iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Because I'm a weirdo, I keep track of the weights of every iPhone model. See this plot. Remember when new technology was lighter and smaller than what came before? Not anymore! Now the most advanced thing is the heaviest.

Plot of the weight of every iPhone model versus its release date. Early iPhones weighed about 140 grams, then a few dropped down to about 110, and in the last 10 years they mostly range from 160 to 250. Today they announced the heaviest iPhone ever, at 254 grams.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Excerpt from today’s class (slightly edited): Student: So what’s the value of u? Me: Great question. To answer that, I’ll need to thoroughly investigate the reasons for academic pursuits, the nature of the universe, and humanity’s relationship to it. In this 17 part essay I will

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Continuing the theme of “that time I pretended to be a famous actor who just died”, here’s me trying my darnedest to do a Tim Curry monologue for a Mystery Hunt puzzle. Nobody else could have gotten all these words out so fast, making it look easy and loving every minute of it. Certainly not me.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I have no memory of what exactly precipitated this but I feel like I could post it every day.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Part of me has wanted to be popular on the internet since like 1997. I'm so so happy this never happened to me. I get 3 likes on a skeet and I'm breathless at each one. It would not be good if I got 3000.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I dressed as Sam Neill’s character from Jurassic Park last Halloween. I will never look as good in this costume as he did. I’ll never do as good a Spielberg face. I’ll never have my head screwed on as well as him. But that last one I can hope to work toward.

Me dressed as Alan Grant from Jurassic Park, taking off my sunglasses as I look up in awe at, presumably, a dinosaur.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Asking for a friend: what is the best blackboard?

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I love these dumb memes. "Show a tall building that isn't the Chrysler building" "Show a famous actor who's not Sean Connery" "Name a theorem but not the law of large numbers" "Show a famous painting but not Guernica" "Say a common English word but not 'of'" "Name a movie that's not Titanic"

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

One interesting thing is that the movie has this exact scene, with much of the exact dialogue, but the meaning is flattened. In the movie, Saruman is simply evil, so he wants to join with a greater evil. It loses the applicability to the temptation to colaborate with real world evils.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

You may have thought they attempted time travel in Avengers: Endgame. No, they are truly attempting time travel with Avengers: Doomsday. Just go back and do exactly the thing that worked before, down to the last detail. Luckily for Marvel, this strategy has never failed in the history of Hollywood.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

I saw a skeet the other day. Didn't like it. Wrote a skeet saying so. Didn't feel like I made my point adequately, so I didn't post it, went to bed. Woke up to find other people had articulated my point better than I ever could, and the original skeet had been deleted. I only make good choices

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

I agree with Bouie about Rogue One (although I don’t even think the final sequence is that good), but I’m happy for the people who love it. The movie they describe sounds great. I wish I could see that one, rather than the one I see when I watch it.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

I wonder a lot about what life is like in the parallel universe in which the 2024 presidential election result is unchanged, but 3,656 people changed their votes and the Democrats took back the house.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

This is me from ten years ago today. I’ve been wearing the tie every day since, but for some reason no one ever comments on it. I guess it really is the style of the future. Or perhaps the past.

A picture of me wearing a transparent tie, as in the October 21, 2015 sequence in Back to the Future part II

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

From today’s No Kings march in Phoenix. When the march reached 4th Ave, we turned left despite the posted No Left Turn signs. Hell yes we did, and soon the country will follow.

Protest march turning left at a stoplight. The protest includes a person in an inflatable shark costume holding an American flag, and many other people holding signs and marching.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone if your profession would understand: Published theorem actually incorrect

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

I’m glad that many people post here instead of Xitter because they get more engagement here. But, for me personally, a random guy with no public following, I post here rather than Facebook (the other major option for me) even though I know I’d get more engagement *there*, because I think it’s evil

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

I don’t have kids, and from the outside active shooter drills seem bananas to me. Many liberals say “well this is just the consequence of living with so many guns.” And like I agree let’s get rid of the guns but in the meantime can we stop traumatizing the kids.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

We're all the way up to iOS 26 now, and it still does this.

Meme from "the Good Place" with Michael and Janet. Michael is labeled "me", and Janet is labeled "iPhone". Michael says "I want you to play audio out of my airpods, not the phone speakers". Janet says "Yes, I will play audio out of your airpods, not the phone speakers". Michael says "Excellent! Play the audio". Janet hands him an object labeled "BLAAAARE"

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

With each passing year, the cast of Sneakers becomes even more astonishing. David Strathairn is the least prominent actor on the poster! Ben Kingsley, Timothy Busfield, Stephen Tobolowsky, and James Earl Jones are in this movie and not even advertised. And they're all good in it. This movie rocks

Poster for the 1992 movie Sneakers, featuring Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, David Strathairn

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

You should watch this video. Not just for personal reasons, but also for personal reasons. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiWF...

youtube.com

What if the Moon were made entirely of electrons?

