iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 11h

Truly the killer app of the Bally Astrocade

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Kevin Bunch (ubersaurus) @atariarchive.org · 17h

Hyper Gunsport is for all the Dog Patch sickos out there, you know who you are

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 11h

The real sickos are the people that don’t love Dogpatch…. freaks

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Welcome, thank you for sharing!

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Shannon @storiteller.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

As an autistic mom of two neurodivergent kids, trying to model how to deal with my limits in a healthy way has been a hard earned lesson. Nonetheless, it's one I'm always trying to learn and relearn. welleatyouupweloveyouso.substack.com/p/attempting...

welleatyouupweloveyouso.substack.com

Attempting to Model Rest for My Kids

Being neurodivergent often means learning to recognize your limits, even when you don’t want to.

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Natali Fani-González @natalifg.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Drinking Ethiopian coffee at the Pan African Cultural Festival in Wheaton!!!

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Governor Wes Moore @govwesmoore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Early detection saves lives, so please encourage people in your life to get screened. The Maryland Department of Health has programs to assist eligible uninsured and underinsured residents get no-cost breast cancer screening and follow-up, diagnosis, and treatment services: go.md.gov/BCCDT

go.md.gov

Pages - bccdt_home

An official website of the State of Maryland.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Growing up in Connecticut has made me wary of lots of incorporation and the resource hoarding/ exclusion that can come with it, but yes be does ale the strong mayor model have some appeal lol (And in fairness towns can generally get away with less shit here than in CT)

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Montgomery County, MD Government @montgomerycountymd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Montgomery County Public Libraries! 📚 Explore book recommendations highlighting Latino stories and authors, plus free events including salsa dancing, crafts and family story time throughout October. Learn more: ow.ly/PU2r50ZU51A

Two people seated across from each other in an office, discussing with three colorful books displayed on a round table between them.

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Tom Broderick @trumbullbrod.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

“Here lies the Town of Trumbull, killed by 10 apartments and 5 new businesses on one of our two main thoroughfares” 🪦🪦🪦 Lmfao NIMBYs are incredible. There’s no amount of new homes they’ll accept.

Someone posting “RIP Trumbull….” to 10 apartments

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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 03/10/2026

People generally dislike neighborhood change. They’ll get over it.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This is such a good explanation, lol

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

He’s the world’s greatest bad person

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Joe Wright MD @joewright.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

if you thought the “single family zoning was part of racism” argument was kind of an academic structural / theoretical point, really you only have to barely scratch the f-ing surface to find it alive and very individually defended, as well as also broadly structural

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A depressingly common efficiency

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This responder to a similar post I made on Nextdoor is also a helpful case in point, fucking yikes

A reply on Nextdoor reading “Turning Montgomery county into a ghetto one neighborhood at a time. One big ass townhome development and urban sprawl for as far as the eye can see”

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We definitely need to go big at the state level because as you say there are tougher incentives locally, but we’ve also made a lot of progress here and have a pretty good council and planning board on these issues so it can very much take both

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For the second time in a week I would like to express my thanks to a Republican candidate for office in Montgomery County for making clear that opposing zoning reform to allow more types of homes in traditionally single family neighborhoods is a conservative position, not a progressive one

A Facebook post from current District one and former County Executive candidate Reardon Sullivan reading “Recently the County Council approved Zoning Text amendment 25-2 which will allow developers to build multi-family housing in established single family neighborhoods by right.
This will mean more traffic and parking issues, growing pressure on local infrastructure and changes to established single family neighborhoods where many families have invested their futures.
I believe that growth must be responsible, transparent, and shaped by the people who live in the community.
I believe that the fabric of our neighborhoods are worth protecting and that the voices of the residents that have invested in their homes matter.
Let's bring common sense and accountability back to Montgomery County.”

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Natali Fani-González @natalifg.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of A Wider Circle, a remarkable social services organization in Silver Spring dedicated to advance equity by fostering the exchange of goods, skills, and connections from neighbor to neighbor, and by engaging in advocacy to address the root causes of poverty.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The best part about being in my 40s is that everyone I know is lame like I always have been and now I’m just good at it.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The flaws make the beauty stand out even more

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It’s no Downtown Silver Spring but Bethesda remains a perfectly pleasant downtown experience

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"In the states examined in this analysis, a drop of approximately 20% in inflation-adjusted rents—as happened in Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis after those cities made reforms—could reduce poverty by 18% to 26% and child poverty by 21% to 38%." www.pew.org/en/research-...

pew.org

The Housing Shortage Is a Major Driver of Poverty

Housing costs are usually the largest item in a household’s budget and can determine a family’s financial stability.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Sorry you had to find out this way

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Note that her actual “make building easier” ideas are incredibly general by comparison, which is a weird coincidence

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I’ll say this about Ms. Wells, I appreciate her helping make clear that allowing only single family homes to be built is a conservative stance.

