iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 21/08/2026

We’re running some load test alphas for DCKO (“Server Slam”) and as the social systems designer, I feel like this is probably the nicest result I could hope to see from a PvP playtest.

A screenshot of a leaderboard from DCKO. On the right is a ranked list of player names and scores. Rank 69 is highlighted; that’s me. On the left are portraits of DC super heroes Starfire and Constantine. The event ends in 1
minute, and that was my final rank. Nice.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 31/07/2026

The food truck down the street is vibrating in sympathy.

A promotional image for a Curry Poutine offered by okamoto kitchen. A person wearing a food truck branded black tshirt is holding a basket of poutine made with Japanese curry.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 17/06/2026

They have a tequila futbol at Costco.

A ceramic vessel shaped and textured to resemble a red, white and blue soccer ball. It is displayed on a stack of boxes. It is full of tequila.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 29/05/2026

Wake up babe, new recession indicator just dropped.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 01/05/2026

Part of the magic of working a live event is how close it tumbles next to absolute catastrophe at all times. I feel like I used up a year worth of luck tonight as we caught a nearly invisible catastrophe 23 hours before opening night. Enough time to fix it, I hope. shstheatre.club

A photo of a device interface. An orange led is illuminated over an icon of a battery. Below it a simple readout shows Load: 7% Batt: 1%

It is a UPS that powers the DMX controller for our lighting system.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 18/03/2026

Post four fictional characters you relate to and let people assume things about you.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 15/03/2026

For my locals into Pokémon or Girl Scout cookies - we’re at the Snohomish Fred Meyer until 8 and have a little incentive - a raffle for a Mega Evolution Ascended Heroes ETB. If you’re not local and want to support an inclusive org, donate and DM me: digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/ila94024

A photo of a Girl Scout cookies booth with a box of Pokémon cards in the foreground sitting on a clear jar with a handmade pink sign that reads “Girl Scout x Pokémon Raffle”

A photo of the Pokémon Raffle rules.

• Winner gets a Pokemon Mega Evolution
Ascended Heroes Elite Trainer Box
• One Entry per Box of Cookies Purchased
• Contact info must be legible!
• Drawing at 7:30pm 3/15/2026, winner will be contacted and have 24 hours to claim. If no one claims, we'll draw again!

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 13/03/2026

I can’t get my pups to come back in!

A photo of a snowy hillside framed by a window: the perspective is of the photographer inside his office looking outside. On the hill are three dogs having a great time playing together. One dog is a small brown fluffball and the other two are a full-sized white Labrador and a black/brown German Shepherd.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 13/02/2026

Germany table at the elementary school’s “Global Community Night” going hard.

A display set up on a folding lunch table. Two tri-fold boards. The right-most with red text and yellow background says “Germany” with photos and descriptions of the country and its culture. More central is a more densely detailed board “Resistance against the Nazis” multiple books on nazis, Anne Frank, and ww2 are on the table.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 01/02/2026

Every night I go to bed and have to force my legs past the Labrador who sleeps there, where my legs go. I bet he wonders why I don’t just curl up into a nice circle like he does, and honestly, I wonder too.

Two dogs sleeping on a patchwork quilt, both curled into bagel shapes. The upper dog is a brown and black German Shepherd, the lower dog is a white Labrador retriever. In the upper right of the photo, you can see half of a large grey dog bed on the floor, but neither dog thinks they belong there.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 22/01/2026

If this isn’t political, I don’t know what is.

Screenshot of a header of an email from Nextdoor
Subject: *NOT POLITICAL* our neighbors were just taken by ICE.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 02/01/2026

Officially 2026. No more slacking!

Cover of a pamphlet titled “Service Unit Product Manager Guide” and subtitled “2026 Girl Scout Cookie Program”

The sobriquet “Mr Ben” is in the upper right corner

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 18/12/2025

Helping teach kids life skills. I volunteer at some schools and Girl Scouts and it feels really good to teach how to use a knife, or safely start a fire, use a power tool and so forth.

Four young girls are chopping vegetables on a folding table outdoors. They have tomatoes, avocados, lettuce and an onion.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 11/10/2025

My niece gave me this hat just in time for this game.

A selfie of the author, a scruffy middle aged white guy wearing a ball cap embroidered with “Go Sports”

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 28/07/2025

I know the US games industry has collapsed but LinkedIn, do you have to twist the knife?

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 14/07/2025

I should set a fence post every day before work. Feels good to build something real before logging in to make things virtual.

