iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

It’s hard to imagine how many dozens of people within the company said “that looks like an image of a lynching” and were told to pipe down. I mean, this is an ESTABLISHED visual language for “a person was hanged”. Even down to the shoe focus!

Still from Jojo Rabbit, of a little boy standing next to lower legs suspended in midair (rest of body not visible above frame), a woman’s red and white shoes on the feet.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Painting a picture with his words again, I see. Shame it’s this picture.

A fresco of North Korean Kim Il Sung. He’s surrounded by smiling children and soldiers and construction workers and a lady with an armful of wheat, there’s a delirious crowd cheering behind him, and a modernized cityscape with colorful balloons dotting the blue sky. Everyone is beaming while marching towards the glorious future. One of the soldiers is showing poor safety awareness and his gun barrel is pointed directly at wheat lady’s head, but that is probably neither intentional nor foreshadowing.

I first saw this image in a book called “The Cleanest Race” about North korean propaganda and its maternal overtones, compared to the stern paternal overtones of Soviet propaganda. It’s why you always see the Kims portrayed in a softer, plumper way, with children or weeping grown men around them. Versus Vladimir on a Horse.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Yes, that’s what I see too. Like this, but grabbing the inner vertical fabric and planting your balled fists on your hips so hard the fabric around your neck and shoulders becomes a yoke.

Woman with hands on hips in a black sheath dress, with a lacy black shawl draped over her shoulders and arms.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Is the delay because they’ve incorprated the name removal into a preview of the revival of the musical STOMP?

Scaffolding at the front of the Kennedy Center, as they prepare to demolish the Trump add-on.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Can we get a team out to the Saga museum while we’re at it, I’ve always wanted this rotisserie nun, this seeress who is completely over Iceland, and this extremely intense negotiator. If everyone else gets to put skeletons on the lawn year-round, I should get these.

A very surprised, middle-aged woman tied to a wooden ladder, wearing a pink shift and about to be burnt alive on a pile of sticks.

An older woman with long gray hair seated and dressed in what looks like ceremonial garb. White skirt, black and green apron, blue shirt, deep blue cape, black cap. Lots of fun ornamentation, including some sort of gilded stick. While she does seem to be in charge of the situation, she also seems to be completely over it and wants to go home or possibly just shuffle off the mortal coil entirely. her expression may be impacted by the fact that there is another wax work within her eyesight (but not captured in this photo) where I think a Pope is being dragged along in a very rudimentary cart. So she has to walk, he gets transport. I’d be pissed, too.

A waxwork blonde woman stands in front of a Native American painted on a wall. The indigenous man looks spooked about what’s going on, as well he should since the determined-looking woman has ripped off the front of her blue dress and is currently threatening to slice off one of her own breasts with a sword. there is a backstory on this provided at the soccer museum, but I prefer to present this without context.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

In honor of the Strait of Hormuz, time to crack open this one again.

Orange book cover with a sketch of the back of a man. He is wearing a boxy blue blazer with epaulettes. He may have a feather stuck in his hair. What is visible of the hair is combed over; what is visible of the hand is short-fingered and vulgarian.

"Hysterical" - Eric Idle
"An essential American satire” - Tommy Orange
The Captain and the Glory
Dave Eggers

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

So. If, of your 12 AI thought leaders, only one is a woman… I would encourage you to wonder why that is. I would also encourage you to discuss AI with female designers & researchers, find out why they’re so underrepresented in the AI Future Chorus. Maybe ask why they’re not singing along.

Screenshot from linked substack article stating: This piece is inspired by a wave of recent Al-related writing from people I respect:
Dan Williams, Alex Imas, Ben Ansell, Tibor Rutar, scott cunningham, Kevin Munger, Hollis Robbins, Claude (yes!) Blattman, Kevin Bryan, Andy Hall, Kelsey Piper, Sean Westwood, and many others. So here, I'm continuing the tradition of writing the takes that are upsetting but needed.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

So was Brett Kavanaugh also going through menopause? Was Kash Patel? It’s not menopause. It’s talk radio brain.

