iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 18h

Confession: I still love AI stuff from back when it was cursed and not *a* curse

Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

JJW @jjw.wtf · 29/09/2026

full disclosure: before it became well known that ai was really bad for lots of reasons, i started a substack called shrek bible studies which used ai to rewrite bible stories inserting shrek and pair images with them. i shut it down, but the images are still on my hard drive.

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 29/09/2026

Does my calculator have breasts? According to the screen which displays 5318008 when turned right-side up, it at least behaves as if it does.

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Ed Overbeek @edoverbeek.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If you’re wondering why Science would publish this, it’s because they hired a writer who’s also a flunky for the AI industry. If you’re wondering why Science would let a flunky for the AI industry cover AI… that’s a great question.

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 28/09/2026

liz thinks I am joking but I am dead serious that everyone should visit taxpayersunion.org.nz and see the incredible work that's been done

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 27/09/2026

Guys I didn’t realise before how important this work was but the people behind taxpayersunion.org.nz deserve all your time and attention, please don’t pass up this click

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 26/09/2026

I knew that Casey Newton was becoming ever more annoying about AI but I didn’t realise that he was properly losing his mind in the process www.programmablemutter.com/p/machine-go...

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Simon Wilson @simonbwilson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

At the heart of Nicky Hager’s book is a tale of how a group of cynical hard-right ideologues made racism a winning political platform, not because they’re white supremacists, but because it suited their interests. My Hopetown post is here #nzpol simonwilsonhopetown.substack.com/p/dirty-work...

simonwilsonhopetown.substack.com

Dirty work and the disinfecting sunshine it deserves

Nicky Hager’s new book ‘Dirty Work’ reminds us how much we’ve lost in the last three years

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 26/09/2026

I've finally seen the light. I urge everyone to visit taxpayersunion.org.nz and see the good work that they've been doing on behalf of the hard-working taxpayers of New Zealand

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Mandy Hager @mandyh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

That these 2 guys can dismiss the book as 'business as usual' tells us a shitload about their warped perspective on NZ politics and the infiltration of lobbyists. It also insults their listeners, who care deeply about the influence of corporate money, esp when it's ramping up racism and dividing us

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 25/09/2026

Pols journos sneering that “everyone knows about the Taxpayers Union” and ”it’s just lobbying” are telling on themselves; the fact is that the public *doesn’t* know about the TPU‘s antics and that is because of the failure of mainstream journalists

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 24/09/2026

Tossing up between spending quality time with my kids or getting involved in a really tendentious thread for the next few hours, this is a tricky one

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

CEO Johnny Cans @oldmatecans.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The media when the right smear Green MPs: anonymous sources have raised serious questions that must be addressed and they should resign The media when Nicky Hager writes a book using sources from inside the TPU: obviously these anonymous sources mean we should dismiss this immediately

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 23/09/2026

this is exactly what I expect from mainstream politics journalists and it amounts to "yeah we're all operatives for neoliberal propaganda outlets at the end of the day, so what?"

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 23/09/2026

if anyone has any young (or old!) folk in their lives who are excellent at social media and know their way around video editing, I am thinking of getting someone to produce short-form clips from my long-form vids. think summer lawn-mowing job as far as pay goes. DM me if you've got any leads!

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 22/09/2026

Parasite Initiative: “We believe it’s imperative that we continue to be able to suck as much blood as we bloody well want“ Corporate media: “Wow, what a scoop!”

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 22/09/2026

To those who might be surprised that Stuff is giving airtime mainly to the denials of the stars of Dirty Work, remember that they’ve worked with the TPU for years and hired Matthew Hooton as an editor. Individual journos have a range of views but the establishment is dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Mark @maetl.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The anticipation of a Nicky Hager book launch. C U next Tuesday to the TPU and its cursed astroturf campaigner to Act staffer pipeline. The copyright infringing Porky Pig fursona. The definitional haters and wreckers.

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 22/09/2026

Anyone got a link to an ebook or online purchase link for Dirty Work? Asking for reasons

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 22/09/2026

Let’s not forget that one of the main reasons the Taxpayer’s Union has enjoyed such oversized influence is the news media giving them an endless platform, to the extent that Stuff partnered with them on the “Ratepayers Report”, which was a thinly veiled TPU email harvesting operation

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 22/09/2026

Folks I suspect I am about to experience the maximum schadenfreude a human can possibly experience

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 18/09/2026

This whole thing is great but there's a bit at the end where they highlight how X has been a particularly bad place to be in terms of panic, and I think the way so many normally-rational people lost their minds during this cycle is a nice demo of how X is permanently ruining a whole bunch of people

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 18/09/2026

they're bringing Peak Cray back (what!)

