iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 7h

And people just won't take you seriously if you don't get that!

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 9h

I still can't figure out if it’s specifically the iced coffee that people are mad about or if a different drink would be fine?

110

Reposted by Michael Spencer

Jennifer Smith Richards @jsmithrichards.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I've been a reporter for a long time and this might be the strangest thing I've ever done. We've been reporting on privatization of schools this year and found that just about anyone can open a private school in most states. So we asked, Could reporters do it?

propublica.org

Almost Anyone Can Start a Private School. We Put This to the Test.

Our reporting has shown how easily people — some with questionable backgrounds — have founded their own private schools in barns, strip malls and other places. That led us to an experiment: If the hur...

12435156

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I don't think there's anything inherently anti-fascist about this country or the people who happen to live here. But I do think a lot of coincidentally anti-fascist images are a part of US nationalism now, and running around stuffing people into vans clashes with that imagery for most people.

100

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Raining from Denver to the Soo Locks. Good lord.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Next time, instead of a giant listicle, I want to see the NYT create an index we can apply to all shows. We can call it the People-in-Rooms-Having-Conversations quotient.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

On this day in 1969, Eugenia and Bruce Johnson were found stabbed to death in their Lincoln Park apartment. As leaders of the Armitage Avenue United Methodist Church, they'd spent that summer helping the Young Lords organize against racist policing and housing policy in the neighborhood.

Screen capture from the Chicago Tribune's coverage showing the headline cited below and an image of Rev. Bruce W. Johnson Jr.

Citation:
O'Brien, John. "N. Side Cleric, Wife Slain: COUPLE FOUND STABBED IN THEIR HOME Minister Aided Street Gangs." Chicago Tribune (1963-1996), Sep 30, 1969. https://chipublib.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/n-side-cleric-wife-slain/docview/176415962/se-2

100

Reposted by Michael Spencer

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 28/09/2026

“Scapegoat” is the stand-in term I’ve been using for companies retaining humans who are nominally responsible for checking AI agent outputs so that firms have someone to fire when compliance type issues come up

171

Reposted by Michael Spencer

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In practice, AI literacy doesn’t start with building the tool for your personal use. It starts with understanding yourself as a collection of tasks who should subcontract those out to a machine. Almost no regular person’s life currently exists as such.

9833211

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I'd really enjoy hearing from the Cessna pilot who flew through chaff and flare countermeasures against an F-16 over Chicago yesterday. That’ll be a good vignette for a chapter on the start of this war some day.

100

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My hope is that the youth of today grow up shaming any of their peers for wearing surveillance tech until it is seen as so deeply “uncool” that it withers on the vine.

100

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Decided to give Slow Horses a try. There’s a scene where a character tries to lose a tailing agent by getting on a bus, going a stop, and then getting off to change for a bus on the same road going the other direction. Show is set in Britain. As a Chicagoan, I couldn’t suspend enough disbelief.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I lived in Chile for a year without a car and easily commuted 60km (round-trip) every day to work using the micro bus and coach bus system. Now, we’re talking a country that requires essentially a single highway. But I can't think of a real reason it wouldn't scale.

020

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

In my head, I've been saying “UNGA” phonetically all week. Would recommend.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Think of all the bloodthirsty ghouls who’ve run American foreign policy since the overthrow of Mosaddegh. Think about how badly some of them have wanted to gain geopolitical control of Iran. Yet, none were foolish enough to create a direct conflict. Truly remarkable.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The traffic in this city today has been brutal. Build the tunnel, bury DLSD, etc.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Arsenal cannot keep relying on Havertz (can’t stay fit) and Gyökeres (just can’t).

100

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Did City forget to pay Michael Oliver?

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I was pretty sure Raya would save the penalty and then Arsenal would score. Which is absurd. But then it happened.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

One thing that AI has innovated in the workplace is misinformation. Dates and times that no one has ever gotten wrong before can now be incorrectly communicated with the power of machine learning.

