iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Lois Beckett

Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

An AI book list with three categories: 1) smart books that explain and critique the AI industry 2) VERY flawed but ~illustrative~ books on AI 3) books that provide deeper political/social context, including some fiction (lmk what you'd add to the list) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"As social commentary his books are witty, vivid and accessible, providing the kind of nuggets that do well at dinner parties so long as nobody there is remotely impacted by the topic at hand." Gary Younge on the Malcolm Gladwell approach to gun violence: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

theguardian.com

The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell review – wide of the mark

Gladwell’s highly readable investigation into US gun culture fails to engage with the bigger questions

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Writing about AI is the first time I've gotten slammed online for being... *checks notes* ... "human." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Amused by the extremely correctly categorised bad books on this list

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Feeling trapped in an endless cycle of artificial intelligence hype and panic? Me too. Here's a list of key AI books from @theguardian.com's tech reporters, to help cut through the noise: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

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Reposted by Lois Beckett

Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

"Once a dadaist experiment, an attempt to create a 'temporary autonomous-zone' in the desert, Burning Man is now a marker of class status for tech bros and 'creative professionals' around the globe, a kind of west coast Wimbledon for the weird." www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

theguardian.com

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

"To be fair, to the art punks who built it in the first place, Burning Man hasn’t been cool for decades. You could argue that Burning Man has been over since 2001, when Eric Schmidt was famously selected as Google’s new CEO after a vetting trip to Burning Man." www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

theguardian.com

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

theguardian.com

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

On a hot afternoon in August, I walked out of a natural history museum carrying a whale rib, a leopard pelt, a taxidermied weasel & a piece of fossilized dinosaur poop. It felt like a heist. These were real museum specimens. But for two weeks, they were mine: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

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Michael @mjfromla.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

All isn't lost - you can get your lepidopterist jones on down in San Diego. Road trip! #Butterflies #Entomology

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Danny Groner @dannygroner.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

"Sometimes, people show up at the library, or even the front desk of the museum, with dead animals they think might be of use, forcing employees to politely tell them that the museum does not accept carcasses without prior arrangement."

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Johana Bhuiyan @jmbooyah.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

there is truly nothing that comes close to a Lois Beckett story

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Sarah Werner @wynkenhimself.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is a delightful piece from @loisbeckett.bsky.social: the San Diego Natural History Museum has a lending library of specimens!! 1) if I lived there, I’d be borrowing things constantly; 2) what would it look like for a rare books & mss library to have a lending collection?? 📜 📚

theguardian.com

Want to borrow a dinosaur fossil? Try California’s one-of-a-kind taxidermy lending library

A natural history museum lets residents take home 1,400 specimens, from bobcats and beetles to snakes in jars

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

At San Diego's Natural History Museum, I saw a small sign suggesting they had a ....scientific specimen lending library?? For the general public? This couldn't be real. But it's so real. Aisles of taxidermy, bones, and fossils--and you can take them home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 05/09/2026

covering trans youth healthcare for years, I’ve known many trans youth and families who left states like Texas to preserve their child’s healthcare. some of those families have been left scrambling, shocked to see the admin’s anti-trans efforts reach them in Mass with its 14,000 trans residents.

theguardian.com

Even in safe-haven Massachusetts, trans care is at risk. Young people are fighting to protect it

Activists are calling on the state attorney general to take action against hospitals that have ended gender-affirming care programs after Trump retook office

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Charlottesville finally took down its Confederate monuments in 2021. The statue of Robert E. Lee was melted down. The statue of Stonewall Jackson was given to artist Kara Walker. This is what she did with it: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: a new exhibit by Black US artists transforms Confederate monuments

The sweeping exhibition Monuments opens in Los Angeles on 23 October and is on view through May

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Still thinking about "Unmanned Drone" by Kara Walker, made out of a decommissioned statue of Stonewall Jackson. Going to be thinking about it for years. My god.

theguardian.com

Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: how US artist Kara Walker transformed a Confederate monument

The sweeping exhibition Monuments, which features 19 contemporary artists, opens in LA on 23 October

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Jon Passantino @passantino.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

The first look at the scale of Disney backlash after it suspended Kimmel. Wow>> “Antenna estimated a total of 3 million cancellations for Disney+ and 4.1 million for Hulu in September. Both of those figures far exceeded the trailing three-month averages for the services” www.wsj.com/business/med...

wsj.com

Customers Ditched Disney+, Hulu After Kimmel Suspension

Cancellation rates for both Disney’s streaming services doubled in September from a month earlier.

