iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Turns out I needed a new API key for Google Books. It's limited to 1,000 searches a day, so if this ever blows up and goes viral it'll hit its limit lol

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Update: I finally got it fixed! Give it a whirl whenever you want at www.weirdoldbookfinder.net

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Aha, I hadn't seen that -- thank you for pointing it out!

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

UI/UX designer folks! I'm writing a Fast Company feature on how AI is changing design -- lots of AI tooling in Figma now, but also designers using coding LLMs, Claude code, etc You have experiences? Thoughts? Pro, con, both? Hit me up, I'd love to hear! (and boost) clive@clivethompson.net

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Don De Tina @donnyd.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Check out #2 on Linkfest: buttondown.com/clivethompso... by @clivethompson.bsky.social The MouthPad 👅 A computer mouse that you control with your tongue! www.augmental.tech?utm_source=c... Great for accessibility!

augmental.tech

MouthPad: the hands-free touchpad

A trackpad worn on the roof of the mouth: hands-free control of your devices, driven by the tongue. From Augmental.

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

behold a programming language ... ... that demands you say "please" it's like something douglas adams would have invented i give you "INTERCAL" item #16 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read/subscribe: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

Screenshot of the Visual Studio Code editor, with a snippet of INTERCAL programming. It has lines like "DO , 1 <- #13", which appear to be assigning values to variables -- but it also has several lines that have the word "PLEASE", such as "PLEASE READ OUT , 1" and "PLEASE GIVE UP". The overall effect is pretty funny

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Glad you liked that piece! Here's a friend link for anyone who isn't a Medium subscriber -- clivethompson.medium.com/my-new-cybor...

clivethompson.medium.com

My New Cyborg Vision

A tale of how quickly our minds begin to rely on new technologies

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Kevin Marks @kevinmarks.com · 17/08/2026

Better than handle bar mirrors is the one that clips to your glasses and so is stable with respect to your eye. @clivethompson.bsky.social wrote about it clivethompson.medium.com/my-new-cybor...

clivethompson.medium.com

My New Cyborg Vision

A tale of how quickly our minds begin to rely on new technologies

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

"Fable" is a fun quick game with a lovely premise: you start off with a closeup of an animal ... ... and it slowly zooms out you try to guess it as soon as you can item #4 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

An animated gif that shows a closeup of an animal, so close you can't figure out at first what it is. It's just a grey, wrinkled surface. Beneath are three buttons labelled "echidna", "buffalo", and "fruit bat". As it slowly zooms out two black eyes appear, and you can see that it's the head of a buffalo, facing you

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Massimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

In China, robots which are also solar panels, clean the other solar panels. Original post

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

a plant that dies ... ... if you look at your phone fun project by designer @simonegiertz.bsky.social item #1 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

A photo of a bell jar with a plant inside. The bell jar has a thick wooden base with a slot inside it into which an iPhone has been slid. At the top of the bell jar is a wooden semicircle from which light is shining down on the plant. It looks both high tech and warm, The dark wood feels very lo fi

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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

A long time ago, @clivethompson.bsky.social wrote about it for WIRED: "The pleasure in reading a newsletter comes from the view into a unitary mind at work...Reading [Metafoundry] is like being plugged Oculus-style into her brain while she meditates on science and culture."

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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

As of this weekend, I've been based in Vancouver, BC for a year. To celebrate, I wrote a newsletter about @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social's THE PACIFIC CIRCUIT, having a garden, and some of the things I've been up to this past while: buttondown.com/metafoundry/...

buttondown.com

determinate tomatoes

on cities, matter, energy, roots, and dragonflies

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Menestune @menestune.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

When the local Barred Owls take baths, they seem to all make the same adorable noise. I would spell it "flumff". Tell me I'm wrong! (Hope you can hear the noises) #birds #owl #birb #nature #love #trailcam #Seattle #goodmorning #PNW #love #funnyanimals #nokings

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

holy *crap* "One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months" full story here: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

arstechnica.com

A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

When the first step goes wrong, bad results follow.

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Oh damn it seems to be down!! Thank you for the note, I will be home from vacation tomorrow I’ll try and figure out what’s going on!

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Keri @keriqbaum.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Verify my age??? I used to think this was an awesome game:

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Does replacing parking with bike-lanes hurt restaurant business? Of course not, as this new peer-reviewed STUDY of 15 years of Montreal data showed. ACTUALLY, downtown experienced significant restaurant growth after bike lanes were installed. @momentummag.bsky.social momentummag.com/do-bike-lane...

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aleha_84 @aleha84.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Night stairs 2

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Hong Kong has 2,549 basketball courts the photographer Austin Bell has taken pictures of every single one his online gallery -- and his print book -- are *amazing* item #12 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

An aerial picture of a large basketball court. It is very colorful and divide it into different geometric shapes, including dark blue triangles, light blue rectangles, and burnt orange circles and parallelograms. The is surrounded by a high white fence and has a forest of green trees on the left side and what looks like another smaller court on the right side. There are four people playing basketball, one is shooting the ball towards the hoop

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Gremliny Nussboo @emilynussbaum.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I don't think candidates have to be grown in a vat, but maybe marinate them in the vat for a couple of months

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Mark Sample @samplereality.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Need a palate cleanser? Check out @alhambot.bsky.social's procedurally-generated tiles (not AI, just Python and math!)

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Agreed, the robot cellist is COMPLICATED Glad you enjoy the newsletter!

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

tell her that under no circumstances should she ever star in a movie

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

it's the internet functioning as it should

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

why do scriptwriters hate geologists?? an analysis of found that "geologists die at an alarming rate in the movies" about one third get killed before the credits roll item #9 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso... (steve buscemi as a geologist, below)

The actor Steve Buscemi in an orange space suit with no helmet, looking pensive

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

really leaning heavily on the ominously and un-clarified “they” who did this to him

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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

A 15-year study of bike lanes shows that they have no negative impact on business. Neighborhoods that embraced bike lanes showed a measurable increase in foot traffic. momentummag.com/do-bike-lane...

momentummag.com

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Hannah Weinberger @trailanderror.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I used to have a bumper sticker on my car (it was on so long it literally wore off) that said, “If I had ridden my bike today, this parking spot would be yours.” I think about it every time someone claims bike lanes are gratuitous investments that only serve people in spandex.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 08/07/2026

There's a revolution happening in urban transportation across the world. It's not EVs, not even autonomous EVs. It's got nothing to do with AI. No tech mogul is getting rich off it. Instead, the revolution is centered on an older, simpler technology: bicycles.

economist.com

Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport

Pedal power is booming, spinning up a new culture war

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

100% there’s enormous joy in having something that is contoured to exactly the grooves of your mind and habits

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Clive Thompson @clivethompson.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

yep, same here, in NYC I stay as far out from the doors as I can; if there's little/no traffic behind me, I'll just ride in the center lane the way cars do thankfully, most drivers in NYC don't give me any grief -- a small minority honk and get weird, but the majority don't

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