iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 19/08/2026

This is really fun. A tech company has vending machines that dispense IT supplies and peripherals for its employees.

A vending machine with computer dongles, power supplies, keyboards and mice

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 19/08/2026

I recently spotted this cool sticker vending machine at Win Son bakery. It was surprisingly popular!

Mechanical vending machine on a stand next to a counter in a cafe.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 19/08/2026

I'm not done! Sunshine Laundromat with a reliably strange selection.

Vending machine with regular snacks as well as pregnancy tests, paternity tests, lots of items erroneously labeled "bacon" with a sticker.

Closeup of vending machine with pregnancy tests, paternity tests, lots of items erroneously labeled "bacon" with a sticker.

Closeup of vending machine with astroglide, one dollar bill for $2.00. several items erroneously labeled "bacon" with a sticker.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/08/2026

The NYPL's Stavros branch had this Short Story Dispenser on the 5th floor.

Photo of a small podium in a library labeled "short story dispenser" with two buttons and a slot below.

Photo of a short story printed on receipt-style paper.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/08/2026

Dutch Kills in Long Island City has this little take-a-number machine. Complete with custom-designed tickets. It makes a very startling *ding!* sound when you hit the lever.

A vintage take-a-number machine sitting on a wooden surface.

Ticket from take-a-number machine with Dutch Kills branding.

Front of ticket from take-a-number machine with Dutch Kills branding

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/08/2026

The Brooklyn Public Library in Greenpoint has a machine that dispenses free tampons and pads

A white wall-mounted mechanical vending machine with small diagrams for tampons and pads, "free" printed where the price would be, and a button for dispensing.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/08/2026

Here's a closeup -- the Alf trading cards are killing me

Close-up of items in the vending machine. Tire tubes, assorted bike things, and Alf trading cards.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/08/2026

Ok, moving on to NYC: This machine on the street in Bushwick primarily services bicyclists with tubes and parts (and Red Bull).

Photo of a vending machine on a street selling bicycle parts.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

This machine at a church in Rome would play an audio recording over the two attached handsets. (IIRC a prayer or blessing)

Photo of a coin-operated machine in front of a stone column with two attached handsets.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

At a parking garage in Pisa, Italy I picked up one of these little city maps. Widespread use of $1+ coins in the U.S. would be great for things like this.

A tall skinny vending machine that dispenses maps.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

At the Jewish Museum in Berlin, kosher gummy bears

A wall-mounted vending machine with two columns small compartments with drop-down doors.

Close-up of gummy bear packages in vending machine drawers.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

In the Berlin Staatsbibliotek (state library), everything you need for a research session: clear bags (library policy), locks (for lockers), highlighters, notebooks, Stabilo pens, and more.

Close up of vending machine with pens, highlighters, notebooks, and clear tote bags for sale.

Vending machine with pens, highlighters, notebooks, and clear tote bags for sale.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

In the Berlin subway: books available as well as snacks to pass the time. "Bored on the train? Dive in!" the machine beckons

Vending machine on a subway platform half-filled with books and half with snacks.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

Also at Sam's Town: A vending machine that only sells those ink dabbers for bingo

A photo of a vending machine with various colored dabbers for marking bingo cards.

A closeup photo various colored dabbers for marking bingo cards in a vending machine

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 07/08/2026

🧵 of weird vending machines I've run into. Starting with: The sock vending machine at the Sam's Town bowling cener in Las Vegas.

Photo of a vending machine with socks instead of snacks. The words "Socks & Stuff" printed at the bottom.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 03/08/2026

Yeahhhh it's definitely just missing data. The Department of Finance site shows sales and tax history. I might work through @beta.nyc to get more background.

Screenshot of propertyinformationportal.nyc.gov for 164A Lefferts Place with sales history.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 03/08/2026

An interesting/puzzling find: 671 parcels in NYC that according to public data... do not have owners!? Dan Lu (holistudio.github.io) came across this recently. The "Owner" field on NYC Planning's site is also missing.

Screenshot of a SQL database query and result.

Screenshot of a SQL database query and results for missing "ownername" value

Screenshot of zola.planning.nyc.gov page for 164A Lefferts Place, which lists no owner.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 01/08/2026

I did not know the @mta.info displays ran Ubuntu!

Subway interior. Screen with error message displayed where advertising normally appears.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 20/07/2026

This view of the East Village is really cool

Aerial image of the East Village of NYC with Stuyvesant Town apartment buildings, ball field, and ConEd plant

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 03/07/2026

I also want a shirt with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant logo. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_I...

