iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

i think i'm done with the internet now

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

It's finally happened: the improved quality of machine transcription and the greater ability to extract value from unlabelled data means "your tech is eavesdropping on you for marketing purposes" has crossed from "false conspiracy theory" to "true and concerning" www.theverge.com/tech/991190/...

theverge.com

LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby

Gamers Nexus comes for LG again.

14540421758

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

ah yes, who among us can’t relate to the time when a patient almost died right in front of you so you put the SCISSTI&DOTLẼŮR pocket and SHĚN{TE&FUR knew?

517224

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

"I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend" - actual quote (now this is satire)

030

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Tony Dutzik @frontiertony.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

* ~85% of wildfires are human-caused. * More wildfires in National Forests start near roads than in roadless areas. * Only 1% of all Lower 48 wildfires start in roadless areas. Our interactive map shows why rolling back the Roadless Rule makes no sense to protect communities from wildfire.

053

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Just ran across this excellent description of being online in Tung-Hui Hu's great book A Prehistory of the Cloud: "To use the cloud is to willingly put on an electronic collar; it is to fuse our hunt for data with our identities as marketing prospects."

030

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Josh Sternberg @joshsternberg.com · 03/08/2026

There are 7 PR people for every journalist in the US. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

chart showing 280k pr specialists to 40k 'news analysts, reporters, and journalists'

171823584

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Data center protest sign thread - updated whenever I run into a new one 📍Admire, KS

A stop sign. Someone has put a sticker on it that says “the data center”

175

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Something similar has happened with both ChatGPT and Grok. If you're a chatbot user, it's safest to behave like anything you share could be made public some day.

0245

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

My parents have 13 (!) Black Swallowtail butterflies absolutely destroying their herb garden. Look at this tank. I love him

220

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

assuming the reason @cpsc.gov keeps sharing horse pics is horses have been recalled

110

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Ever seen a news story about AI and thought “this could be an episode of Black Mirror”? We're running a research study where we ask people to imagine generative AI futures and pitch their own science fiction story. More detail at the link and please share! www.internetruleslab.com/black-mirror...

internetruleslab.com

Black Mirror Survey Study — Internet Rules Lab

We're recruiting for a survey where you pitch your own Black Mirror episode about the future of generative AI!

108048

Reposted by R.J. Cross

brent @bront.rodeo · 01/06/2026

perhaps the most important choice you can make in life is what you pay attention to. personally i recommend choosing to focus on posts by the most unlikable people on the planet

031

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I’ve gotten the same comment about our 1990s era fridge. Keep it, do not upgrade, because the new ones are flimsy and near impossible to repair.

717510

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Here's Ted Chiang on the idea that LLMs can be conscious Link: www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2... Unpaywalled just in case: archive.is/bcpZl

Screenshot reading: "The neuroscientist Anil Seth has noted that no one claims that AlphaFold—the program developed by Google DeepMind to predict the folding of proteins—is conscious, even though its underlying architecture is in many ways similar to that of LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude. This indicates that it’s not any intrinsic property of so-called neural networks that leads people to believe that LLMs are conscious; it’s simply the fact that LLMs emit grammatical sentences and we are accustomed to reading intention into sentences, whereas we are not accustomed to reading intention into the way that amino acids fold into protein molecules."

13811

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

On writing about A.I. that simulates people: "The longer this story went on, the more tired I was... It was the feeling of being at a computer all day. It was a dehydration of human interaction... It was the subject matter. It was trying to dig to the depths of something and not finding any."

2537

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Daniel Solove @daniel-solove.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

State Consumer Privacy Laws Are Being Corrupted by Lobbying danielsolove.substack.com/p/state-cons... My thoughts on the tragedy of Vermont’s privacy law and how Rep. Monique Priestley’s valiant attempt to create a good law was undermined by lobbyists.

danielsolove.substack.com

State Consumer Privacy Laws Are Being Corrupted by Lobbying

Starting in 2018, the U.S.

