iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 26/09/2026

LinkedIn bro, probably: "How I Got My Job by Bringing Iced Coffee to an Interview: I told an agent swarm to find out the interviewer's name and surveil him. The agents found his iced coffee order, so I showed up with it and slid it across the table. Buy my course and I'll show you how."

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Caitlin Cooper @caitlinmaycooper.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Best plural forms ranked: 1) internal (tours de force, culs-de-sac) 2) ending in -i (magi) 3) is to es (oases) 4) suppletive (people) 5) vowel changes (geese) 6) f to ves (thieves) 7) adding en (oxen) 8) no change (moose) 9) adding es, ies (boxes, babies) 10) adding s

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 04/06/2026

New feed aggregating calls for papers, abstracts, and so forth. #cfp #academicsky bsky.app/profile/wes....

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Dr Kiri Thornalley @kizzythechemist.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

If you want to have fun, every PhD awarded by a UK institution should be on here: www.bl.uk/collection/e... The most recent ones aren't because of a cyber attack in October 2023.

bl.uk

E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) update

EThOS (E-Theses Online Service) is the British Library’s database of UK doctoral theses.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 24/08/2026

Great thread about the NYT opinion piece that erroneously conflates debt default and debt forgiveness, and misunderstands Sumerian history in the process.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 20/08/2026

Searching Bed, Bath and Beyond for wall sconces...

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K.B. Wagers @kbwagers.com · 18/08/2026

Looking for recommendations for a friend for freelance romance editors. Short story to novel length. Hit me up, especially if you're the editor in question. (what was once obvious now needs to be said, if you're using AI to "edit" I'm not interested)

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 08/08/2026

These guys are going to finally build the AI that tells them how to solve the climate crises, and it's going to say, "replace your coal, gas, and oil plants with solar and wind farms," and they'll say, "damn, I thought that one was it. We need a bigger AI."

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 28/07/2026

*opens Instacart* *orders all the popcorn*

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Boxo McFoxo @boxobark.ing · 19/07/2026

The answer to "if you don't adopt AI you'll be left behind" should be "yes, please go away and leave me behind, that sounds ideal"

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 17/07/2026

While this article in Science is getting dragged for leaving ChatGPT trackers in links, there's a subtler issue. The author states "[T]he ability of large language models (LLMs) to predict protein structures and to accelerate the discovery of new materials has revolutionized both fields." (1/7)

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🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈 @haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

One thing you as a writer can do to distinguish yourself as human? Be divisive. Slop is sycophantic; it grovels & apologizes as it tries to give you what you want at all times. You're not a sniveling slop bot. You're an artist. So stop trying to tell readers what they want to hear. Give them art.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 27/06/2026

This survey on AI use in book publishing is short, and unlike many AI-use surveys has options for stating a position against AI. I encourage authors, editors, illustrators, etc., including freelance and indie, to take a few minutes for it.

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Jennifer R. Povey (she/her) @ninjafingers.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

I have immediate availability for: Academic editing Copyediting for all types of fiction except extreme horror, religious fiction, and things containing a dialect I don't speak. Copyediting for general interest non-fiction (except religious). Line editing for science fiction, fantasy, and erotica.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 17/06/2026

For my editor friends, this sounds like a useful trick, though I haven't tried it myself yet. Moving wherever directory Word puts normal.dotm in to Dropbox may also work to help with recovering from Word deciding we no longer need all those fancy macros.

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Legacy Update @legacyupdate.net · 14/06/2026

Is the Microsoft Office Ribbon causing people to have fewer children? A provocative new working paper explores the persistent drop in birth rates since Office 2007 was introduced nearly two decades ago.

The top-left corner of Microsoft Word 2007, showing the ribbon.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 04/06/2026

New feed aggregating calls for papers, abstracts, and so forth. #cfp #academicsky bsky.app/profile/wes....

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Ann M. Lipton @annmlipton.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

not sure if everyone can access this, but I just learned about some dramatic changes to SSRN from Steve Bainbridge's Substack. This is really bad; SSRN has been how I keep up with scholarship in my field from a variety of researchers www.stephenbainbridge.com/p/the-social...

stephenbainbridge.com

The Social Science Research Network Has Jumped the Shark

Significant and unwelcome changes to what had been legal academia's major open source scholarly repository and notice system

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Cate Denial @cjdenial.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I've done a big update to the 'Against Generative AI' bibliography, including a link to today's papal encyclical. Enjoy! catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

catherinedenial.org

Against Generative AI – Cate Denial

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Carolina VonKampen 📚 Freelance Editor @carolinavonkampen.com · 20/05/2026

BIG NEWS!!! I’m starting #StetChat, an hourlong live conversation on Bluesky for the #editing community. Each chat focuses on a specific editing-related topic. ✅ Please go follow @stetchat.com !!!!!!! I wrote about why I wanted to start this project here: carolinavonkampen.com/starting-ste...

carolinavonkampen.com

Why I’m Starting #StetChat, a Bluesky Chat for Editors

I’m starting #StetChat, an hourlong live conversation on Bluesky for the editing community. Read why I'm starting it and how to join the chat.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 17/05/2026

I like this description of the so-called AI-writing detectors: they are "very good at detecting LLM usage, even when it's not there."

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 14/05/2026

Good thread on the dangers off LLM-based transcription products changing the meaning of historical documents. Earlier OCR tools make transcription errors, but they are generally misrecognitions rather than fabrications. The tool described here appears to recognize the text but then alters it.

