iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by @mratliff.bsky.social

tuomaspirinen.bsky.social @tuomaspirinen.bsky.social · 18h

Friends, are you or do you know any graphic designers who are free to take freelance gig on a short notice? Experience in tabletop games is a huge plus! If so, please contact me!

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Janina Matthewson @j9andif.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The thing that pisses me off about about this is that loads of the people employed in the arts and entertainment and crucial to its success are unseen workers in jobs that are considered trade when they're not in services of the arts

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The fact that people even feel entitled to send this directly to authors is something I can't quite place that is wrong with how the internet has changed us. There are spaces for you to put this stuff into the world. Directly to the writer or editor is not it.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A book I worked on years ago had no less than five people look at the final proof, say it looked great, and literally signed a form saying it looked great. We opened the box of printed books and somebody walking by said "hey, why is that graphic cut off on the cover?" The world may never know.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I almost actually explained this but in the end it boils down to you're just adding some extra sugar to your drink and if it's in a mug, making it pretty. Which is sometimes exactly what you want so go for it. You can spoon it off the top or stir it in, whatever you feel like.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I've had that happen a couple times, people were very understanding. Usually I'm not the one with the connection. But the one time I was, everyone was perfectly nice about letting me sprint out the second the door opened. I didn't make it, but that's another story.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I really needed this today, so in case you did too here's some artwork from @thelatestkate.bsky.social

A drawing of a blue jay that reads "Bad brain days just happen. You won't always feel like this." Drawn by The Latest Kate.

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Reposted by @mratliff.bsky.social

United Wizards of the Coast - CWA @uwotc-official.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This morning, the D&D team and Magic's Studio X informed our leadership of our intent to unionize. We love the games we make and the work we do, and unionizing is how we protect that work. unitedwizardsofthecoast.com/news/dnd-stu...

unitedwizardsofthecoast.com

Dungeons & Dragons and Studio X Join United Wizards of the Coast - CWA

Today, October 6, 2026, the designers, artists, writers, producers, and workers behind Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters, D&D Beyond, and countless other games are uniting in soli...

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

And my point is to reinforce that you can't use A.I. for most things because the time, effort, and skills to make sure it's not just making up new laws is the same time, effort, and skills you need to just do the thing. Also SEO killed the internet but that's another rant for another day.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

One of them had posted a full on A.I. hallucination of a specifically cited code section that does not exist. It's close to what the code section would be, but that number does not exist. I looked everywhere to see if it was changed or repealed but no, it's just not real.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

But the really bad part is that two or three of them had different information than the others. You know where this is going. Yup, they had all the hallmarks of being A.I. generated. And their legal advice was completely incorrect.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Page after page after page of lazy blog articles on SEO-based "blogs" that sell themselves as making it easier for you to understand the law. When I found the state's own official FAQs, I saw they were just literally copy/pasting the info into their own layout.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Is it easy to read? No. But it's doable with some time and effort. But why bother with the effort? Because last night I tried to look up something and didn't find it quickly so I turned to Duck Duck Go to ask where to find it.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I understand that we're told that reading the actual code is difficult and requires specialized knowledge because legalese, etc. It's not really true. Contracts are a nightmare, but the code itself is often pretty well laid out with definitions and everything.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Because my life is weird, I spend too much time digging through legal code for various topics. Typically, I go straight to the source, ie the actual Code of my state which is online and searchable. Their search function isn't the best but you know, it's a lot of information to parse.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

As somebody who has gone in too deep into copyright and work-for-hire law for a non-lawyer, even reading this snippet is making flames come out of the side of my face. But also, this is begging for a meme about where your creative work actually happens.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It's so common that if you know even a fraction of the history of unionizing and workers rights in the entertainment industry in America you'd know how universally reviled it is by workers and how often it's been struck down or removed. It's bad and companies should feel bad.

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Reposted by @mratliff.bsky.social

A.Ghost Pasquella 👻🎃 @agpasquella.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Privatization = You Pay More

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Reposted by @mratliff.bsky.social

wintertorta🍰 @wintertorta.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

a reminder 🪄 #illustration

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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

every time i get suckered in by a "but what about all the useful stuff AI does in my life??" argument the useful stuff is either "something you could google in two seconds" or "highly-skilled labor you don't have and therefore can't fact check"

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 04/10/2026

pls stop asking chatbots what they "think" and then adding it to your articles or posting it for giggles

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

(I have read the story for the set so I do know he literally walled off the part of himself that remembered this but I still think it's funny)

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Going through and putting away our new Reality Fracture cards and saw that Jace really should have remembered his own lessons.

A Magic the Gathering card called Jace's Triumph where the flavor text reads "His triumph was not in outsmarting Bolas's plan, but in understanding why ultimate power is self-defeating."

