iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Finally found the ideal way to mix audio between two PCs. I construct a USB-to-TOSLINK-to-USB audio cable using a Cubilux USB A to TOSLINK converter, standard TOSLINK optical audio cable, and Hifime UR23 SPDIF Optical to USB Converter, then on the receiving computer I enable "Listen to this device".

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

Microwave your food at 50% power for twice as long. It'll cook more evenly.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

People say the "dark side" of the moon is a misnomer, because usually the sun is striking both hemispheres. But there is a sense in which it is truly darker: the far side of the moon is never lit by Earthshine (reflected light from the Earth) whereas the near side almost always is.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

On my bedroom ceiling this morning I saw this whale made of light 🐋

Photo of a bedroom ceiling with stuffed animals on the bottom and right part of the frame on shelves. Filtered light from blinds creates a shape that resembles a whale with its tail lifted up and curving above it.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Just got this awesome optical fiber taper, it's like a rock that magnifies things! Using it to help read small kanji! 😊

Bowl shaped white stone sitting on an instruction manual written in Japanese.

Same scene viewed from above, showing the document magnified by 2x as viewed through the circular optical fiber taper.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

There is a difference between a song I respect and a song I love. Some songs I consider highly influential masterpieces but don't enjoy listening to them personally. Some songs are guilty pleasures that I love listening to while fully acknowledging they are completely banal manufactured trash.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Today finally got one of the new 27-inch 4K OLED monitors (AW2725Q), and it is even more beautiful than I dreamed. Incredible contrast and vivid colors, really responsive running at 240 Hz, super detailed. Everything from text to games to high-res art looks amazing on it. Cannot stop staring.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Just saw these migrating birds! They were at incredibly high altitude, barely specks in the sky. Their formation was briefly disrupted by a passing plane.

Telephone pole with birds flying at high altitude in a disrupted V formation above it

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Layoffs without warning, where people don't even get to say goodbye their coworkers, are standard practice, but they are hurtful and wrong. Security risk can be managed. Tearing people apart and destroying thousand of relationships overnight does incalculable damage.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Rogue planet: Sun? I have no sun.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Fun fact: if you travel 1.75 light years along the route from here toward Alpha Centauri, at that point the Sun and Alpha Centauri system will appear equal in brightness, and BOTH of them will be slightly brighter than Sirius, which is otherwise the brightest star in the sky.

Chart reading "Apparent Brightness of the Sun vs. Alpha Centauri and Sirius Along the Route". The y axis on left reads "Apparent Magnitude (lower=brighter)" and is labelled from 0 up to -10. The x axis on bottom reads "Distance from Sun (light-years)" and is labelled from 0 up to 4.4, the distance to Alpha Centauri. A yellow curve representing the Sun begins at -10 and descends to +0.4. A red curve representing the Alpha Centauri binary system begins at -0.27 and ascends to 12. A dotted purple line representing Sirius remains constant at -1.46. All three appear to intersect at a central point, 1.75 light years from Earth, where the Sun and Alpha Centauri both have magnitude -1.52, and Sirius still has magnitude -1.46.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

My ability to tolerate bad customer service is directly proportional to how good their hold music is.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

I learned today to my shock that the Moon and Mercury actually look really similar. They both have dark gray surfaces full of craters, and little to no atmosphere. Mercury is just a bit bigger, and internally has a larger iron core, but otherwise, they look just like siblings!

Picture of the Moon and Mercury and Mercury, side-by-side against a field of stars. Both are dark gray with many small craters, with Mercury having a 40% larger diameter. The Moon has some more noticeable large dark areas (maria).

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

I just finished playing "In Stars and Time" which is a 2023 indie RPG and it's one of the most impactful games I've played in my life. I recommend it to everyone. This is my Steam review:

Steam review. Thumbs up, recommended.
26.3 hours last two weeks, 35.3 hrs on record.

