iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ben

Lance Icarus @lanceicarus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My buddy @c222.bsky.social took this pic of me at PAX West and it makes it look like I'm welcoming you to my dark carnival. "Welcome to my thrillercoaster! The first drop is TO DIE FOR!"

A black and white picture of Lance Icarus aka me.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I've been tempted to mount a GoPro pointing out my rear passenger window and locally posting compilations of drivers paying attention to their phones while driving.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Why has @caltrain.com wifi enabled a content filter so aggressive it's blocking the website of breweries for being "Alcohol and Tobacco related"?

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Reposted by Ben

the jazzy experience @katsnapz.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Flattered that @c222.bsky.social used some of his unobtainium Polaroid peel apart on me...

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Reposted by Ben

3DBeerGoggles @3dbeergoggles.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

A public service announcement to musicians and vintage audio enthusiasts of Bluesky:

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Reposted by Ben

Alex Tomlinson @alextomlinson.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

More goofing around with a retro/modern #harmanphoenix box!

Two designs for boxes of Harman Phoenix film

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Received my new Pebble Time 2 in the mail yesterday. Solid watch, great feeling buttons, good looking screen. The main letdown so far has been the revamped phone app. Whatever issue it has with my Pixel 7, it cannot maintain a Bluetooth connection with any of my pebbles, old and new.

The Pebble Time 2 product box, in its branded cardboard sleeve.

The Pebble Time 2 showcasing the Weathergraph watchface.

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Reposted by Ben

victoria scott @victoriascott.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

not currently in my home (in storage) but I own one of the last surviving artifacts of the USSR’s Glavkosmos from the brief period of perestroika where it looked like it might be viable to use their rockets as a launch vehicle for Western satellites. It’s a 9-foot-tall model of the Energia Buran.

A nine-foot-tall rocketship model of the Soviet Energia Buran, lit dramatically (cat at base, for scale)

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

I need to rework the price crawler for @filmpricedropbot.bsky.social . It's fragile and can break if any product page 404's. I may even experiment to see if I can match URLs to product names using some fuzzy logic so I don't have to maintain an exact list of every product URL.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

❤️ back at @jacobrichardson.bsky.social , Dumes, and everyone else in the Science Evaluation Room

Artemis II deputy lunar science lead, Jacob Richardson, left, and Artemis II lunar science team members, Kiarre Dumes, react to the astronauts' verbal observations of the Moon during their flyby on April 6, 2026. Along with other lunar science team members, Richardson and Dumes helped train the crew in geology both in the classroom and in the field. The science team also built the lunar targeting plan that, like an International Space Station spacewalk plan, provides strong, detailed observation guidance, plus flexibility for the crew to make decisions based on what they’re seeing and experiencing in real time. The science team had many moments of celebration during the lunar flyby as the astronauts took images of the Moon and provided verbal descriptions of what they were seeing. This type of information reveals the geologic history of an area and will be critical to collect when future Artemis astronauts explore the Moon's surface. Credits: NASA/Luna Posadas Nava

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

@3dbeergoggles.bsky.social is mad at me. One time I told him that his Fender Deluxe sounded like a Mesa/Boogie and he never forgave me.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

You're right, AI told me I should probably walk instead.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

In my junk drawer I have a calculator that is so efficient it can run off a shitty solar cell gathering light from my kitchen lamp. (and it doesn't take 3 seconds) Is this a good use of LLM tech? No. But it's right now a public tool, being used for many things wildly outside its application space.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I just asked Claude Sonnet 4.6 for "6.5*0.7". I got the right answer and it took ~3 seconds to complete. During those 3 seconds, Anthropic's servers used a dozen some (exact model sizes aren't published) enterprise-level GPUs to calculate a ton of math, none of which was 6.5*0.7.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

I remember being very excited for the Model 3 and looking forward to them leading the way to lower cost and more attainable EVs. But then nope. The price increased and they switched to developing the Y. Ultimately losing ground to EVs like the one I would eventually buy.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Yes, I did find one of these at Goodwill back in 2022. Yes, it did come home with me.

