iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Fun, I found my picture of it from five years ago. My best guess is it's worth a couple hundred bucks.

Photo of a (badly) framed Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie poster stood up against cardboard on a floor that needs to be refinished. The poster is in pretty good shape.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Look at all this nonsense! These are just what got played yesterday.

Pittsburgh 68, Tiny Epic Zombies, Zombie Dice, Cthulhu Fluxx, and many boxes worth of Arkham Horror.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I know a lot of knots. I'm good at them. I can do them backwards and forwards and upsidedown. They feel natural. But THIS is stupid alchemy magic and I hate* it.

How to tie the "Bottle Sling Knot," the point of this post is that I literally do not know how to describe it.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Twice as many independents as Democrats, and twice as many Republicans as both of those combined. And they're this scared.

VOTE DAHO

Idaho has

1,030,522 registered voters.

646,820 Republicans
246,923 Unaffiliated
122,021 Democrats

Voter Age
18-29 154,877
30-44 234,447
45-59 236,493
60-74 262,173
75+ 142,532

011

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Looks like a poster for a punk band.

The physical therapy department has labeled a piece of equipment with messy sharpie.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Do I know any gutter people? Did I do this right?

I hacked together junction of two gutter downspouts. I think it looks pretty cool but it's my first time so who knows? They don't carry these parts in store, you can get them shipped but they're $60 so the guy just told me to cut em up and jam em together.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Keeping this one for a while. NYT finally getting enough guts to be snarky.

NYTimes

37m

America's Chatbot

President Trump unveiled an A.I. search tool that answers questions about the U.S. government. It frequently contradicts him.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Great joy of today: Home Depot carries these in store!

A weird rectangular electrical thing with two red and two black wires attached to it. It's a thermostat for a baseboard heater.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Great find at Half Price Books last weekend. #IYKYK

Picture of a tiny part of a game board where a weird cartoon amoeba thinks "Ludo, ergo sum."

100

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Local Pittsburgh bookstore event tomorrow celebrating Dolly's Imagination Library. www.readingreadypittsburgh.org/futureevents

020

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I made a stereogram of it because it actually helps a lot to see it this way. If you hold your phone at just the right distance and cross your eyes just the right way you can see it in 3D, like a Viewmaster.

A stereogram of an elongated, square-based pyramid made with tensegrity and sitting on a small table. The pyramid is made of orange Tinkertoy rods and twine. There is no glue or other fasteners, just the tension of the string vs the compression of the sticks.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This one's around a foot. Proof of concept: 👍 Whatcha think @looneylabs.bsky.social?

110

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Ok, I think I get why yinz enjoy these minis games and bother with all the terrain crafting. Exciting action shots are exciting.

Mechwarrior
A Rifleman lines up a shot on a Goliath that just woke up.

Mechwarrior
A Blackjack is about to Death From Above a Summoner (Maybe? I can't remember all the names) from the top rope.

120

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

And even having to explain it to people who don't want to get it is its own different kind of fun.

Map of "Potato Europe vs Tomato Europe," divided along a parallel that roughly runs along the northern border of Italy.

Map of "Potato Europe vs Tomato Europe" circa 1491. It is blank.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

(try rephrasing, i agree with you but, yeah.)

"Retired Marine Staff Sergeant Johnny "Joey" Jones lost both legs above the knee on August 6, 2010, after stepping on an improvised explosive device (IED) while serving as a bomb technician in Afghanistan."

There is also a picture of him with his two prosthetics.

200

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

(I took these picture, you may keep them as your own.)

"ZOLTAN TELLS ALL"
printed on some decorative wooden trim work attached to...

...this guy. From the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in Ocean City, Maryland. An old fortune telling machine, not entirely unlike the one from Big.

100

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I'm gonna get entirely too much use out of this. bsky.app/profile/pixe...

"NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MISOGYNY" made with the linked generator

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Two things: First, 17,000 people in a city of 8.5 million (which apparently doesn't even count them), 0.02%, and it gets all this freak out. There's twenty times that many homeless people in NYC, where's the freak out on their behalf? Second: This

"Jennifer Landau-Carter, a retired diplomat who now lives in Paris, had always intended to sell the Greenwich Village townhouse that she inherited after finishing its yearslong, multimillion-dollar renovation. Once she received a pied-à-terre tax notice in the mail, the decision to sell her childhood home got even easier.

“You get this letter and you’re like, ‘Wait, what? Me?’ ” she said.

