iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I don't think there's any way an LLM could come up with this kind of friendship beef.

The classic "Friendship ended with Mudasir, now Salman is my best friend" terrible photoshop from approximately 2001.

reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's not surprising that I speak most like the place I've lived for 28 years. It's a little more surprising that I speak least like the place I grew up. My parents weren't from there so I never picked up a strong or permanent accent, I guess, but I also don't speak like where they're from.

Results from the MyDialect quiz, with a US Map with red radiating out of California (most similar) and all of the area east of the Rockies in various shades of blue, with the darkest blue in the deep south, Maine, and the Dakotas. I've lived in San Francisco for decades but grew up in Alabama, raised by one parent from Kansas and another from upstate New York.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Work has been so nuts this year that my progress has been really slow, but I finally passed the 50% mark on this thing, woo! The feathery leaves were murder but look really good. This is how I destress from work, and work has been too crazy for the destressing activity, so that's been fun.

Large, in progress counted cross-stitch project with parked threads hanging off it. The part that's visible in this part of the scroll frame is two smaller yellow poppies and one enormous red one.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I'm pretty pessimistic by nature, so I'm a bit surprised by the low doomer score, but otherwise this seems about right. britmonkey.com/2020s-politi...

The results of a political compass quiz that scores me as 78% woke / 22% chud, 50% each techbro and neo-luddite, 63% hopepilled / 37% doomer, and 80% Davos / 20% Dubai.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Booyah! Someone brought Indian snacks into the office today.

A small paper bowl with a variety of Indian snacks in it.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Have nonpartisan jungle primaries, they said. The result will be electoral nirvana, they said.

The 2026 California gubernatorial primary ballot, which has about 300 candidates on it, most of them obscure whackjobs.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I feel like Wilco answered this question a long time ago but that Jeff Tweedy and Kaiser Permanente probably have really different takes.

Screenshot of a subject line from a Kaiser Permanente member advice email that includes the words "how to fight loneliness."

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Cross-stitching keeps me from murdering people at work and is an excellent thing to do while watching TV.

A partially-completed cross-stitch project of an Art Nouveau-style floral panel with decorative designs, a panel of moths and flowers, and red and yellow poppies, plus a million attached threads on bobbins and needles because I park like a maniac.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Okay, evidence is pointing to me being a spreadsheet weirdo. (In my defense, I've had archives disappear on me before and tend to save stuff. It's hard to navigate a bunch of saved PDFs and ePUBs without some type of key.)

Screenshot of three lines of my possibly overly obsessive fanfic tracking spreadsheet.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

I was somewhat derailed from admiring the adorable baby bats by learning that Australia doesn't just have ticks, it has paralysis ticks. PARALYSIS TICKS.

Map of Australia where the land is all green and the ocean is blue. The map legend says that the green area is "Areas where things on land can kill you" and the blue is "Areas where things in the sea can kill you."

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

There's a similar issue with Japan (compounded by the opposite-side driving).

Meme of two men arguing, with Japanese subtitles. One is urging the other to buy American cars, regardless of tariffs, and the other is arguing back repeatedly that they're just too big.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

Yes! The enclosed design is bonkers for an urban shopping center. And it's also a stressful driving experience because it's surrounded on 3 sides by one-way streets, one of which is the outlet of a freeway offramp, and the parking garage is cramped, narrow, and hard to turn in.

Satellite view of the 555 9th St. shopping center in San Francisco, showing a two-story, three-sided shopping center that faces inward towards the parking, and is surrounded on all sides by multi-lane streets one of which is the outlet to a freeway offramp.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

One of the reasons I like this one is that I can apply it to so many situations at work.

A Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson that shows firemen holding a device for catching jumping people at ground level between two burning high-rises. A woman who has clearly jumped from the building on the left is shown being bounced from the device and disappearing into one of the windows of the building on the right.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

I just got served this ad and it's time to dive down a hole and then pull the opening of the hole in after me. I am going to have nightmares for DAYS.

An ad with four pictures of cat-related apparel. It starts out innocently enough, if very tackily, with two pink sweater dresses that have textured flowers on the sleeves, shoulders, and around the giant fluffy cats that occupy most of the torso. But things to really off the rails with the leggings on the bottom, which are also covered with textured flower motifs and as well as two extremely haunted cat heads/faces staring at you from the tops of the thighs like they are going to visit you in the night to eat your dreams through your eye sockets. The designs are 3D, which makes it all extra-disturbing.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

IANAL but it feels like we're well into this territory:

Lionel Hutz, the ambulance chasing lawyer from The Simpsons, telling the judge, "I move for a bad court thingy."

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

If you see this, I implore you to post a pic from your device without context.

A picture of a very nice dog sitting to a campaign-style lawn sign that says "Thor Michaelson says NO to vacuums. They're loud and they freak him out."

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Do they even make F-150s that drive on the left side? Anyway:

The arguing handlebar mustache guy meme, this time with the argument being about American cars in Japan. "Buy American cars!" "No, they're huge!" "The tariffs are too high!" "Doesn't matter, they're still huge!" "And the non-tariff barriers!" "No! They're just too big!" "Just buy them already!" "I said they're way too big!!!!"

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

"Seraphin, himself fairly prolific on Twitter, told me that he thought Patel’s social media activity was not just unprecedented for an FBI director but 'really thirsty and desperate.'"

