iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

JoJo’s two modes: 1. Sleepy angel 2. Chaos Goblin #Caturday

A black cat on a blanket made out of old tshirts, sleeping peacefully

The same cat, eyes wide open, sitting on a laser printer next to a 3D printer, looking like she’s contemplating how to knock it all down

Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Remember, designers: Think about ALL the contexts your logos will be displayed in. Unlike the person who designed this and didn’t think it’d be backlit in a very bright room so the “Salted Caramel” part is basically illegible.

A backlit bottle of bird dog salted caramel flavored whiskey. The bit that says salted caramel is in a light orange that is basically not visible due to the light behind it. This makes it look like the label is advertising dog-flavored whiskey.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

Love the Berlin city website’s translation of a 429 (too many requests) error

Website: Berlin dot DE
Error message: 429 Calm Down

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2026

LOL at the logo for the German health ministry

A sign that says ministry for health in German with a black eagle flexing arms like a human

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

They’re having some technical difficulties getting set up, but this session is packed to the gills. Can’t imagine why. #NextApp

Screenshot of Session details
We are all Fucked: An Android Developer's
Guide to the Post-Al Apocalypse
By Ashley Davis

The illusion of Artificial Intelligence is dominating Android development, driven by hype over reality. As companies rush to embrace Al to save hypothetical
costs, we are left cleaning up a dumpster fire of unscalable slop.

Real engineering relies on the pains and learnings that we as engineers have accumulated over the years, it takes experience of failure and learnings not
to figure out what to build, but what not to build. I'm not going to tell you how to use Al for your advantage, I'm not going to tell you how best to use Al tools.

Mostly, we can try to temper our relationship with Al, sometimes we can use it to our advantage, sometimes we can even manage upwards (though rarely). sometimes, we can even distract our
managers by giving them safe arenas to play with, like a child with an adult colouring book. But perhaps, we can just laugh and make a joke about the collective hell we've found ourselves in.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Which of you jokers set Berlin’s weather for the rest of my trip to Ireland mode?

Forecast: today high of 74F/23.3C. Rain the rest of the week and getting down as low as 45F/7.2C on Sunday.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

Yo dawg I heard you like conferences, so I put a bunch of conferences in your conference #NextApp #SwiftCon

A sign pointing to rooms for eight different conferences going on at the same time

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

You’d think after 21 years of coming to Germany I’d stop giggling like a middle schooler at the word for “journey”. Not when it’s rendered like this, I can’t.

A bike share bike with an ad that says “Erste Fahrt Gratis”, but the words are blown up like balloons. I am absolutely not mature enough not to read this and snicker, because farts.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

My dad was in Berlin just over 65 years ago- weeks after the wall went up - and made his way though Checkpoint Charlie when it was guarded by armed soldiers and barbed wire instead of a phalanx of tourists. What is out there that seems impossibly dangerous […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Checkpoint Charlie today, a shack with an American flag sitting in the middle of a street for tourists to use as a photo backdrop.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2026

I did not realize it was possible to get a sleep score this low. At least I was able to get into my hotel early so I can get a bit of a nap to make up for it. 🙃

Apple health screenshot:
Sleep Score: 6
Very Low
• Duration: 0/50
• Bedtime: 0/30
• Interruptions: 6/20

1hr 47 min

Last night was a bad night's sleep. That's
ok. If you can, try to get to bed on time
tonight.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

Which horseman of the apocalypse is a robot White Castle dispenser?

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

It’s difficult to explain just how much people in Buffalo love Josh Allen, the Bills’ quarterback. But this dinosaur sculpture wearing a Zubaz Josh Allen jersey is a start.

A statue of a dinosaur (I think a diplodocus?) wearing an enormous shirt with 90s zubaz stripes in Bills colors and with Josh Allen’s number 17 on it.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

It’s Deaf Culture Night at the Red Wings game* and they are wearing these jerseys and have each of the players finger-spelling their first names in ASL adorably slowly in intro videos. * - Rochester is home to some of the oldest schools of the Deaf in the US […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A player wearing a jersey with a series of hands spelling out Red wings in ASL

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

Year I tried to go to the Rochester Red Wings pride night game: Rained out Year I did not try to go to the pride night game: Gorgeous day Bought a ticket yesterday for today's pride night game as weather was looking great. Current radar prediction for first pitch:

A whole lot of rain stretching from Rochester through Buffalo and Toronto

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

OK I worked in TV production so I know high-quality programming ain't cheap, and I know the original pricing was almost certianly a loss leader. But Apple TV+ tripling the price in 5 years (2021-26) is still a bit much.

Chart of Apple TV+ price over time, from 4.99 from 2019-2022, 6.99 in 2022, 9.99 in 2023, 12.99 in 2025, and 14.99 in 2026.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

“Light rain for the next hour” seems somewhat optimistic given the radar and/or tornado warning

Screenshot: A tornado watch with a forecast of light rain for the next hour.

A large, angry, red and orange blob of precipitation heading over Lake Ontario towards Rochester

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2026

I told Lilia how much we'd sold the utility and she couldn't wrap her head around how much it was with the analogies I was coming up with. So she asked "Well like, how many bagels could you toast with that?" And it turns out now you can ask Google interview-style questions to Google itself:

Question: how many bagels can be toasted with one
megawatt-hour of electricity

Answer: You can toast between 30,000 and 55,000
bagels with one megawatt-hour of
electricity, depending entirely on the efficiency of
the machine you use.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

It is *wild* to me that we haven't even had our solar panels and batteries three months and we’ve already net exported a megawatt-hour of energy. By design it'll likely net out to zero over the course of the year (winter here is long, dark, and shitty), but […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Screenshot of solar for the year so far
559.9 kilowatt hours imported, 1.6 megawatt hours exported
2.6 megawatt hours produced, 1.0 net exported
330.6 kilowatt hours discharged, 413.6 charged

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

Aha! First show back after being gone for a while. And someone got a couple pics of that lovely moment that she reposted.

