iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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GP @mousefountain.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Go and appreciate some art today. Look at all the little details they put there for you.

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Olivia Sullivan @zebko.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Damp green

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Leena 🌵 @leena.reuben.games · 30/06/2026

They also, as in Australia, want to hide and launder the atrocities against Palestine. It’s the only place you can hear Palestinian voices.

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

when folks say that manual procedural generation work is not the same as generative AI, this is what we mean. it's all just humans making artistic decisions, even if it is generated. it's more often than not a highly manual process as detail oriented as when i'm manually making environments.

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Thomas Ragon @thomasragon.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Mœbius, 2001

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

It’s so nice that moss season is back

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Polyducks @polyducks.co.uk · 26/04/2026

Just added another 152 images to my dinosaur collection. It even has some of the bigger ones! polyducks.neocities.org/shrines/dino... #dinosaur #toys #indieweb

polyducks.neocities.org

Dino Collection

Polyducks' collection of plastic dinosaurs

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loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

if you appreciate my art, design, procedural, or experimental work, or design analysis, please consider supporting me or reposting! i'm /extremely/ good at living frugally but i would like to eat better and get a new computer. i'm aiming to get to $1000 a month. www.patreon.com/vacuumflowers

a spread of 16x16, 2 color characters from the post-jam version of my 7drl project. various oracles and mystical beings, some people disguised as devils, some skeletons, a grave digger.

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loren @ribo.zone · 25/01/2026

added a page with scans of the original sketches

meewillis.neocities.org

Plant Grid Concept Art

plant clade sketches

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

FWIW, the jury is still out on Gen AI being good at text summaries. Because it shortens & emphasizes text based on distribution, not meaning, it’s less of a summary (ie, salient points highlighted) than a compression (ie, the most frequently asserted terms in the distribution). Not the same thing!

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Fran @sydmus.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Lynda Barry (2016)

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

Welp, I got the age verification thing. Not sure if I'll end up sharing my data with this third-party provider. Feel free to follow me on the fediverse via the link on my profile.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 21/11/2025

It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick. Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.

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bea @frogappreciator.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

procedural environments

checkerboard cliffs with pink/purple water/sky

dark pool of slime surrounded by stone, black spire, mauve sky

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videogame history @vghistory.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

rollercoaster tycoon, unfinished build, pc (1996) tcrf.net/File:RCT-Ear...

blue and purple isometric landscape with placeholder graphics for rollercoasters and attendees of the park. there is a grey box on screen with red header strip 'test string 2'. the user interface within the grey box only contains zoom in and zoom out functions.

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Nexxtic (Selaco Lead Dev) @selaco.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Embrace your shitty MS Paint skills and stop using AI for your placeholders.

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Leftover woman @rosactrl.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

I looooooove this trend of talking about computers and computing as a cute things. When I was a teenager computers where boys’ stuff and that sucked

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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Other work of the Ladybird artists ‘Village in Summer’ Travel poster by artist SR Badmin

A rather stylised image in warm tones looking down onto the roofs of a small, compact village on a hill, dominated by a church with a tower under a bright blue sky with stylised clouds

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Cohen is a Ghost @skullmandible.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

the brain that can see a face in a wall outlet was always doomed to hear the voice of God in a markov chain

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Molly White @molly.wiki · 31/07/2025

Newsletter: In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder. Here’s how to use RSS. www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-...

citationneeded.news

Curate your own newspaper with RSS

Escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read

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utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 30/07/2025

most industries have failed to communicate, especially in light of the USA eviscerating funding, is that science and engineering is not something you can just “discover” and “learn” once but, instead, they require steady application and continuous support over time or else you risk losing it.

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innes mck @innes.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

the thing about "move fast and break things" is that not breaking things is often quite a lot faster

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Moss from this morning. Had to rescue some clumps that had been kicked up and flipped upside down!

A clump of dew-laden moss with grass, twigs and some leaves on top. It looks green and healthy.

Various textures of moss with tiny droplets of dew beaded on it. Tufts of grass are sprouting through it.

Rounded clumps of moss that look like rolling hills or clouds. You desperately want to pet it, but it's probably best to leave it be.