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 03/07/2026

Dope mission patches joidesresolution.org/expeditions/

4 round mission patches with volcanic and oceanic imagery

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 23/06/2026

By far the best placard I've seen in NYC. Potentially the only acceptable one. paging @placardabuse.bsky.social

A parked car with a handwritten sign in the window that says "Peanuts Lady"

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 03/06/2026

Agreed, it was super cool. Here's @ecalifornica.bsky.social talking about ATProto and @outerweb.org

Photo of a speaker with a microphone and a partially-visible projected slide.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 20/05/2026

Both of these banks across the street from each other in Fort Greene have a handful of parking spaces. It's a surprising use of space. I don't know how to find parking spaces like this in existing NYC data sets, but I'd like to map out this kind of surface parking. (430 Myrtle & 164 Clinton Ave)

Street view image of an intersection in Brooklyn, NY. Two banks are on the ground floor of two buildings on opposing sides of the street. Both have about 4 parking spaces.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 10/04/2026

Watching this adorable video of a sleeper bus trip through Japan I did not expect the creator to apologize for their "fat feet". www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1sx...

Screenshot of a woman with feet up on a footrest in a bus with the subtitle "Raises footrests"

Screenshot of a woman with feet up on a footrest in a bus with the subtitle "Sorry for my fat feet"

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 04/03/2026

McMaster-Carr catalog in HAMLET (2000)

Still capture from a movie. Two actors (Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles) in front of a bookcase. A large yellow catalog with "McMaster" lettering on the spine can be seen on the bookcase.

Detail from a movie capture. The actor Julia Stiles in front of a bookcase. A large yellow catalog with "McMaster" lettering on the spine can be seen on the bookcase.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 12/02/2026

The Cayman Islands turtle is just charming. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of...

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 12/02/2026

The Republic of Botswana Zebras go hard. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of...

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 12/02/2026

The Turks and Caicos flamingos and pelican are a little chaotic, but fun en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of...

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 12/02/2026

Awesome coats of arms (of countries) that feature animals: The Anguilla dolphins are my favorite so far. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of...

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 24/01/2026

Just ran across this metal band logo map/visualization: renecutura.eu/metalvis/

Screenshot of https://renecutura.eu/metalvis/

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 17/12/2025

Ah, but www.honda.com is fine.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 17/12/2025

Random, but kind of interesting that honda.com has an expired TLS cert

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 12/11/2025

I just ran across these old screenshots of an oooooold site I made that scanned the WSJ twitter feed for company names and paired them with company logos.

Screenshot of a site showing company logos next to news headlines that mention the company.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 17/10/2025

Forbes has this nice list of the largest private companies along with logos. I'm hung up on the semiotic(?) value of logos. They're a shorthand for a company.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 02/10/2025

Why do this? I'm not entirely sure... I've been interested in using logos to communicate/represent companies. For example, this political bias chart that uses the logos of media outlets to represent them. app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/intera...

A screenshot from https://app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive that shows logos of different media outlets in a chart format.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 02/10/2025

But at the end of the day I have a working font!

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 02/10/2025

I pulled the swoosh graphic from Wikipedia and loaded it into FontForge. Those paths weren't perfect and I had to click around a little to fix them.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 02/10/2025

A while back I had the idea to create a font of logos of the companies in the Fortune 500. I dug into it to see how hard it would be and... have a font with a single logo.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 20/09/2025

TIL the ampersand symbol evolved from the Latin word "et" (means "and"). You can still kind of see the "e" and "t" combined in it. Here's the modern symbol next to an older "et" ligature. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand

Modern ampersand (&) symbol next to an older handwritten "et" ligature.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 29/08/2025

Just out here visiting landmarks in lidar mode

A lidar scan of the oculus building in lower manhattan.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 27/08/2025

Sweet, there are LIDAR scans of NYC I accidentally hit the backtick key while playing around on roadview.planninglabs.nyc/view/-73.988... and BOOM, LIDAR. No idea what to do with this, but it's cool.

Lidar scan of the flatiron building in NYC, view from the street.

Streetview of the flatiron building as a normal photo, from the exact same vantage point as the lidar scan.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 24/08/2025

And it looks great. Next step: vectorize with Illustrator.

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Adrian Parsons @adrianparsons.com · 24/08/2025

I kind of got obsessed with tracking down this cool logo I saw as a kid at the Deutsches Museum in Bonn, Germany. I remembered the two figures floating in front of a sea of buttons, switches, and other computer-y things.

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