iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 06/10/2026

... "the best path can't be seen from our vantage point. only after we reach the destination will we be able to optimize the path." I feel like a zen master who knows the student is smarter so I have to pull out some wicked koans.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 06/10/2026

Talking to Claude on it's level. we'll see how it goes: > Do not prematurely optimize here. I would rather start with too many options and derivations than collapse on one "pretty good solution" that misses the whole point.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 02/10/2026

And microwave ovens! Sure microwaves are cool and strange, but there would be no “oven” without the dielectric jitters in water molecules.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 25/08/2026

At Thriftbooks, “Acceptable” means “premium time-traveling experience.”

Physical copy of Sherry Turkle’s The Second Self. Resting on the cover is an insert, printed black and white, old school clip art. “Rent A Mac,” it says. “As low as $62 Per Month!*” picture of college student w backpack. It the bottom right, what looks like a Macintosh Plus? And a box of software called WriteNow.

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Andrés Cuervo @cwervo.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

pondering which language to pick at my new doctor’s office

Preferred language menu: Egyptian (Ancient); Ekajuk; Elamite; English; English, Middle (1100 - 1500), English, Old (ca. 450-1100)

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 22/08/2026

made it to @atproto.nyc community day 2026 [eivmuxfs] #atprotonyc

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 20/08/2026

Some prototyping pals had similar idea, inverted. Each pal streams a small portion of their desk or table. Just large enough for a book or two, a nice message, or whatever floats your boat. Streams a shared scrapbook site. I still want to try it. @benetou.fr

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 14/08/2026

I have always felt this way. And Speed Racer was a good movie.

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folkcomputer.bsky.social @folkcomputer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

From audreygu.io on the @folkcomputer.bsky.social Discord: > i experimented with a few configurations of the interface, like some where the pages are decoupled from the view, but i found the direct manipulation of a projection on a single object to be the most compelling

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grant @grantcuster.com · 27/07/2026

Trying out canvas-based paragraph reordering pared with a live document preview.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 11/06/2026

True = true It = it It = True

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 23/03/2026

N.O.M.A.D. could be my Xanadu, but Wildlife Treasury will always be my Rosebud.

Plastic green toolbox for storing cards with photos (or illustrations) of animals on the front. Animal facts on the back. The cards were roughly Polaroid-sized.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 18/03/2026

Thanks @benetou.fr! Here’s the catalyst, from the book Cartographies of Time. Beautiful work.

Book cover for “Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline”

Img of text that reads: In works such as his 2001 Atlas of Movements, a kind of flow chart made with pencil, paper, and scissors, the Belgian artist Christoph Fink takes landscape art in a new direction.
Fink's graphically improvisational works—whether paper charts, ceramic sculptures, or wire frames—are projections of his minutely recorded voyages around the world. His geographies are so precise as to be evanescing: in his universe, no space exists outside of time.

Close up of stiff paper about the width of a nail file (guessing), wound like a spring and intersected by perpendicular lines. The curved paper strands contain microtext- likely dates and locations. There are dark blobs with meandering tails that travel with the text. Perhaps a kind of data viz like Tufte’s spark lines. In the whole, it looks like a paper black hole swirling with scribal markings. Tycho Brahe would’ve loved it.

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enclose.horse @enclose.horse · 16/03/2026

For the pinned post 🐴 Check out our simple puzzle game! Try to enclose the horse in the largest possible area with limited walls. To support the game, give this a repost!

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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.” That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.

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Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 01/12/2025

To Opus 4.5: "Artifact, no react, with an interactive explainer of how octaves work - should include buttons to press to make sounds and frequency visualizations, make the design minimal, but have a lot of subtle puns" tools.simonwillison.net/octave-expla...

tools.simonwillison.net

The Octave — A Sound Relationship

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 30/11/2025

From BBC, an innocuous still from a new TV show. The show is about a brain getting hacked but image has hacked my brain. In the right corner, optical illusion or gen AI outcropping slop? If the show is about ai slop dripping into real life, bravo.

Man running inside subway car toward camera. Closer to the camera (facing away from us) is an impossibly small (grown) man (?) in flannel jacket grasping the leg of a much larger woman (side view).

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 27/11/2025

Oh good, it’s back now.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 24/11/2025

Can’t download @wnyc? Is anyone else having this problem?

Screenshot of an Apple notification on my phone that says:
Unable to install “WNYC”
The app is longer available in the App Store

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 29/10/2025

And it will have to choose: the red pill or the blue pill?