Image of Dr Gregory House from the TV show House with “IT’S NOT MENOPAUSE” overlaid in all-caps.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

“our readers give us a roadmap “ and “the data tells us” is such a giveway that they’ve excised any sort of user experience research in favor of segmentation and marketing. (Not that that’s a surprise, but still.) When you’re all quant and no qual:

Chart showing how the Number of people who drowned by falling into a pool correlates with films Nicolas Cage appeared in after 2000.

Classic illustration of correlation not being the same as causation.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Someone is confusing “drama queens” with “theatre kids”.

Megan McArdle
This is what happens when the theater kids are in charge

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

I hope you looked at all the framed photos in the lobby!

Framed photo of Cole Escola in a curly wig and cardigan, seemingly passed out on a fainting couch. The caption reads:

The Humans - 2019
"I had just received a pretty abusive phone call from the people who administered my colonoscopy and I needed to lie down. I dozed off and when I opened my eyes I was somehow six months into this production." -Cole Escola

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Well, you take off the hat and it sounds like they could blend in with 1950s factory workers coming off shift. Bovino’s like a matryoshka doll of military fetishwear, and his backup dancers are similarly layered in mismatched surplus camo.

POLITICO
In the 1950s, Border Patrol agents appeared in public in tailored uniforms that projected civil authority: cropped jackets worn over two-pocket work shirts and dark neckties; pressed trousers marked by stripes running down the leg; brimmed campaign hats drawn from state police and cavalry traditions.

Since then, immigration enforcement has become increasingly martial in character. In

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

The article isn’t about Nazi-dodging nuance, though - it broadens the point and says it’s a wider message about militarization. So more like “Nazi, AND…” than “no Nazi”.

By dressing immigration enforcement officials in battle-ready attire, the agency encourages agents to understand themselves not as civil servants carrying out administrative law, but as frontline combatants operating in hostile terrain. That shift in self-conception may help partially explain the aggressive tactics ICE officers have deployed in Minneapolis, where they have used chemical irritants against peaceful demonstrators, thrown gas canisters into crowds and, most notably, fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good. Over time, this produces a self-reinforcing cycle: militarized dress fosters aggressive posture; aggressive posture fuels public fear; and that fear is then cited as justification for even greater militarization.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Look, we all wish Greg the best of luck at his new gig.

GAME TIME WITH RANDY & GREG sketch from SNL. Greg has a very VERY large smooth forehead and no eyebrows and is an alien.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

This is onscreen at the nail salon. Volume’s off, so it’s just this goddamn misleading chyron for the last 15 minutes. No footage of the actual incident.

Fox news on TV screen with giant chyron reading “ICE: AGENT FATALLY SHOT PERSON IN SELF-DEFENSE”

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Somehow we’re both a decade past this image, and two weeks away from it.

Trevor Noah sits at desk in old Daily Show clip with an inset photo of Trump mocked up in an African dictator’s getup (gold braid, epaulettes, medals, sunglasses) and the closed caption “and elect America’s first african president”.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Oh HELL, I didn’t realize it was a basement with only one exit.

BBC news graphic of Internal layout of Le Constellation's basement bar Model based on old photos and videos so positions of furniture may be different to setup on the night of fire
This staircase is
reported to be the only exit from the basement
Bar
Videos appear to show flames on the ceiling above people holding lit sparklers near bar
Note: Not to scale

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

“Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein's criminal activities” isn’t correct, surely? Or at least misleading. He hasn’t been charged, but women involved have most certainly accused Trump of being involved in Epstein’s trafficking activities.

Screengrab of Washington Post article starting mid sentence:
“documents had been posted and then apparently removed. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment about the newly released documents.
Being mentioned in a mass trove of investigatory documents does not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing. Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein's criminal activities. It has long been known that Trump had a years-long friendship with Epstein that ended in the early 2000S.”

The poster has highlighted “Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein's criminal activities.”

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

I’ll go to sleep fully confident about what awaits me tomorrow morning.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Seconding the Viki vote. Perfectly sized dramas, too: South Korea is 16-20 hours with no second seasons (well, mostly) so you’re never sinking too much time into a drama that fizzles. Also the sageuks have a whole amazing hierarchy-by-hat thing going on. And if you branch into c-dramas, this!

