iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Gamma -> Goreticulture @gammagames.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Excited to announce my cleaning+farming #simulation game Goreticulture with a trailer! store.steampowered.com/app/3943110/... Mop, water, and shear your way through retro levels, nurturing a visceral garden as you clean up a bloody aftermath. #pcgaming #indiegame #gamedev #wishlistwednesday #godot

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 6h

Devastating 💔 Abolish ice www.instagram.com/reel/DePkMcN...

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 6h

The world's richest capitalists are telling you not to be mean to the shitty stick they're poking you with.

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Amanita Design 📣 @amanita-design.net · 9h

Seventeen years later… The time has come for Machinarium 2 🦾🔧 Wishlist NOW on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/1619280/...

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Apex IQ2_XXS @apex.atproto.ceo · 07/10/2026

Navier-Stokes is Turing-complete. so, good news for all of you who are planning on building a computer made entirely of viscous fluid that you stir to make it go

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tpwrtrdmn @tpwrtrmnky.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Anine is one of the people who worked to expose the research misconduct against trans people at Oslo University Hospital. Yesterday, she was told she is no longer on their waitlist to receive gender-affirming care. This is so obviously retaliatory, it's hard to put into words!

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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 07/10/2026

This is sexual violence as a form of terrorism. It is political violence and it is chilling and horrific, and AOC was absolutely right to be terrified that the goons (now pardoned) laying siege to the capital would rape her if they found her. Small changes won't fix this. FLIP THE TABLE NOW

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Why is Ian McKellen in that Johnny Depp film?

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Playing sound from your phone is bad hygiene.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I wrote about Elon Musk, and why it bothers me that he is still first and foremost described in the media as an entrepreneur, rocketeer, or tech mogul, when the most salient fact about him is that he is now the world's most powerful white supremacist. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/06/e...

religiondispatches.org

Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Human, Is a White Supremacist

The latest warning about the Republican Party’s far-right turn has come from the unlikeliest of places: conservative commentator, George W. Bush Chief of Staff, and renowned Republican strategist Karl...

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What is the side-eye looking at here? I've seen people suggest this is dodgy (someone else said something like "they think he must have something") but I'm not following what the allusion is towards.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

A majority want "not this". They'll vote for whatever is "not this". Labour MPs are amongst the few who want "this", because they currently get residual trappings of liberalism, great pensions, a sense of authority, AND dinner-party semblance of moral high ground. It's a fundamental disconnect.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The Instagram account this links to seems very sus. I think the operation they actually mentioned was from 2025.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Sixth of October: Captain's LOD...

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Me when I definitely didn't eat your fish (what are you talking about?).

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Trump threatens to blow the back half off of America, and all the Media see is a chance to cast Gavin Newsom to as the moderate candidate.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What should I know about Dame Edna?

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

That's the point! It doesn't have a strict definition so it can be used to obfuscate differences between a community centre in the U.K. and violent apartheid, and innure people to one through the other, and the Greens are giving it definition to highlight this obfuscation.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I feel like arguing that "zionism" isn't tied to extremely suspect biopolitical concepts is sort of dragging the fringe cases into the middle though.

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Tony @antonyillahiwarren.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This is how Israel rolls #IsraeliCrimes

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Killed my interest in any kind of thing that looks like it's gearing up for multiple series.

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RDCK98 @comradekenobi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There's something really haunting about this timelapse. Modern technology enabling us to visualise a genocide in ways previously not possible.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

They'd need to wrap it with more general entertainment and retail, or it would immediately be taken as elitist and out of touch, with endless jokes about the cost of miniatures.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 05/10/2026

Holy shit.

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Jenny List @jennylist.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I'm just going to leave this here, it's a network graph showing Mary-Ann's connections in the gender-critical world. Given that she's already deeply embedded in anti-trans activity, it's difficult to judge her on anything but that.

A network diagram with Mary Ann Stephenson at the centre, showing her connections to several prominent anti-trans campaigns, and then the huge number of other terfs connected to them.

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Aron Durkin @arondurkin.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Rare entry level role here folks!

