iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A little bummed I've seen so much promo everywhere for “Josh Hartnett in verity” and not much hype for “Josh Hartnett is doing a sea monster show.” Get your priorities in line, everyone

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”

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Ryan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

George Saunders on using AI: "Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that?"

Have you spent time trying to write or revise with AI? Is there an experiment that would be interesting enough to try?

I have not. Not for a second. To me, this whole idea of using AI to write is . . . anathema. A thing to be most radically avoided.

Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that? Not even in an email and certainly not in a short story or novel.

Who are we ceding our authority to, exactly, when we let AI write for us? And why? Why surrender our agency (that amazing ability we have to reach across time and space, with our strange, idiosyncratic phenomenon, and land within the sensibility of another human being) to something that, by its very design, pushes the individual sensibility aside? And in the name of . . . what, exactly? Ease, I guess? Efficiency? The person who chooses to write with AI has also sacrificed, from the start, the opportunity of experiencing difficulty, of struggling to say what he wants to say, of making himself evident in his prose, of trying to find out what he believes. By this, he sacrifices a chance to know himself and his mind better. To me, that’s a shame. And it’s dangerous, because, as we are now finding out, it affects the brain and lessens our capabilities. Thanks, but no thanks, get thee behind me, etc.

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Lila Byock @lbyock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Proud to be a designated spokesperson for the anti-AI humanist movement in this excellent @newyorker.com piece. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Paragraph from linked New Yorker article reads: This is not A.I. populism, as Sun describes it, so much as anti-A.I. humanism; its champions worry about what would be left if human pursuits became pointless. I was struck by how many A.I. skeptics converged on the same formulation: what is this activity for? When I called Lila Byock, a mother of two and the founder of Schools Beyond Screens, a coalition fighting the influence of big tech in schools, she said, “I think that we just need to ask ourselves, like, what is school for? What is education for? One of the really basic problems with using A.I. in education is that it is designed to make tasks easier and to reduce friction, and friction is how learning happens.”

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Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Here’s my review of East of Eden nypost.com/2026/10/01/e...

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Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A friend asked, “is Peaky Blinders good?” Probably assuming I’d be a normal person and just give a “yes or no” answer

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John Maguire @johnmaguire.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

They'll be studying the Ed Sheeran debacle in Crisis Management courses until the heat death of the universe

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I actually feel like the world would be a way better place if everyone with Pope levels of power had at least one person in their life who was totally unimpressed by it. imagine if Elon Musk had a brother who made him come over and fix the printer. imagine if the royals had even one normie friend

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Mr Mabs @fitweball.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Black Sails was 4 seasons of gritty violent pirate drama perfection i beseech you all to go watch

static.klipy.com

Black Sails: Dark Figure on Ship

ALT: Black Sails: Dark Figure on Ship

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👻Skulliam🎃Boo-tler🍂Yikes🕷️ @yeets.biz · 19/09/2026

i need to know what happened

sign in a restaurant "due to recent events Bigfoot discussions are no longer permitted on the patio"

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

make the John Brown season of Reacher you cowards

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I would not like an AI summary, I would not like it on a boat, I would not like the email bloat, I do not like it on a chair, I would not like it anywhere! I do not like them on a phone, I do not like them in my home, I do not want them on a search, I do not like them in a church

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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

logging on to the earnest high-info neurotics website every day during the everything going wrong decade: 'you know, the vibes here could be better'

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Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A grandfather reads a story to his grandson

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Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Late to the party, but I'm catching up on Sterling Point. Loving the CW show nonsense of it. There're on a remote Canadian island only accessed by plane / boat…somehow, they can pop over to a nearby (?) nightclub. They also conveniently keep running into NYC friends. Good stuff

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mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 28/08/2026

hey just making sure everyone knows tom hardy put out a rap album where he does the “"now is the winter of our discontent” monologue from richard III in the bane voice on one of the tracks. okay have a good weekend

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Danielle Ryan (Lestat Era) @danirat.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I think another lesson to take from the loss of both Dolly and Tim Curry is that neither of them took themselves seriously but they took the work dead serious that's the most important thing pour all of yourself into the craft but have fun and don't get an ego.

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dolly Parton did what literally no techbro billionaire would even think of doing: filling her life with good deeds that make people mourn her when she dies. Not one of these assholes would even think of this, they are all right now completely and honestly baffled by the outpouring of love for her.

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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Man what a punchline lol

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

her very existence was an indisputable reminder of how many things framed as inevitabilities were actually just someone’s choice. there actually is enough money for everything. the wealthy could fully fund literacy and public health and the arts and child welfare. they just won’t

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Nitish Pahwa @nitishpahwa.com · 25/08/2026

I think the universal grieving comes in no small part from the fact she represented the best of what America could be, and that she never stopped chasing that ideal, artistically and socially

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Alex Zalben @azalben.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com

imaginationlibrary.com

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AU

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free books to children from birth until they begin school in participating areas.

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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Parton's legacy as a songwriter, a performer, a personality, and a beacon of warmth and acceptance all make her one of the greatest to have ever done it. But when you add the truly astounding level of her philanthropy...what is there to say? She inspired decency and shamed the wicked. All hail.

