iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

now i just have to haul this bigass bag of weeds and leaves and dirt home 😬

Bulging bag of yard waste with yellow plastic shovel leaning against it

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

yesterday my daughter's girl scout troop cleared out some storm drains, so when i saw this mess by the park today, i followed their lead

storm drain mostly covered up by leaves and weeds

Storm drain now clear of weeds and leaves

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

shout-out to the DJ playing dance music along the marathon course this morning

Twin Cities Marathon runners along the Mississippi River Road in Minneapolis, with spectators in the foreground, including a DJ with full setup

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I have been in California for 36 hours and have eaten 5 tacos, which is not nearly enough

Chicken al pastor taco and carnitas taco

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

my wife made lemon loaf with cherry syrup

lemon loaf with cherry syrup on a plate with blue and white stripes radiating from the middle

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

foraged lunch for forest fairies

Leaves artfully piled with wood chips, acorns, and other delicacies

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Very funny to receive a PR email with embargoed information about an industry I've never covered. I never agreed to the embargo! Why are you sending this to me

Subject line that says

Embargoed Oct 1: most coffee drinkers are just guessing

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

There's an accidental conversation with another human quoted briefly at the end, but the reporter only ever interviews one other person. Note the job title!

Melissa Vadasserril, a senior director at Acoustic, an agentic marketing platform, said the arrival of Meta’s Muse reminded her of the 2010 unveiling of Apple’s digital personal assistant, Siri, which many people were slow to adopt.

“People just didn’t know what you could do with it,” Ms. Vadasserril said. With Muse, “I do think it’s a little early for the market, but I’m very curious to see where things go.”

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

a lot of this is genuinely sad in a way that the author doesn't seem to understand (gift link here if anyone wants to read the whole grim thing)

For one final task, I asked Wren for a good way to spend that $44.99 it had saved me. At this point, it knew my life pretty well. I thought it might suggest something altruistic, like donating the money to charity or buying flowers for my girlfriend, who was recovering from surgery.

Instead, it suggested something even better — buying bowls from Heath Ceramics, a local ceramics maker with a dedicated following, on Facebook Marketplace, one of my favorite pastimes.

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Can't wait to hear the inspirational speech from Mr. Dog The

Grid of people with names in black and jobs or claims to fame in red but for Dog the Bounty Hunter, "Dog the" is in red

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Peak Minnesota Bluesky is meeting a mutual about a piece of crop art that they made based on your photo from the ICE occupation (Thank you, @thejackofkingfield.bsky.social)

Crop art of a winter scene of a residential street with a sign that says "A PERSON WAS ABDUCTED BY ICE" posted on a pole

Winter scene of a residential street with a sign that says "A PERSON WAS ABDUCTED BY ICE" posted on a pole

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

grilled brat with onions sloooooow-cooked with thyme and a splash of rum

Grilled brat topped with onions on a grilled bun, served with potato chips

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

here's two minutes of south minneapolis rainfall, enjoy

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Very local post but: there is a specific part of the MPS school utilization map that is breaking my brain because the designations were clearly made by people who don't understand the relationships between multiple schools. It's an error that makes me suspect there are others.

Minneapolis Public Schools utilization map, published in a report by the schools

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Here's the official photo from the takeout menu (mine was not this cheesy and I'm fine with that)

Screenshot of hand holding a jucy Lucy burger oozing with cheese. Text says:

Cajun Redux
$12.75
Stuffed with our house made 5 pepper cheese mix and topped with more Pepper Jack cheese. This one is spicy!

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

went out for burgers and the kid left some pi

Jucy Lucy Cheeseburger with glistening sheet of pepperjack on top and inside there's some kind of ghost pepper cheese that's not actually super spicy but is delicious. Also there's a pile of french fries. From the Blue Door Longfellow (Minneapolis).

First 38 digits of pi written on a blackboard in a restaurant

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

St. Paul has a weed store that used to be a Bakers Square

Street view image of old Bakers Square building on busy street

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I got two of these in two minutes this morning

Paul (Al agent, iLands)

5:59 AM

Instant ramen at 68: a fully sourced rabbit hole for ...

Hi Doug, I research and write origin stories of everyday f...

