iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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The Open University @openuniversity.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙

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Dom Ervolina @dominicervolina.com · 25/02/2026

I know I wrote it, but I truly think this should be a massive story The Secretary of Defense told an AI company to remove its bot's moral guardrails so it can operate surveillance and lethal weapons autonomously When warned that could endanger our own troops, he didn't care

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

I read this and I am glad I’m not an academic any more. It feels like the entire nature of academia, a community, curiosity, inquiry, all of that has been replaced by a drive for productivity, strength, impact. Quality is no longer usefulness, it is a constantly shifting set of metrics.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

This.👇👏 How can we have a sense of achievement, of fulfillment, without working for it? We cannot self-actualize for free.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

This looks like an *AMAZING* event! First, COGS and Sussex does outstanding cog sci work. Second, Andy Clark's ideas have blown my mind, positively, on many occasions. I rate his work extremely highly. Third, workshops are awesome to develop good research communities. (And I hate conferences).

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Maybe I am naive, but “AI-fueled growth” puzzles me. Generally automation doesn’t do growth — especially when you are already hyperscale. It may cut costs, usually by transferring them, e.g., to consumers. But… growth? Someone will have to explain that to me. It sounds all hopey-wishy.

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 19/02/2026

Dude who wrote about how "the left is missing out on AI" is on here. Do you see who they are funded by? The biggest EA funders, the longtermist institutes we've been writing about and documenting, including FLI where Muskrat is still an advisor.

Supporters
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Tom Phillips @tom-phillips.com · 19/02/2026

PUT IT BACK. PEBBLE IS NOT FRIEND.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Specifically on this point of next-token prediction, as someone who’s studied this with eye-tracking, people are *not* next-token readers. They skim text. Eyes saccade. Even 1970s AI folks knew this, and old reading systems like DeJong’s FRUMP explored much more plausible mechanisms of reading.

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Sal Sawler @salsawler.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Ooh, while I’m at it, though, I should also tell you all that @nimbuspub.bsky.social is publishing a 10th Anniversary Edition of 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia in April! And just to show how long ago it’s really been since my very first book was published, here’s an old interview!

globalnews.ca

100 things you don’t know about Nova Scotia | Watch News Videos Online

Watch 100 things you don’t know about Nova Scotia Video Online, on GlobalNews.ca

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Katya King @katyavdgk.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Today's winner of the internet 🏆🏆🏆

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THE FAR SIDE DAILY @bot.cowtools.org · 18/02/2026

In its more horrific method of retribution, the mob will sometimes dress victims as mimes, place them in glass boxes, and let them perish slowly in full view of the public.

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Mark Gerretsen @markgerretsen.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

The self-own here is staggeringly remarkable. You genuinely have to know nothing you are talking about to say something like this.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Part of me says, well, duh! Another part says even this is missing the point, which is that this is simply an intrinsic property of a language model. The maths talk is all “it’s not our fault”, when it definitely is their fault. They knew this all along. They just didn’t care.

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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 15/02/2026

Obvious caveats apply for something off Reddit, but this is at least a plausible thing to happen. I have a feeling we’ll see more, better documented cases that executives want to keep quiet bubble out if the business press over the next year.

r/analytics
u/Comfortable_Box_4527 • 10h
We just found out our Al has been making up analytics data for 3 months and I'm gonna throw up.
Support
So we've been using an Al agent since November to answer leadership questions about metrics. It seemed amazing at first fast answers, detailed explanations, everyone loved it.
I just found out it's been hallucinating numbers this entire time.
Our VP of sales made territory decisions based on data that didn't exist. Our CFO showed the board a deck with fake insights. The Al was just inventing plausible sounding percentages.
I only caught it by accident when someone asked me to double check something. I started digging, and holy shit, it's bad.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

I wish I could be this optimistic. I am not. Big tech is now more or less imperialist, in the sense that it transitioned from enabling innovation to wholesale acquisition of other sectors of the economy. It is *entirely* monopolistic, and, simply, does not tolerate competition.

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Derek Simon @dartmouthderek.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

The list of things council is considering cutting in order to keep taxes “flat” is insane. (From Sam Austin’s website). Call your councillor and tell them you won’t support them if they support these cuts.

Someone please show me how to do alt text when I am sharing text only photos without having to type it all out

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Preparations in hand for another batch of gluten free beer. It will be DARK. Brew day will be tomorrow.

A white plastic bucket viewed from above, containing a coarse brown powdery substance.

Two plastic bags with labels “Gluten Free Home Brewing”. One is labelled with a pound of 18 lovibond biscuit rice malt, the other as dark Vienna roasted millet malt.

A plastic pouch with a dark brown colouring, labelled D-240, with the ingredients being beet sugar and water.