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 23/10/2025

Hot take: Bezos wants robots to do the job, not borgs. The glasses are collecting training data. Dark Mirror-esque employee surveillance is just icing on the fast fascism cake.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 11/10/2025

My dad taught me that my bosses are not my friends. I didn’t believe it at first but it’s been proven true. Be careful who you open up to.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 13/08/2025

Sandwich guy beats taco guy

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 17/06/2025

Not to make light of any of this, but has anyone seen I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson?

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Utopiah @benetou.fr · 05/06/2025

Closing the loop, paper prototyping the AR prototyping on the prototyping architecture.

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Utopiah @benetou.fr · 03/06/2025

Prototyping software architecture in actual Lego, let's see if it's just cute or actually help.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 03/06/2025

Hype Cycle: a show that covers exciting new technology, tool, or method. They trip out on capabilities and potential applications - then find cracks and inevitably talk themselves out of it. Every episode.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 28/05/2025

It does. A big scroll is a nice change.

Big roll of butcher paper stretched across a desk. Sloppy notes all over.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 23/05/2025

Interesting! The associations slide around for me but there’s always a local logic. C&D seem like jocks sometimes. N has their shit together more than M. U is part of the bureaucracy but W is detached from the charade. W will make it to the Olympics someday.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 23/05/2025

RST are for sure the seniors. I always think of MN as the threshold. Can’t explain it. XYZ - freaks. GHJ - brats. Into sports but not especially good at sports. KI - geeks, probably. E - who knows. A genius.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 31/03/2025

This is the canvas model I’ve been wanting to see for years. There is a ton of latent design space. Very inspired to see this!

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 24/03/2025

If the Apple Watch gets a camera, it would be cool (though probably impractical) to have it on the wristband somehow. I don’t use the phone camera much, but I would use a wrist cam all the time.

Loose pencil sketches of tiny camera on the wristband buckle. Looks like a friendly cyclops.

Sketch of person clicking watch screen with free hand. The other arm (with the watch) is raised and rotated, as if shielding the person’s eyes from a phantasmagoric cacopoly of failing systems (gurgling and dissolving and getting closer) while, in the middle of it all, a dog sits in a chair and drinks coffee. This is the photo.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 20/03/2025

To be fair, whenever I see “lawmaker” I hear “lawn maker.”

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 13/03/2025

Exactly. Reacher (the show) makes The Accountant look good. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were related.

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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 02/03/2025

You should know that a big part of 18F's work was to make sure multi-million to multi-*hundreds*-of-millions dollar contracts at fed *and* state level didn't go to shitty enterprise IT consultancies that *repeatedly* delivered tech that didn't work, was late, or didn't even do what it needed to

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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

former colleagues from 18F have asked me to share this open letter widely - please pass on 🙏 🇺🇸 💻💪 18f.org

18f.org

We're not done yet | 18F

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Manuel Matuzović @matuzo.at · 27/02/2025

Let’s play a game. I’ll hide a button using different techniques in HTML and CSS, and you have to guess whether it’s still focusable. matuzo.at/blog/2025/is...

matuzo.at

Is the button focusable? - Manuel Matuzovic

I'm a frontend developer in Graz, specialized in HTML, accessibility, and CSS layout and architecture.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 26/02/2025

According to a WaPo article Luke Farritor is manually blocking @altusaid.bsky.social HIV/AIDS care funds in violation of court orders. Paused/stopped HIV treatment means more babies born with HIV, more infections, and more deaths. Let him know your thoughts. ax28@cdc.gov Luke.Farritor@hhs.gov

Rubio had decreed that certain critical programs – such as aid to Ukraine and Syria and costs related to the PEPFAR program to combat HIV in Africa – would continue to be funded. Several times, USAID managers prepared packages of these payments and got the agency’s interim leaders to sign off on them with support from the White House.

But each time, using their new gatekeeping powers and clearly acting on orders from Musk or one of his lieutenants, Farritor and Kliger would veto the payments – a process that required them to manually check boxes in the payment system one at a time, the same tedious way you probably pay your bills online. Meanwhile, AIDS clinics shuttered and staff found themselves stranded in unstable countries such as the Congo. A pregnant woman in an undisclosed country has sued the Trump administration because she was denied a medevac helicopter. In another case, I was told, an employee in southern Africa who needed chemotherapy was also denied a chopper because no one would authorize the money.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 24/02/2025

Dillinger’s Escape Plan

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 21/02/2025

A Thousand Years of Nonlinear Pizza

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 19/02/2025

What if Trump and Musk are Wallfacers?

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 30/03/2024

Big data is the new oil => synthetic data is the olestra.

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Alan @alanlaidlaw.com · 27/02/2023

“…Lead us not into local maxima, and deliver us from priors” “…let us forgive those that have backpropped against us.” This is destined to be new corporate wall art.

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