Presto HotTopper Automatic Electric Melter/Dispenser, a yellow and white appliance shown disassembled with its original box. The box reads: "PRESTO HotTopper AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC MELTER/DISPENSER — Automatically melts butter or margarine, heats syrup or other delicious toppings, sprays or brushes them onto food." A Goodwill price tag shows $6.99. The unit consists of a yellow base and a separate white dispensing attachment; a brush is placed beside it. For AC power, 80 Watts.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I asked Dr. Sbaitso why it committed malpractice.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

The opening scene of Cool Hand Luke, but it's those stupid flock cameras.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Why do I hear Clint Mansell?

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

This is so revealing, you have no idea. Your social media posts are probably measurable in megabytes? The Opus model itself is on the scale of terabytes. The captain of a ship can stop from a sprint in a few paces. The cargo ship cannot.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Go to their official website and look at the pages under the "Plan Your Visit" menu.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Try long-pressing on the VCR (or however it works on iPhone) to get it to expose for the dark part of the scene. Then if it's too bright, adjust the photo's exposure after.

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Reposted by Ben

Jenny R Johnson @jennyrjohnsonart.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

SHE’S FINISHED! My 5-foot-long Enterprise D oil painting is complete after nearly 100 hours of work! I remember being 13 years old or so and trying to draw her and it was so hard, and all I wanted was to be able to do something like this. Truly a dream come true. 🥰🖖

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Also, as a fun thought experiment, look up what a BFLOAT16 is and what would result from a high energy particle tickling one.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

I think the fixation on thermal management comes from the conflicting requirements of LLM compute and space hardware. LLM compute is by nature power hungry, hot, and inefficient. Whereas the people who make space hardware bend over backwards to optimize every corner of software and hardware.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

The ISS can support ~70kW of color TDP total. The GPUs needed for these data centers are reaching 1kW of TDP each. A small data center is already reaching 100s to 1000s of GPUs. The flagship sites are nearing half a million. That's a starlink constellation worth of ISSes.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Just getting V2X implemented, standardized, and easily installable would be really neat. (At least as easily as a normal grid-islanding inverter)

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

They even made it girthier. I can't.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Ah jeez sorry, sounds ruff.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Farther than we can see, there is comfort and hope.

Mission and memorial patches for STS-107, Columbia.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

I'll get you into fountain pens too, this is a threat.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Ow, hitting me right in the hobbies.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

If you want to know where your electricity is coming from @gridstatus.io has a great page showing every national grid's "Fuel Mix" California is currently 64% solar.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

It's not even been half the runtime yet

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

One of the more important videos of 2026

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

I honestly thought the thread was an elaborate analogy until the videos were posted.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

I've had good success using grade 3 paper (not multigrade) and the right color filters to remove the orange cast.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Every minute this guy spends reassuring people outside California (gee, I wonder why that is) that he's a centrist, really, Is a minute California doesn't have a governor. We're sick of it too.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

These have always perplexed me. While a lot of people have a PO box tied to their license, a lot of people don't! This is like having your home address on your car. "Hey, guess what house is currently unoccupied" among other concerns.

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Reposted by Ben

Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

If you are anxious and sad about the state of the world, that's fine, and there are plenty of strategies for dealing with that. But I think you already know that drive-by online dooming isn't a strategy. It's selfish and adolescent. It's a contagion that only spreads the worst of you, not the best.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Clearly vibecoded, time to vibereview it.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

@ericmigi.com Will rePebble return to the San Mateo Event Center for @opensaucelive.bsky.social ?

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Come and See, Charlie Brown

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

As one of the few places I can count on to discover a very specific type of music, I appreciate the effort put in.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Still liking my 2020 Niro EV. It's nothing special, but it doesn't need to be and I've had no huge problems yet.

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Ben @c222.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

"safeguard" and "guardrail" is so misleading too. All these companies are doing is asking another LLM if it's "safe" to pass the prompt to the other LLM. It can't be reproduced or scrutinized in a meaningful way.

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