Screenshot from instagram: Five people in costume with white shirts and ties. The woman on the far left is crying tears of joy. There’s a note that says welcome back to that actress.

Screenshot from instagram: The same five people with the other four excitedly surrounding the happy crier.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

If I have a little trouble hearing you the next few days this (and several days of rehearsals that preceded it) is why #ROC #ROCAirShow

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

When your existing architecture is a bit of a mess and then LLMs show up to add new features:

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/08/2026

Yet another opportunity to smugly point out that my electric car does not require oil changes, so I'd be extremely surprised if I can get a better discount than "Free"

Screenshot of an email subject: Ellen, your oil change just got cheaper (moneybag emoji)

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

They seemed happy to have their butt-scratching servant back

Hank the tuxedo cat with white whiskers and white feet getting some butt scratches on the couch

JoJo the void sitting on my lap after I collapsed in bed.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

The baggage office here tells a tale of yesterday’s travel woes.

An office overflowing into the hall with suitcases, including one with a large pillow featuring a picture of a dog holding a stick poking out of it.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2026

Update: I have made it back to Rochester! And by some miracle, it appears so has my luggage!

Screenshot of Find My indicating my keys and passport are on me and my bags are both in Rochester

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

LOL at this on the seatback screen of a diverted flight where we’re just sitting in the middle of the tarmac at MSP waiting for a fuel truck so we can take another stab at going to ORD

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

Little weird to see a Dutch language “Taxation is Thievery” sticker in Banff but I guess Dutch libertarians are well traveled

Sticker on a thing covered in stickers that says “Belasting is diefstal”, with a stick figure cop demanding money from a stick figure person holding his hands up.

The cop is demanding money with a dollar sign, which, given that this is in Dutch, a language generally not spoken in places with Dollar-denominated currencies, makes no fucking sense.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

Still a little smoky today but better than yesterday for the most part. Drove up the Icefields Parkway, which was phenomenal. Managed to get as close to Athabaska glacier as it’s possible on foot without injuring myself!

What I think is Howse Peak soaring above what is definitely Waterfowl Lake in Banff national park. The peak is gray with large patches of snow, the water is a crazy turquoise that looks fake from all the glacial runoff.

Athabasca glacier, as seen from the point where the foot of it was in 2006. It is now several hundred yards further back with a river between me and the glacier. It’s still a pretty damned big glacier.

Bow Glacier, with Bow Falls trickling down below it, and Bow Lake in the foreground.

A different direction of Bow Lake, with mountains in the background and a green meadow with a small dirt trail cutting through it in the foreground.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

Greetings from what I’m reasonably sure is the Canadian Rockies!

A bunch of mountain peaks obscured by smoke

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2026

What happens when you pause to breathe? #SwiftRockies (Not included: @dimsumthinking writes another amazing talk)

Slide from Daniel’s talk:

In that moment when we paused to breathe
• Paul Hudson has released another book
• Holly Borla has submitted a Swift Evolution proposal
• Klemens Strasser has won another Apple Design Award

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2026

Yeesh, this is the smoke situation in Chicago and it’s between 100 and 150 AQI. It was well over 500 a couple days last week.

Photo from an airplane of Chicago’s grid obscured by a very gross low smoky cloud, with normal clouds and blue sky above

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/07/2026

Genuinely can’t decide if I like the Portuguese jerseys or they remind me too much of this #worldcup #sportsball

The extremely 90s “thin purple zigzag on a thick teal zigzag” design

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/07/2026

Glad the important parts of the World Cup are getting the proper coverage

ESPN screenshot - World cup daily live: Haaland buys cowboy hat

A picture of Erling Haaland looking pretty goofy in a black cowboy hat, but somehow less goofy than he normally does

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

I made a slackmoji for Heisenbug and I figured work Slack was not the only place that needed it, so here ya go

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

Oh good, because I have some programming things to chat through

Screenshot of headline with a photo of an enormous inflatable rubber duck: One of Upstate New York's biggest visitors is returning to Buffalo this summer for Fourth of July weekend. World's largest rubber duck is heading to Upstate New York next week for 4th of July

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/06/2026

My knees are gonna be so mad at me for running for the train to the after after party at my work’s conference. Also I may need to wash my hands after leaning a decent amount of my weight on the Muni stair rails 🤢

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

Well if you told someone “Jeez you don’t like soccer? You’re such a dinosaur!”, I have news for you: They are older.

An enormous brontosaurus skeleton wearing a gargantuan soccer jersey in concourse B at O’Hare

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

LOL the NYT asked a bunch of famous people over 80 what advice they had for the president on his birthday, and Gloria Steinem (still salty at 92) kept it succinct.

Question: Any advice for the president as he turns 80?
Gloria Steinem’s answer: Resign.

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Ellen Shapiro @designatednerd.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Guys working on our new solar panel system about 20 minutes ago: Huh, I wonder if a big cloud came through, the power output just dropped a whole bunch Now:

Screenshot of radar showing a very angry red blob of rain over Rochester

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