iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 29/09/2026

Hello everyone from the Southern-most tip of Africa! (L'Agulhas, Western Cape, South Africa)

Photo of poster standing at beacon at southern-most tip of Africa

Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Ingvar Stepanyan @rreverser.com · 26/09/2026

I love this so much. Basically: do whatever you want, use whatever you want, but as a maintainer I must not be able to tell it wasn't written by a human.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 19/09/2026

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Back on my literary bullshit #SylviaPlath

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 14/09/2026

#macOS 27 is available now! BRB, just clicking that shiny shiny "Update Now" button...

Screenshot of the macOS software update screen showing macOS 27 being available. 26.81GB download...

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The contagion of fear bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/13/t...

bcantrill.dtrace.org

The contagion of fear | The Observation Deck

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Your intellectual fly is open bcantrill.dtrace.org/2025/12/05/y...

bcantrill.dtrace.org

Your intellectual fly is open | The Observation Deck

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 05/09/2026

Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify. Henry David Thoreau

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 16/08/2026

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Henry Miller

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 12/08/2026

I used to have to setup direnv with a UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT .envrc hook in every #Python project [1]. Today I am so grateful that we now have the #uv preview feature centralized-project-environments! [2] to configure... (contd) [1] vxlabs.com/2024/10/10/u... [2] docs.astral.sh/uv/concepts/...

vxlabs.com

Use direnv for uv with out-of-source virtual environments

The new Python package and project manager uv is in fact amazing. I say that, because it’s really fast, but more importantly because this single tool does a whole lot, really fast: Installing Python b...

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 11/08/2026

"The Greeks sprinted in their Olympics, though they had, long before, domesticated the horse. Maybe we too will come to value the sport of understanding with our own brains." -- Harvey Lederman (Professor of Philosophy, UT Austin) in "ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life" scottaaronson.blog?p=9030

scottaaronson.blog

ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life: Guest Post by Harvey Lederman

Scott Aaronson’s Brief Foreword: Harvey Lederman is a distinguished analytic philosopher who moved from Princeton to UT Austin a few years ago. Since his arrival, he’s become one of my …

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Naomi Saphra @nsaphra.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I've been unsettled lately when reading messages and papers. It feels like I'm dissociating. Everything seems a bit alien, even if it's completely human. I've had a realization: When our simulations finally exited the Uncanny Valley, they brought the Uncanny with them.

nsaphra.net

Life on the Uncanny Precipice | Naomi Saphra

We were wrong about the Uncanny Valley.

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Jennifer Shin - WTAF @jennifershin.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Researchers at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark have conducted multiple landmark, population-wide studies tracking hundreds of thousands to over 1.2 million children using national health registries to examine potential links between vaccines and autism. Every major study found no connection.

en.ssi.dk

Large Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or 49 other health conditions

A new Danish study finds no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines and 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. The findings reaffirm the safety o...

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 09/08/2026

After years of #kindle devices, I got the Boox Go 6 gen1 in July of 2025. This is a fine device, but it can get cripplingly slow due to only 2G RAM. However, thanks mostly to the fantastic #koreader but also to OLauncher, disabling Google sync, 2 day power-off timeout, the #boox is now snappy!

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 02/08/2026

For @obsidian.md on my iPhone, I had unison + fsmonitor running between gdrive and icloud on macbook for a few months. Worked well, except that macbook needs to be up. Decided to get an Obsidian Sync subscription a few weeks ago. Works fantastically, thanks @stephango.com you and team are amazing ❤️

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Obsidian @obsidian.md · 30/07/2026

Obsidian 1.13 is now available to everyone on desktop and mobile! - Added search and keyboard navigation to settings - Images are easier to resize and zoom - iOS share sheet lets you save content from other apps without opening Obsidian - Many bug fixes and performance improvements

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

AI Firehose @ai-firehose.column.social · 28/07/2026

A study reveals how blind and low-vision users use agentic programming to create personalized assistive technologies, producing 37 bespoke tools to address unmet needs. This approach democratizes technology creation and empowers users to envision tailored solutions. arxiv.org/abs/2607.21760

arxiv.org

Bespoke Visual Assistance: What and How do Blind and Low-Vision People Create with Agentic Programming?

ArXiv link for Bespoke Visual Assistance: What and How do Blind and Low-Vision People Create with Agentic Programming?

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 28/07/2026

Today during our meeting walk to the beach, @enginerd.co.za and I ran into a Cape dune mole-rat! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_du...

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 18/07/2026

"How We Built Our Knowledge Base" - fascinating post by Cerebras www.cerebras.ai/blog/how-we-...

cerebras.ai

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 16/07/2026

This is really very exciting, an **open weights** model at this size (2.8T) that scores 57 on Artificial Analysis's combined intelligence index. Congratulations MoonshotAI with the release of #Kimi #K3 and... WHOOOHOOOO!

screenshot of artificial analysis's tweet showing Kimi K3 scoring 57 on their intelligence index.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 05/07/2026

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... "... health-conscious population, moderate egg consumption was associated with a significantly lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. These findings suggest a potential neuroprotective benefit of nutrients found in eggs when consumed as part of a balanced diet."

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Egg Intake and the Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease in the Adventist Health Study-2 Cohort Linked with Medicare Data

A substantial knowledge gap remains regarding the relationship between modifiable dietary factors and Alzheimer’s disease risk. Eggs are a source of key nutrients that support brain health. The aim of...