This is one of the most impactful games I've ever played in my life. I don't often connect in a deep emotional way with games, but the themes of this game, which revolve around a lot of adult themes like family and anxiety and trying to construct identity, really resonated with me. Every reaction that Siffrin went through, the highs and the lows, feeling cold or sick or shocked, feeling hopeful or loved, I had a direct physical reaction to it in my body, and I was moved to tears many times - I even considered stopping playing because the weight of it became unbearable sometimes. The dialog is natural and subtle, the rapport between the main characters is heartwarming, and every single character design is unique and interesting, even the minor side characters. And the nonbinary and ace representation was also very thoughtful and welcome. The use of animations / sfx / music, text formatting, and character portraits to communicate emotions was also very well done. I was genuinely shocked by every plot twist, and I recommend playing blind if you can. I have a feeling this game will stick with me for a long time.

I will note that this is a story-driven game, the RPG mechanics are minimal and mostly there to support the story. There are character stats, equipment, spells with cooldown, a literal rock-paper-scissors type system, and (fixed) classes, but most of this game you will not be struggling to win fights, nor is there any grinding. It's not the point. And although the worldbuilding is intriguing, the setting is also in many ways a conventional fantasy setting - the focus is really on the characters. If that's what you're here for, play this game.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Recently discovered the artist Anly from Okinawa and she's amazingly talented, not only for drawing on all kinds of genres from blues to Celtic, but also for her live shows where she does her own accompaniment and background vocals using only a guitar and loop pedal! www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZUN...

youtube.com

【LIVE】『Do Do Do』from "Loop Around The World"

YouTube video by Anly Official YouTube Channel

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Discovered the virtual singer HACHI recently, she has a spectacular voice, I think it comes through clearest in her live acoustic performances. My favorite track by her so far is this acoustic version of Manazashi (まなざし). open.spotify.com/track/6LlUlK...

open.spotify.com

Manazashi - Acoustic Live

HACHI · Birthday Acoustic Live · Song · 2024

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Here's a crazy thought: if nuclear weapons hadn't been developed, then we might have preferred thorium reactors to uranium reactors, which are much safer, and the anti-nuclear energy movement might not have existed, and if nuclear energy proliferated, climate change might not have ever happened.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Can I just say I love flywheels? Storing energy by spinning a big metal disk really fast seems so simple yet it's genuinely a vital component of the grid because of how fast it can respond. That's awesome.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Just grabbed the latest version of Subtitle Edit (open-source subtitle software) and the new "Audio to text (Whisper)" feature is absolutely phenomenal. I can dump in any video file in any language and get out subtitles that 99% match the audio in 2 minutes, using a local model. I love the future.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

All human chess players are worse than chess-playing AIs but they still play and love the game. If a post-scarcity world comes (and we somehow avoid debilitating poverty), we'll all have to find things we love doing despite their economic irrelevance.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Trump's new policy to revoke gender-affirming care from transgender prisoners and to house them with inmates of the opposite sex is putting them at enormous danger of rape, assault, and suicide. I hope that legal challenges will be successful.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

I've been waiting eagerly for this monitor to come out for so long. Behold, the very first 27-inch 4K OLED monitor ever created, running up to 240 Hz! Unfortunately, it's already sold out everywhere! 😢 I will be patient. rog.asus.com/us/monitors/...

rog.asus.com

ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM | Gaming monitors｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG USA

ROG PG27UCDM is 27-inch 4K QD-OLED gaming monitor with 240Hz refresh rate, DP2.1, OLED Anti-Flicker 2.0 and OLED Care Pro features to reduce the risk of burn-in

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Killing bacteria is easy. They're super tiny. You can just like, step on them.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Just recovered from a week-long pneumonia infection with antibiotics and the speed at which I went from "falling apart" to "basically fine" was breathtaking, like 2 days. Sometimes I forget how amazing modern medicine can be.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Because Disney has historically enforced their copyright on Mickey Mouse so litigiously, it's created a "chilling space" around him where many completely legitimate animated character designs were quietly modified or eliminated to reduce legal risk. I wonder what might have been.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

The parable of King Solomon and cutting the baby in half takes on a new light from ther perspective of the false mother. At no point was she like "uh no I kind of wanted this baby alive?" Instead she's like, "if my baby is dead, nobody gets to have a baby."

