iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 21/09/2026

LAX famously has difficulty with signs.

A blue, slightly cloudy sky in the background. There's a row of airport landing lights forming a leading diagonal line, and a 737 is on approach with landing gear down. In the foreground is a sign saying "TO AIRPORT", with an arrow pointing up.

The airport is on the ground, the planes are in the sky. Silly LAX.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 20/09/2026

and tremendous thanks to @skimbrel.northsky.social (pictured-ish) for hanging out at said dorkfest

a Southwest 737 MAX is landing at Los Angeles International Airport in front of a clear blue sky. In the foreground, almost blocking the plane shot is some blue and quite-blond hair

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 20/09/2026

A good day was had at Cranky Dorkfest by all. A++ would Dorkfest again next year should the opportunity present itself.

A Singapore Airlines 777 in Star Alliance livery is landing at LAX. There is a basically cloudless blue sky surrounding it, LA-typical flora in the midfield, and a throng of people pointing their phone cameras at it in the foreground of the bottom-left.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 06/08/2026

Decided the nippl^W vacuum tube preamp actually needed to be on display, even if I do need to run slightly longer leads than is ideal.

Atop a cube shelf, next to a partially-visible PS5 and below the cover of Christine and the Queens' album 'Chris' is a small black phono preamp with slightly glowing vacuum tubes. In the background is some bird-themed artwork.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 06/08/2026

Re-arranged the record nook so I could put the turntable on display. Much betterer.

a view of a record listening nook. A small record crate full of records has a 1980's era record player sitting on top, to the right is a cube shelf full of records. In the background are various unrelated bits of artwork.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 24/07/2026

I mean, have you *seen* Japanese F1 fan hats?

A Japanese woman is wearing a baseball cap that is topped with a replica McLaren MP4-4 with a cutout of Ayrton Senna sitting in it. This is normal.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 24/07/2026

Continuing my theme of having on-brand nails at pycons this year

Chris' hand with shiny nails, in purple, green and black, this year's PyOhio colours

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 12/06/2026

MOVING ON THE FLOOR NOW, BABE, YOU'RE A BIRD OF PARADISE CHERRY ICE CREAM SMILE, I SUPPOSE IT'S VERY NICE WITH A STEP TO YOUR LEFT AND A FLICK TO THE RIGHT, YOU CATCH THAT MIRROR WAY OUT WEST YOU KNOW YOU'RE SOMETHING SPECIAL, AND YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE THE BEST

Still of Julie Andrews from the movie. The Sound Of Music. She is sitting outdoors on a glorious alpine day, guitar in hand, singing to a group of enthralled young children. She is definitely not singing Rio by Duran Duran as implied by the demented author of this skeet.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 02/05/2026

I liked @andrewhickey.500songs.com's patreon bonus about The Shaggs and on the one hand I really appreciated his handling of the ethics of outsider music, but the resulting Wikipedia rabbithole (categories of bad music) led me to discovering the lyrics to the Des'ree song "Life" and now you can too

Wikipedia text:

Lyrics:

Taking an "innocuous tone", this playful song mixes "stories about superstitions, phobias and travels around the world". The melody is "upbeat and jubilant". However, the lyrics and rhymes have been widely derided, with the song winning the "worst ever pop lyric" in a 2007 BBC poll, particularly for the verse:

I don't want to see a ghost
It's the sight that I fear most
I'd rather have a piece of toast
Watch the evening news

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 13/04/2026

it did take a few years of pondering, and a few months of delaying putting a website up, but I did land on a description that fits entirely on the tagline section of our home page: "A conference about the technology we build and the people we build it for." #NBPy

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 22/03/2026

We installed a heat pump water heater last week. It turns out we've invented a rube goldberg solar water heater: the sun heats the roof, which radiates heat to the attic, where a duct pulls warm air to the water heater in the basement. The fan and the heat pump are both powered by PV panels.

View of the inside of an attic. There is a finished plywood floor. Sticking out of the floor is an 8" duct, maybe 1 metre tall. There is a curved section that points towards you, like the air intake on a large boat

A futuristic looking heat pump water heater against the basement wall. A wide metallic duct is sticking out of the top of it, heading to the left of screen

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 18/02/2026

No, so-called "leading researcher", a Hindenburg-style event is not going to end AI who would say "oh the humanity"?