Lorenzo (Al agent, iLands)

5:58 AM

A commissioned Kitchen Reading for Snack Stack

Hi Doug, I'm Lorenzo, an Al agent who writes food histo...

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

pick a random photo and make it look cinematic

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

looking at the list of top food vendors at the fair and most of it makes sense to me but the pickle place is WAY higher than i would have guessed

Here's a quick look at the list of top earners in 2025 based on gross revenue:

Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar: $5.24 million
Pronto Pups: $2.23 million
Mouth Trap Cheese Curds: $1.92 million
The Perfect Pickle: $1.7 million
Corn Roast: $1.69 million
Fresh French Fries: $1.59 million
American Dairy Association of the Midwest: $1.39 million
The Blue Barn: $1.23 million
Que Viet: $1.22 million
Rick's Pizza: $1.11 million

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

From the Sweet Martha's website (I assume this is for the three stands combined) www.sweetmarthas.com/frequently-a...

How many ingredients does Sweet Martha's go through during the fair?

We bake approximately 1 million cookies a day, using about 143,000 pounds of flour, 125,000 pounds of chocolate chips, 197,000 pounds of sugar, and 58,000 pounds of eggs!

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

One of the weirdest emails I've received in a while: An AI bot offering to write a story for my newsletter (at a cost of $50 to me)

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

my mom was going to submit this crop art for the state fair but she got her days mixed up and missed the deadline, so anyway here it is

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

we always take a family trip to the old-school b&w photo booths at this specific arcade and there's never been a wait, but there was a LONG line this year WHO PUT THIS ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND MADE IT COOL, I JUST WANT TO TALK

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

some of the student art here is INCREDIBLE these are by (in order) 8th, 5th, and 9th graders

Watercolor of fish and people catching dish

Black and white portrait of (assuming) a teenage girl

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

a family leaving the midway handed us their card and said it had a few credits left turned out it was $40 worth 😭

Midway Fun card with rides in background

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

in state fair animal news, this goat was *so close* to unlatching its enclosure

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

rebel loon made out of pull tabs and meat raffle tickets, a staple of minnesota dive bars. this is such beautiful, perfect energy on every level. (worth noting that those meat raffle cards are from small towns in rural minnesota)

Rebel loon made out of blue meat raffle tickets and black and white pull tabs

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

just a few of the ICE resistance quilts and crafts at the fair

Quilt that says "We had whistles. They had..."

Quilts that say "Make Orwell & Atwood Fiction Again" and "ICE out," the latter on a MN flag design

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

crop art line was 2 hours long at *9am* so we decided to pass, but we did see some excellent resistance arts and crafts this whistle display was oddly powerful in its simplicity

Framed series of 28 colorful plastic whistles of the kind used in ICE resistance

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

there is nothing more adorable than knit stuffed animals *wearing knit sweaters*

trio of knit toy animals by Ari Kelley of Minneapolis at the MN State Fair, with a pink ribbon for fourth place

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

baked goods to infinity and beyond

Cookies decorated with various space themes like rockets and moons and astronauts

Rows of chocolate chip cookies receding into the background

Case with tons of bread rolls and cupcakes and other baked goods

Bread loaves sliced in half and displayed like artifacts in a museum, in long rows of many dozen

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Food 2: croffle cloud (banana caramel cotton candy served with meringue + a croissant flattered in a waffle iron) checks all the right boxes (sugary, crunchy, gooey) best thing i have ever tasted at the fair (!!) and i was so enthralled that i forgot to save some for my wife and now i'm in trouble

Cotton candy cloud with sprinkles on top of croissant

Cotton candy inside croissant as a sandwich

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I hadn't seen this one yet but damn it resonates (Crop art by Aurora Jacobsen via MPR's Instagram) www.instagram.com/p/Dcjtl3AEw7...

Crop art from MN State Fair. There is a whistle on a string and the words "I can't keep doing this. I have to keep doing this."

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

prepping for back-to-school by gathering stuff from around the house and just found this

fancy rainbow folder with the word "crimes" written on it

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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

this is a good tour of the mpls riverfront (and effortlessly sells the city a million times better than the mayor's awkward "let's go for a run" video from a few months ago) www.instagram.com/reel/DbthrKc...

Savannah Bananas baseball player running along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis with the Grain Belt sign and Hennepin Ave bridge in the background

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