Landau-Carter claims her property isn’t a pied-à-terre because it hasn’t been habitable while under construction. She said she spent 3½ days combing through the Department of Finance website, filling out forms and consulting AI to contest the tax, which would put her on the hook for more than $64,000. The Greek Revival home is listed for around $20 million."

Yes! Yes, you! Of course you! You very specifically!

1153

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Basically a highly adorned version of this. Lovely.

A tessellation of squares and equilateral triangles. Every corner consists of (in order) a square, two triangles, another square, a final triangle.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I thought these were incredibly stupid and rude in like 2012. But now? Yeah, I kinda do.

A bumper sticker showing George W Bush waving and saying "Miss me yet?" These were sold during the middle of Obama's presidency.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

What you think you're getting (and don't get me started on that baggage) vs what you're really getting.

A very Big Brother wall of Tvs with eyes looking at one terrified person holding a smartphone.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

All of US politics since the Nixon administration.

50 Years of Mad Libs
(The word game, but, y'know.)

120

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

There are high-power extension cords. They are huge and usually short, because length contributes to resistance as well, making daisy-chaining extra dangerous. Also this:

A melted power strip. It looks like a burned marshmallow with black cords coming out.

100

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

The main artery for traffic between Pittsburgh and points east (including me) is closed for a month. Now we all have to go around, the best path for which is going back and forth over a river, but at least you have options. This straight line highway is always congested. The side streets will choke.

Google Maps screen capture showing two (and a half) paths around the closed Squirrel Hill Tunnel. Two semi-random locations have been chosen on opposite sides of the closure, which is marked in a sad, dotted red line. Terrain in the area is shown, it's not impossibly steep, but it's steep enough that no one wanted to build roads over it so we dug a four thousand foot tunnel through a mountain (ok, a hill, but it *feels* like a mountain). They're not long detours (modulo traffic) but they sure look silly going that far around and, in one case, over the same river twice.

110

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

When this was my teen's room they never opened the curtains. What a waste that was.

A mimosa tree in fantastic full bloom. You can literally reach out and pick the flowers by opening the window. There are two more of these windows and the tree wraps around the corner to them all.

000

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Not making this up.I'm monroevillemall.com/security

Monroeville Mall visitors under 18 are required to be accompanied by a parent or guardian 21 years or older on Friday and Saturday evenings after 4 PM, or at any other time the policy is in effect.

020

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

If I turn off my blue light filter and pump my brightness to max I can barely make out the supernumeraries in this shot.

Tiny ripples of repeating colors at the inside edge of the primary bow. This is the only way to see pink in a rainbow (when the blue and red from multiple contributions overlap). It's pretty rare and only happens when the air has especially small and uniform water droplets.

030

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Just caught a beautiful rainbow with secondary bow, clear Alexander's band, AND supernumerary arcs! I don't think I've ever seen those before! I wish my phone camera could see it with any quality.

161

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

They're parts to a pipe organ. What?

Twelve metal pipes of different diameters and lengths bundled together and chucked on my basement floor.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Meanwhile, a less than ten minute walk down the street, the actual psych hospital is... well you can see why they made the choice they did.

Western Psych at UPMC. It is less photogenic than the other building. By a lot.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Too hot outside to plant it today. Too windy to leave outside tonight. Too tall to put in a normal room. It's Temporary Stairwell Tree!

A potted, young tree standing in our stairwell/hallway. It's wrong. But also so right.

010

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

I think my future might be in trouble... #NoFate

A cookie fortune that's ¼ its normal height. It kinda says "learn Chinese" if you squint.

120

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Set it ten years after Mary's husband dies, Ada is 17, her father died eight years ago. She gets to say things like "ugh, you are *so* from the 1700s" to Mary (aged 35). A lot to explore about grief across generations and learning together to handle it. (With knives, it's handled with knives.)

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Birth: August 4, 1792
Death: July 8, 1822

Mary Shelley
Birth: August 30, 1797
Death: February 1, 1851

Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)
Birth: January 22, 1788
Death: April 19, 1824

Ada Lovelace
Birth: December 10, 1815
Death: November 27, 1852

131

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

What gets me is that it's a four day walk. (And less than 19 hours by car. A long drive, but if you make two stops along the way you're fine.)

A Google-generated travel map from Troy to Ithaca. Dude shoulda walked.

1140

Don Sheldon 🌱 @donsheldon.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

When the kids aren't allowed to eat something – which is very rare and never about their 'nutrition' but because someone is saving it for themselves – we write "iON" on it. And it's perfectly clear why.