iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 10/10/2026

Stumbled across a smart documentation approach in an open source repo today: issues that are deliberately left open.

Screenshot of GitHub issues. The issues are labelled with "leave open"

Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 25/05/2025

Cursor won't let you use it unless you agree to it learning from your code. You can turn this off later . . . but why can't you refuse at this stage? Anyhow, I just set a new personal record for shortest software trial.

Screenshot of Cursor modal. It explains that by default Cursor learns from your code, but that you can turn this off in settings.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 17/04/2025

I'm surprising myself with how often I'm laughing while reading SPIN Selling.

Picture of a book. The text reads: I've also heard it suggested that customers mistrust high-tech sales people, so they feel more comfortable with someone who holds back and tries to understand the implications than they do with someone who jumps in with premature and often inappropriate solutions. The plausibility of this explanation is strengthened by the joke: What's the difference between people who sell used cars and people who sell high-tech? Answer: People selling used cars KNOW that they are lying.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 13/04/2025

It's my annual "can I finally move to Linux" day

Photograph of my desk and computer. There are USB drives scattered around.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 09/04/2025

Just realised that at my last job I deleted more docs than I added. Oddly proud of that.

Screenshot of my GitHub contribution graph for n8n's docs repo. It shows I added 228357 lines, deleted 251472.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 02/04/2025

3/ After AI feedback. If you think it's still too plain, that is entirely on me, not the AI. Claude wanted me to go a LOT further.

Screenshot of website after AI feedback. it's still very plain, but there are more calls to action and a little more colour.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 23/03/2025

Five years. Time has gotten really weird, and I don't know if this is an age thing, or if COVID really did warp all sense of time.

Photo of a TV screen showing the UK COVID lockdown announcement from five years ago.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 20/12/2024

1/ Not only completed the Marketing Week Mini MBA with Mark Ritson, but got an A! The exam pain was worth it! My Xmas project is to extract takeaways for software docs and tech writers. I've been dumping notes into a doc as I went along, and will turn those into blog posts over the coming weeks.

Screenshot of the course certificate. It shows the course title (Mini MBA in Marketing), grade achieved (A), and continuing professional development hours (36)

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 29/11/2024

Decided it was time to cheer things up a bit.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 02/11/2024

This is my first time seeing 'in a post on Bluesky' (rather than 'in a post on X (formerly Twitter)' in the Guardian. More signs of this place growing!

Screenshot of a small article on the Guardian news feed. It's part of the news reporting of Kemi Badenoch becoming Tory leader. It links out to a post on Bluesky by the head of a thinktank.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 21/10/2024

2/ I have the lecture playing fullscreen on my monitor. I'm heads-down making some notes. I look up, to be greeted by this:

Screenshot of a lecture slide. The slide has a red background. On the left side there is a photograph of Mark Ritson, the lecturer. On the right is white text. In the photograph, Mark is pulling a very funny face. He looks like a puffer fish.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 10/10/2024

My approach to variant sudoku can best be described as "clown"

Screenshot of a sudoku grid. Most of the cells are highlighted in a wide variety of colours, almost creating a patchwork effect. I ran out of available colours, so had to resort to using coloured circles in addition to highlights. I did however solve the sudoku.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 25/09/2024

Started a marketing course. Feels good to be learning again - and starting to fill a long-standing expertise gap. Comments from the teacher about being stuck in the 20th century notwithstanding, you can prise my handwritten notes from my cold dead hands 😅

Photograph of three pages of handwritten lecture notes.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 17/09/2024

I keep trying to spend less time on social media, but then a couple of times a month it introduces me to something funny or brilliant, and I'm hooked again. This time the culprit is a tweet quoting this: buff.ly/3zp9Al0

A screenshot of a PDF. The highlighted quote says ". In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@ virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,”"

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 17/09/2024

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #6,127,103! This is not very impressive. I shoulda kept my old account.

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Deborah Barnard @deborahwrites.co.uk · 24/08/2024

3/? No clue if this image is helpful, but FWIW it's more or less how my brain sees it.

Screenshot of VS Code. There are three files open: an Astro component, an Astro layout, and an Astro page. The files each contain very simple example code for a basic webpage with just a title. There are arrows showing how the component, layout, and page, link up and share data.

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