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

If two magic lamps were to breed, would they pass on their genies to their offspring?

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I just realized that other than blue stars, I've never seen anything glow blue due to reaching a temperature of 10,000 K. On Earth almost all materials would disintegrate before reaching that temperature. Most blue glows we observe on Earth are due to ionized gas and wouldn't work in a vaccuum.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Been catching up on Dragon Prince and Season 6 (Stars) is really good. No spoilers but pacing really picks up and there are some big dramatic character moments and some very cool new settings and worldbuilding. Highly recommend catching up for anyone who's dropped off.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Making my way through Final Fantasy 6 in Japanese while systematically reading all the dialog, menus, and even item descriptions. Just got to Vargas! It took me quite a while to work my way through Narshe, Figaro, and South Figaro and there's a ton of game still yet to go.

Screenshot from a Super Nintendo game, played on emulator. On the left, Vargas (villain/boss), a muscular, tanned, shirtless man with long blue hair in braids and a flowing cloth belt with baggy blue pants. On the right, the three party members Edgar, Tina (Terra), and Locke stand at the top, while Mash (Sabin) stands in the center and confronts him (all four represented with small chibi sprites with different outfits and hair colors). In the background, the mountain landscape of Mount Kolts with a green grassy plateau and steep vertical rockfaces. At bottom is a white-on-blue text box reading: 「たわごとなど、　ききたくないわ！自らあみだした奥義！そのぱわーみるがいい！！ (Translation: "Nonsense, I don't want to hear it! I've devised a secret technique of my own. Behold its power!")

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

RIP Jimmy Carter. The day he left office wasn't long before I was born, and since then he's done decades of incredible humanitarian and diplomatic work. Plus, he put solar panels on the White House in 1979 (!). I wish more people were like him.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

For those who haven't heard, GitHub Copilot now has a free option (2000 completions + 50 chat messages / month, supports VSCode, VS, Vim, Jetbrains IDEs, Xcode). Even if it's just on the side in some hobby projects I think it's good for all coders to familiarize themselves with LLM-based tools.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

I've just learned that Elsevier will give free copies of papers to patients and non-professional caregivers. This is really handy for my research on my partner's chronic pruritis. (They really should still be Open Access though.) www.elsevier.com/about/open-s...

elsevier.com

Access options for healthcare and patients | Elsevier

Elsevier has a range of access options for healthcare and patients

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

To tell what day of the week any day in 2025 is by the Doomsday method, just remember that all the following days are FRIDAY: Last day of Jan/Feb (1/31, 2/28) 3/7 (1 week after 2/28 ^) 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 5/9, 9/5 ("working 9-to-5") 7/11, 11/7 ("7 Eleven") From there you can figure it out!

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Just reached level 45 of 60 in WaniKani! After ~3 years I'm 75% done and I've learned 1523 kanji. I'm sure I can finish the rest in 2025! 😊

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

Why web certs don't work: because 99% of the time, a website with an invalid web cert is actually just misconfigured or didn't renew their cert properly, rather than an actual malicious site. Users know this, so they trust sites with bad certs anyway.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Painted this for a teambuilding event at work, it was fun! I added a fox. 🦊

Painting showing a snowman with purple scarf and a top stove hat with purple stripes a carrot nose and closed eyes and a straight mouth waving with one arm (made of sticks). The background is a snowy hill with spirals of white wind and a red fox sitting and looking at the camera.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

WaniKani (site for memorizing Japanese kanji using an SRS system and suggested mnemonics) are having their annual lifetime subscription sale for $199. I've used it on a daily basis for years and I consider it my most essential tool for learning Japanese. Cannot recommend it enough.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

I just figured out how to loop a video continuously with NO PAUSE OR DELAY between loops, not even for a single frame. The key is to use PotPlayer and use its "Seamless Playback" mode. Put 100 copies of the video in your playlist and tell it to preload and combine all 100 of them.

