iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

These are all fascinating responses from an account whose bio is attempting B2B sales.

Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Ds should absolutely, right now, start calling Trump's renaming things "political correctness." It's accurate (unlike the pejorative usage it was coined for) and makes the underlying political point succinctly.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I like to call these “confession” comments. Forgive me, programming father, for I have sinned.

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

AI: Choose and perish. Trump: We don't understand. AI: Choose the form of the destructor. Trump: Super Intelligence. AI: The choice is made. All of us: Whoa whoa whoa

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Anne @anneb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Also a reminder that if we had sane IP laws (not 95 years or life of author plus 70 years) we would've had a much larger corpus for training AI on, and individual creators would've seen almost no difference - only mega powerful corporations would've noticed.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Chestburster scene from Alien. I was 10 maybe?

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Butt Praxis @buttpraxis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I will vote, make calls, knock doors, take up arms for whoever destroys the online gambling industry

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

And ultimately, because of the falling away of a shared journalistic ethos - they are the ones in charge of America’s electoral outcomes. God help us.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I’m convinced this is the group that sees a woman President as too polarizing and tanked Clinton and Harris. I’m convinced this is the group that elected Biden. This is the group mad at ICE and gas prices, but thinks the people “just trying to protect women’s sports” have a point.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

This is the group who says people in Washington should work together and reach across the aisle. This is the group who says “common sense” should return to politics. It has to personally experience something to care. Asking what it wants is meaningless. Running to end its discomfort works.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

When one side is ascendant, they spend more time with the other and in trying to comfort them, end up thinking “maybe this criticism is overstated.” They spend zero time trying to understand the issues and values for themselves. They just want everybody to get along and be happy.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The political center of this country is made up of people who focus their lives entirely around people near to them and understand larger values only abstractly, and spend most of their time trying to get their liberal and conservative friend to both come to things. Each side “has a point.”

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Diedrich Bader @diedrichbader.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

“This is for my boy Paul mthrfkr!”

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Let me tell you - marrying your best friend is awesome.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Big congratulations, and welcome to the club!

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I gave a presentation on how AI works this week. “Wait, it’s not a bunch of stored state it’s just adding the conversation to?” “I mean, yeah - it caches. But fundamentally the math is the same if you replay everything from the beginning.” “So like, if it is conscious it dies every request?”

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Server Engineer: Look, I know you need the water level to go up and down, and art was already locked, but making the glass a vehicle and putting eight seats for the different water levels… talk to engineering first next time, okay?

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hammancheez but spooky @hammancheez.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yall wanna see a duck army deployed into a field to eat bugs

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Thanks, Dave. I needed this. You still in SoCal? Let’s get lunch.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The GOP has successfully cut taxes and ballooned the deficit multiple times in my lifetime. Dems have always spent their political capital cleaning it up because that's what swing voters tell pollsters. I'm so sick of this cycle. :-( /eol

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'm not a debt hawk, and deficits are fine when they bring overall social benefit. But this is getting to bad levels. The political/economic bedfellows of billionaires and the GOP means this just gets worse until 2028. Assume that 2028's race will be all about the economy and the budget. /2

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

So, here's one plausible scenario of the future. Right now the federal debt is over $40 trillion, and 126% of GDP. After the flattening of the second Obama turn (and ignoring the COVID spike and retreat) we're still consistently growing. Servicing the debt is now over $1 trillion a year. /1

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

As we’re learning IRL, we don’t want too much winning.

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Scott Johnson @scottjohnson.zip · 29/09/2026

COMIC: “Father’s Blessing”. Truly, a gift for a king based on current MSRP. Anyway, more nontense at newduck.com #comic #webcomic #humor

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I feel like this meme is directly targeted at Star Trek fan and former ISP guy @setec.bsky.social.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Okay, I downloaded and played a bit of this and this is a super cute idea and I found the game pretty fun. Give it a try.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s such a good album and has held up so well.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I agree. Since OP was about getting frustrated talking to skeptics, I'll mention that one of my big frustrations talking to proponents is that they are don't acknowledge we haven't solved the alignment problem FOR HUMANS. If we had we wouldn't be the racist, sexist, ableist people we are.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

100% agree. The monkey-riding-on-a-dog metaphor has long been used to critique human consciousness. But OP was originally about the reasoning itself, and I was critiquing the "but it can explain itself" response.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Why is understanding a concept like "desk" and "chair" so significant? I get why it was significant in GPT-2 days, but there's a lot of space between "understanding" and "reasoning". LLMs are extremely powerful natural language processors. They are terrible at reasoning.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It cannot answer the thinking behind its actions. It often gets the "reason" it did something wrong, or at least its answers are nonsensical. It's monkey-riding-a-dog phenomenon. Again - back to the bear dancing analogy: if a human gave you Astra's "thinking reasons" back, you'd be upset.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Yes, it is incredible that so many paths of reasoning can be encoded by sentences and that learning to write sentences can somehow encapsulate pieces of problem solving. But there’s an active argument among researchers whether or not this is real capability or recombinant training. Not final.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

And in 2018, OpenAI withheld GPT-2 because it was “too powerful” and they were worried about the negative effects. It’s bizarre that it is still literally predicting the next token and you’re here definitely proclaiming it’s not. The mirage paper is a few years old too, and that’s back and forth.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Anyway, once again, it’s not that the bear dances well, but that it dances at all. LLMs still code badly, and that’s a direct RoI they’re actively chasing. Are they better? Much. Are they good yet? Not even close.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Given what Opus 5 is capable of with Unreal, I’m not surprised by this at all. And it feels disingenuous to say all skeptics and critics “haven’t kept up” when the statements we see are as sloppy as this.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I’m confused. It didn’t incorporate anything into its training - OpenAI did. But then it wouldn’t be emergent or zero-shot if they did, which is what the video claims. Anyway, according to the paper, the spatial mapping and world awareness is Homebody, not Astra.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

How your follow back finds me….

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Greg Stoll 🌈 @gregstoll.com · 26/09/2026

Libraries are so cool

A flyer about Tough Topics (like abuse, LGBTQ, etc), where you can find these books, and a reminder that you can use self-checkout if that makes you more comfortable ❤️

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Miss you, friend. We should get lunch some time. DM if interested.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just watched this VOD, and the whole thing is amazing, but yeah - WoW team: cool ambience and homemade contraptions, Overwatch: neat processing, and.... Diablo: maximum icky goopy. Love it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cve... Diablo section starts at 40 minutes.

youtube.com

BlizzCon 2026 | World of Sound Design | Full Panel

YouTube video by Blizzard Entertainment

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I'm not really into tarot, but I know a lot of friends who are, and Megan's music is fantastic. Go wishlist this!

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

There are lots of my college papers that I tossed out at 3AM that got reasonable grades (B+ and A-) that said NOTHING of substance but sounded nice.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Y'all, I just realized the whole "LLM writes a lot - says nothing" is probably because they were trained on a lot of college undergrad papers, including probably some of mine.

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Kurtis McCathern @kurtismcc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

On one hand wholly agree with your conclusion: on the other hand “more powerful” is really hard to quantify for some of those techs - maybe hardest for AI.

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