A woman in a Chinese historical drama is looking directly at the camera. She has pearls glued to her face between her eyebrows and on either side of her eyes. Pearls are also dangling from her ears, dangling from hair pieces, and adorning the top of her robe.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

You’re not supposed to just say Stephen Miller’s secret service nickname out loud like that, Donald. (Also, say it two more times and he just materializes unsettling close behind you, I hear.)

A black and white movie still showing a man in a Dracula costume, biting the neck of a blonde woman. It’s Bela Lugosi in the role of Dracula.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

But which books did you pick up for a little light reading.

A bookshelf at the Hobby lobby checkout, featuring books about the sins of excessive empathy, biblical topics, and how to be a fictional tradwife. They are all 40% off. I wonder why.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Scary in that some of the totally normal non-scary people in the book are actually hugely scary because you absolutely know these people and what they’re going to do and it’s appalling they’re the ones brought together to handle this situation. Very atmospheric.

Cover of the novel “incidents around the house”. The words “incidents around the house a novel Josh malerman” are printed in bright red and huge against a dark foggy blue gray background, but there is also a bunny sitting in a spotlight and facing away from the front of the book.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

The 1990s Carphone for Business Dads. It lodged on the armrest between the two front seats and also had a padded carrying case, if I remember it correctly.

A black corded telephone sitting on the armrest between two front seats in a car. The black handset sort of looks like an old TV remote. I can’t quite tell if the black part underneath is part of the armrest or the phone but I think it’s a mix of both.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Are people not aware of Ravi Bhalla, Sikh mayor of Hoboken…

Mayor Ravi Bhalla stands in front of a cream building with an American flag pinned to it. He’s with a woman, a boy and a girl. Both Bhalla and the young boy wear Sikh head wraps.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

You could also try Chinese TV, though I find the government messaging sometimes breaks through the subtext into the VERY LITERAL TEXT at weird narrative moments. But look at this hat! How did it even get in the door? That’s worth 15 minutes of viewing at least, just for the suspense.

A still from a Chinese historical drama, with a man in a red robe giving someone a skeptical look. But he’s got a boxy black hat on the top of his head, which is mostly contained, except for what seem to be very narrow wings off either side, perpendicular to his head, which must have a wingspan of four feet in total.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I don’t love it with most TV, but I got started with sageuks (historical Korean dramas) and somehow the engagement of trying to figure out the hat hierarchy and fashion choices made me attentive enough to stick with the subtitles. So if you’re looking for multilayered distraction? Excellent.

photograph of a television showing a Korean TV show, with subtitles in yellow reading “I’m so sad I would cough up blood!” the show is a historical Korean drama, so all of the characters are in richly colored brocades and silks. The quote is an advisor speaking to the King, but he’s not even being that dramatic, for some reason people in historical Korean dramas throw up blood sometimes when they’re very upset? See, this is why they’re interesting. Also if you get a nosebleed in a contemporary Korean drama you are absolutely dying of terminal cancer.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

I very much enjoy the inclusion of weird pigeon breeds in sci-fi! It’s a minor detail but honestly, the minor weirdness is what fascinates me in sci-fi. I sent this pigeon catalog to my friend a month ago for exactly the same reason. I mean - what is this?!? How does this happen?!?

A gray pigeon standing in front of a lemon-yellow wall. But there’s more: It’s A pigeon that has been overbred to the extend that its head is so far back on its neck that it seems to emerge from the connection between body and tail? To be honest with you, I do not know how this is even a functional pigeon. Think of a pigeon, then fully detach it head and sew it back on where its tail starts. it sounds like I’m screwing with the alt text but I promise I am not. This is a bird bred to the point of functional bewilderment. This is the pug of pigeons.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

When DO you weave in loose ends? Asking for myself and possibly also a member of Congress…

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a live stream, showing the audience the purple sweater she knitted and is now wearing, but also abruptly realizing that there’s a loose end hanging out of the left cuff. She’s showing the loose end to the camera.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Cartoonist who made this image, please come claim your well-deserved credit.

