he and other oligarchs are driving free market capitalism off a cliff and into the abyss, taking all of us with it.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 03/10/2025

A great name for a publication about LLMs: Prompt Critical

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 18/09/2025

I would have vastly preferred to just have been wrong but here we are.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 07/09/2025

This is a CLASSIC legal problem. Copyright law was written with different scenarios in mind, and applying old rules to a novel situation can be extremely complex and have different results than if the same people/interests/morals who created the old law designed new rules for the new situation.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 07/09/2025

The interesting fair use analysis starts with that training. Is it analogous to a human reading and understanding a book? When Claude the generates responses to questions, how is this different from that a human? If it's OK for humans, why not LLMs? (I'm identifying questions, not implying answers)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 07/09/2025

Ripping an mp3 and playing it for others are two separate actions--format shifting is only about the first. Nothing like playing an mp3 for others happens until Claude responds to a user. Format shifting is about what happens between buying a paper book and LLM training.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 07/09/2025

FWIW, that finding on format shifting is not surprising. Think of it as similar to an individual making mp3s from an album they already own. It's the actual ingestion into an LLM that's an interesting fair use issue. Consider w/ the four fair-use factors: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_us...

en.wikipedia.org

Fair use - Wikipedia

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 05/09/2025

We have reached the point in our dystopia of stupid that there will soon be a black market for vaccines 🤣🤬

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 31/08/2025

That'd be great, but problem is also only partly generational in the first place. Pew says Gen X were his biggest supporters, but younger voters shifted that way too. Without persuasion, the cult will be able to retain power over at least their own party for the foreseeable future. 😒

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 31/08/2025

I worry even that is optimistic. IMHO, the only way the Trump cult re-learns that unrestrained ignorance, cruelty, and greed is a bad strategy for life is if the consequences are severe. Conversely, if the damage they could cause can be mitigated, few will be willing to change their outlook.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 08/07/2025

Two great tastes that taste horrible together. 🤣

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 08/07/2025

I know this was a rhetorical question, but I’m going to answer it anyway…. Yes, it’s bribery.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 05/04/2025

Where is Spock when you need him? 🤣

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 05/04/2025

The brown one looks like it could be an extremely disappointing brownie 🤣

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 27/03/2025

And further that, since this is already much of how humans obtain our own "intelligence", once LLMs have the capacity for deliberative modification of their own mind state, based on their own experiences and interaction with the world, this line starts to blur.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 27/03/2025

My intuition (such as it is) is that LLMs represent an amalgamated gestalt of human thought present in their training data, so the question isn't whether or not the "lament" exists (it does) but to whom it should be attributed--the people who produced the training data or the LLM.

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Reposted by Kendall Koning

Jacek Debiec, MD, PhD, DPhil 🌎 🧠 @drjacekdebiec.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

This speaks volumes: Yale professors, Timothy Snyder, a historian of totalitarianism and the author of "On Tyranny," and Jason Stanley, a philosopher and the author of "How Fascism Works", move to Canada. leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2025/03... munkschool.utoronto.ca/person/timot...

leiterreports.typepad.com

Stanley from Yale to Toronto

Jason Stanley (philosophy of language, epistemology, political philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, has accepted a senior offer from the University of Toronto, where he will be thr...

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 26/03/2025

Excellent work, as always

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 16/03/2025

I’ve never understood the hate. Looks beautiful to me, especially when combined with some green plants.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 10/03/2025

The only thing he's made more affordable so far are stocks.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 07/02/2025

New York should have joined as well. Their absence is notable.

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Reposted by Kendall Koning

gamera obscura october edition @ohrobin.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

LGBTQIA minors make up 40% of the endangered minor runaway population. They are 120% more likely to be unhoused. They are also uniquely at risk for exploitation and trafficking. This is breathtakingly evil.

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Reposted by Kendall Koning

The Onion @theonion.com · 03/02/2025

Think Tank Called ‘The Himmler Institute’ Assures Nation This All Legal theonion.com/think-t...