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Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

"Based on the dataset you shared, US and UK responses differ mainly in tone, intensity, and wording style, even though they express similar emotional states" New post on what happened when I got Copilot to do some data analysis: kucharski.substack.com/p/real-signa...

kucharski.substack.com

Real signals or artificial stereotypes?

Adventures with a cultural Copilot

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Jonathon Owen @arrantpedantry.com · 04/05/2026

Side note: Despite what some people are saying in the comments, "car bumps into students" is not in the passive voice. It's a crappy headline for different reasons. Let's dig into why, starting with an explanation of what the passive voice actually is.

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Erin Brenner (she/her) @ebrenner.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Looking for editor training taught by editors? The By Editors, For Editors database is free, sharing info on grammar, business, specialty topics, and more. zurl.co/7jtAY #AmEditing #FreelanceEditing

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 06/04/2026

Boosting for the editors following me.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 02/04/2026

Sentiment analysis has been solved, y'all.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 30/03/2026

There's no reason to tack an LLM on this. You need a simple UI to build a list of include/exclude filters users can easily tweak as needed. (But wait, we already have tools that do that).

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 24/03/2026

This headline is getting a lot of attention here and it sounds scary, but it's also bullshit. The Treasury did not in fact declare the U.S. insolvent. It released the annual balance sheet that showed we have (quite) a lot of debt compared to assets. It's not the same thing. (1/3)

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Mark Hooper @markhooper.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

If you know anything about chess, this poster on Etsy is as funny as those fraudulent rat balls. www.etsy.com/au/listing/4... #chess #researchintegrity via u/MinuteRegular716

A mockup of an infographic poster that's supposed to show statistics and strategies in relation to chess openings. On close inspection, it's obviously AI nonsense. Squares are wrongly labelled. Arrows point in meaningless directions, and run contrary to how pieces actually move.

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Wendy Baldwin - Linguaverse @linguaverse.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I've just learned from Jennifer Yankopolus (of Macro of the Month) that I can make a custom tab in the MS Word ribbon just for key-but-lesser-used macros. And in the doing I found I can change the order of tabs, too. Exciting! #EditorHeaven #Edibuddies macroofthemonth.substack.com/p/macro-of-t...

macroofthemonth.substack.com

MaggyIt

Creates a Maggied version of a file

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 07/02/2026

Database of decisions/penalties in legal cases where "AI" was found to be used by either a litigator or a judge; does not count *All* cases of "AI" used in court filings, just those where it was a) found & b) officially remarked upon or penalized. Incredibly useful collection & arrangement of data:

damiencharlotin.com

AI Hallucination Cases Database – Damien Charlotin

Database tracking legal cases where generative AI produced hallucinated citations submitted in court filings.

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Esther Mondragón @e-mondragon.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

People using Chrome may want to know about this. To disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode in the search box below and disable the three options displayed.

An image showing a Chrome window to disable the new default AI mode. Type chrome://flags in your address bar. Search for AI mode and disable the three options displayed

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Caias Ward @caias.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Any freelance editors available that can be hired to help me chop 10k-15k out of a horror comedy novel? Got a *very* positive response from an agent but the length of the work is the issue (currently 110k on a horror/comedy, need to get closer to 90k-95k).

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 03/11/2025

This from 404 Media is inaccurate. The change at arXiv applies only to two types of CS papers, literature reviews and position papers, not original research. Those papers were already very limited by arXiv policy. blog.arxiv.org/2025/10/31/a...

blog.arxiv.org

Attention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category – arXiv blog

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Terence Eden @edent.tel · 10/10/2025

The layout of this paper is expert level trolling! journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl...

journals.uc.edu

View of Optimal Line Length in Reading — A Literature Review

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Eric Raglin @ericraglin1992.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Do I know any freelance editors who specialize in sci-fi horror? Someone asked me for recommendations, and I'd love to refer them to the right editor (which is unfortunately not me).

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Ema@TheClarityEditor @theclarityeditor.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

#Edibuddies I've made a new feed that loosely attempts to capture posts by editors & proofreaders for editors & proofreaders. If you follow the old one, please switch to this new feed. bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 18/09/2025

I'm usually somewhat "meh" about ToS panics, but this wording from academia .edu seems a bit beyond the pale. I just cancelled my (mainly unused) account there.

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Keenan Crane @keenancrane.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I got tired of mashing together tools to write long threads with 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 and ℳα†ℏ—so I wrote La𝑇𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡! It converts Markdown and LaTeX to Unicode that can be used in “tweets”, and automatically splits long threads. Try it out! keenancrane.github.io/LaTweet/

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APA Style @apastyle.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

How do you cite generative AI in #APAStyle? This week on the blog: updated guidance for citing ChatGPT, Gemini, and other generative AI tools! 🔗 apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-ge... #APA7 #AcademicWriting #CiteYourSources #CitingAI #CiteAI

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

UNLIMITED VELOCITY

One of the ways that LLM-authored code improves productivity is by merely SAYING it does things. It's way faster than the whole time-consuming process of actually doing things. This is real code someone sent to me for review.
A screenshot of a code editor. The line numbers are in the lefthand column, running from 121 to 125. There is a comment that says "Verify packages were created and check sizes" Then line 123 says echo Verifying Lambda packages were created... and Line 124 says echo checkmark emoji colon All Lambda packages verified successfully. There is no line in here that actually did anything.

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Wes Cowley @wes.wordsbywes.ink · 05/09/2025

#editors — here's something (else) coming from Microsoft to f'up our workflows.

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