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Jack Rusher @jackrusher.com · 27/06/2025

It’s a special kind of sadness seeing the entire genre of art made with computers that I have been pursuing since the 70s ruined by AI slop. I have never been less motivated to share new work in my life. 😿

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Ninn @bleu-capsicum.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Reports of things I’d really really like to see in person

Digital painting of a group of many red lightning bolts in a starry night sky.

Image description
Digital painting of a blue sky with the sun encircled by many halos and arcs.

Digital painting of many pouch-like clouds stacked against one another. They are tinted bright orange, pink and purple in a sunset lighting.

Digital painting of a night sky filled with an aurora, streaks of bright pink, pastel green, lilac and purple that span the whole frame. There are stars coming through the colours. There is a dark field of grass in the foreground.

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Got up early today to look at the moss!

A landscape of moss on the side of the path, with a beam of morning light highlighting it from behind.

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I’ve added an example of recovering from type errors during type checking to my language garden: github.com/brendanzab/l.... Unlike exception-based approaches to type checking, this allows checking to continue after an error has been reported, which is important for real-world implementations.

github.com

language-garden/elab-stlc-error-recovery at main · brendanzab/language-garden

A garden of small programming language implementations 🪴 - brendanzab/language-garden

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Frank McSherry @frankmcsherry.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

A new blog post on an interactive Datalog in Rust! Early days, but 1. nice and interactive, and 2. not less performant than my prior attempt (datafrog) when you use strings as the literal type (vs u32). More to come, as it's partially meant as a playground for me. github.com/frankmcsherr...

github.com

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invertebrate @crevicedwelling.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

literal dream home

a hole in a mossy brick wall with a little flowering plant growing out of it

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Just want to say I’m so incredibly grateful for all the academics writing cool papers, and giving interesting talks and contributing to our shared body of knowledge. Thanks so much, I’ve learned a huge amount from you!

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

I recently added an extension to my previous implementation of elaboration for higher rank types to my language garden: github.com/brendanzab/l... This adds support for unification, allowing you to leave off more type annotations and omit explicit type applications. I hope it helps somebody!

github.com

language-garden/elab-system-f-unification at main · brendanzab/language-garden

A garden of small programming language implementations 🪴 - brendanzab/language-garden

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Sarah Kelly @sarahkelly.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Actually the best life advice I ever got: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. A half-cleaned room is better than an uncleaned room. Occasionally flossing is better than never flossing. A 10-minute workout is better than no workout. When it’s all you can do to get out of bed, get out of bed.

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Toby Murray @tobycmurray.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

This is why it’s so important for scientists to learn to learn to communicate clearly to the public. Otherwise, your rigorous evidence-backed findings will be indistinguishable from bullshit

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Some afternoon views from Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, Dalesford last weekend.

Forested hills in the background lit up brilliantly in the afternoon light, framed in the by an old gate and some leafy trees.

The scenic drive around the Wombat Hill Botanic gardens. A dusty road curves between an avenue of tall, leafy trees, with shafts of light beaming through the dust kicked up by a passing vehicle.

The scenic drive around the Wombat Hill Botanic gardens, featuring an avenue of old trees. Shafts of light beam through the dust kicked up by a passing vehicle.

The view over Dalesford from Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens. A hedge is in the foreground that frames houses on the hillside beyond. Multiple ridgelines follow afterwards into the haze, glowing in the afternoon light. A wisp of cloud traces through the sky above.

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

In the past few days I’ve belatedly come to the realisation that domestic chores are much more fun if I imagine I’m in a studio Ghibli scene.

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Bex Burgess @theorah.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Happy #autismacceptancemonth ! Here's an old (like 10 years now lol) comic that explains the Autism Spectrum- still much needed, as I continue to see people- and most recently a book read out on bbc radio 4- think you're either 'mildly' or 'severely' autistic. Please give it a read 💖

Mia waves to the reader: “Hi! I’m Mia, and I’m autistic! It means sometimes I find talking nad language difficult, even though I’m really good at writing my own songs. But sometimes neurotypical people aren’t so good at this kinda stuff either. And it means they can make some misconceptions about me. That’s why I want to explain what ‘autism spectrum’ actually means.”

