iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah that's the UX that caught me out -- turns out that doing that will deactivate your entire PDS including non-Bluesky stuff!

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There's no other account! I want to keep my PDS (this account), but I want the Bluesky service to hide my account/posts or show "this account is deactivated". Looks like that's not possible without permanently deleting all my app.bsky.* records.

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Yeah I get how it works! I'm describing a UX that I'd like to exist, that doesn't. I can see how the protocol makes that hard but as a user I don't care about the protocol, just the end result!

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That's good to know, thank you! But that's more like deletion than deactivation -- it's nice to know that I *could* come back in the future should I want to, and not lose all my data. Anyway, I guess it's a niche use case!

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Thank you both! I should've been clearer; I'd like to keep using my PDS for tangled etc., but mark *just* my Bluesky account as deactivated -- i.e. I'd like to be on the atmosphere, but not Bluesky. Once you've signed up for Bluesky it doesn't seem like that's possible, unfortunately!

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Yeah, I mean that I'd like to be able to deactivate individual atproto services, rather than my entire PDS at once.

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I see! That seems like it might be a limitation of ATProto then -- if you have a PDS and you have accounts on Bluesky, Tangled, and more, then deactivating is all-or-nothing?

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You folks on here are lovely -- but man, I can feel myself getting dumber the more I consume short-form content. I think it's inherent to the medium. I'm all for decentralization but idk if microblogging is worth saving, for me, at least.

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> Learning about the world through 500-character snippets, or 30-second videos, is not a serious way to engage with knowledge. It triggers our worst instincts in terms of tribalism and groupthink and makes us intellectually lazy.

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i only have the one PDS! i migrated to eurosky a while ago and deactivated the original PDS back then. i meant that if you go to the bsky.app settings and hit "deactivate account", it will deactivate your entire PDS -- not just the bluesky parts.

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Anyone know how I can deactivate my Bluesky account, but keep my Eurosky PDS account active?

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I don't enjoy the Internet any more

I don't enjoy the Internet any more btao.org/posts/2026-0...

btao.org

The pale is growing

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tao @btao.org · 24/07/2026

i deactivated my bluesky account (for the reasons in the blog post!) and it turns out that deactivated my entire PDS, even though i'm on eurosky. that was unexpected -- bluesky still seems pretty tightly linked to one's PDS, unfortunately.

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i love github 🥰

screenshot of the taobojlen/django-zeal repo in github, but with a mangled UI

tao @btao.org · 23/07/2026

heuristic: if there are entire companies built around <feature X>, then don't try to build it yourself in-house

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tao @btao.org · 23/07/2026

substack: “read distraction-free on substack!” also substack: adds social features and ads for itself

screenshot from substack, with an alert saying “read distraction-free on substack”

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tao @btao.org · 23/07/2026

@epochai.bsky.social i love that you guys are posting here! did you know that you can set your handle to be @epoch.ai by adding a DNS record to your domain? would look a lot more official! bsky.social/about/blog/4...

bsky.social

How to verify your Bluesky account - Bluesky

Here's how to verify your Bluesky account by setting your website as your username.

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tao @btao.org · 22/07/2026

one thing that's really important to remember about the luddites is that they lost

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tao @btao.org · 22/07/2026

oh it's cool that you're on here! thanks for the great software!

tao @btao.org · 22/07/2026

i will never love any software as much as i love the Stickies app that comes with macs

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Reposted by tao

Alex Becker @alexcbecker.net · 22/07/2026

things just got more cyberpunk (and that’s bad)

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Reposted by tao

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

you will save yourself a lot of trouble and grief on any text based social media site by simply remembering that a lot of people can't read.

584962803

Reposted by tao

EdinburghMinute.com @edinburghminute.com · 21/07/2026

🌤️ Good morning Edinburgh. Tuesday’s headlines: Crags fire risk continues for 'days', plea for Leith trams return, Causey traffic island revamp is closer + bakery forced to change name ⏰ Edinburgh’s ad-free local news: www.edinburghminute.com/the-edinburg... Photo: @tomduffinphotos.bsky.social

A fire on a hill behind a city. Text over reads: The Edinburgh Minute - Tuesday 21 July 2026: Crags fire risk to continue for 'days', plea for trams to return to Leith, Causey traffic island revamp a step closer + bakery forced to change name

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Reposted by tao

Gordon @gordon.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

re: tools for thought and AI, the problem is no longer blank page anxiety, but rather generating too much insight and getting lost

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Reposted by tao

Rollofthedice @hotrollhottakes.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

To be honest, I think these mindsets are as seductive as they are deeply incorrect. This nihilism of "my work never mattered" assumes multiple things: a final end state to realms of cognition; a world where past work doesn't inform future progress; a world where meaning has a sort of metaphysics.

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tao @btao.org · 19/07/2026

i really can’t say anything that’d be funnier than just showing you the lyrics lol

screenshot of lyrics:

[Verse]
When I step, I step with my left
I step with my right
I pump my chest
I focus my mind
I take a breath and wait for the ref
Uh, uh
This is the World Cup, put your hands up in the air
This is the World Cup, put the flags up in the air
This is the World Cup, everybody come and cheer

Then stand up, then stand up, if you ain’t got no fear

[Chorus]
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup
This is the World Cup, this is the World Cup

Source: https://www.lyricsbull.com/champions-wc-26-lyrics-ishowspeed/

tao @btao.org · 19/07/2026

that ishowspeed song at the world cup closing ceremony is a lot like what i would come up with if i was satirising how americans act re: football

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tao @btao.org · 18/07/2026

if you're going to the edinburgh fringe, i made a little website where you can see if a show has audience interaction. hopefully useful to some! isthereaudienceinteraction.com

isthereaudienceinteraction.com

Is there audience interaction?

Know what audience interaction to expect at Edinburgh Fringe shows.

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Reposted by tao

Citizen Platano 🇵🇷 @daniloc.xyz · 18/07/2026

logged into Mastodon for the first time in a long while it’s a lot of software developers egging each other on into career self-harm, I don’t know how else to say it if your career is symbol processing and your response to a new paradigm in symbol processing is “no” that’s a career off-ramp

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tao @btao.org · 17/07/2026

i can't imagine willingly engaging with the rails community at this point tbh; even if individuals disagree, unfortunately that world is centered around a far-right extremist

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yeah, atlassian statuspage

screenshot of anthropic status page saying "powered by atlassian statuspage"

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 16/07/2026

Reposted by tao

"Older AI didn't work, but it was very efficient."

"AI does not have to be built this way. Traditionally, the goal of AI was to solve problems in ways that simulated human mental processes. Researchers observed their own thinking and tried to implement their mental habits in code. This approach has mostly been abandoned, partly due to the difficulty of discerning and articulating the rules of human thought, but it did have the benefit of consuming far fewer resources and data."

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and i don't know how to talk to the people i know IRL (who are liking/reposting this stuff) about it! the delta between my IRL community's associations and the truth is just so big

the latest one was a post saying that EMF from data centres has been found to be killing bees (stated without evidence ofc)

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