iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

There was about another five years left to the trend:

Oh to live in such an optimistic era!

Reading a really interesting book called “Inequality” published in 1972. Last chapter called “What is to be done?” and says “the general trend over the last 200 years is toward equality”. Imagine where we could be if we had not taken a 50 year detour into neoliberalism!

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If you’re downtown the Merchant House Museum is really interesting. Combine that with the Tenement Museum for a real contrast.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Terrible how that sexual abuse goes around disgracing people willy nilly.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

We allow more than a million people a year to die in automobile related accidents and risk hundreds of millions more dying from global warming so we can have convenient personal transportation. So there is precedent.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

One more damn thing to worry about on top of rising fascism, AI, and global warming:

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Found this book in my dad’s office. I feel like conservatives have been thanked a bit too much of late. Democrats could learn a lot from them about how to play the long game.

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yeah that sucks. Far better is what our mailman does. Take our figs and bring back (very tasty) fig jam.

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I read an interesting book on economic growth that argues that most of the easy gains are behind us (sanitation, antibiotics, machine power and lastly women entering the workforce). So don’t expect more in the future. But this was written before AI. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ris...

en.wikipedia.org

The Rise and Fall of American Growth - Wikipedia

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

(Posted while eating chips and waiting for my burrito at Brazos at Barracks Rd, btw).

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I bet the first graph is driven by a combination of an aging population (so more people of retirement age); age discrimination in white collar jobs; and baby boomers having more accumulated wealth than in years past.

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SchoolDesegregationGastonHammond.pdf

Here is a contemporaneous account of school closing in Charlottesville: drive.google.com/file/d/1dbMP...

drive.google.com

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Decades is great and I guess $12 for two hours is not actually that much on an inflation adjusted basis compared to however many quarters I pumped into the machines. Although I do think you lose something when there is no incentive to earn an extra game.

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Also the Saturday night open D&D games at Cabell Hall welcomed high school kids.

It was gritty with a pool table and juke box and allowed smoking and catered to adults as wells as kids. I remember not liking the bigger/spiffier video arcades that were designed for middle school kids that started popping up in the early/mid 1980s.

In high school my “third place” was a video arcade on 14th Street and University called Grand Central Station

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I used several of them last weekend.

Don’t mess with the sailors. They will call you out. They are still so mad about Redford’s “All is Lost”.

Re “goose winged” — that’s British. Americans say “wing on wing”. Germans “like a butterfly”. Spanish “orejas de burro” (ears of a donkey).

You use a lot of it every day, probably without knowing it. I used to sail with a lot of folks from other countries and their jargon is just as fun.

Don’t get me started on sailing jargon! It’s all so great.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

On the plus side it will probably be one of the best years going forward.

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Less exciting version: it just locks the doors and drives them to the police station.

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The remake of Thelma & Louise will be a very different film.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Some books don’t even start with verbs: “A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.”

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Not surprising I guess since Henry George is a much better writer than Bellamy. But he did not write novels.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I went to an aesthetics (philosophy) conference in the 1980s and all I can remember about the speaker and talk is that his tie was ugly.

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I guess it’s encouraging that I can’t easily find a parking spot for my e-bike at the main hospital. But maybe they could add some racks

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I read it in my own but only because my great grandfather tried to found a community based on the book. Found it very wooden. As it turned out he didn’t get traction for his socialist community and ended up founding a Georgist one some years later.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

And while we’re on the topic of Weird Little Guys, John you might enjoy Molly’s South Africa episodes. I learned a lot of stuff I didn’t know and it covers the period when we were both there. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

podcasts.apple.com

CZM Rewind: The White House Weighs in on White Genocide & Apartheid International

Podcast Episode · Weird Little Guys · December 23, 2025 · 1h 45m

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I mean we are both great and good.

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I was born in March of 1964 and my father was offered a position in Mississippi as part of Freedom Summer. His excuse for not going was that he was broke and to teach summer school. But he also said he was scared. I never really internalized that but Molly’s podcast really makes it visceral.

June 11, 1963: Byron de la Beckwith, Pt. 1

I have been really moved by Molly Congor’s (@socialistdogmom.bsky.social) seven part series on the murder of Medgar Evers. Like so many of her episodes it seems to get lost in myriad minutiae but she sticks the landing and ties it all back to the present day and what sick society we live in.

podcasts.apple.com

Podcast Episode · Weird Little Guys · June 25 · 45m

The word for teacher in Italian is “maestro”. Once when skiing in Italy I saw a group of kids following their “maestro di sci” calling out “maestro! maestro!”

SchoolDesegregationGastonHammond.pdf

I recently scanned this document my dad and his colleague Tom Hammond put together on school desegregation in Charlottesville if anyone is interested. drive.google.com/file/d/1dbMP...

drive.google.com

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Snow Milk | 1 of 1 Upcycled & Numbered Clothing

My 10 year old bought some clothes at Snow Milk which is actually closer to the PATH train than in the Oculus proper. We were the only customer the whole time we were there and the sales person gave us a discount without asking. realsnowmilk.com

realsnowmilk.com

Shop Snow Milk for 1 of 1 upcycled clothing, hand-designed hoodies, tees, jackets and wearable art. Individually numbered clothing made for 1 of a kind people.

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I would listen to the podcast "A History of the London Underground in 500 Moquettes"

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The same could be said about Charlottesville. :-(

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Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

That's crazy, but Japan is actually quite cheap right now, this trip notwithstanding. There has basically been no inflation since their bubble burst in the 1980s and the yen is very weak.

Gareth Gaston @cggaston.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hey can I get some credit for the joke please?