A pressure treated 4x4 set upright in fresh concrete. Tools and more boards are strewn around it on the ground. A bright pink line stretches between the post and a gate frame. Past it a wooden bridge stretches across a small ditch and more posts stretch up a gentle slope.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 03/05/2025

It’s opening weekend for the high school musical that I’ve been helping advise. I can’t help but contrast these kids with my own high school experience and be amazed at how far we’ve Come in 27 years (oh no). Yeah it’s rough right now but these kids have a safe space to make art and be themselves.

A photo of four actors silhouetted against a bright magenta backdrop. They may be recognizable as characters from a Disney channel made-for-tv movie.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 26/02/2025

Orbit Nayak is a great OC name.

Screenshot of the primary point of contact section with the name “Michael ‘Orbit’ Nayak, Ph. D.”

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 01/01/2025

2025, the bar is low. Let’s see what you can do.

A gold colored balloon emblazoned with a Happy New Year message. It is lying on a linoleum floor.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 20/10/2024

My biscuits were a little chaotic today, but still tasty.

A batch of biscuits (scones for the commonwealth) that went a little wild on the rise and started to spread out in a cthonic sprawl. Nice golden brown tops though.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 20/10/2024

Worried I have a cuckoo problem with my lemons.

A wire mesh hanging fruit basket with about 10 small lemons, and one very ripe delicata squash, larger than the lemons, but the same shade of yellow.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 20/08/2024

Describe your in-person social skills with an image

"They don't know meme" with loner in corner watching dancers at a party. Text reads "They don't know I'd love to forge a real, authentic bond with any of them but am stuck in a feedback loop of anxiety."

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 06/08/2024

Someone else has done this better, but as I'm getting ready for the Pig Farmers for Walz zoom call, I thought I better get this out there.

A poster image of Tim Walz, done in a pastiche of the Obama Hope poster, captioned "Ope".

Walz is wearing a Gopher's ballcap, and cradling a piglet in his arms as he smiles like a chibi cartoon.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 13/04/2024

When I saw who was working at possibility space I was tempted to join them. Then I saw who owned it; I have folks in my network still recovering from toxicity at undead 4 years later. Shipping good games is not worth destroying the best talent out there.

Screenshot of a message I sent to a friend in mid December 2023.

It reads: “So I don’t want to dig up old skeletons, but I had entertained the idea of talking with possibility.co for a hot second. Some of the secondary leadership folks they have are peeps who’s work I admire. But I know the actual leadership were Undead Labs and that you had a bad time with that, so that gave me pause. Anyways, I saw a few months their art director (Jane Ng) left, and now their game director (Liz England) posted she left and for a studio that’s been working on something for at least 3 years and hasn’t announced anything yet to be shedding leadership talent definitely seems like red flags. So thanks I guess for warning me indirectly!”

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 03/04/2024

Midwinter is in the same building as Bellevue’s Tesla office and there is one parked outside all the time. Our head of QA caught this photo after a heavy rainstorm last week.

A cybertruck strapped on the bed of a tow truck in a nondescript parking lot.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 09/02/2024

“Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’"

Screenshot of a headline from Slate “Will Barron Trump Ever Stop Growing?” With accompanying photo-illustration showing full-color Barron head-and-shoulders above other members of his (greyscale) family and a graphic evoking a ruler.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 24/01/2024

tell me where you were born using just one image of food (its not chicago, so maybe this is bad, but I can't think of a better one)

A deep dish pizza, golden crust, with a swirl of green pesto laid on top of a solid layer of chunky tomato sauce.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 23/12/2023

Sarah got into the duck food.

A large pig with its head in a galvanized steel can, animal feed bags strewn around.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 02/09/2023

So you are saying that if I buy a Trans Resist flag and a rainbow pride flag, I can get a Trump 2024 flag for free?!?!

A display of flags for sale at a fair booth with a “buy 2 get 1 free” sign. Alt-right symbols flown next to pride flags.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 20/08/2023

Watching this slug in the fire pit slowly cruise towards the fire that will be its undoing, and if that isn’t the human condition summed up.

A large slug creeping over the ashes in a fire pit towards a large, active campfire.

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Ben 🦇🥌 @ben.batst.one · 15/08/2023

I had a positive association with refugees before I even knew what they were. Art is always political.

Cover for Wyclef Jean’s solo album “The Carnival” featuring the artist, a slender black man, in a spotless white suit and a black fedora on front of a crumbling concrete wall.

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