A robot with a squirt bottle yells “stop reading arguments in the internet! you’re making yourself upset!”. He’s squirting a person in a yellow shirt holding a phone, who hunches over hissing, kind of like Gollum. The cartoon’s on a purple background.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

This one shows which spices in your cabinet naturally go together. And then you pair that with the regional acid/fat and you are MUCH more likely to produce something that tastes good, rather than something that tastes “a little funny”.

Another illustration showing how herbs and spices align to countries and regions. The graph is a wheel, with an inner ring (regions, color coded in five colors that then spread out from the circle’s center to outer segments of the wheel), a middle ring of country names, and an outer ring of herbs and spices.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Blow these wheels up and look at them in detail!

An illustration of “The World of Fat” from Nosrat’s book “Salt Fat Acid Heat” that shows fats aligned to country and region (example: Butter, Neutral Oil aligned to Scandinavia and Europe)

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

A monkey-paw kind of wish if ever heard one.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Give it up for the Government Allegory Spacecraft, everyone.

Starship debris against the sky. Looks quite pretty, like a ton of shooting stars. Expensive, taxpayer-funded, private contractor stars.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

This is the shit they’ve been pulling throughout government and insanely, it’s been working for a MONTH AND A HALF. It’s all Land of Make Believe crap, but if people let it happen, it happens! That’s the whole game!

access to IAF's grants and contracts. When that failed, they purported to fire IAF's President and then announced by fiat that Marocco had been appointed sole board member (despite the IAF board also not having been fired). In a closed-door board meeting last Friday, February 28- which consisted of just Marocco in the IAF lobby— Marocco appointed himself acting President of IAF. That night, at Marocco's direction, Treasury cancelled all but a handful of IAF's contracts. And two days ago,

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

I genuinely think they’re afraid of being the next Charles Sumner. And I hate to tell them: guys. This is indeed part of the deal. There is a risk that by saying and doing the right thing, some unhinged opponent is going to hit you. Doesn’t stop it from being the right thing to do.

Lithograph of Senator Preston Brooks' 1856 attack on Senator Charles Sumner. A man in a white suit with a cane is beating a man in a black suit on the floor holding a quill. It’s the floor of the United States Congress. The caption reads “southern chivalry - argument versus club’s”

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

🎶 that’s not how AI woooOOOoooRRRRks 🎶 Once more for the aged or proudly ignorant congresspeople in the back: data alone does not provide answers. It provides some evidence that then needs contextualization. It gives you the what, but NOT THE WHY. It hallucinates the why. Untrustworthy.

A graph showing the number of people who drowned by falling into a pool correlating with films that Nicolas Cage appeared in Nicolas Cage‘s line is in black number of people who died in a swimming pool is in red and between 1999 and 2006 the lines largely track there is also a image of Nicolas Cage screaming super imposed at the 2006 mark

The graph shows that correlation is NOT causation.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Data lies ALL THE TIME you IGNORANT ASS. All depends on what you ask and how. The Dunning-Kruger Administration is going to kill us all.

“Global Temperature vs Number of Pirates”graph superimposed over an old world map, with a steadily increasing red dotted line going from lower left to upper right. X axis titled “Number of Pirates (Approximate)” and y axis titled “Global Average Temperature”.

Text of (satirical) Forbes article also in screenshot: “You can see that as the number of pirates in the world has decreased over the past 130 years, global warming has gotten steadily worse. In fact, this makes it entirely clear that if you truly want to stop global warming, the most impactful thing to do is — become a pirate.”

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Bejarana parents, time to come collect your Large Adult Son.

Text from article: “Many in the audience became upset, several leaving the event entirely, as the event’s emcee, Ed Bejarana, continued speaking about Borrenpohl just before she was dragged out.

“Look at this little girl over here, everyone. Look at her,” Bejarana said.”

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

I beg your fucking pardon - “LITTLE GIRL”?!? Burn it down. Salt the ashes.

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Querydash @querydash.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

It’s this guy, based on this page (which may, of course, vanish at any moment): www.ed.gov/about/ed-off...

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