A picture of the "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a point" guy.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice In Chains

Yo La Tengo's I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One album cover

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

This was in my mailbox yesterday. The campaign has already started. Republicans are going to fund in the background and let the idealistic good government types make the case. Normally I would agree with these arguments, but we passed normal in about 2016. Hopefully a lot of motivated voters agree.

One side of an election mailer urging voters to vote No on California redistricting, with blurbs from various progressive and good government useful idiots and disclosure information about funding from Protect Voters First.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Idli sambar for breakfast today, hooray! Thank goodness for the idli batter at the Indian grocery story, because I can't grind and ferment my own to save my life. (South Indian co-workers always make a diplomatic not-pity face at me when I admit this.)

A bowl containing a soupy mixture of vegetables and lentils, red-colored from spices and tomatoes, with three round idli dumplings half-submerged.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

I was so offended by the lame mapo tofu served at the office cafeteria last week that I made my own this weekend (vegetarian version). A+, outstanding leftovers.

Mapo tofu in a pan - chunks of tofu in a red sauce with green onion tops.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

There are businesses in Northern California that will bring out a herd of goats to graze down the brush on your hillside. I took this last week at my office park, which abuts open hills. They're great on rocky, steep terrain where mechanical equipment won't work.

A herd of goats of many different colors grazing on a steep hillside. The ones in the foreground are also going for all of the tree leaves within reach.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

There's a big herd of goats eating down the brush on the hillside above the office park today. ❤️

A herd of male and female goats of all colors and sizes on a hillside, fenced in by temporary fencing, chewing down on the high grass in the entire area and the reachable leaves of the trees in the foreground.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

The best sign of this spring so far for me has been the discovery that it's mating season for the resident wild turkey flock at my office park, which borders on some wild hills. Look at this magnificent guy!

A magnificent turkey tom puffed up and spreading all of his dressy feathers in the shade of a tree.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

In other news, it is apparently turkey mating season at the office park. At least someone's having fun.

A wild turkey tom in a patch of shade under a tree, puffed up to the nines and displaying a fully fanned tail and magnificently extended wing feathers.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Oh my god you guys, Susan Collins is Concerned! Yes she's a Yes on Russel Vought, so, you know. Not THAT concerned.

The Susan Collins scale of concern, which goes from green (not concerned) to green-yellow (mildly concerned) to yellow (moderately concerned) to yellow-orange (severely concerned) to orange (troubled) to red (disappointed).

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

According to this sign, people are feeding them sugar cubes?

A coyote alert sign warning passersby to not feed coyotes, keep dogs on leashes, and keep distance. The warning against feeding features an open hand scattering cube-shaped objects.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

There was a large flock of wild turkeys at the office park today. Seasonal!

A strip of grass between a parking lot and the side of an office building,, with about 9 wild turkeys pecking at the grass in various places.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 29/09/2024

That's awesome! A neighbor did this to their bushes last Halloween and it reminds me of the red furry monster from the Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Two wide tree-bushes that have grown together at the top, standing in front of a house. The trunks of the bushes look like legs, and the grown-together tops make a wide body. Someone has put a pair of large eyeballs in the center of the body so that the whole thing looks a bit like a monster.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 29/09/2024

Bento of the week: Chicken Thigh* Teriyaki Bento Chicken thigh* teriyaki, sweet omelet, salt-grilled shishito peppers, shibazuke, kombu tsukudani Source: 和食屋の和弁当・笠原将弘 Grade: B+ #bentolife

Rectangular bento box with rounded corners, with sliced teriyaki chicken on one side, omelet in the middle, and shishito peppers, shibazuke, and kombu tsukudani in the other end, and rice underneath everything.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 22/09/2024

Bento of the week: Marinated Fried Yellowtail* Bento Marinated fried swordfish, sesame-dressed green beans, sweet potato mixed-grain rice Source: てんきち母ちゃんちのお弁当・井上かなえ Grade: A- #bentolife * I substituted swordfish, which is easier for me to get.

Round wooden bento box with mixed-grain rice dotted with chunks of sweet potato in one half, with pieces of marinated fried swordfish and sesame-dressed green beans in separate areas of the other half.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 19/09/2024

Without downloading a new pic, where are you now mentally?

An expanse of grass along a roadside, the kind where people normally stake political signs, with a leashed dog in the foreground sitting next tod a campaign-style sign that says "Thor Michaelson says NO to vacuums. They're loud and they freak him out."

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 14/09/2024

Bento of the week: Miso Salmon Bento Miso salmon, broccoli rabe in sesame oil with carrot flowers, sesame rice, red pickled ginger Grade: B+ #bentolife

Oval wooden traditional bento box with a slice of miso salmon laid across it at an angle, rice mixed with sesame seeds and topped with a little pile of red pickled ginger on one side, and broccoli rabe and carrot flowers on the other.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

According to Google photos, we are at the 4-year anniversary of Orange Day in San Francisco. I took this at about 10:30 in the morning.

A picture of nearby yards and houses and distant hills, with a hazy, dark orange sky. Lights are on in all the houses.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

I just joined and mine already seems unhappy with me. So much pressure!

Frowning Duolingo owl under an icon for an unbroken two-day streak.

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reading through the darkness @ardentreader.bsky.social · 15/08/2024

Bento of the week: Lotus Root Burger Bento Lotus root burgers, teriyaki scallops, marinated asparagus Source: Effortless Bento Grade B- #bentolife

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