YouTube video by xkcd's What If?

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Wait, this year we're getting re-releases for the 50th anniversary of Jaws, the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, and the 30th anniversary of Apollo 13? What about the 20th anniversary of the 40 Year-old Virgin? The 10th anniversary of Jupiter Ascending?

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

I don’t know why, but this can be really hard. There’s someone I’ve been following on the internet for decades, who I really admire, but who has a take on a 35 year old movie that I strongly disagree with. I have imaginary arguments with them about this all the time. Why on earth do I care so much?

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

“speculation on how the technology might develop in the coming years can easily distract us from solving issues we are facing now” might be the best, most concise advice about AI in the present moment that I’ve ever read.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

In this age of AI, it's important to maintain discipline and readiness. That's why this poster is so useful. I suggest printing it out and displaying it prominently anywhere that anyone might interact with rogue AI.

A screenshot from the game "Portal 2" with a poster titled "Know your paradoxes in the event of rogue AI". It lists the instructions: 1. Stand still, 2. Remain calm, 3. Scream: "This statement is false!" "New mission: refuse this mission!" "Does a set of all sets contain itself?"

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

We really need movies directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis about the passage of every constitutional amendment, not just the 13th. Implausible, you say? I say our democracy depends on it. We need to believe that we can change our country for the better

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I finally got around to doing this. This is really hard; on any given day I'd probably produce a different list in a different order. Despite what some people sometimes say, cinema ain't dead.

New York Times ballot with my choices for the 10 best movies of the 21st century. The movies are:
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Lincoln (2012)
Zodiac (2007)
Get Out (2017)
Parasite (2019)
Wall-E (2008)
Spotlight (2015)
Coco (2017)
Before Sunset (2004)
Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi (2017)

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

The only flaw in the satire of Glass Onion is that Miles Bron is too smart.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Joni Ernst saying "we are all going to die" is an example of what I call the Crispin's Day Fallacy. A thread. 1/7

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Sometimes, when the news is bad, I just read Wikipedia articles about obscure mathematical concepts that I only kind of understand. That’s not weird, is it?

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I have my BlueSky app set to send links to the external browser. I cannot overstate how great this is. I hate in-app browsers. They force you to read the entire article right now or else it will be lost forever to the sands of time. External browser takes all the pressure off.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

One of the great public services provided by Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is that we can now all hear Thaddeus Stevens’ speeches in Tommy Lee Jones’ voice.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

One of my favorite parts of grading exams is to do the Day Earth Stood Still thing of "this thing you crossed out is the answer."

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

The only dull performance he ever gave was as Batman.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

I think about the alt-text on this xkcd all the time: “Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.” And the only other remaining good website, Wikipedia, is the same way.

m.xkcd.com

xkcd: arXiv

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

I generally like CGP Grey, and I also think the penny is dumb, but he has a blind spot for actually existing politics. “If it stands, it could become the precedent for future presidents for eliminating far more than just coins.” Gee, hard to imagine that.

youtube.com

Is The Penny *Finally* Dead?

YouTube video by CGP Grey

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I remember being optimistic about tech companies. I remember thinking that them having power would be better than legacy corporations. When I remember these thoughts, it's like watching a character in a horror movie run up the stairs. "How can you be so stupid to think that's a good idea?"

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Oliver North I was a kid when he testified about Iran-Contra. I was way too young to understand the politics, but I remember my parents watching it. I was excited that someone with my first name was in the spotlight.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

In recent years the MIT mystery hunt has had too many puzzles that are too hard. Except for this year! This year my team will complete the hunt comfortably far from the winners.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Naturally, on the day of my first class of the semester, my thoughts are consumed with "can I think of more jokes?" rather than, say, "will any of this make any sense?"

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

I gotta say I think I'm going to stand by this skeet from... checks notes... three weeks ago.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

I should really stop watching Coco on airplanes. At some point I’m weeping and spluttering so much that it’s kind of rude.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Before my wife and I lived together, we each had our own measuring spoons. Now we've blended our stuff, we so have the "good" set and the "bad" set. I remembered that the "bad" set was the one I'd had. Turns out my wife thinks it was hers! I guess we just have exactly the same anxieties.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

I used to regard Aaron Sorkin's disdain for the internet and social media in particular as the worst part about The Social Network. But I have to confess that he was probably right. Now I think the worst part is that Sorkin has a modicum of respect for Mark Zuckerburg, whereas I have none.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

I love this deeply and also we need to come up with a list of Hanukkah movies. Here are some I can think of: The Two Towers Home Alone Skyfall (third act) 300 Zulu

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

For me, BlueSky has now entered the “Write drafts in my notes app but never post them” phase of my use of a social media platform.

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Oliver Kosut @oehpsk.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

At my university, any time an employee leaves, I get an email saying "An employee has been terminated" with no additional details. Every time, for a moment I think that one of my students has been murdered by the T-1000.

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