iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 24/09/2026

We must harness the awesome power of the world's most disease-resistant bug: the bat

Olson said their findings lay the groundwork for better understanding bat physiology and, critically, how the mammals have evolved to be so resistant to disease. Bats are often identified as reservoirs of fatal zoonotic viruses, including Ebola, Nipah and Marburg – but the bats don’t get sick themselves.

“How are they living with these viruses that, when they get into us, they cause so much damage?” Olson said. “What we have now is a kind-of code book of life.”

A 2025 study based on the Bat1K genomic work found that early bat ancestors seemed to have excessive immune gene adaptations. “We showed for the first time that these adaptations associated with viral tolerance and disease resistance probably evolved at the same time that all bats evolved,” said the evolutionary biologist Ariadna Morales, who worked on both studies.

Bats are also unique among mammals in that they live exceptionally long for their size, showing few signs of ageing or cancers. Now, scientists say they will be able to investigate the genes driving those traits. What they learn could be a gamechanger for research into human ageing, immunity and disease resistance.

“With the genetic information that we can find in bats, it could be used to develop therapeutics associated with zoonotic disease. And they could also be models to develop treatments for cancer,” Morales said.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 18/09/2026

Feels like there should be more than two guys at the factory that makes grenades for foreign countries, even at night?

The explosion at Pacem Defense, which specialized in making and selling high explosive grenades to foreign militaries, was apparently massive. The Taylor County Sheriff’s Office said in its statement that one building at the Pacem facility sustained “significant damage” in the explosion, adding on Facebook that “[m]any residents heard and felt” it. One person who lives about three miles away from the facility wrote on the site that her brick home started shaking.

The sheriff’s office said that neither of the workers who were at Pacem Defense at the time of the explosion was harmed.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 18/09/2026

Do you think the sex cult has paid janitorial staff? They'd be worth talking to:

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 12/09/2026

But, like, HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? Gaining access to the bioresearch facility, okay. Exploring gain-of-function, okay. How does it use the pipette? How does it get the virus out of the lab? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/o...

One of the disaster scenarios A.I. specialists entertain is that a swarm of rogue A.I.s hack out of their container, gain access to a biological research facility and design a supervirus that spreads uncontrollably. When I wrote about this scenario last year, it was mostly hypothetical — but the actions of the swarms give evidence that such a thing can occur. In fact, Anthropic announced on Thursday that it had blocked scientists from attempting to use its model Claude to conduct gain-of-function research. The “Pacing the Frontier” letter suggests that A.I. researchers know the danger and that they need outside help to slow down. “It’s harder to open a hot-dog stand than to build an artificial superintelligence,” the A.I. safety researcher Marius Hobbhahn told me.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 04/09/2026

Correctly identified merely on the strength of having a second word for milkshake and calling it a bubbler (although you can see that the latter puts Wisconsin in play)

A dialect map showing I am indeed from RI

Answers that gave me away: cabinet, bubbler, grinder, and 'centaur' rhyming with "sore" and "more"

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 27/08/2026

A really common thing is the "well, but it doesn't work that way for me!" which is...a) anecdote vs. data and b) I'd like to see some evidence before I accept that determination. I try not to just slam into ppl like that, I think you have to meet them where they are, but sometimes I just want to say

Marlo Stanfield from The Wire saying, "You want it to be one way, but it's the other way"

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 27/08/2026

Bonica's reporting actually bears that out: same pool of donors. Hammer relentlessly with asks? You get 15x as much money as the people who don't hammer relentlessly with asks *from the same pool of donors*

"Only about 20 percent of Democratic congressional candidates hire the same high-volume digital fundraising firms used by spam PACs. But those candidates raised a combined $570 million from captive spam donors. That same pool of captive spam donors gave just $37 million to the 80 percent of Democratic congressional candidates who stayed outside the spam PAC ecosystem.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 26/08/2026

Whenever someone brings up SVU, all I can think of is the Stabler parody from the greatest AVClub comments thread ever

A screenshot of a commenter in a Disqus thread, named "Detective Stabler in a brief cameo." The comment reads: "You disgusting freak. I oughta kill you with my bare hands. You rotten pervert, you don't deserve to- oh sorry Mr. Prosecutor, I was just on the phone with my son. What can we help you with."

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 25/08/2026

This is quite the contention from Watters that Sayed is a) an Eagles fan, and b) that the Philadelphia Eagles are shooting people in the face.

A picture of Jesse Watters and Abdul El-Sayed in a head to head conversation from Decoding Fox News, the video player's caption reads "Your Eagles are shoot people in the face"

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 29/07/2026

"Things that go bump in the night" holy shit

Other alleged similarities were based on the use of ordinary words and common phrases -
including "well, well, well," "pang of disappointment," and "things that go bump in the night" -
which are, of course, not entitled to copyright protection. See Arica Inst. , Inc. v. Palmer, 970 F.2d
1067, 1072 (2d Cir. 1992). As I previously explained, Freeman's contention that the shared use
of ordinary words and common phrases demonstrates substantial similarity trivializes copyright
law. Dk:t. No. 548 at 41.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 18/07/2026

TFW Grok decides everything is sexual

A cartoon character with a concerned expression on their face, such as over a talking sandcastle or an AI translate suggesting they distribute handjobs

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 15/07/2026

There we go, had to go outside. Apparently its Canadian wildfire smoke. Certainly smells like wood smoke outside. This was at 3:00pm.

A hazy red sky over a parking lot in Providence Rhode Island, taken around 3:00PM 7/15/26

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 13/07/2026

One of my favorite roles of Sam Neill's was Dean Spanley, just a beautiful story of loss with an incredible cast. I learned of it from a Random Roles he did with @willharrisinva.bsky.social where he seemed absolutely delighted to even be asked about it. RIP Sam Neill

Sam Neill as Dean Spanley in the eponymous film. His eyes are closed and he is reminiscing happily

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 28/06/2026

Nation states often have a very bad case of "I'm the main character of life"

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 21/06/2026

Here's an excessive blep from Saga

A golden shepherd dog curled up in a big blue dog bed, she is sticking about an inch and a half of her tongue out of her mouth as she sleeps.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 16/06/2026

imagining his drive to school was straight out of LA Story.

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 16/06/2026

Bronx Beat would eat JD Vance alive.

Maya Rudolf and Amy Poehler as the hosts of the SNL recurring sketch of a morning show hosted by two middle-aged moms from the Bronx called "Bronx Beat"

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Alex G. Howard @selfindulgentclaptrap.com · 16/06/2026

Saga got pets from four members of the Tartan Army out to lunch at Julian's, that was fun. The "half-German Shepherd, half-Texas stray" joke didn't land as well, I hazard b/c their familiarity with Texas' reputation for anything goes is limited.