iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Mark

Brendan Larsen from Ngāmotu in Aotearoa and a member of the New Plymouth Astronomical Society took this stack over a couple of hours and estimates 14000 satellite trails. This is how bad it is now, it's set to get much much much worse - and then we lose Low […] [Original post on river.geek.nz]

Stacked series of long exposure astro landscape images depicting thousands and thousands of trails from satellites over the conical volcano Taranaki Maunga in Aotearoa New Zealand.

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Reposted by Mark

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

In the vein of "public libraries could never be created today," a pitch for a calculator would get you thrown out of the boardroom. What do you mean, it just maths? Where are the ads supposed to go? How does it send usage telemetry back if it doesn't even have wifi? There isn't even a leaderboard.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 1h

Extremely evident when we look at a certain contemporary VC oligarch type dipshit claiming that interiority and introspection isn’t real.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 1h

It would be laser cut metal panels and integrated scifi colour/material/finish, blinkenlights, etc that would elevate it to being completely extra, beyond the basic setup needed.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 15h

This is my end of semester celebration song. Old man rap is the new rap. www.youtube.com/watch?v=br2I...

youtube.com

Aesop Rock x Blockhead - Coyote Summer (feat. Hanni El Khatib) [Official Video]

YouTube video by Aesop Rock

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

The core of the problems of contemporary NZ society in a nutshell

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Reposted by Mark

Philip Oldfield @sustainabletall.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

These bright yellow awnings on the refurbished Lyngby Town Hall in Denmark are delightful The architect is ERIK Arkitekter and the awnings are by Blendex

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Dr Lucy Stewart @lcsnz.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I've been shocked by a lot of what's happened to our science system over the last three years but banning puns in proposal titles is a new low, surely.

Screencap of a section from MBIE's 'Programmes Proposal Template – 2027 Transition Research Fund' specifying that titles of proposals may not include acronyms, abbreviations, 'humorous "tabloid" style titles', or puns.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I’ve left the UI mines multiple times in my career and somehow always keep going back in.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

My students found one today that was recursive ie: a slop-board with a generated image of a slop-board on it.

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Keith Ng @keithng.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

AI boosters: the future will belong to those who understand how to harness the power of AI, so we must invest in training for this future AI companies: you wiggle and AI mommy come. just wiggle wiggle wiggle.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I always think it's very funny that something many would consider obvious and stupid is actually of profound importance for computer science, and formalising it supports some interesting applications.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

And then probably have to either download the upgrade again, install from recovery, or wipe the disk and then reinstall everything. support.apple.com/en-nz/102675

support.apple.com

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way - Apple Support (NZ)

If your Mac doesn't start up all the way or needs you to do something during startup, it might stop at one of these screens.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Probably the first and most critical step if you can get into the old OS is to back up everything that is important.

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Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I want to see empty exhibits in British museums, that contain only the story about what they once contained, and why they had to be sent home. The space would be no less profound for me www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Oxford ceremony marks return home of kiwi feather cloak

The kahu kiwi, given to a British doctor in 1900, was "crying to come home", Māori campaigners say.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The dogma in NZ is based on universalising assumptions about stagflation and wage-price spirals from the 1970s which was a very specific and contingent time in world history. But also, Voelker of the US FED famously was quite explicit about what it was he was doing. bsky.app/profile/maet...

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Monetarist ghouls hate this one weird trick...

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 11/10/2026

> Submit to the machine god before it arrives, a form of anticipatory grief. Abandoning agency early makes you look like you have situational awareness. Yes, a common coping mechanism amongst people who have low agency is to nonetheless assert fealty to the entity limiting their liberty.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

It's proof of groupthink/scenethink.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Sounds annoying. Hope you figure it out!

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Maybe the inner tube is squeezing down into the spoke hole. In theory covering it up with tape like you've done would fix. An old trick was to put talcum powder on the inner tube to give it a bit more play between the tire and the rim.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I guess the way to tell if it is a bigger problem is to just keep riding and see if it keeps happening lol