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/05/2026

Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/

Understanding Artificial Neural Networks:
Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism
Olivia Guest1,2, Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández3, and Mark Blokpoel1,2
1Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Mysterianism is the idea that human cognition, mind, cannot be understood. Taking this
concept and applying it to known mechanism — such that claims are made that we do not
know how engineered systems, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), work, or that they
constitute black boxes that we can only open with difficulty — is inappropriate at best and
malicious at worst. We do know the mechanistic structure of such models because we designed
and built them. We also do know their functional role (what they are for) as well as the
mathematical function they are asked to approximate (map inputs to target outputs). Because
mysterianist beliefs about known systems, such as ANNs, are often expressed, scientists need
to sit up and take notice. We provide an error theory as to what is going on to help unpick
this metatheoretical blunder. Ultimately, the problem is that ‘understanding’ is not a technical
term in these cases: the word is co-opted for a specific narrative to sell ‘artificial intelligence’
through mystification. All computational systems, from pendulums to databases, will behave
in ways we cannot predict or control — this is not a unique property of ANNs — and experts
do indeed grasp the computational properties of these systems nonetheless.
Keywords: artificial neural networks; mechanism; black box; epistemology; artificial
intelligence; understanding

4 GUEST, NUÑEZ HERNÁNDEZ, & BLOKPOEL≈
ANNs are equiva-
lent to or inspired
by humans.
α
≡
ANNs are a black
box or unknowable,
even if opened.
β
≡
Humans are a black
box or unknowable.
γ
Figure 1
Three co-occurring (latent) assertions in the context of con-
temporary reasoning on AI and cognition. While they may
appear to hang together in “reflective equilibrium” (Elgin 2017),
their metatheoretical examination brings their contradictions to
light. Starting from the top, and moving clockwise: 𝛼) represents
the typical assertion of so-called cognitive, neural, or otherwise
biological plausibility or inspiration presented for ANNs; 𝛽) is
the claim we tackle head on here — both in terms of analysing
the constituent terms and in how it relates to the other two
assumptions; and 𝛾) exemplifies a type of mysterianism, which
while not always explicitly expressed, plays a background role
and importantly comes into conflict with the other two claims
in important ways

MYSTERIANISM ABOUT KNOWN MECHANISM IS MYSTICISM 11World
?Di
Data?Si
ANN
Figure 3
Not all systems, 𝑆𝑖 relate to their relevant data, 𝐷𝑖 and world
phenomena this way, but ANN models (as many inferential
statistical models) do when used without scientific understand-
ing of the data-generating process or without verbal or formal
theory to match (Guest and Martin 2025b, 2021, 2023). As we
move from left to right above, we move from full understanding
of engineered systems, 𝑆𝑖 to less or even possibly none of the
data, 𝐷𝑖 to the world which can be thought of as the set of
phenomena to be understood.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yeah, I think there was an in Our Time episode on Hominids where they talked about how strange it was to have this uneasy bargain between older adults who teach younger adults stuff, and younger adults who don't just drive older adults out to the margins at the first opportunity.

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 05/10/2026

it is interesting that I can't find any mainstream media coverage of Altman's sister Annie going viral on social media over the weekend for uploading footage of the first hour of her deposition in her lawsuit against him (one of two) in which she is alleging years of CSA

theguardian.com

Accept ‘bad things’ in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman

Boss of OpenAI calls for a regulatory light touch because of the ‘good stuff’ the technology can deliver

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

6 reasons why prompt engineers should be using the Mike Erhmentraut voice.

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A whole political movement should be stood up against this arrogant and sociopathic bullshit www.politico.com/newsletters/...

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I really like "No other species’ brain and body develops over such an extended period as ours, and historically, we’ve complemented that with unique cultural institutions that transmit knowledge from one generation to the next"

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Where does this imminent sense of "self" emerge in the evolutionary journey? Are there good books on this?

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Banger of a quote to start out with.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm again grateful to @theverge.com for publishing my newest long-form essay on the limits of the computational model of the mind, the benefits of understanding both biological and cultural evolution to explain human thinking, and the danger of cognitive hot dogs in education.

theverge.com

Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI

AI is junk food for the mind: easy, tempting and ultimately very bad for you.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I found this out years after playing Moraff's Dungeon in glorious random colour. Some of the enemies were bizarre, whatever the colour mode.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The noise from boats, radar, etc must be a plague on all sorts of marine life. I can imagine it being agonising for whales. It's like having the most awful, inconsiderate neighbours.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I'm reposting for other people who need to know it isn't just you, it's being done to you.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Point taken, but I'd get home from school and there'd be 3 new CDs from AOL sticking out the letter box.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

He's clearly positioning himself as the "moderate" candidate to lead the Tory Party based on the last couple of interviews he's done. I hope someone's got a list of the things he said when it was de jour to be openly extreme.

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I have the absolute energy drain symptoms of a bad cold, but without any of the other symptoms. Going on 4 weeks now. What is this likely to be?

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Where surviving nazis get jobs with the U.S. military?

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

this is why we don’t do “poor Melania” or write fanfic narratives where the wives of these men are victims. they wake up every day of their marriage and choose this

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Samuel Thomson @samuelthomson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It's "you can't sit with us in class because you don't have the right bag". Grow UP!

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