iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Every single part of this story is wild, and this is just one aside. forgottenla.substack.com/p/a-forgotte...

If one of the others did throw Herbert under the bus, it would likely have been Beard, who was as close to a cartoon villain as anyone has ever found in the wild. When he was arrested that March, it was reported that he was the same man who’d escaped custody in Riverside County several months earlier by tricking a constable and leaving him handcuffed around a tree. Beard reportedly took the constable’s badge and gun when he left, and still had them on his person when he was arrested in Los Angeles. Two years later, in an attempt to escape from San Quentin, Beard confessed to his involvement with another group of criminals who he might not have even met just as an excuse to get out of his cell and into a courtroom where he felt certain he could shake his escort and get away. When he tried, he was shot through the leg and sent back to prison on crutches, which guards later confiscated when they discovered that he was using them to smuggle saw blades into his cell to try to cut through the bars…

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

It has an insane electro swing soundtrack that means we get to continuously quote this to each other

Tweet saying in all caps, “ ONE TIME I HAD A COWORKER AT LUSH THAT WAS A CLOSETED STEAMPUNK AND THEY WOULD PLAY HOUR LONG ELECTROSWING MIXES AND WHEN MY BOSS HAD A TALK WITH THEM ABOUT IT MY BOSS SCREAMED "THIS ISNT FUCKING TOONTOWN" AND SHE CRIED AND WENT HOME EARLY AND I HAD TO STAY AND CLOSE”

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Another project done, though this was a late breaking addition, rather than one from the long list. Who wouldn’t want a custom Nudie’s-inspired backpack for first grade?

A child’s backpack with rabbits, raccoons, and stars on it in the style of a Nudie Cohn country music suit.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Middle aged men deserve The Hague for the way they use smileys. This is in a reply to my husband about attic insulation.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

I firmly believe that one of the things that keeps historical romance from creeping into the 1830s is how terrible the clothes look to modern eyes. Like, we do not think these people are capable of love.

An 1830s fashion plate featuring a gentleman in coat, trousers, waistcoat, and shirt, carrying his hat. His shoulders are strongly sloped, and the waist of his coat has a fit and flare shape, emphasizing a narrow waist and round hips.

An 1830 fashion plate of a woman in a dress and wrap of some kind. Her hair has curls piled on either side of her head and feathers on top, evoking Dr. Seuss. Her neckline is wide and leads into puffed, off the shoulder sleeves that are larger than her head.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Also in true clothing nerd fashion, I must point out that the distinction between dressmaking and tailoring in womenswear goes back to the 17th century, when mantua makers (mostly women) began creating a new style of draped gown, taking business from tailors (mostly men)

A mantua, a long extravagantly draped gown.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

With very few exceptions, women in the past were loaded for bear by modern standards. Longline bras and girdles (which is what’s under most of the photos in this thread) COMPLETELY change how clothes sit on you. Spanx doesn’t work the same way, it compresses without shaping.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

The lady on the left probably has four yards of fabric in her skirt. It’s much more common to find straighter cuts these days, like the one on the right. They aren’t as dramatic because they don’t pool out from the body in the same way.

A family sitting on the front steps of a house, the woman is wearing a full, pleated, tea-length skirt (which is probably part of a dress) with a bolero jacket.

A model in a Banana Republic oversized tee shirt and straight cut skirt, sitting. Her skirt follows the line of her legs, even while seated.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

At a very simple level, women’s clothing used to have a LOT more fabric in it. The hemlines are longer, the skirts are fuller, the sleeves billow, even on regular sleeved shirts. Look at the shape between her elbow and wrist, compared to the modern shirt.

A man and a woman standing outside from around the 1940s. She is wearing a striped menswear-style shirt buttoned up to the chin with a generous pointed collar, the sleeves are noticeably larger than her arms.

A model wearing a Banana Republic striped shirt. It’s relaxed all over, but the sleeves are just a little bigger than her arms all the way down.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

To this day, depending on where you're sailing into, the buoys for entering harbor can mean the *exact opposite* of what you expect. The US, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines are in Region B, and you have "Red Right Returning" drilled into you.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Going into interviews explaining that it was my job to maintain this ontology for seven years. H/t @yvonnezlam.bsky.social

Post on mastodon saying “ It's very simple really. There are Drives and Sites. You can find your Sites in Teams where they are called Channels. Or Files in Channels. Sites are also in SharePoint. Drives are also in SharePoint but you can't access them that way except by accident. Libraries are Groups that are also Files (but Teams calls these Knowledge Bases). You can save things in Notebooks which are saved in a Drive but can also contain Drives or Sites (but not Teams, which are what Teams calls Teams and where Channels are stored, which SharePoint and OneDrive call Sites). Copilot is both a way to access Sites and Drives, and a way to produce lies. Nobody knows what 365 means. If all of this is overwhelming, consider speaking to your administrator about whether Microsoft Death is right for you.”

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

One project done! My first attempt at needlepoint, and very enjoyable.

Needlepoint cushion showing a crocodile and an elephant in bright colors.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Things are bad, but last year I developed a hyperfixation on making proper Italian fruit gelato, which I haven't found in the US. After a lot of experimentation (I have a gelato grimoire full of ratios) and buying a wholesale quantity of emulsifier, let me tell you, it's the absolute greatest.

Dark red gelato (ice cream) in a glass with a spoon.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

It’s a sign of good cutting but not universal. Matching stripes on diagonals depends a lot on the two angles you’re matching. If you look at the narrower stripe, you can see they almost match at the notch, but are farther apart by the roll, because the two pieces are on different angles.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

My very wonderful cat died last weekend (as John Hodgman says, because we paid a professional to come kill her with poison.) Here she is, being ill suited to eating a tortilla chip.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

I had a conversation recently with some friends about why I find it hard to get too excited (in either direction) about the promise that AI will make design/product management/etc. obsolete. I think it's partially because my discipline was declared over before I even got into it.

The meme of James Franco with a noose around his neck, about to be hanged, asking "first time?"

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

His kinetic sculptures get a lot of attention, rightly, but I love his weird little houses so much, like the grandfather’s hut.

An early 20th century cartoon by Rowland Emett, showing eccentric little houses

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Everything about the recent papal thriller, Conclave, was so perfectly aimed at me that I fully expected a large box to fall on top of me when I entered the theatre, but one thing I did NOT expect to be delighted by was a scene showing an original "file," the thread on which papers are strung.

A man dressed as a cardinal piercing a folded paper vote with a needle, threading it onto a red thread.

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