A screenshot from Esther Well’s website noting that we should “protect single family zoning by opposing “by-right” high density reasoning.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Please consider coming to this event focusing on MoCo Board of Ed races this Thursday. I volunteer with this organization a lot and it is a good way to learn more about races that are very hard to get information about. For what it’s worth I’ll there. jufjcampaignfund.org/event/festiv...

jufjcampaignfund.org

Montgomery County Festival of Voting Booths - JUFJ Campaign Fund

Sukkot, or the Festival of Booths, reminds us every year that everything in our lives is impermanent, that we must work to harvest the fruits of our labors, and that those fruits are sweetest when we ...

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I’m of the mind to always vote for the best alternative in an election and sadly in the general that has generally included Marc but trust me, I get it

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I don’t think I’ve been particularly subtle about this but with more dialogue out there about Esther Wells being a “reasonable alternative” to Will Jawando, no, she’s not. I have my policy disagreements with Will but they pale in comparison to mine with her. Voting for him is an easy choice

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

17/ We’re still reporting on this topic. If you use apps like DraftKings or FanDuel or have experience in the gambling industry, you can help us with our reporting by sharing your transaction history with us.

projects.propublica.org

Help ProPublica Report on Sports Betting by Sending Us Your App Data

If you’ve bet on sports with FanDuel or DraftKings, you can help ProPublica understand how these apps respond to their users’ betting behavior. Use our browser extension to download your betting histo...

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

15/ There’s much more to the story — which you can read here — but I came away with one overarching takeaway: the “responsible gaming” prompts DraftKings served me were no match for the product design and promos pushing me to do more gambling.

propublica.org

I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.

Amid growing public health concerns, operators like DraftKings have touted “responsible gaming” tools and prompts. But as I went off the deep end, I found they were no match for the incentives and pro...

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

13/ Kalani also said the “system worked the way it was supposed to” for me. I didn’t qualify for a manual review, despite depositing $21,600 into my account in eight weeks. When I asked her if DraftKings ever *did* cut people off, this is what I got:

Article excerpt: Overall, “the system worked the way it was supposed to” in my case, Kalani said. The range of behaviors and indicators that DraftKings scans for that trigger closing or manually reviewing an account didn’t ping for me, she said.

While I often played late into the night, I wasn’t playing in the wee-est hours, between 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., she said.

I found this response revealing, though perhaps not in the way she’d intended it to be. I’d deposited $21,600 into my account in less than eight weeks, exhibiting just about every sign of compulsive gambling there is, according to my expert consultants. By DraftKings’ metrics, I didn’t even register for a manual review. Kalani had told me that the company was motivated to retain customers who were betting “within their means and can sustain their own entertainment.”

So I asked Kalani straight up: Does DraftKings ever cut somebody off purely based on their betting history and not because they’ve disclosed that they’ve got a problem? “Yes, we do that all the time,” she told me. She repeated the same answer when I asked her how often. I pressed again, and a spokesperson interjected, telling me he could take the question as a follow-up. I checked in later, but the company told me that “we do not share the specific number of closures.”

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

4/ But over the next 10 weeks, I’d mimic the patterns of a problem gambler with the help of a panel of gambling experts and learn just how much DraftKings would encourage my recklessness — and just how little pushback I’d get as I spiraled downward.

propublica.org

I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

2/ Why now? More people are betting on sports than ever. But as the industry soars close to $17B in revenue, calls to gambling helplines have also skyrocketed.

Article excerpt: Since 2018, when the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting, Americans have put more than $600 billion into play. Sports betting is now legal in 39 states and Washington, D.C. Add in prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, and more people are betting on sports than ever before.

That explosive growth has come with consequences: About a quarter of active sportsbook account holders surveyed by the Siena Research Institute this year said that they’d lost enough on a bet that they’d have trouble meeting their financial obligations. As a result, regulators and lawmakers from Colorado to Massachusetts are starting to question whether things have gone too far — and some are now proposing stricter consumer protections.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵

Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It is shameful that any of this is legal, let alone promoted. Self destructive behavior is the business model

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Mike English @mocomikee.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Apropos of everything happening all the time everywhere

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