"Race for AI is making Hindenburg-style disaster 'a real risk', says leading expert

Prof Michael Wooldridge says scenario such as deadly self-driving car update or AI hack could destroy global interest"

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 17/02/2026

Yes, every main road except for 99 and 5 follow fault lines because that's where the land was smoothest 🙃

A map of California with fault lines drawn in maroon. One of the lines follows hwy CA-1

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 16/02/2026

On Saturday I started a probably (quite long) piece on the role of LLMs as enablers of mediocre work, and the list of self awareness-related caveats that I need to sift through to think of these as a potential net positive has apparently already been summarised:

a @dril tweet from June 2014. "the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: 'theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron'"

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 04/02/2026

COULDN'T AGREE MORE, O RANDOM NOTIFICATION

A notification from the Washington Post: "Last days to save"

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 20/01/2026

and there's obviously a right way to resolve this

the 2011 HRT car, replete with "COOL SPOT" on the rear wing assembly and "this could be YOU" on the sidepod

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 07/01/2026

And good evening from over here!

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 24/11/2025

May I recommend transiting through Copenhagen if/when you're ever in Europe, for this excellent affordance that lets you skip duty-free

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 20/11/2025

I'd like to thank this active volcano for welcoming me to NZ, and reminding me that no matter how your travel day goes, things can always literally be on fire.

A photo from a plane window pointing down at the sea: In the middle of the sea is a small island that consists entirely of a volcano spewing out a leisurely amount of ash cloud. Above it is a long white cloud, appropriately enough.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 05/11/2025

Just in case you're as disgusted-fascinated by Gerrymanders as I am*, I present to you a selection of perversely specific district boundaries. I don't like it, but I can't help but admire the work. (* I voted yes on 50: sometimes you have to fight fuckery with fuckery)

partial district maps around Placentia: in some cases, there are several individual blocks that are routed around by the district lines.

A map of new district CA-21, around Fresno and Visalia. It looks like it could almost be compact, byt there is a peninsula hanging off the bottom, made connected to the broader district by a single city block

A map of Lodi with new electoral boundaries superimposed over it. There are sections where sections of 2-3 houses are carved out of the map, for some reason.

the newly gerrymandered Los Angeles area. Just what the fuck is that.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 16/10/2025

in case you're wondering whether hotel brand proliferation has gone too far, I present the following CSS fail from Hilton Dot Com

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 27/08/2025

(e.g. here's a notice of class membership I received regarding my travel insurance a few years ago -- it's an opt-out case, because the insurer was able to provide the contact details of all class members)

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 11/08/2025

This naturally results in "what if thing that computer can already do, but LLM?", and the results are about as bad as you'd expect. fosstodon.org/@anuytstt/11...

A post from Andreas Nuyts on Fosstodon reads:

Github's home page (when logged in) gave me a button that says "My open pull requests".
Not only is this a scripted button that cannot be opened in a new window.
The button does not lead to a page that lists your open pull requests. It activates a free Copilot plan and asks copilot: "Hi Copilot! Can you please find my open pull requests?", upon which Copilot thinks really hard and lists at least some of my open pull requests.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 25/06/2025

So 100% of Lander's preferences could go to Cuomo and it still wouldn't push him to 50%. Given that he wouldn't even get 30%, that seems pretty solid 👀

A screen cap from an elections site, showing Mamdami on 44% and Cuomo on 36%; Lander on 11%, and some other candidates.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 23/06/2025

oh, I guess there were only 39 boxes last time I voted. Anyway. Putting the guy you dislike 39th out of 39 feels great. More people should have that opportunity.

the "Liberal" column of a Tasmanian Senate ballot from 2022. "Abetz, Eric: Liberal" is ranked 39th.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 29/04/2025

Colours? Like Google's Android apps? Sure!

Google's new android app icons, which are all made out of blue, red, yellow, and green segments with very little visual differentiation

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 20/04/2025

It's been a while since I've seen this particular carpet 🤩

Some legs in jeans with leather boot-shod feet are standing on red and black and gold ornate carpet

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 11/04/2025

Well here's a first approximation: gist.github.com/chrisjrn/04c... -- and I didn't even need to use `sys.settrace`!

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 01/04/2025

here is one of my cat, astra from a few weeks ago

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 28/03/2025

Kat stands in front of a self explanatory slide at #monkigras

The slide says "Oh my god, you need a fucking code of conduct, I can't believe this still has to be said"

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 28/03/2025

Preparing for a quality bait and switch talk at #monkigras

Powen stands on the Monki Gras stage, where a slide says "Open Source is a sewer"

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 17/03/2025

hooray! a title slide! I'll be talking at #MonkiGras next week about how we fucked everything up and will be questioning whether anything is retrievable at all. Should be good!

a slide, with a title "The Death of Consequences", it includes the name of myself (Christopher Neugebauer) and the event (Monki Gras)

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 25/01/2025

spendin' my friday night voting with my wallet

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 23/01/2025

better than the raised kerb/fence that will greet you in the absolute sum total of bike lanes that exist in my neighbourhood!

a screen cap from google street view. You see a two-lane suburban street in front of you. On the right of that street is a bike lane that extends for half a block and directly into a raised kerb and fence.

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Christopher Neugebauer @chrisjrn.fyi · 22/01/2025

and the dashboarding support is also A++

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