iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 10/09/2026

Great read and I find this hard to disagree with bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/t...

bcantrill.dtrace.org

The revolt of the reader | The Observation Deck

Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 14/07/2026

Any recommendations for a book I could read covering the 2001 dot com bust? Lately I’ve read “1929” and now “Too Big To Fail” both by Andrew Ross Sorkin. It’s been illuminating reading the parallels both historical and contemporary

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 10/07/2026

I've been running CachyOS as my daily driver since January & it's been an excellent workstation setup. I can't live without ZFS/boot environments/optional root FS encryption/etc., so I've been maintaining an official installer patcher to help: github.com/fnichol/cach...

github.com

GitHub - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer: An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments.

An installer that configures CachyOS with an optionally encrypted ZFS root filesystem, ZFSBootMenu bootloader, and automatic boot environments. - fnichol/cachyos-zfs-installer

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 09/07/2026

When I was younger I had a rule: always volunteer to help a friend move (you never know when you need to call in the favor). With you in spirit this time, otherwise I'd be asking: "does this box go in the back of the truck or in the car because it's a monitor & is fragile?".

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 07/07/2026

Ok, it's our little secret but…I'm decommissioning a VM that I deployed in April of 2009! Good 'ol Ubuntu 8.10. Honestly, it's amazing it's running anything of value still. Not for long though, time to say goodbye :)

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Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

The peril of laziness lost bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/04/12/t...

bcantrill.dtrace.org

The peril of laziness lost | The Observation Deck

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 12/04/2026

Fascinating read of how NASA has advanced their computer systems from the Apollo era to Artemis era. Full systems determinism is a high bar and really bucks the trend for us folks working on systems down here in the dirt. cacm.acm.org/news/how-nas...

cacm.acm.org

How NASA Built Artemis II’s Fault-Tolerant Computer – Communications of the ACM

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 11/04/2026

Of course I’m on social media: after checking feeds there’s a lot of porch erections going on

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 11/04/2026

Watching the reentry of Integrity and splashdown this evening. It’s deeply inspiring to see what humans can accomplish working together using science, engineering, dedication, and training. A damn near *perfect* mission. #ArtemisII

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 17/03/2026

LinkedIn: Algorithmic Confirmation Bias. My god friends, please be careful.

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/03/2026

LLMs are currently the technologist’s Rorschach test, and it’s a lot

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/03/2026

LLMs are trivially susceptible to “Don’t think of an elephant” behavior. Now all my agent files will only contain `Elephants.`

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 03/03/2026

There's no better form of time travel than listening to the music of your teenager years.

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apenwarr @apenwarr.ca · 27/02/2026

Do companies not need people to build software anymore… or do people not need companies to build software anymore?

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/02/2026

Yeah, one day. Here's what I do now: watch youtu.be/00_hBrQFfzw?... and replace "spice" with "RAM" and "interstellar travel" with "everything".

youtu.be

Dune - Spacing Guild Frigate Landing

YouTube video by Dune 2021

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/02/2026

...the heck, a CLI? Well I mean, if you want to venture into my terminal, who am I to say no?

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/02/2026

Technologists reflect: friction is not a universal liability, but rather a tool.

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 26/02/2026

The first edition is one of my top favorite technology books of all time—cannot wait for this second edition. I’ll also say that due to how it’s written and the content being high level, the audiobook version is my top favorite technology audiobook.

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 25/02/2026

From building fully hermetic software build and packaging solutions, to implementing consensus protocols for distributed systems, to writing successful developer and operations tooling, I thrive on hard and necessary challenges. If you have hard and necessary challenges, I think we should talk. 4/4

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 25/02/2026

I've been developing application and systems level software for well over 20 years, primarily in Rust professionally for just over 10 years and working on open source codebases for most of my career, so if you'd like to know how I work, & how I evolve my practice, I am a very open book. 3/4

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 25/02/2026

Nothing is certain in early stage startups & I’m grateful for the opportunity to apply my craft, science, & engineering on some of the hardest technical challenges. I’m more of a “past informs and influences the future” kind of person so I’m far more excited with what is next. 2/4

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 25/02/2026

It’s official: I’ve wrapped up 6 years working with the best team of my career at System Initiative. I’d like to thank Adam Jacob, Mahir Lupinacci, and Alex Ethier for putting their trust in me and being their first employee hire. 1/4

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/11/2025

Me: I need options to solve X LLM: Great idea! Here's options A, B, C, I prefer B Me: Hm, none of those are great, are you sure there aren't alternatives? LLM: Great point! There's a better approach in option D Me: D is still too strange... LLM: Right, I have a better solution: E! Me: ...