Screenshot of how to configure PotPlayer to do continuous looping of a single video with no delay between loops. The "Advanced" dialog for Seamless Playback Mode is visible. The Method "Seamless Playback: Preload and Combine Files" is selected. Max files to process is set to 200 (since there are 200 copies of the video in the playlist, as shown on right). All other settings are at default.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I started a subreddit for AI art of foxes. Because I like them. Join up if interested. 🦊 www.reddit.com/r/aifoxes/

Screenshot of r/aifoxes subreddit. In upper-left is a circular icon showing a fox transitioning into an integrated circuit. At top is vector art of a red fox running through a field. At bottom-left is a post labelled "Galaxy fox" showing a fox made of stars and nebulae. In the right sidebar is the following text:

aifoxes: AI-generated art, images, video, etc. about foxes. 🦊

Created Dec 14, 2024

Rules:
1. SFW only
2. Respect human artists
3. High-quality foxes please
4. Include your prompt

Moderators: u/ChiaraStellata"

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

The OS I work on, Android XR, was announced today at XR Unlocked, along with Project Moohan which is the VR headset we're collaborating with Samsung on! Integrated with Gemini AI. Here's an article: www.wired.com/story/google...

wired.com

Hands On With Android XR and Google's AI-Powered Smart Glasses

Google has new smart glasses, as well as a mixed-reality headset developed with Samsung. Both are powered by Gemini, both run a new version of Android, and both are due in 2025. I got to try them on.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

I just found out that Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation is now on a new creator-run YouTube channel called Second Wind. You can see all his videos here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

youtube.com

Fully Ramblomatic - YouTube

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

AHHHHHHH IT'S FINALLY OUT! I've been listening to these tracks in the car and in our room for years and I can't wait to share them with the rest of the world!! And I'm even more excited for Caly's next project, I'm hoping we'll see more of her e-sax and maybe even some vocals. 😊🎷🎤

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Lelouch vi Britannia: "Play that funky music... till you die!"

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

If you haven't seen Link Click (the anime) you are missing out. Basic premise: there are two guys, one can mentally time travel to the past, the other can advise him across space and time, they run a detective agency together. It's also the first Chinese anime I've watched and it's top tier.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I have a vertical monitor I've been reading Webtoons and manga and PDFs on and it's great but the viewing angle distortion on TN monitors is frustrating. I'd like to upgrade to an OLED monitor, which has amazing viewing angle independence, but 27-inch 4K OLED monitors aren't coming out till 2025. 😢

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I think one of the most underappreciated LLM AIs is Amazon's Rufus. It's really convenient to ask it a question about a product and it will instantaneously read the whole product description, all the reviews, and respond to it, along with showing the relevant source data. Just a great application.

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ChiaraStellata @chiarastellata.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Just finished watching the anime Angels of Death (殺戮の天使). It's based on an adventure game. There are only 6 characters but I love all their designs, especially Rachel Gardner. She seems innocent at first but she's both resourceful and unsettling. Excited to play the original game in Japanese! 😊

Poster of all 6 characters from the Angels of Death anime. In bottom are the protagonists Rachel (a young blonde girl standing and praying) and Zack (a cloaked man with black hair wrapped in bandages and carrying a scythe). On the left is Danny, the doctor, in a lab coat, on the right are Eddie (a boy wearing a coconut with eyeholes over his head, a red scarf, and blue suspenders) and Catherine (a smug woman with short blonde hair and a suit and red tie). At the top is the preacher, Abraham Gray, wearing a purple longcoat and looking over his shoulder with blank white eyes with no pupils. At the bottom is the text "Angels of Death" in sharp white letters with a bloody red outline.

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