iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

It’s like a beauty contest where the finalists were picked by an online poll of H.P. Lovecraft fans.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Not forgetting her 🤪 [goofy face] vote for Roseanne in 2016!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

IIRC Koko once seemed dismayed that her skin was so much darker than blond Penny’s (or even dirty-toilet stupid Ron’s), but Penny explained to her about phenotypic diversity, and Koko always ID’d herself as “one fine gorilla” in her later years. True story (I think)!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

“Cross the River Orinoco and a mighty empire will fall.” — Grok (probably)

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Plus think of all the odd bods that didn’t make the cut. [“Taco-shaped arthropod” from the Burgess Shale deposits.]

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

DVD only on Amazon. 🇨🇦 Hosers!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

But could Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov really be considered a *Viking*? (Asking for a druzhina…)

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Thanks! Now I can see why never the Twain shall meet, if you get my drift.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Name a person and a song you ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 heard of, and maybe we’ll have some context for this take. 🤓

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

His throwaway pensée that Mamdani’s mayor now bc all the right ppl were on the Vineyard or in Greece during campaign season certainly bears repeating, n’est-ce pas? 🧐

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

So happy to hear it’s not Kurt Vonnegut!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Whoa! It’s usually described as a “mild hallucinogen.” Sounds like bro was already primed to go off before he’d even had a nibble.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Never heard the part about the reindeer, but I have read that shamans who just wanted a gentle buzz would drink the pee of those who’d done the full monty (6-8 medium-size caps). They claimed the 🍄s enabled them “to converse with distant friends,” but practically everything does that these days. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

You may actually have surpassed the OP with this one. 𝕽𝖊𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖐𝖙!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Bro seems to have been making a living explaining the appeal of Trump to sceptical East Coast conservatives. Here he seems to be repurposing some of the same talking points. Here’s hoping that renegade AI’s gonna liberate us from the tyranny of DEI and HR!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Long answer: Well, actually, the preorbital scent glands produce a tarry secretion with which… Short answer: Yes.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Doesn’t their name imply that they have a hundred 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠? en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auris#L...

en.wiktionary.org

auris - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

But it does seem like everyone’s talking about how crazy it is that the president is incapacitated and no one is talking about it.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

We love us some Platypus Phonics! Keep on doin’ what you’re doin’, mite!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

That sounds right. Also there’s the much-discussed shortening of our collective attention span. Maybe those short little ’splainers that Louis Menand and Jill Lepore specialize in (“Who was this Hannah Arendt chick? What was her deal exactly?”) are as much as anyone’s willing to take on these days.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I remembered the case from years ago of the Nobel laureate who appears to have been a pedo who preyed on adolescent boys from Papua New Guinea, but this one was just as random and unfocused as the MAHA article. Two sureshot subjects badly bungled. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

newyorker.com

The Children a Scientist Took Home

Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for his work on a disease in Papua New Guinea. But his biggest experiment was on the children he took back to the U.S.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Dionysos when he was off his meds possibly.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I’m not really sure, though I do obsess about it a bit. Maybe we just don’t remember the crap articles they published back in the day; there must’ve been some. Maybe nobody has the patience for that kind of intense line editing anymore—with John McPhee and Wm Shawn haggling for days over a comma.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I was going to ask if you’d seen this in connection with your post about hack writing at the New Yorker; the factual background is fascinating, but the article itself still seems to be a pretty egregious example IMHO… www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

newyorker.com

The MAHA Custody Battle

A father wanted to vaccinate his children. Their mother didn’t. Then the kids got sick.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Maybe not. My enthusiasm for the whole project is really waning tbh. I can probably return the body armor if I don’t remove the packaging though. 🙂

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Oh, no… *telling* them would surely spoil the fun.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Does cosplaying a hard man with body armor, shades and a thousand-yard stare constitute “impersonating a federal officer” within the meaning of the statute? 🥱

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Excellent! Forget about Larry Ellison btw. I’m pretty sure he’ll be a Hasan Piker stan after the midterms…

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

None of these workarounds seems all that satisfactory tbh. DS9 is essential Silver Age of TV content; suggest swallow your scruples and just drop the 💸 directly nto Larry Ellison’s clawlike hand… www.google.com/search?q=is+...

google.com

Google Search

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Spelling on signage surprisingly up to date for 1381!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

By century’s end, these anguilliform exactions had become intolerable:

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Inquiring minds sure want to know more about those “fearmongrels”! Or was it “Mongols”? Whatever!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Perfect! Though I’m tempted to ask, “Your point being?” 🤓

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

No 🎩 H/t for Norman Podhoretz? Be a mensch already!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Similarly the Huns scarred their faces so they would’t have to shave, which made them look as worse as possible…

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

If you’re 𝑛𝑜𝑡 okay with this, pls search “Lake Ontario” in Google Maps, click on the three horizontal bars to the left of the search field, go down to Edit the Map, click on Your Opinions About Maps/Report an issue, and tell them how much they suck for catering to Trump’s insane pronunciamentos. 🤓

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

𝐴𝑢 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑒, Ozma! If, for example, you 𝑑𝑜 remember the issue of Superman where General Zod, an escapee from the Phantom Zone, draws the outline of a one-eyed grompus in the dirt, then that’s exactly what you’re as old as. Emis!

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Whoa! Big Castello fan! Love his chamber works for the unplayable cornetto.

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Mark Howson @late-buddy-ryan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A silhouette, a framed miniature or a mezzotint would be acceptable

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