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Pinch flats can be weird. The inner tube sometimes tears from unexpected compression and doesn't always leak air instantly.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Genuinely do not think some understand the category error. Critics aren’t questioning philosophy of consciousness and cognition, they are challenging whether such ideas are appropriate to apply to these particular systems when there is already a clear set of possible explanations for their outputs.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Some of the arguments being floated by philosophy people will never overcome the Occam’s razor of “the underlying data and prompts weighted the output probability” without empirical evidence and data transparency.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Given how LLMs work (flat graph space of ‘attention’ rather than distinct separate modules or hierarchy) the so-called ‘system prompts’ along with primary training data around agentive identity, instruction sets, sample transcripts, are required for understanding provenance of text outputs.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Also relates to the stories coming out about publishing industry becoming mesmerised by Book Tok slop creation and AI emails, failing to understand how traditional distribution and sales was relationship-based, relying on judgement and social proof.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The moral failing is a social responsibility (for mass extinctions, climate breakdown, child poverty, war etc) which the frame of Randian individuals doesn’t adequately address. Need to reframe the media gotcha they are attempting to construct, rather than passively accept the yes/no premise.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The business-friendly media will always redirect attention to the player, away from questioning the game. Don’t fall for it.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The public see you. They see this. Hiding behind abstracted questions of moral identity belies the thousands of immoral and unethical action steps that escalate an ambitious capitalist to that level of wealth and power.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Graham Hart’s giant super yacht cruising along the Waitemata Harbour while children all over Tamaki region don’t have food to eat for breakfast.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Rascals International Ltd vs Taylor (2026) NZHC 2279

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

We’ll reclaim it eventually 🙏

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Is why manipulation campaigns and strategic communications activists put so much effort into faking grassroots emergence.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

It wouldn’t even be a bad outcome if people were more precise and specific, but I have my doubts about that. Is why I say *might* because we can’t really tell. Language change is complex, social, networked and doesn’t respond well to top-down edicts and prescriptive demands.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

You might start hearing the words inference and generative more and more at a normie level of managerialism as people try to thread the needle of appeasement by not saying AI while not making blatant idiot statements about superintelligence.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

“How are these tech companies not being held accountable? It’s unprecedented.” Maybe. But it does depend what the precedent is. Not the American data industry’s first rodeo.

Cover of “IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black. Subtitle says: “The strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s most powerful corporation.”

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Shutting off the cash would shut off the public relations pipeline which would encourage deranged people to shut the fuck up about it.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Taxing and regulating these fuckers into oblivion could potentially lead to more AI innovation as people try new methods, push the boundaries of computing given resource constraints, explore more qualitative measures rather than scale.

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Reposted by Mark

Greg Bond @docgregb.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

This is not about bike lanes. My vote goes to candidates who understand why we need to invest in public services to make them accessible, safe & attractive for all to use. Those who prioritise tax cuts seek to leave us with shonky, unwelcoming, useless public services that end up helping no-one.

A small child (the author’s child) riding independently & confidently in a “protected” two-way bicycle lane.
(Apropos of nothing; this is indeed the correct allocation of space in this location.)

A photograph showing a narrow, painted “bike lane” with no protection from motorised traffic. The child’s bike is lashed onto the rack on the front of the author’s bike, as a car passes to the right.
It’s a location where it is clearly too unsafe for a small child to ride their bike.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

One of the most iconic computer science photos of all time.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I’d rather be talking about worldbuilding via a fictional comics canon and so forth, but civic duty is civic duty.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Choosing your battles is definitely a wise approach in general. Sorry that it got dumped on you like that. I think it’s pretty normal and understandable to feel ambushed. It is responsibility of seniors to show leadership and empathy.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

One of the best to ever do it. Looked beyond the early conventional wisdom of wiring switches together and dumping machine code into memory to see whole systems and a new wave of questions open up around reliability and verification at higher levels of abstraction. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...

news.mit.edu

Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90

Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is really well put. Thank you. Hopefully you get a supportive and encouraging email from Nicky at some point over the next week praising what you’ve written. (When I’m having a bad day or thinking I’m useless, I go and re-read the ones I’ve received.)

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Having been in fixed term situation, yes. The consultation would be expected to be with all course stakeholders, including senior tutors. There might be some direction or constraints given but generally making decisions about courses without the people delivering the courses is high risk and messy.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This was a really influential article, I remember when it came out. The reality was so much more collaborative than the scene depicted in popular science books which I read as a teen. I am glad the culture of co-authorship has changed.

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Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This case needs to be made more. We’ve moved to sealed boxes as a design convention without much public discussion of alternatives. Maybe the right move in various circumstances but people often don’t think about it beyond optimising a single variable (indoor temperature) or “the way we do things”.

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