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Kahlil Robert Irving's meticulous bronze replica of the streets of Ferguson. A beclowned statute of a Confederal naval commander, Matthew Fontaine Maury: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

MONUMENTS, an exhibit featuring decommissioned Confederate monuments paired with work by contemporary Black artists, opens in Los Angeles next week. This is Karon Davis' Descendants (2025), showing her son, Moses, holding a squirming replica Confederate general www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

In 2021, a violently contested statue of Robert E. Lee was finally taken down from its pedestal in Charlottesville. In 2023, it was melted down into bronze ingots. Its remnants are now are on display in Los Angeles, in a new exhibit called MONUMENTS: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Tsenacommacah Chamber of Commerce @archaeomancer.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

The one of Jeff Davis is exhibited exactly as it lay after being toppled by Richmonders in the summer of 2020, paint and all. Personally, it’s one of the most impactful exhibits at the Valentine and I’m glad more people get to experience it.

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

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Nicole Foy @nicolefoy.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

Hi, I'm the ProPublica reporter who's been tracking an unusual stat: U.S. citizens grabbed by immigration agents. I did it because the government isn’t. This is what I found.

White words on a black background read:

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Immigration agents have the authority to detain whom they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally. We found more than 50 Americans who were held after agents questioned their citizenship. They were almost all Latino.

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Agents also can arrest citizens who allegedly interfered with or assaulted officers. We compiled cases of about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, accused of assaulting or impeding officers.

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Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer.

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Reposted by Lois Beckett

Kevin M. Levin @civilwarmemory.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

"Artist Karon Davis used her son, Moses, as the model for this sculpture of a young Black man holding a statue of a Confederate general by his horse’s tail. Descendants (2025)" www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

theguardian.com

Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: a new exhibit by Black US artists transforms Confederate monuments

The sweeping exhibition Monuments opens in Los Angeles on 23 October and is on view through May

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

There's plenty of complexity to the story of Ian Roberts, the Black Iowa superintendent arrested by ICE. But the way the @nytimes.com chose to frame this article is racist and shameful. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/u...

nytimes.com

The Superintendent’s Bio Seemed Too Good to Be True. It Was.

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

"The contest has included levels of on-camera drama that surpass even those of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City." I covered Fat Bear Week victor "32 Chunk"--a brutal villain from previous seasons who finally found his redemption arc: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

‘Dominant on the river’: 32 Chunk crowned champion in ‘biggest Fat Bear Week yet’

Brown bear’s nearly 100,000 votes leads him to victory despite suffering for most of season with broken jaw

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Signe Dean @nevertoocurious.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

My favourite genre of journalism is mainstream outlets writing measured, comprehensive reports in the same manner they would write any other report, but the subject is utterly whimsical www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

‘Dominant on the river’: 32 Chunk crowned champion in ‘biggest Fat Bear Week yet’

Brown bear’s nearly 100,000 votes leads him to victory despite suffering for most of season with broken jaw

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Tyler Kingkade @tktk.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

NEW: I tracked three dozen teachers, professors and other school staff who've been forced from their job or stepped away due to their comments on Charlie Kirk and his killing Republican lawmakers are increasingly getting involved, pushing for firings www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

nbcnews.com

Teachers' punishment for social media posts on Charlie Kirk's death prompts free speech debate

More than three dozen professors, teachers and school staffers have left or been removed over allegations they made disparaging or mocking comments about Charlie Kirk.

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Shannon Bond @byshannonbond.com · 18/09/2025

we wrote about this WH tactic recently. they’re asking journalists for expert source names and then using them to look up political donations in FEC records to try to discredit those sources as biased. www.npr.org/2025/08/18/n...

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Lois Beckett @loisbeckett.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

"I wondered if, in person, a SeaWorld performance might feel more like a farce, or even a tragedy. What I did not expect was that Ginuwine’s SeaWorld concert would turn out to be a masterclass in ageing gracefully." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

‘Ride it, my orca’: my strange, sexy day at the Ginuwine SeaWorld concert

The R&B star’s unlikely set during SeaWorld’s ‘viral’ summer shows became a stylish lesson in how to age as a performer with dignity

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Jeff Asher @jeffasher.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

This @today.yougov.com poll is why I'm going to become the Joker. The US murder rate in 2024 was likely down nearly 30 percent relative to 2020 and down nearly 50 percent relative to 1990.

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Debbie Moon @debbiemoon.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

"He also called the diner “a shiny beacon of hope in an otherwise sort-of bleak urban landscape”. (It is located on Santa Monica Boulevard, in a neighborhood full of high-end art galleries.)" Honestly...

theguardian.com

Elon Musk opened a diner in Hollywood. What could go wrong? I went to find out

The tech billionaire’s ‘retro-futuristic’ drive-in and Tesla charging station has long lines, plenty of glitches – and adoring fans

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