iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Good insights from Ben Dueholm today on some of the well-intentioned, newer liturgical confessions of sin. benjamindueholm.substack.com/p/we-shouldn...

There is a real danger, it seems to me, in making the confession of sins both so overwhelming and at the same time so abstract that forgiveness loses all meaning.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Better just to skip it and go with the much easier task of preaching on Jesus calling the Canaanite woman a dog.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Theology 201: Just because they say they believe it, that doesn’t mean they see any connection to the way they live.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Oh man somebody just discovered Gilbert Scott-Heron and immediately thought “I can do that.”

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

"Grown-up expression" : Instantly in the vocabulary "Something old people used to say" : Instantly forgotten

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Reposted by Ted Olsen

Zoë Takaki @zoetakaki.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Nearly every day, federal immigration agents continue to violently detain Chicagoans. Today, rapid responders have already confirmed five ICE sightings and at least three detentions. This is most likely an undercount. Humboldt, Hermosa, Carol Stream, St. Charles and West Chicago were hit.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I agree for the most part, but one of the only times I’ve gone to an LLM recently was to recap the first half of a novel I’d set aside and forgotten about for a couple months. As a “Previously on…” it worked extremely well. Don’t think I’d use it to simplify a difficult text.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

This is not Spotify “striking back” against AI slop. This is Spotify capitulating to it. It’s like saying “We hear our customers’ complaints about the buckets of feces in the salad bar and have now labeled the feces as such.” variety.com/2026/music/n...

variety.com

Spotify Strikes Back Against AI Artists With ‘AI Persona‘ Label

Spotify is rolling out a new label next month for accounts on the platform that appear to be AI generated, the company said Tuesday.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Yes, “Anglicanism as BritBox subscription” is a real thing sometimes.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I miss that it’s not your lane anymore but I’m glad you’re getting paid and serving Connecticut well

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

If the AC is currently running, A. If the AC is not running, B. As “I’m up (for that activity)” and “I’m down (for that activity)” are equivalent, and “Turn Down for What” (Lil Jon) and “Turn Up” (2 Chainz) are equivalent, so too “Turn Down the Air Conditioner” and “Turn Up the Air Conditioner”

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I would like to see the Democratic Party become the party of law and order in this way. I'm hopeful, since it's a winning election strategy right now. But I'm also skeptical, since it requires (or should require) ousting or sidelining powerful D elites with ill-gotten gains.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A hearty yes to everything in this @columjournreview.bsky.social article. Also: @newyorker.com and @nytimes.com don't seem to be doing QA, even for prominent stories. Lots of mispronunciations, wrong emphasis, etc. So weird for outlets with pride (and $) in copyediting www.cjr.org/analysis/all...

cjr.org

All the News While Doing the Dishes: How does AI narration change our relationship to a piece of writing?

News organizations have embraced AI narrators. But how does artificial mediation change our relationship to a piece of writing?

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Fascinating. Is there a particular question in the CN survey measurement where these views are especially strong (or weak)?

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

TIL: Today is both Wendell Berry's birthday (1934) and James Cone's (1938). I hadn't realized Berry was older.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Just grabbed it. Sounds great.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

If y'all want to read the article, @marcusrediker.bsky.social has it on his website: www.marcusrediker.com/wp-content/u...

marcusrediker.com

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

That sounds great. (And maybe you can convince HLA to make a Music City guide to Chicago soon.)

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Sebastian Junger doing this might make me watch, actually

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

New Scholarship on Animals Eating People in the Bible (cc: @quammen.bsky.social, author of the excellent “Monster of God”)

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

If you’re wary of overusing the word “grift,” here’s a reminder that “flimflam” is woefully underused (as a word, not as a deed) these days

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

If they’re trying to avoid Trump supporters, I’m not sure Mainline congregations suffice prri.org/spotlight/tr...

In September 2025, most white evangelical Protestants (72%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (55%), and white Catholics (54%) viewed Trump favorably. Since the beginning of 2024, Trump’s favorability has risen by around 10 points within each of these groups (up from 63%, 42%, and 43%, respectively). In comparison, around one in four Christians of color and religiously unaffiliated Americans viewed Trump favorably.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

If voters aren’t sufficiently pressuring their representatives to impeach Trump now, I’m not sure a mechanism like this would change much. (And it’d further the problems we see now; billionaires and corporations would be funding recall campaigns ad nauseum)

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Is this your read on the Little House reboot? Admittedly I've only seen the first few eps., but Independence seems like a place you're going to starve to death, constantly face violence (incl. sexual violence), and at best find yourself a land thief. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/o...

The show [the Little House on the Prairie reboot] also appears, perhaps inevitably, like an infomercial for the tradwife lifestyle, set to a soundtrack of whinnying horses and chirring bugs. The Ingalls girls wash their clothes in pristine streams, stoke fires while sucking peppermint sticks and slumber under patchwork quilts. Who wouldn’t yearn for this life?

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Reposted by Ted Olsen

100 years ago news @100yearsagonews.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

July 23, 1926: A swimming pool in Wilmington, Del., has aggravated several female patrons by denying them access to the women’s locker areas because their boyish bobbed haircuts allegedly made them look too male.

Prices Run Pool, where the incident happened

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I read a prescient book in the ‘90s about how this kind of horse race journalism wasn’t just nonsense, but also corrosive to democracy itself.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I dig the new one at Fitzgerald’s, too

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Reposted by Ted Olsen

Daniel Suitor @danielsuitor.com · 22/07/2026

A tremendous article by Max on one woman's journey through Metro Surge and our warped immigration system. Horrifying and heartbreaking, but with a glimmer of hope. I started taking screenshots to find a passage to share and found I was basically reproducing the whole piece. But this was remarkable.

Faith in freedom
During the hours Pedro-Francisco spent locked up, she often turned to the Bible, finding her faith growing that God would help her.

She turned to Psalm 91:15, in which God promises protection to the faithful: “When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.”

She read and reread Acts 12, which tells of an angel freeing the disciple Peter from prison, throwing off his chains and leading him past the guards and iron gates.

Suddenly, Pedro-Francisco was herself freed.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Can’t think of direct examples but have often seen something similar, in which secular progressives tell conservative Protestants/Catholics what Christianity means and suggesting that Christians abandon core articles of faith to attract more folks.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

First I’d heard of her. Apparently “girl evangelists” were a thing back then and she was the most prominent. Also the most enduring—she stayed an evangelist through her adult life. (Via fromthevault.wheaton.edu/2026/01/06/n...)

The September 1929 issue of The Betty Weakland Magazine

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

You may enjoy this spreadsheet of organ-oriented restaurants. A few still remain! www.hotpipes.eu/Restaurant-O...

hotpipes.eu

Theatre Organs in Restaurants

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Fair, but my read on it was that Ocean’s 11 was “what if the original was good instead of just an excuse for the Rat Pack to goof around in Vegas?” And Ocean’s 12 was “What would it look like if it were *us* using a film to goof around in Vegas?”

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Life with a loved one with misophonia.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

It's unclear if chanting "I hate rabbits" is having any effect.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Definitely feeling this at the moment.

Air Quality Index is 395 on a 500-point scale. Well into the "Hazardous" range.

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Anyone know of a book (or longform article) that looks at this with insight and wisdom?

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Reposted by Ted Olsen

Jon Mooallem @jmooallem.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

In retrospect we can see that BuzzFeed slowly compressing a watermelon until it exploded was a Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan moment for an entire generation of livestreamers who, instead of buying guitars to be the next Beatles, nihilistically tortured themselves to be the watermelon. [submit dissertation]

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