iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Truly, the best editor is the kind of editor who calls you up and says "I have an assignment for you and that assignment is explain how spiders balloon using electricity."

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Absolutely loved being one of the editors on this bonkers story from @miss-elenius.bsky.social on a wildly addictive, perfectly legal drug whose side effects include (in one user) impulsively purchasing $4,000 worth of golfing equipment. missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-s...

missionlocal.org

Scientists say this drug is stronger than morphine. It’s on sale over the counter.

The FDA says opiate-like drugs like 7OH are dangerous and addictive. Scientists say they need to be studied.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it: See High and Low at the Roxie Theater this weekend. Kurosawa's samurai films get all the love, but High and Low is not only better, it has Toshiro Mifune taking the most psychically intense shower anyone has ever taken.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Spoiler alert: Spike Lee DOES NOT seem to be as upset about income inequality though.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Who has two thumbs and was incredibly excited to learn that Spike Lee just released a remake of Akira Kurosawa's sweaty anti-income inequality art noir masterpiece High and Low? This guy: www.portlandmercury.com/movies-and-t...

portlandmercury.com

Movie Review: Highest 2 Lowest Is a Spike Lee Joint by an Akira Kurosawa Fan

For fans of making fun of Boston sports fans.

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Kate Golden @meownderthal.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Good luck, little butterflies! No presh. Some hopeful news amid the turmoil, from @strangerworks.bsky.social for @baynature.org 🌎https://baynature.org/2025/05/01/survival-of-the-flittest-relocated-butterflies-are-spotted-in-san-francisco/

baynature.org

Survival of the Flittest: Relocated Butterflies Are Spotted in San Francisco - Bay Nature

At a recent release, volunteers help a new batch of silvery blues adjust to city life.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Love a good second-day story that points out that the current DA is quoted as admitting to a freaking misdemeanor in the first-day story, and yet somehow that is not noted or contextualized (IT IS CONTEXTUALIZED HERE. COME HERE FOR THE CONTEXT).

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

This promises to be a civic gossip/civic policy spectacular.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

"It was never clear to me — other than being a bunch of assholes — what it is you guys want?" is but one highlight of this exit interview that @esksf.bsky.social and I did with Aaron Peskin for @missionlocal.org. missionlocal.org/2025/01/sf-a...

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The Trandalorian @charliejaneanders.com · 06/12/2024

If you're mad at the health insurance industry — and you should be! — then please remember that every U.S. state has a department of insurance that regulates these insurers. The DoI can come down on them like a ton of bricks for fraudulent behavior. You can file complaints, talk to state reps, etc.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Love this history — I've never heard of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers' Movement before now.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The siren call of the "wee" pulls us all into its clutches sooner or later.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/04/2024

When the same outfit trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth decided to bring back an extinct insect, they went about things very differently. Many thanks to Bay Nature, Kate Golden, and above all things Durrell Kapan for this road trip with a cooler full of butterflies. baynature.org/2024/04/15/t...

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 26/03/2024

So grateful for these months of deep obsession with riparian ecology, the history of California’s state park system, and the most badass basket weavers I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with. baynature.org/article/afte...

baynature.org

Dos Rios Ranch Is the Everything Park - Bay Nature

Dos Rios Ranch State Park, in the Central Valley, is a test of California’s ability to adapt to the future—and learn from the past.

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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 22/02/2024

Y'all I am SO excited for this. 🧪 Are you in NYC on April 10? Do you wanna hear about how we talk about animals we HATE?! This talk is for you it's me and @bug-gwen.bsky.social! THE DREAM TEAM. journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/eve...

journalism.nyu.edu

Creepy, Crawly, and Uncharismatic: Telling the Stories of Unloved Animals - NYU Journalism

A conversation with Bethany Brookshire and Gwen Pearson.

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Carli Boo-locci 👻 @carlivelocci.com · 22/02/2024

So... if you ever wrote anything for Vice, today might be a good day to start saving those PDFs

A tweet from @janusrose that says: "VICE has shut off our ability to download our emails after we received an anonymous tip that they’re going to be deleting our entire website today.

fun times in the media death spiral!!! will update once i know whether or not we’re all fired"

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 14/02/2024

Yes please. Arc of the moral universe is long, bends towards people probably not recognizing what you did.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 14/02/2024

It makes for some good clacking in the background.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 14/02/2024

First time I’ve called someone to do a fact-check and they’ve put me on speakerphone so that they can sort abalone shells at the same time.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/11/2023

Trying to figure out how much, if any, of these plans for public green space along the Sacramento River ever came to pass. Designing public space that can flood during the rainy season is a hot topic in climate adaptation circles these days.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 09/11/2023

Kind of surprised at how large of a role cars play in this report—specifically, driving past scenic viewpoints. Which is, admittedly, still a huge thing in California.

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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 08/11/2023

One of the things that I learned from working on a podcast about climate solutions is telling people the solution is to vote is limiting because it suggests that they aren't the adults in the room. One of the coolest bits was when a dude told us we'd inspired him to *run* for utility board

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

This absolute treasure of a nightlife story in the @portlandmercury makes me long for the days of living in a city with a decent alt-weekly. www.portlandmercury.com/culture/2023...

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it took an hour, maevey a day @maeveynot.online · 08/11/2023

i like a true crab/i like a false crab/i like a cute crab/i like a pointy crab/a long crab/a crab in ammonite/get your nails did/carcinze tonight

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

“Love is Where you Find it” by The Whispers is currently the loudest.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

Bart police leave the train car, whereupon competing interests instantly crank up their respective smooth jams.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

So pumped to write a climate solutions story that isn't about solar panels or windmills or heat pumps or EVs (all of which are great, all of which I have written about before) and to instead write about PLANTS—doing the hard work of climate adaptation/mitigation, also just being cute and planty.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

After a 100+ years of California wiping out of wild ecosystems, look who's crawling back to native plants begging them for little flood control, a little hillside stabilization, a little groundwater recharge? But there's a catch. Where you going to get those wild seeds from?

baynature.org

The Native Seed Gold Rush - Bay Nature

Big environmental dreams—and disasters—have created demand. Now it's time to worry about supply.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

Late to this essay, but this rings so true: "A quarter of all animal species known to science are beetles. Look into the mirror. Are you so sure you're not a beetle yourself?"

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

This is why good, well-compensated journalism jobs are important—to protect people at parties and put all that infodump in a safe, appropriate place.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

Woke up this morning with the dim memory of saying, with great excitement, "It's called no-till farming but you can STILL PLOW" to some unfortunate soul at a party.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Amazing opportunity! Tell all your bb science journalist friends! Would that this opportunity had been around when I was a sproutling, trying to write way above my skill level for publications that didn't always fact-check, filled with raw terror of making grievous mistakes!

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Biking all over SF and Oakland during this heat wave, and in the Castro only are the times recognized and met with denim cutoffs, sliced and frayed to bisect each butt cheek at a perfect 45 degree angle.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 15/09/2023

This woman on Bart with a teddy bear tattooed above each kneecap, in a baby pink sweatshirt printed over and over with the phrase "Assholes live forever." The rewards of public transit are myriad and glorious.

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HR Smith @strangerworks.bsky.social · 04/07/2023

New All-Seeing Eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg just dropped.

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