iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 22h

Magic City was so sure they were going to get another free press bump.

Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

DNC loves to send emails with swears in the subject like a four-year-old who comes over like "do you wanna hear a bad word? poop."

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Bill Childs @billchilds.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

On this week’s Trivia Mafia podcast, @twinkiejigggles.bsky.social asks @steventurous.bsky.social the most Gen-X movie (among other media). Proposals included Ferris Bueller, Heathers, and Fight Club. My thought is The Breakfast Club? no-brains-no-lightbulbs.captivate.fm/episode/as-i...

no-brains-no-lightbulbs.captivate.fm

As Immobile as a Restaurant: Trivia with Sean's Brother - No Brains, No Lightbulbs: A Trivia Podcast

Steve McPherson is almost 50 years old. He wrote the theme song for No Brains, No Lightbulbs. Those are the big headlines but if you want to know what e...

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Sean McPherson @twinkiejigggles.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

You enjoy W 7th. Now you can enjoy some music there. I'll be with Big Trouble and special guest Bill Caperton from 6-8 on Saturday. Come and enjoy some music because honestly you want to.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Project Hail Mary is possibly the dumbest book I have ever read.

The Norman Rockwell painting of the guy standing up at a town meeting.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It’s rare for a flavor of sparkling water to make me angry and yet

Waterloo’s Apple Pie à la Mode sparkling water

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sharon El-Amin using AI for her door hangers. Guess I know who I’m not voting for.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of the amazing things about Coltrane (happy 100th birthday, JC) is that you put him in a group with Miles Davis and you're like, "This guy is way out there and breathing fire all over this track" and then you put Eric Dolphy in JC's group and you're like "This guy is so steady and calming."

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We got gigs going down in the Middle Western states this week. First up, closing out patio szn at the Renaissance Hotel in Minneapolis on Friday evening with 120 Minutes.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

if elected president, my first act will be an executive order saying stone gossard is not allowed to play a stratocaster

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972)

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Biggest issue I have with Silo (aside from Common) is that most of the time, nothing really actually happens that affects the story. You could honestly watch the first and last two episodes of every season and not really miss much. It's all just so much maneuvering that doesn't go anywhere.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

stay tuned after the movie for the credits

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Britt Robson @brittrobson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Wrote an arts feature in Minnpost celebrating jazz organist Jack McDuff, born 100 years ago today. It is a story of love at first sight, career resurrection, and a delightful boon to our local jazz scene in the final decade of the 20th Century. www.minnpost.com/arts-culture...

minnpost.com

How Minneapolis helped jazz legend Jack McDuff turn over a new leaf

Brother Jack McDuff's centennial birthday provides an opportunity to dig into the late organist's Twin Cities renaissance in the '90s.

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Jason Concepcion @netw3rk.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

People are talking shit but this is a good loadout for most races. Light weight, decent speed, and good maneuverability.

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huck mason @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

god this is good

flight of the concords scene with murray, brit and jemaine.

"How's this, then? Ed Sheeran, beloved by all, left without an opening band at present. Enter you two."

"What if we want a free Palestine, Murray?"

"I reckon you'll get lots of things for free when you're proper rockstars. This might be your ticket."

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Crucifictorious has dropped out of the Ed Sheeran tour.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Do we think there are more or fewer FBI applicants who have been forced to perform sex on animals than collegiate trans athletes?

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Ain't no rules says a dog can't become an FBI agent.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

all my torment nexus live in texas

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Britt Robson @brittrobson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Latest Wolves: The Finch interview, part 3, up this morning at Minnpost. Concentrates on the prospects and fit of Kuminga and the main bench personnel (except for Beringer, who is in part 4). www.minnpost.com/news/2026/09...

minnpost.com

The Chris Finch Interview, Part 3: How does Kuminga find his ceiling?

The third part of our extended sit-down with Chris Finch explores the role of newcomer Jonthan Kuminga and goes deep on the bench.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

It’s time for evening indignant shouting matches at the group home down the block.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Just had an absolute chimneys at a girls high school soccer game.

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Elliott Payne @elliottpayne.org · 11/09/2026

Looking forward to the Waite Park Fall festival tomorrow from 3-7 PM! My office will be tabling so come stop by.

Waite park fall festival Saturday 9/12 3-7 PM at 1810 34th Ave ne

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Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Local news in the US will not exist in the medium term without public funding. Period. The sooner we all accept this the sooner we can work on getting the money. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/public-fun...

hamiltonnolan.com

Public Funding of Journalism Is the Only Way

There is no other magic solution. I promise.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

My personal “Charlie Brown had hoes” thing is “Movie X or Show Y set an IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes record.” No it didn’t. That’s not a thing.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I get to have fun at my day job. Or rather, night job, as I wrote this sitting in the stands of a girls high school soccer game in Burnsville.

And finally in your news roundup: We all grew up on equal parts fear and admiration for the Tyrannosaurus rex (or at least we
*should* have), and now scientists have discovered the first trackway made by an adult T. rex, and it's in North Dakota. The trackway consists of four footprints providing important information about how the animal moved, and likely making it the first evidence of someone trying to get the hell out of North Dakota.

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𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I think Guillermo del Toro is onto something here--he's capturing what I hear from writers, artists, composers, etc. What they worry about is 1) AI use impeding young people from developing Fingerspitzengefühl--the subtle, instinctual "knowledge" you gain from working on something with your hands...

reddit comment:

Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind?

Guillermo Del Toro's reply:

My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.

Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?

Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.

Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.

Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?

GDT:

The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.

We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.

AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.

And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”

And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Was thrilled to get to work on editing this. Britt is a treasure.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Special acoustic set at the Waite Park Fall Festival on Saturday. If you've ever wondered what "One-Armed Scissor" sounds like on acoustic guitars, well, you will find out.

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 09/09/2026

Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Submitting this to r/bald and asking if it's time

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

You can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Special acoustic set at the Waite Park Fall Festival on Saturday. If you've ever wondered what "One-Armed Scissor" sounds like on acoustic guitars, well, you will find out.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Hold up: We developed Transformers? Why did no one tell me

A yellow robot that turns into a VW Bug.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Celebrating 50 this year by throwing a party with three of my bands at the White Squirrel: Big Trouble, 120 Minutes and Catfish Blue — my high school band from Massachusetts. Come one, come all.

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Steve McPherson @steventurous.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Idea for this playlist came to me late last night and I’m really enjoying how it’s shaping up. music.apple.com/us/playlist/...

music.apple.com

This & That by Steven McPherson on Apple Music

Playlist · 18 Songs

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