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 03/02/2025

To clarify, you can be a paid advocate for clients, and you can be an academic who takes a controversial position on matters of public concern. But if you do both at the same time, you should not be surprised when people question your integrity.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 03/02/2025

They’re very unlikely to be able to decrypt the traffic in flight. The real issue is that phones themselves could be accessed.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 02/02/2025

Well, the ISPs (NCTA) used to be paying him (per the disclaimer in his own 2005 paper). They probably stopped, their lobbying dollars (i.e. bribes) spent more efficiently elsewhere.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 01/02/2025

Yes, it is vile. But this gif is of Garak drinking root beer, sweet and bubbly, but insidiously nice, like the federation. In context it says the exact opposite of what you probably meant… 🖖😂 TMYK 🌈⭐️

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 23/01/2025

I'm thrilled to see all of Wicked's Oscar nominations! Not just for Best Picture and Cynthia Erivo's possible EGOT, but for Ariana Grande, production design, costume design... It's got to be a shoe-in for best score... those songs have been living in my head rent free since opening day.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 21/01/2025

BlueSky has a huge bot problem. Of my current ~325 "followers", I'd wager only ~50 or so are real people. But BlueSky has the same perverse incentives as old Twitter--showing higher growth and engagement numbers is more important to them right now than stopping bots.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 21/01/2025

OTOH, there are equally obvious aspects to the financing and investment aspects of renewables (e.g. risk, opportunity costs), and resolving the contradictions will take you face first into political issues. E.g., carbon taxes, electricity markets, cross-subsidies, etc...

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 18/01/2025

Too little, too late, @nytimes.com. Those subscription dollars are now going to organizations more deserving (including @glaad.bsky.social and @propublica.org) and they're not coming back.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

Without that (admittedly, long-shot) transition, it feels like catastrophic outcomes are inevitable. (7/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

It'd probably take both legal reforms (§230 reform, adversarial interoperability, etc...) and a technology shift, but getting past this misinformation dystopia gilded age might someday be possible. (6/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

The glimmer of hope is that more people, when faced with this power being weilded by foreign-owned entity outside their control, will eventually realize that NO ONE should have that kind of power. (5/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

The economic incentives have awful cultural externalities that empower the absolute worst people and actions--e.g., hidden disengenous manipulation, anonymous death threats, disinformation campaigns, radicalization entrepreneurs, etc... (4/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

The economics of platforms works to centralize control. This, combined with individually tailored content mean that neither market forces nor reputational effects can hold platforms accountable. (3/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

AI and related machine learning technologies have long since driven platforms' editorial control past the blurry boundary with "good faith moderation" and into an agenda-setting power akin to culture-level (metaphorical, obvs) mind control. (2/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 17/01/2025

I've got mixed feelings about this. In one sense, yes, it does feel like a big step in the wrong direction. Not least because some antipathy towards TikTok seemed content-based. But in another sense, it feels like the first small step in an "orthogonal" right direction too. (1/7)

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 16/01/2025

Exactly. For all of Biden's supposed qualifications and experience, for some of the most important aspects of the job it's like he didn't even understand the assignment. I don't doubt his intentions, but it's also true that sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 16/01/2025

"How Civil Wars Start" by Barbara F. Walter. Book. +2 Foresight, -2 Morale. Binds on pickup. Summary: Surprisingly likely in medium term, mechanisms and nature explained, many comparative examples given.

goodreads.com

How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them

Civil wars are the biggest danger to world peace today …

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 16/01/2025

That's what happens when you lead from behind, dismissing all those warnings about heading towards a cliff. The effusive praise from insiders at the end of his term is so... "other than that, Ms. Lincoln, the play was so amazing, right?" 🤦🏼

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Kendall Koning @kkoning.net · 16/01/2025

Ooh, a counter-example for Betteridge's law of headlines! Those are rare!

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