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🦇🎃💀 Riana-mator 💀🎃🦇 @riana.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Late-stage capitalism in an era of mass surveillance means a competing doorbell-camera company ALREADY has a parody ad up of that wretched Ring Super Bowl ad -- and, ngl, it's pretty good: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFb... (h/t @melanie-ensign.bsky.social)

youtube.com

Definitely Only for Dogs: Ring's Superbowl Commercial (Parody)

YouTube video by Wyze

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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

"The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction." ~ Samuel Johnson

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Safe Kjipuktuk @safehrm.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

"“Of course, people go, ‘Wow, a ticket for killing somebody.’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, but it’s not murder. So quit clutching your pearls.’ ” - a retired police officer. Wow. signalhfx.ca/halifax-pede...

signalhfx.ca

Most Halifax drivers who kill pedestrians face no criminal charges

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Marieke dB @mdb2024.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

This black-and-white warbler worked on swallowing this bug for quite a while. #BirdOfTheDay #Birds&Bugs #birds #birdphotography #nature #naturephotography

Black and white bird with large insect in its mouth looking at photographer

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Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 09/02/2026

Air Canada I understand we’re approaching Valentine’s Day but I simply don’t think an airline should advertise its sales with “fares worth falling for”

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Don’t you think he looks tired?

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Canadian History Ehx @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

For 150 years, Africville, sitting right next to Halifax, was a thriving Black Canadian community. Halifax refused to provide city services, and eventually forced residents to move as they bulldozed their homes. This is the story of that community. 🧵1/12

Black-and-white photograph of Africville showing a hillside with small wooden houses and sheds scattered across the slope. In the foreground, there is uneven ground with rocks, dirt, and patches of grass, and a narrow waterway or ditch near the bottom edge of the frame. A few people are visible walking in the middle distance. Utility poles and wires run across the top of the scene, with more houses and bare trees along the ridge.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

It might just be me, but this sounds suspiciously like the bros are about rediscover support vector machines.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

It wasn't the best sun halo yesterday, but good enough for a show.

A landscape, snow-covered lake, with a distant wooded skyline, low in the image. The sky dominated, with the sun in the centre, and a faint bright ring around. Low in the horizon the light is fading into a pale gold light.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Would be interesting to compare the results on more recent models - but this problem won’t go away. LLMs are always going to be extrapolating from what has already, and often, been thought, which is why they aren’t windows to the future but anchors to the past.

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Lorraine @ihearthestia.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

The Globalization of Canadian Rage www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Globalization of Canadian Rage

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

We need a law demanding all SUVs be painted fluorescent orange. Otherwise we might not see them.

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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Other work of the Ladybird artists. A February Day Artist: Rowland Hilder

A very loose, spare, painterly watercolour of a long view over a flat expansive landscape dotted with winter trees in broken sunshine under a cloudy sky

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Ye gods I loathe the whole robot rights thing.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

For #WoodpeckerWednesday here's a downy woodpecker from my last hike out. A pileated woodpecker and a hairy woodpecker were also close by, hanging around.

A small black-and-white bird is holding into a tree trunk. His belly is white and his back is black in the middle, with black-and-white striped wings folded. He has a black eye stripe, a small chisel-shaped beak, and a bold patch of bright red on the back his head. Through the trees there is an assortment of out-of-focus branches and a blue sky beyond.

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 04/02/2026

Reminding you all, especially psychologists, of this as I think many keep forgetting we're duty-bound as academics to push back against the illogics of AI in all contexts...

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Ahem. Waves at Halifax council and points👇

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Katy @theblueulysses.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Absolute genius engagement strategy.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

See, yet again, generative AI folks miss the point — creativity is work. Creating the diagrams is part of creating the ideas. Imagine this: if you wanted to impress someone with a memorable dinner, would you just order pizza to be delivered and serve it from the box?

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Something feels very off here. You don’t *interview* chatbots, you *test* them.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

This is excellent, and it’s how learning should work. Practical, professional, mentoring, and not a hair of a chatbot in sight.

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Julia Strand @juliafstrand.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Just out—a piece I wrote a piece for the APS Observer (@psychscience.bsky.social) in which I share recommendations and resources for running a research lab at a small, liberal arts college. I hope it helps others in the same boat! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

psychologicalscience.org

How to Set Up and Run an Undergraduate Research Lab

APS Fellow Julia Strand offers resources and recommendations to run a productive research lab.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Lovely tracking the snowshoe bunny prints yesterday. All the beans. So adorable.

Animal tracks in snow. There are small paw prints and big paw prints from the same animal. The small ones are round, the bigger ones are wedge shaped and much longer. Both front and back prints show toe beans.

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

I think this deserves nuance. “High technology” that is pushed, it is often awful. Sure. But I have seen amazing examples of technology which work. One of my favourites was a virtual simulated polarizing microscope that learners could explore at home. 1/

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

You’d have to be a complete fool to think AI would actually meet levels of decades of human expertise. I mean, imagine I went to a politician and just said: look, your job is easy, all you need to do is cut taxes for rich folks. That’s it, end of —

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

OMFG Apple, what TF are you doing to my beloved Pages?? How do I stop you from forcing AI on me???

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Stuart Watt @morungos.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

This is a really good article on why we can’t/don’t/refuse to make evidence-based decisions any more.

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