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Is there anything that makes you feel old quite like getting an email about a milestone school reunion? It can't have been that long since I graduated college. That only just happened.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

But also, I have a couple fun and cool stories like how I came back from having one hit point to actually winning (with two hit points). And how much I dislike Unflinching Hortimancer and 1/1's with lifelink. Both separately and together. Anyway, I gotta say pre-release events get a gold star.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I lucked into a really good box in a lot of ways because I got 4 mythics. While I'm not going to sell any cards any time soon, we paid $38 each to attend and both walked away with more than that in card value.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Despite it being a random set of cards in the prerelease bundle, I was true to form and played a Konstrari deck. The fact that it was focused around Garruk was a surprise. But what can I say, I got a lot of big stompies and they really wanted to stomp on someone.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I have been excited enough about Reality Fracture that I actually went to my first prerelease event. I went in expecting to fully lose every single game because I am not that serious a player. I actually won 4 out of 7. That only equated to 1 out of 3 rounds, but I did get a prize pack so a win.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Our DnD party has discovered the absolute best trait that a fantasy character could have: always being a comfortable temperature.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I usually give her an accurate ETA in case it's gonna be a while, and ask her to try not to wreck the house while I'm out. Cats are like teenagers after all.

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Anne Kirn @houseofdarkly.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Just for the record, furries and trans people are extremely cool and also just regular folks, and I do not understand people who think anything else, because they are patently, dangerously wrong

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'm sorry but "All AI generated assets will be replaced on release if estimated revenue can at least fund it" is a really bad look on your Steam page. I'm extraordinarily sympathetic to indie devs. I mostly play indies! But you can figure out how to get real art or placeholders.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Worth noting: there is no reason that anything in this entire interaction is being done by phone. It absolutely could be a web form, except it's something that will save me money and they won't get as much profit so they need to make it difficult.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Oh you did not just tell me you would transfer me and then hang up on me. I recognize that call centers are a thankless job, but either you or the previous person I talked to lied to me so...not sure what you expect me to do with this situation other than call back angry at the next person.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

And to be clear, I'm not mad at the performers. They deserve to be paid well for their skill and experience. It's just a general "back in my day" rant about ticket prices for live entertainment being out of reach and how disappointing that feels as a fan.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I know it's the most ridiculous thing, but I'm super disappointed that a show I've been wanting to see live for 20 years is -finally- near me, and when I went to buy tickets it's almost $200 for two objectively not good seats. I can't justify that cost, so I still can't go to it.

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bubbe yaga @ellearmageddon.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

you cannot defeat fascism by ceding anyone’s bodily autonomy.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Other than the Amazon connection, it's all stuff that most people don't care about. If you're looking for tracking and recommendations though, Storygraph is also just a really great alternative to check out.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Generally for me it's mostly what others pointed out, it's owned by Amazon. But I'm also just in a mood about the gamification of reading and the inflated importance of "user reviews" in the book world. It's a long rant that makes me sound like an old person yelling at the cloud (literally).

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Thrift Shop really is a banger, isn't it? Or whatever the kids these days say. It's a good song.

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Reposted by @mratliff.bsky.social

Julia Lepetit @julialepetit.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I made a beginners guide to voting and finding out about candidates for those who feel overwhelmed. Hope it helps! Vote in every election. youtube.com/shorts/e-1rS...

youtube.com

We Can’t Make the Same Mistakes Again

YouTube video by Secret Sleepover Society

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Generally I use the handrails because lol, chronic pain. But the last time I didn't, I slipped on the last step and if I hadn't been able to grab both handrails to slow the fall I would have been seriously injured instead of just really bruised and sore. Handrails are great.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I do know about Storygraph, which is the obvious Goodreads alternative if you're looking to track your reading or find recommendations. It's great for that, you should check it out! I'm just curious if there's something more information database-y rather than social/tracking focused.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

tl;dr I have a spreadsheet where I track my ebooks because I'm like that. I had been linking to the book's information on Goodreads because I want to have a way to quickly remember what the heck a book is. But I want to move away from Goodreads. Any suggestions on other book based databases?

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Ellen Rose @icklenellierose.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Use of AI taints everything else around it. For instance, the more I look at this Tomb Raider salad, the more I wonder if this was an AI asset that won’t end up in the final game. Someone could have made it, but it just looks uncanny to me now I know they used it *somewhere*.

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🎃 Imani Gandy Corn 🎃 @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026

Trans rights is inherently a bodily autonomy issue. Just like abortion rights is. We can't have gender equity or reproductive freedom without trans rights. Full stop. You can yell at me and make up shit that you claim I've said if it makes you feel better. I don't care. I'm right. And you know it.

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mratliff.bsky.social @mratliff.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The best way to get people to appreciate classic movies is figure out what types of movies they already like and give them something they'll also ENJOY. Not just something that's "educational" or "historically important."

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