072

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

we'll do commemorative shirts for anything now

091

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

AI companies are letting anyone with a credit card use their models to make products for kids - the same models that the #AI companies themselves have said are not for children. A video version of our recent research: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbG0...

youtube.com

How AI models not for kids are ending up in toys

YouTube video by PIRGvideos

032

Reposted by R.J. Cross

ceej @ceej.online · 20/05/2026

one of my favorite facts about the US coal industry is that it employs less people than Broadway

7258781530

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I wanted a book my public library didn't have, so I asked them to buy it, and they did. @bpl.boston.gov is truly magic

010

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

I’m realizing reading the replies that my dog may be on the simple side. At least he’s entertaining

050

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Now that OpenAI is in the targeted ads business, hard to imagine your bank account data not being used to decide how expensive of crap they should try to get you to buy

032

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Appreciated the chance to chat w/ @sophiecharara.bsky.social about our newest #AI toys research - AI companies don't vet the toy companies using their models at all. After all my time messing w/ these little weirdos, I'm in the same place as this piece: "Or, you know, there’s always 'dumb' toys."

031

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Consumer-facing AI chatbots are consumer products - they don't magically get a pass because they're high tech. Will be important to watch these cases!

030

Reposted by R.J. Cross

ceej @ceej.online · 11/05/2026

Now that this is in the news, I'm excited to finally announce that I am starring in "Paper Rush: A Fast and the Furious Tale" for NBC, which tells the story of the brave loan officers who help the heroes of the franchise buy all of their Skyline GT-Rs at 27.9% APR

639526

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Sophie Charara @sophiecharara.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Inappropriate content, confusing social play, voice cloning, subscription shilling - it's all happening in AI kids toys thanks to @ejgoodacre.bsky.social @rj-x.bsky.social @claudio-teixeira.bsky.social & Kitty Hamilton for speaking to me for this piece

042

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Sam Adams @samadams.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Kids don’t get snow days but they do get Canvas hacks

315219

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

sitting outside googling “is it allergies or a cold” as a visible layer of pollen accumulates on my phone

000

Reposted by R.J. Cross

furby hancock @furbyhancock.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

zen concept 'first rodeo mind'

17520

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Went Offline all weekend with someone who can’t read (pictured) and I can’t recommend it enough

a big boy St Bernard at the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. The dog is the one who can’t read

011

Reposted by R.J. Cross

molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

something about being in my late 30s really has me sitting at the window watching the birds jumping in the little dishes of water i set out for them in the garden, i can’t get enough of this shit despite having no preexisting interest in the business of birds.

1673027183

Reposted by R.J. Cross

Ben Winters @benwinters.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

NEW: we @consumerfed.bsky.social are suing Meta in DC for knowingly facilitating massive scam losses through ads and misleading consumers about what they're doing to stop it www.wired.com/story/meta-i... thanks to @tyckozavareei.bsky.social @techjusticelaw.bsky.social for repping us.

14316

Reposted by R.J. Cross

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Thank god SoftBank is making A Mirror Your Child Can See Dead Family In. Harry Potter was obsessed with his

032

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

This year I'm feeling exhausted by the transfer portal. Losing your entire roster to replace it with all new faces is making the players seem more and more like hired mercenaries than college kids every year. #ncaa

110

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Huh. Non-U.S. residents have to pay an extra $100 per person to visit a national park now. Kind of seems like a lot!

Screenshot of booking page for Acadia NP -
Standard entrance pass: $20-$35
Non-US residents must pay a $100 per person fee in addition to the standard entrance pass fee

020

Reposted by R.J. Cross

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Re: nostalgia for VHS tapes and other analog media, I saw someone say like "a VHS tape never sold my information to a nazi" and yes that's true! But the reason it's true is actually because Congress passed a law in 1988 specifically making it illegal for video stores to sell your rental history

3751971238

Reposted by R.J. Cross

McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 18/04/2026

"Effective immediately, Fisher-Price will exit the 'child development toy' vertical and re-emerge as Mattel·igence AI Defense Systems, a fully integrated autonomous weapons manufacturer focused on AI-enabled lethality solutions for the modern battlefield. Our stock is up 4000%."

buff.ly

Fisher-Price Is Pivoting to AI-Powered Autonomous Weapons Manufacturing

“We at Fisher-Price have always believed in the power of imagination. In discovery. In the joy of a child pressing a button and hearing a satisfying sound. T...

328371

R.J. Cross @rj-x.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Met a psychiatrist recently whose hot take is screen addiction is worse than alcohol/drugs. We have AA and rehab, but no infrastructure for "softer" addictions making them much harder to escape. I know I am being serious in response to a joke post rn but this thought has been haunting me a little

020