021

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The Williams F1 team’s throwback paint scheme for the Spanish GP this weekend references a 1981 car sponsored by the Bin Ladens. This is both funny and the type of 9/11 commemoration I would like to see more of.

073

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

There is a startling amount of research and writing that turns out to be menial. The paradox of course is that this raises the bar for what it takes for a human to actually contribute to the process. That’s why every educator you know is going gray.

020

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Thinking about the images from Nepal and the geographical concept of “Zomia.”

Map highlighting highland regions of S.E.A., quoting from Wiki: Zomia is a geographical term coined in 2002 by historian Willem van Schendel of the University of Amsterdam to refer to the huge mass of mainland Southeast Asia that has historically been beyond the control of governments based in the population centers of the lowlands… Professor James C. Scott of Yale University used the concept of Zomia in his 2009 book The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia to argue that the continuity of the ethnic cultures living there provides a counter-narrative to the traditional story about modernity: namely, that once people are exposed to the conveniences of modern technology and the modern state, they will assimilate. Rather, the tribes in Zomia are conscious refugees from state rule and state-centered economies.

120

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I just saw a Taco Bell ad so targeted at younger millennials that I considered for a moment whether I was offended.

030

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

It’s likely that Chelsea had the dumbest players in the premier league last season. By moving Enzo Fernandez to City, it seemed like maybe that would be enough to give the title to someone else. But then they signed Emi Martinez so, it’s as you were.

Disciplinary table from the ’ 25-’26 Premier League table.

010

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I do think that the fact of Roger Penske’s leadership means the decision makers in indycar are out of touch with a good chunk of the fans who don't live in central Indiana.

010

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Repudiate the dictatorship of the technologically possible.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Nationalism is the drug that makes you pretend that some ruling classes are qualified to maintain a nuclear arsenal, while the elite in other countries are unfit even to enrich uranium.

100

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Someone will have to write something about the fascist aesthetics of US advertising in 2026.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The ads for the War Department with the Trump voiceover seem an ill portent for de-escalating world conflict.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

There are going to be so many Agamemnons at Halloween this year.

000

Reposted by Michael Spencer

Nick Ulivieri @nuphoto.com · 18/07/2026

A welcome sight tonight after the smoke plume, temporarily, cleared out of Chicago. #ILwx #WXsky

A puffy cloud takes up the majority of the scene. Its right edges glow a warm yellow-orange from the low, setting sun. The sky is a deep, saturated blue.

112011

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Good that we get a semi final that really reminds us what nationalism is all about

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Deep down, Democrats do not believe that the opposition poses an existential threat to democracy. They'll say it does around election time, but they don't truly think anything in our political system matters enough to be rude to a colleague posthumously.

010

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

This week's episode of House of the Dragon is brought to you by Zip Recruiter

010

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Weird to have lived to see the day a Republican president even acknowledged the game of soccer exists, let alone intervening in it to any degree.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

You gotta hand it to McConnell. Super hard to wield actual political influence in the American system posthumously.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Luckily, history hasn't furnished us with any cautionary tales about relying on prosecution to defeat opponents in a republic.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Jabba the Hutt falls asleep at the Beggars Canyon race, 32BBY.

010

Reposted by Michael Spencer

Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Ok welcome to DC vibe check walk, second annual Trump’s birthday edition part 2

2894140

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

It’d be like Sasuke or American Ninja Warrior but a different branch or department of the executive has to put up their most senior members.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Wonder who’s paying Michael Oliver for these World Cup matches, what with the UAE uninvolved.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Alan Parson’s Project cashing in big this summer.

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Like “anti-corruption” campaigns, militant democracy is a tool in the US for shutting down opposition to capital and empire. That’s obviously not the theoretical capacity, but it is the practical reality.

031

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

New rule: The US doesn't get to have soccer anymore until they put the tunnels from the locker room in the correct place

000

Michael Spencer @michaelspencer.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Really hoping the Spurs run the Knicks out of the building tonight.

000