iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Promoting AI music is like taking off your human skin suit in public.

I’m listening to a bunch of M.R. James stories narrated by Derek Jacobi, who is exactly the right person to narrate M.R. James stories. And while I normally associate them with Christmas, Jacobi reading “I find that I absolutely shrink from the dark season” is a fine welcome-to-fall.

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Other states besides Texas with voter registration deadlines over the next 7 days: Arkansas, Arizona, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Indiana , Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, South Carolina.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

There is no safe way for researchers to use the systems provided by OpenAI, Anthropic, or any of these other companies. They have all admitted that plagiarism is an integral component of what they do. If you put your work in – even if it's just to touch up a manuscript – they will take it.

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Slavko Bogdanov @slavkobogdanov.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I’m citing Ole Rømer’s work on the speed of light measurement from 1676 in a paper I’m working on. “Philosophers have been labouring for many years to decide by some Experience, whether the action of Light be conveyed in an instance to distant places, or whether it requireth time.”

royalsocietypublishing.org

A demonstration concerning the motion of light, communicated from Paris, in the journal des scavans, and here made English

Abstract. Philosophers have been labouring for many years to decide by some Experience,whether the action of light be conveyed in an instance to distant pl

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Peter Denton @jazzwhiz.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I cited Cardano (1545) for the general solution to a cubic equation arxiv.org/abs/2405.02400 Note that the story about the solution to a cubic is worthy of one of your threads; there's fairly heavy drama in there.

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Richard Beanland @richbean0.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I used a reference from 1568 on polishing of diamonds: ‘The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on Goldsmithing and Sculpture’, in doi.org/10.1016/j.di.... Amazingly, you can get it online!

doi.org

Redirecting

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Michael Busch @michael-w-busch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

bsky.app/profile/mich...

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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I cited William Grove’s paper (on Fuel Cells) in Philosophical Magazine 1839 in my thesis.

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Stephen Heard @stephenbheard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My forthcoming book (scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com/2026/08/11/h...) is about the history of our understanding of extinction. Oldest citation there so far is Agricola 1456, De Natura Fossilium. Likely older works to come; but again, writing about history, low-hanging fruit.

scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com

Here I go again: I’m writing a fourth book!

It’s entirely possible that the world has heard just about enough from me. After all, I’ve written three books, I’ve been inflicting Scientist Sees Squirrel on you for over a decade, and the data w…

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Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I cited Daniel Bernoulli, Hydrodynamica (1738) in my thesis for Bernoulli’s equation.

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Michael Busch @michael-w-busch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I keep encountering people describing text generators being used to "review" research proposals and papers submitted to journals. There is no way to do that and simultaneously fulfill the obligation to keep the contents of proposals and papers confidential.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, exact date of birth unknown, was born around this time in 1698 and baptized #OTD. He was among the first to articulate the Principle of Least Action, one of the most beautiful ideas in physics. 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Wellcome Trust

Etching of Maupertuis. His right hand rests on a globe and his left hand points to the site like a manicule from a broadsheet. He has a long, dark, curly wig on, and a robe tied at the waist with a sash.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s perfect backyard fire weather.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

If there is one physics formula everyone knows, it's E=mc². Einstein proposed the famous equivalence between energy and mass in his second special relativity manuscript. It was received by Annalen der Physik #OTD in 1905, the day after they published his first special relativity paper. 🧪 ⚛️

fourmilab.ch

Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy-Content?

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If you’re wondering how the CIA is holding up, they are currently running recruitment ads sandwiched between sports betting promos on a basketball podcast that I listen to.

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Anybody who would decide to close this museum does not have Philadelphia’s best interests at heart.

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Alex Gibney @alexgibneyfilm.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The trailer for my new film, "Musk," has just been released.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Today is the big one-two-one for special relativity. In honor of this momentous occation here is a 121-post-long thread. (I am just kidding, the thread is from last year so it is only 120 posts long. [No, I am still just kidding, it is only 35 posts.]) Happy birthday, special relativity! 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I was genuinely on the edge of my seat

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Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Most riveting thing I've seen all week

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

“Let the Right One In” (2008)

A scruffy blonde golden doodle on its hind legs peeks through a screen door, hoping someone will let him in or join him outside.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 25/09/2024

Every story the Universe tells, is a history. Danish astronomer Ole Rømer was born #OTD in 1644. His observations of Jovian moons confirmed that light propagates at finite speed. This profound conceptual shift opened the door for work by Huygens, Fresnel, and Maxwell. 🧪 🔭 A thread:

Painted portrait of Ole Rømer. He has long, dark, curly hair (possibly a wig) and wears a burgundy jacket with a frilly white collar.