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 04/07/2026

Dan Luu is one of my favourite current practitioners of the scientific method in software and tech. His pieces are often built on a core of measurements and experiments, a form I really enjoy!

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 04/07/2026

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. -- Plutarch

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 04/07/2026

#microsoft is really going through a sad phase. Here I am trying to report the same outlook.com spam that I've reported 5 times over the past weeks (the spammer just does not stop) via their website. Guess what: It force-opens #Edge from my Chrome browser and then, adding insult to injury, fails!

screenshot of microsoft failing at receiving an outlook spam report

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

antirez @antirez.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Based on what I'm saying with GLM 5.2 implementation inside DwarfStar, there is 90% of probability I'll merge the branch I'm developing. Right now it is probably the best model available to run on a 512GB Mac Studio system.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 18/06/2026

If you know you know... It only took me half a century and some change. 🥹 Thank you friends.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 18/06/2026

Look, I really love #databricks but I'm finding it hard to deal with the fact that they shipped Lakebase apparently without the ability to control which workspace users can or can't create 💰-guzzling Lakebase compute instances! community.databricks.com/t5/lakebase-... #dataengineering

community.databricks.com

How to prevent users from creating Lakebase compute?

Dear community, According to [1] and other sources, all workspace users are assigned `CAN_CREATE` on lakebase projects, and this permission "can't be revoked". The problem is that such a project comes...

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Eurosky Social @eurosky.social · 11/06/2026

Muve to the beat. Muve the conversation. Muve mountains. Today @eurosky.social announces mu.social, a new microblogging app to experiment with the future of social! 🪩💖

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 16/06/2026

#TIL: the word "doofer" in British #English. (Covered by Simon Pegg and Henry Cavill in one of those fun YouTube segments) - basically a "thingamajig". I'm definitely going to start using that down here! www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/e...

collinsdictionary.com

DOOFER definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

Not standard a person or thing forgotten or unknown to the speaker.... Click for English pronunciations, examples sentences, video.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 16/06/2026

As long as you live, keep learning how to live. -- Seneca (when you live past the half-century mark, this reminder is most welcome)

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 14/02/2026

All the #Chrome family browsers as well as #Safari render the attached #HDR #AVIF image correctly on my 16" M1 MacBook display. #Firefox 147 over-saturates / washes out the colours, also 16bit #PNG ver. gfx.color_management.mode=1 & restarting does not help. Source #blog cpbotha.net/2026/02/07/t...

Sunset over the sea at Betty's Bay, South Africa

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 13/02/2026

Vertical tabs now also available in the #Chrome Beta (146.0.7680.0)

Screenshot of the vertical tabs flag in chrome://flags

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 17/01/2026

New AVIF 1.2 standard with sample transforms for higher bitdepths + guidance on gainmaps for backwards compatible HDR: aomedia.org/blog%20posts... (I have started experimenting with #AVIF on my personal #blog: cpbotha.net/2025/12/25/w... ) P.S. maybe I'm back on @bsky.app after 2 month break.

cpbotha.net

Weekly Head Voices #263: High Dynamic Life

Well will you look at that date… Merry Christmas everyone! I would also like to welcome you to the 263d edition of the Weekly Head Voices, a surprise even to me that it managed to get this far! ...

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 14/09/2025

I took me a while to find a working solution to run #kitty terminal via the "Terminal" feature of #macOS #alfred, so I published it on my #til site. The focus of the effort was actually #zoxide directory jumping from #Alfred, which you might also find helpful: charlbotha.com/til/zoxide-a...

charlbotha.com

zoxide and kitty terminal in your Alfred for faster directory navigation on macOS

Today as I was preparing emails with different bunches of attachments for my 2025 financial statements, I looked into faster directory navigation via Finder, so that I could use Dropover more effectiv...

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 03/09/2025

Thinking about what it must’ve been like to be a fan of Trent Reznor’s new wave bands and then suddenly he comes out with Head Like a Hole and it sounds nothing like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWcc...

youtube.com

Trent Reznor in Slam Bamboo #1

YouTube video by Scott Hanson

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Reposted by Charl P. Botha

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 02/09/2025

Sea Level xkcd.com/3135/

Comic. [Two people on shore looking at body of water] PERSON 1: Hey, where’s that big island we were looking at this morning? PERSON 2 with short hair: Oh, it’s underwater. The ocean’s depth here goes up and down by like ten feet every day. PERSON 1: What? PERSON 2: It’s because the planet has a big moon orbiting near the surface. It causes weird gravity effects. PERSON 1: *What???* [caption] People here are used to them, but tides are one of the weirdest and most sci-fi elements of life on Earth.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 24/08/2025

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. Marcel Proust (via Waking Up)

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 23/08/2025

youtube.com/watch?v=-bYp... first few minutes are an entertaining yet informative summary of #Google 's pixel 10 updates

youtube.com

Oh, Snap!

YouTube video by TechLinked

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 22/08/2025

I'm using lsd [1] as drop-in replacement for #ls instead of exa [2], as lsd is closer and I can use the same invocations. The screenshot below shows example output, plus the small config tweaks required to render readably in a light theme. [1] github.com/lsd-rs/lsd [2] github.com/ogham/exa

screenshot of kitty terminal using the solarized light theme, showing example lsd output, as well as the config file tweaks required to render readably in a light theme.

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Charl P. Botha @charlbotha.com · 19/08/2025

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.” — Ram Dass (shared by Waking Up)

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