iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

It is a cultural problem, sure. I hate to blame the media, as it has taken a beating already, but a lot of this results from the coddling of alt-med practitioners, from Oprah to your local TV news. Sorry, I'm blossoming into my ranting old man butterfly.

As a surprise to absolutely nobody who is paying attention, the MAHA movement weaponized our inability to apply skepticism or critical thinking to all the woo, bonkers claims about medicine & food over the last 40+ years. See also, vaccine denial & the less-obviously harmful supplement industry.

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The right got their wish, and as a result, we're facing outbreaks, food contamination, environmental degradation, and the inability to track the goddamn weather. Oh, and don't worry, the AI will regulate itself.

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It is an easily marketable lie, and profitable, since I'd argue most Americans don't know what agencies like CDC actually do. They'd blanch if they knew how many hoops gov't workers must jump through and the regulations that hold them accountable (not to mention the regs. grant recipients face).

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The CDC Has Been Hollowed Out

"By all accounts, the CDC was a lean and underfunded organization, doing heroic work that was relied upon by health professionals around the world." The fundamental lie of DOGE is that our gov't was inherently bloated, corrupt, and unaccountable. sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-cdc-has-...

sciencebasedmedicine.org

A new report from the NYT tells a chilling story of how the Centers for Disease Control has been hollowed out over the last 18 months under Trump and RFK Jr. We have been covering this story as it ha

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It is interesting how that deferred-maintenance number has been creeping up over the last month.

Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Schmitt's face here really sells the moment's comedy, with outstanding support from Kennedy. Well done, dumb-dumbs.

Schmitt plays his "gotcha" face while Kennedy offers a grimace of disappointment at Smith's awful chicanery. /s

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

When you have kids you get locked out of pop culture for a good 8 years until it started seeping in. I never heard Old Town Road until half of my U10 soccer team sang it to me during practice. I haven’t heard this Choosin Texas song, but only ‘cause I choose not to hear modern country. Blech.

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Building your own traditions is an amazing thing. We decorate the tree while wearing fezzes and watching Trouble with Tribbles. It is the consumerism that hurts, and having to tell eager grans to chill it with the toys.

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The bad news is that the local arts fest is canceled due to the pending nor’easter. Good news is that it is perfect weather for Terrothon 4 at the Hiway. The Gate, Bride of Frankenstein and Haxan, among others. With luck, they’ll sell beer from Human Robot next door. #weekend

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Appreciate that! And you! Thanks

Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Thanks, I'll keep looking. Those cookies sound amazing, but the authorities say I'm no longer allowed near caramel, since my actions would technically constitute a crime against nature. But hot, salty, and sweet? Damn. (crap...I might need to make them)

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I've tried getting on the #Gochujang bandwagon. I like the flavor, but I dislike that grainy texture I get. Is that just me?

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One nasty rhetorical trick you hear from data center shills is casually substituting current water/energy consumption stats for those of proposed or under-construction centers. As in, "The fears are overblown; data centers only consume X" Yes, now. Your proposed future will be far worse.

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Me before bed last night: scrolling through subreddits in search of a new cyberdeck/writerdeck because I'm fundamentally unsatisfied with my extra writing laptop Me with coffee: configuring the trackpad settings on my repurposed chromebook w/ Debian.

static.klipy.com

That'Ll Do, Pig

ALT: That'Ll Do, Pig

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Oooh, Immanentize the Techschaton!

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Is there some kind of map out there depicting all the AI factions? One axis must depict an insanity curve with one end a LiveJournalist turned tech eschatologist & the other end some code monkey who has been really good at using LLMs to innovate new types of hot sauce, favoring flavor over heart.

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With generational impact. Every closed lab or academic who retires or finds a job in industry means lost progress, specimens, & lab institutional memory. Grad students find new fields. Undergrads find new majors. It isn’t a tap we can twist off/on. It will take years to rebuild if we started today.

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Somewhere in your brain is the rotting corpse of the self-control gnome that could have prevented all of this. Now that he's gone, you'll have to try extra hard on your own not to act like this in public. Good luck. RIP, little gnome dude.

Dr Sarah Hendrica Bickerton 🏳️‍🌈 @sarahhbickerton.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Reposted by Greg Lester

Ah, enshittification, we meet again. (and by enshittification, I mean the original specific @doctorow.pluralistic.net version, not just the colloquial understanding of "online things getting worse")

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How they sleep at night? Probably a mix of prescribed sedatives and the soft comfort of graft.

It is similar to how much our current fads in pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and the paranormal date back to ideas generated by 19th-century spiritualists. Are our techbros prophets, wittingly or not, simply selling us things we think are inevitable?

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Greg Lester @lstr.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Agreed: SF = the 1st draft of ideas. However, much of what we think of as revolutionary has been baking in the zeitgeist for a long time, too. Conceptually, if not technically. The danger is mistaking an idea's resilience for destiny. Mountbanks know how to sell you on an idea's inevitability.

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Lucas really outdid himself; they all look so lifelike.