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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

AI can never replace real stock images Someone dreamed these up and had the courage to hire actors and make them real

Stock pic of a man caressing a skeleton with a bad wig. Is it his wife? We'll never know

Stock pic of a doctor digging something out of a guy's ass like he's reeling in Moby dick

Stock pic of a guy in a suit with a balaclava holding an axe and a clock

Stock pic of someone about to run over a kid

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Walt Spookman @waltshitman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

“Fantasy author” is a fake job created by Big Hat to sell big black hats.

George R. R. Martin wearing a black fisherman’s cap

Sir Terry Pratchett wearing a big black hat

Robert Jordan wearing a really big black hat.

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Jack Murphy @jackmurphyrgr.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

These people are literally looking to find a hedge against "thinking" as they now see thought as something cumbersome and excessive that they don't feel they should be burdened with in day to day life.

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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

"Sorry, my product randomly breaks the law sometimes" is not something we would tolerate from other industries. Maybe we shouldn't tolerate it with AI

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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 05/08/2026

I feel like it might have been a bad idea to hand the world over to sociopaths

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 03/08/2026

"Why can't you just appreciate how revolutionary the job-taking, environment-degrading, information-shredding, technology-hoarding, economy-swamping machine is?" My brother in Christ, there may indeed be a revolution in part because of "AI," but it might not be the one you wanted.

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Sam Adams @samadams.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I think it’s nice that The Odyssey has brought back not only middlebrow blockbusters but old-fashioned literary snobbery

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geoffrey @parsnip.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

fantastic. no notes

NYT REPORTERS DESCRIBE BEING SUBPOENAED
REPORTER 3: My family and I had sat down to watch "Sheep Detectives," a murder mystery. And right as we were about to find out from the sheep who had committed the murder, I get a call.

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Jesspooka Kant 🎃 @jessdkant.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

A lot of people don’t realize the dust bowl wasn’t a natural phenomenon. It happened when agrobusiness interests dramatically transformed the plains without regard for drought, and created vicious dust storms that choked whole families to death. That’s what I think of when I read about data centers.

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margaret beaufort fan @tudorhistetc.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

man landed on the moon as a side note is killing me

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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

By far the funniest moment in Homer’s Odyssey is when Circe says, “Shall we have sex?” and Odysseus says, “You just turned all my men into pigs. You have the GALL to think I would sleep with you? Of course I will. Absolutely. But don’t do any weird spells”

photograph of the relevant passage in Fitzgerald's translation of the Odyssey ("I make no bed of love with you upon it. Or swear me first a great oath, if I do, you'll work no more enchantment to my harm.")

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 21/07/2026

to be fair, by turning these abject weirdos into social pariahs, we can hopefully become less cooked

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tania ⊹ @synthstatic.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

THIS BABY DEFEATED MESSI

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Yours in negritude, Ryan K. Smith @mewefree.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Two people tried to enter a screening of The Odyssey without buying tickets after hiding inside a miniature model of the Trojan Horse. 😂😂😂

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Lauren Sarner @laurensarner.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Here’s my review of Will Ferrell’s Netflix show, The Hawk. If you want a show with a similar premise, “a former pro athlete tries to make a comeback,” The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is much better nypost.com/2026/07/16/e...

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Merc with a 🫦 in 🎃SpOoKy Mode🎃 @mercuryal.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

happy bastille day to that one episode of Legends of Tomorrow where the team fought a group of historical figures like Marie Antoinette in a museum while Sisqo sang The Thong Song

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I think the problem with the Rock is that the Rock still thinks he’s really cool while John Cena realized that he’s a ridiculous human being and did interesting things with that and Batista realized he was a ridiculous human being and decided to become Daniel Day Louis

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Among other things Sam Neill gave the funniest interviews

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Jenny with a Green Ribbon Around Her Neck @readingtheend.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

what's crazy about AI is that I love the human brain with every piece of my heart, and so many people seem enthusiastic about causing all the good things about their own human brains to atrophy and die.

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James Poniewozik @poniewozik.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Someone should write a story about a curséd device, lusted after as a transformative source of power, that renders its users unnaturally youthful long beyond their time

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

a big reason Sam Neill was so beloved was that he was seemingly one of the only celebrities who acted like his huge success and fame was the result of incredible good fortune rather than coping at that reality and developing a feeling of superiority and entitlement as a result.

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Sarah Forde 🌙🪡 @sailorastera.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Happy anniversary of that time the post office asked me to provide evidence that my package was not delivered.

A series of photos of me pointing to places where packages could be like inside of a mailbox or on the front porch or in my hands except there is nothing there

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fangy @jeannesfangs.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

witnessing the birth of a new all timer post is such a beautiful thing

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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

"why didn't they come forward sooner" every single time a woman comes forward men become the douchiest fucks imaginable about them and their lives and chocies and try to justify why bad things happened to them and that's before we look at the failures of police and the justice system God damn it.

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I don’t understand how people can run for office knowing they have insane baggage and/or crimes. Like I spent the entire campaign expecting AIPAC to somehow dig up my middle school livejournal fanfic account. I prepared my family for it. I’m still amazed it didn’t happen.

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