Mia points to a line that is going from light to dark pink. On one end of the line is the words: ‘Not Autistic’, on the other end ‘Very Autistic’.
“Sometimes when people think of the word ‘autism spectrum’ they think of something like this. A very linear looking ‘spectrum’ which suggests that people range from being ‘a little autistic’ to ‘very autistic’. Mia looks uncertain as she points to a drawing of herself where half of her is filled up with autism and the other half isn’t. “...Huh. I just don;t get it. If I’m just ‘a little autistic’, which part of me would that be? My feet? My eyes? I don’t think that’s how autism works!”

A big hand is holding Mia and trying to put her somewhere along this autism line. Mia says: “The problem with thinking of the spectrum in this way is that an autistic person becomes linear, too.” The hand says to Mia: “You’re only a little autistic, Mia.” Mia says back: “uuuh, c-could you elaborate please?” The hand replies: “you’re able to explain yourself pretty well and you act mostly NORMAL. You’re not SEVERELY autistic.”
The hand pushes Mia towards a bunch of intense and scary looking words that are all muddled together. The words read: ‘new situations, smart tight clothing, too much noise, lack of routine, don’t stim, be more organised, don;t fidget, loadsa conversations all at once’ Mia says: “But you see, when someone thinks you’re only a ‘little autistic’, this can happen.” The hand says: “Mia, you can handle all these situations just fine, since you’re not THAT autistic”.

Mia starts to panic as she’s faced with all those scary noisy words. Some judgemental speech bubbles talk around her: “How can you be tired? Everyone does this every day, you’re just being lazy.” “Wow you’re being so overdramatic! Get over it!”

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Tammy @tbobrowsky.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Neat thing at this conference: a librarian crocheted a scarf based on how many emails they sent in a year -- posted with their permission.

A poster at a conference. With a scarf attached to it in several colors.

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Daniel Temkin @dtemkin.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Rivulet is a language that prioritizes flow. Its script was influenced by mazes, space-filling algorithms, Anni Albers' Meander series, calligraphy-friendly conlangs and natlangs This program calculates the first set of Fibonacci numbers, stopping at 21. It can be found at github.com/rottytoot...

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

This kind of work makes me think that we might just be able to have more nice things! I’m excited about the increase in confidence we can gain through symbolic approaches that support human reasoning in a precise and reliable way:

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Jean-François Cudennec @limpetnerd.eurosky.social · 25/02/2025

I was quite confident on my knowledge of marine biodiversity in my area (I have a PhD in marine biology after all). But today I learn about Paromola cuvieri, one of the largest crab species of the Northeast Atlantic, that uses its last pair of legs to carry live specimens of sponges and corals 🦑 🌊

Paromola cuvieri carrying a deep sea coral
Source : @irisgorgona

Paromola cuvieri carrying a sponge

Image: OCEANA

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Immediately stumbled on the M. C. Escher and the moss exhibits! This is so great!

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Maxim Leyzerovich @round.is · 24/02/2025

“When you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it… so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and …takes its place in the web of nature.” — Christopher Alexander (A Pattern Language, 1977)

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

I greatly enjoy the spatial intuition for staging used in this paper, “An ML-Style Module System for Cross-Stage Type Abstraction in Multi-stage Programming” by Takashi Suwa and Atsushi Igarashi: doi.org/10.1007/978-.... More diagrams can be found in these slides: gfngfn.github.io/media/slides...

A screenshot of the top of page 238 of the linked paper, with a diagram showing the bracket and escape operators, and the how the cancel each other when combined. The bracket operator is represented as a raised, three-dimensional tile, and the escape operator is represented as a convex tile. When combined a smooth surface is formed as they cancel each other out.

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Makkon @makkon.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I need game devs and gamers alike to understand that procedural generation is not genAI.

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Brendan Zab @brendanzab.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I’m so happy when creators and artists and programmers mention their influences and sources of inspiration. Being able to trace the flows of ideas is so exciting and useful when creating new things.

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Internet Archive @archive.org · 12/02/2025

🧶💾 Punch cards aren’t just relics of computing—they’re still powering knitting machines today! Discover how hobbyists & archivists are preserving this blend of tech + textile. ⁠ 🔗 blog.archive.org/2025/02/12/vanishi… ⁠ 🕳️ #VanishingCulture⁠

Quote tile with white text on an orange background: “[Knitting punch cards] are also, in the age of seemingly-endless proprietary software and terms and conditions, refreshingly punk, in a minimal computing, open-source sort of way…”

Nichole Misako Nomura
Digital humanities scholar

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