Portrait: Jacob Conring / Wikimedia Commons

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“We asked an amoral billionaire who can’t remember his own address how the industry that prints his money — ravenous for energy and powered by environmentally antagonistic power sources on an unprecedented scale — could help with climate change.”

nytimes.com

Opinion | Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far

Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, does not want you to be afraid of A.I.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

nytimes.com

Opinion | Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far

Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, does not want you to be afraid of A.I.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I promise, no matter what they say they are doing, Meta is using this to scrape everything they can find on your devices and recording everything you do or say. It is what they’ve done with every product they’ve ever released. Nothing of yours is safe if you use this, no matter how careful you are.

inc.com

Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To

Permission isn't the same and what a user actually expects your AI product will do with their personal information.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

[Tech CEO watching the Treehouse of Horrors where Pierce Brosnan voices the murderous Ultrahouse 3000 computer] "We should tell them that this could really happen."

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Astrophysicist Charlotte Moore Sitterly was born #OTD in 1898. She compiled extensive data on optical and later UV spectra, and her spectroscopic tables are still in use today. 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭 👩‍🔬 Image: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives / Michael A. Duncan

Photo portrait of a young Charlotte Moore Sitterly taken some time in 1919, when she was 20 or 21 years old. Her hair is pulled back and she is wearing glasses and a white top with a wide collar. She is looking to the side of the camera. The photo is sepia-toned.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Lisa's Mood Swings," from the Simpsons Collection for After Dark, is probably the greatest screen saver ever made.

Lisa Simpsons stands in a spotlight playing her saxophone, which has conjured a squiggly blue outline of her father Homer Simpson.

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Tim Price @timprice.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

You joined "grand vizier chat (secret)" You: dark rumors from aboard You: abroad* fuck Sssnakecharmer: mf said aboard WhispersintheChapel: ahoy matey lol PonderMyOrb changed the group name to "rumors from aboard"

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 23/09/2026

I really highly suggest that you don't rob yourself of this process, which is a relationship with your mind and knowing what you really think Also shout out to my spouse for a remarkable round of editing that involved reading the draft twice bsky.app/profile/chan...

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Immediately distrustful of this or any other maneuver that involves OpenAI choosing even some of the members on a panel of advisors. Anything less than a (admittedly hard to coordinate) community-wide response just seems like something that a known bad actor like OpenAI will try to manipulate.

theverge.com

OpenAI wants to consult elite mathematicians about how to not fumble again

‘The group will advise on the review and communication of emerging results.’

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I was sure that 11 down was going to be MAFIA DOG.

A crossword puzzle with a column that reads “MAGIADO_”

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Holly Anderson 🍇 @hollyanderson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

hey just curious where did the “protect women athletes” crowd get off to

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Harebrained @harebrained.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Help me raise some money for my kids’ elementary school! Buy one of these large DRAW pins and 100% of the proceeds will be donated to their arts magnet school! Do it for the kids! www.harebraineddesign.com/collections/...

Black enamel pin with red type that says “DRAW” and white lettering underneath that says “To keep kids off generative AI” in the style of DARE program tees.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Happy 118th birthday, spacetime. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️ Hermann Minkowski addressed the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians #OTD in 1908, offering a radical four-dimensional reformulation of Einstein's theory of special relativity. Here is how he opened his address.

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
- Hermann Minkowski, 1908

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

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Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Sunrise song. You'll want the volume up for this one, but not too high. Every coyote within a half kilometre radius decided to make themselves known this morning while I was enjoying the sunrise from the kayak. A truly magical moment. #mammals 🌿

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Any query that has to contact Wolfram's servers has been failing for me for a few weeks, so I've been occasionally checking the status by evaluating "== 2+2" in a notebook. It finally started working again today, which is great, but I feel like the step-by-step explanation of 2+2 was a bit much.

Asking Wolfram (Mathematica) to evaluate 2+2 gives several responses, including a step-by-step solution that reads "Step 1. Do the following addition: 2+2"

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Imo this is not exactly a revelation about Lorenz.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Mathematician Paul Erdős had a fantasy that he'd die giving a lecture. He'd prove a result, someone would ask about a generalization, he'd respond "I'll leave that to the next generation," and then he'd die. He passed away at a conference in Warsaw #OTD in 1996, just after proving a new result. 🧪 🧮

An image of Erdős in front of a blackboard, from the documentary “N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős” by George Paul Csicsery

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Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We can simulate fish schools or ants in ways that solve complex problems (gradient detection, bridge building, nest selection) but no one would create this weird soul/no-soul dichotomy to argue they these that multi-agent swarms of extremely simple rules are “thinking”.

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