iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Colin Watson

@cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy

Irish geek. Happily married, father of four, polyamorous, left-wing, Reform Jew by choice. Debian and Ubuntu developer and freelancer, mainly working for […] [bridged from mastodon.ie/@cjwatson on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 19/04/2026

This is, like, 4000x more petrolhead than my usual scene. But it's quite a fun weekend out #DoningtonPark

The Porsche Sprint Challenge at Donington Park. It's a nice day, and we're on top of a hill with a view of a pretty decent section of the track.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 19/04/2026

I have rarely seen a more striking example of Betteridge's law.

A card for a BBC Health article with the headline "Should you really trust health advice from an AI chatbot?".

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2026

Good night

A Staffordshire terrier sleeping on a blue sofa.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 21/12/2025

And one more candle!

A chanukiah with all the candles lit for the eighth night.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 20/12/2025

I haven't been doing good candleposting this year, so happy #Chanukah!

A chanukiah with eight differently-coloured lit candles.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 15/12/2025

Good night

A white Staffie/mastiff cross with brown patches snores gently on a blue sofa.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 30/11/2025

I haven't even watched the video, but I reckon that's enough internet for today.

A 46-second BBC News video captioned "'Mr Tumble made me have the snip' - Wayne Rooney"

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 10/08/2025

I normally turn off #LLMs everywhere I can, but when I'm searching for something a bit obscure I sometimes end up using search arrangements that aren't my usual ones so I haven't got round to disabling that stuff. Fortunately I know enough of what it's trying […] [Original post on mastodon.ie]

An unwanted "AI" response from Google to the query "psalm 150:2 dagesh bet":

'In Psalm 150:2, the word "בְּגִבּוּרָיו" (bə-gib-bū-rāw) contains a dagesh kal (a dot) within the letter Bet (ב). This dagesh is not a full dagesh, which would change the pronunciation, but rather a dagesh kal, which simply indicates a stronger pronunciation of the same sound. The word translates to "his mighty acts" or "his mighty ones". The dagesh kal in the Bet (ב) does not change the pronunciation of the letter from a "b" sound to a "v" sound. It simply emphasizes the "b" sound.'

The word it chose is similar to one found in Psalm 150:2 whose minor textual variations were what I was actually interested in, but the spelling it uses doesn't seem to exist anywhere in the Tanakh. The rest of the explanation looks superficially plausible but contains at least two more significant errors.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 28/03/2025

I always forget about one of my favourite Debian puns. All our releases are famously named after characters from the Toy Story series, so our current stable release is "bookworm", testing is "trixie", and so on. Unstable is "sid" because he breaks all his toys […] [Original post on mastodon.ie]

A product photo from Amazon of the remote-controlled buggy from Toy Story, with Woody riding on top.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 28/03/2025

Watching holy Debian scripture

A scene from Toy Story on a TV, with Woody working on escaping Sid's room.

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Colin Watson @cjwatson.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 22/02/2025

[Pet death] Our beloved cat Ninja died yesterday. (I think it was peaceful; I came downstairs in the morning and found her under my desk.) She came to us as a stray at the back door about 11 years ago, and quickly captured our hearts and moved in. For a while […] [Original post on mastodon.ie]

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