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Will de Cleene @zippygonzales.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Hager expose? Check. Dotcom making a tit of himself? Check. WhaleOil and Winston? Check. And so it goes.

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Will de Cleene @zippygonzales.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Also, super weird coincidence. For the first time ever, I've had enough room to put both my Yellow and Blue Zig Zag Keys from @tworuru.com up.

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 07/09/2026

another day/week/month of the "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" party losing ground to the parties that say they'll try things and have ideas

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 07/09/2026

has anyone else found Google Workspace services intolerably slow in recent days/weeks? It ain't my connection. I'm getting timeouts, disconnections, impossibly slow loading on simple spreadsheets and documents. It's maddening

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

bsky is the place where an account called "Pisschrist Pikachu" does the Khmer Rouge "anyone with glasses should be shot" thing and then posts a link to their OnlyFans sexy Homestar Runner cosplay

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Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 03/09/2026

your emails and meeting notes ARE YOUR JOB. let a machine do it and you're showing your bosses that you are very replaceable, not because of AI, but because you're a huge dipshit

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 03/09/2026

Friends, when I sent this message to my team laughing, I didn't know that this fairytale blog had been shared far & wide & that people actually believed it. I didn't know that until someone asked me for a good source debunking this nonsense. I'm not sure what planet we're living in at this point.

Timnit commented "I don't know what level of ridiculousness this is", sharing a screenshot that reads

@Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp
Over the course of 3 months at OpenAI, 3 consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes.

This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself.

All this happened while humans remained more-or-less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy.

I’ve spent the last three days reading through these reports and trying to understand exactly what happened.

Here is my attempt to tell the whole story in plain English:

There is a sibling emoji reaction to her post

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 31/08/2026

shout out to politics-knowers that parties with more left-wing policy than Labour (Greens, TPM, Opportunity) are collectively (snort) outpolling Labour

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 25/08/2026

Did you stop drawing as a kid? Nearly everyone does. And they almost always do it for the same reason.

tworuru.com

We have to go back… to the drawing board

Why am I creating *another* drawing course?

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 25/08/2026

suggestions for landing page infrastructure for my new site? I want something to occupy my domain name while I build the product. It needs to take email signups and give "a human made this" without looking like rubbish. I would prefer to avoid scammy SaaS builders and AI stuff. pls & thank u!

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 25/08/2026

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Emily @emilywrites.co.nz · 24/08/2026

Everyone is either sick or knows someone who's sick and you know what? It's the Government's fault. Please share this article as widely as you can. This amount of mass illness isn't a coincidence, it's a choice they're making for you #nzpol www.emilywrites.co.nz/this-governm...

emilywrites.co.nz

This government is making you sick

So many of us are sick. And there's a reason for it.

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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 22/08/2026

BUTLERIAN JIHAD NOW

LIVE
BREAKING NEWS

JUDITH BUTLER BEGINS HOLY WAR

QUOTED AS SAYING "THE AGE OF THINKING MACHINES IS AT AN END"

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Alex @shakingstick.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Call me stupid but basing your economic policy on what % of gdp you think the tax rate should be, rather than on what the government should be doing to make the economy better, seems like arse backwards nonsense

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Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer @tworuru.com · 24/08/2026

there are some conclusions that we can draw from this that have mostly been screamingly obvious for years or decades but have entirely escaped the political class which absolutely includes nearly all politics journalists: www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic... #nzpol #kikorangi #thread

rnz.co.nz

Opportunity leader: Voters starting to see us as a stable and safe coalition partner

The leader of the Opportunity Party says people are starting to see the nascent movement as a stable and safe coalition partner, as the new RNZ-Reid Research poll puts the party in the driver's seat.

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

The British Media Vs. Plagiarism

4 panel comic

Panel 1:
British Journalists are relaxing on lilos in the sea. Someone on the shore yells “Hey Guys! An academic got accused of plagiarism”

Panel 2:
One of the journalists sticks out their tongue and says “Pffft. Wake me when there’s a real story”

Panel 3:
Person on shore “He was black”

Panel 4:
The sea explodes as a tidal wave of British Journalists erupt into the air, manic and desperate to report on this now vital for some reason piece of news

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Reposted by Josh | writer, painter, tinkerer

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 15/08/2026

First I was banned from X/Twitter. Then Facebook banned my newsletter. Then X/Twitter banned me permanently. Now YouTube disables my channel the week of my book launch. Was it something I said? 👉 www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ne...

Stack of books. The nerd Reich, Gil Duran.

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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

4/ And you know which group of people are often *really* thin-skinned? Journalists - who often dismiss any criticism of their conduct out of hand, and had a collective meltdown when Owen Jones pointed out that a high percentage of them went to private school.

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