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 18/11/2025

Actual response: "Brilliant insight! Yes, absolutely! Using Result types consistently throughout makes this much cleaner and more type-safe." Told ya

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 18/11/2025

I just blew Claude Code's mind. At least, it's been over 6 minutes since I had an admittedly great idea & it's still "thinking". Human += 1

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 16/11/2025

I still remain highly skeptical of blanket trust in & applications of LLMs but I'm finding an intentionally configured Claude Code with Skills leads to a powerful brainstorming & planning system. I haven't felt this generally creative in a long time & it's mostly due to "writing things down".

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 02/11/2025

Good lord all of Canada right now

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 04/10/2025

Last night I had a pretty vivid dream of playing the original Battlefield 1942. I remember when my friend showed me this game for the first time. I've never been so blown away by any video game experience as that day. It felt like anything in the environment could be manipulated and used.

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apenwarr @apenwarr.ca · 02/10/2025

Your annual reminder that the "oct" in October is because it's the eighth month

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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 02/10/2025

State files drift, lock, and lie. Real-time simulation keeps infra accurate, collaborative, and safe to change. That’s @systeminit.com Read @stack72.dev 's post to help you realise the pain www.systeminit.com/blog/statefi...

systeminit.com

State Files Are a Crime Scene

State files stall collaboration and punish refactoring. System Initiative fixes both with real-time simulation and change sets.

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Reposted by Fletcher Nichol

Konnor Rogers @konnorrogers.com · 06/03/2025

// Don't ask me why, but this line makes everything 100x faster.

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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 30/09/2025

Most tools promise faster automation. @systeminit.com promises something different: a new way to think about infrastructure. Not just code. Not just pipelines. A system that models reality, simulates change, and shifts how you approach every decision. www.systeminit.com/blog/what-wi...

systeminit.com

What Will Surprise You About System Initiative

Five surprising things that happen when people first see a System Initiative demo - it's not another DevOps tool at all

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System Initiative @systeminit.com · 27/08/2025

. @systeminit.com is launching the world’s first AI Native Infrastructure Automation platform. Read more about how to supercharge your productivity on our blog, www.systeminit.com/blog/ai-nati..., and get started today: systeminit.com

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 16/08/2025

Right now 1200 late night show interns are scrambling to get as many zingers in the bag before each show tapes youtu.be/LXQ6Rm9CGTo

youtu.be

Robots run, punch and score at World Humanoid Robot Games in China

YouTube video by Guardian News

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 08/08/2025

I’m fascinated how the concepts in Promise Theory (for me: autonomous agents & the idea that “all you can do is ask another, never command”) apply to complex systems, human interaction, societal cooperation, etc. Thank you, Mark!

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Rust Language @rust-lang.org · 07/08/2025

Happy new Rust! 🎆🦀 Rust 1.89.0 has been released! This release brings you inferrred array length, new lints, u128/i128 in extern "C", NonZero<char>, File::lock, many x86 intrinsics, and much more! ✨ Check out the blog post and release notes for all the details: blog.rust-lang.org/2025/08/07/R...

blog.rust-lang.org

Announcing Rust 1.89.0 | Rust Blog

Empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

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Andrew Lilley Brinker @alilleybrinker.com · 07/08/2025

In the last Oxide & Friends, @bcantrill.bsky.social argues in favor of dumb questions for getting real understanding, and I feel that one in my bones.

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Mark Burgess @markburgessosl.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Promise Theory is now 20 years old! 🎂

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 30/07/2025

These episodes recount real people working on really hard problems. The false starts, wrong hypotheses, accidental insights, systematic approaches (& then sometimes not!), the tenacity to find root causes--all of it is so refreshingly honest, this is why I call it a gift. Thank you for sharing! 2/2

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 30/07/2025

While I'm on the @oxide.computer cheer team, I'd highly recommend their Oxide and Friends podcast. The transparency and detail of the "epic bug hunt" episodes are a true gift to the software and technology community. 1/2 oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm

oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm

Oxide and Friends

Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form. Join ...

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André Arko @indirect.io · 01/07/2025

years after working with a team that was vehemently against deleting any test, no matter how flaky, I have assembled my counter-doctrine: you should delete tests andre.arko.net/2025/06/30/y...

andre.arko.net

You should delete tests

We’ve had decades of thought leadership around testing, especially coming from wholistic development philosophies like Agile, TDD, and BDD. After all that time and several supposedly superseding movem...

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 27/06/2025

Another case where #rustlang is fast, which can lead to bugs. I forgot to handle this Tokio task cancellation, so the task got locked in a tight loop. Enough to pin CPU cores once deployed. Well *that* explains what happened! github.com/systeminit/s...

github.com

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 03/06/2025

Honestly, if I could figure out how to make *this* a little more a part of my working day…some days the creativity flows like water out on the “road desk”

Picture of Fletcher mid way through his cycle out in the countryside, creativity flowing and brain abuzz with ideas

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Jon Kuperman @jonkuperman.com · 21/05/2025

Sometimes I imagine someone from the past visiting 2025 and being amazed at our technology! - Can't watch the game because the TV is doing a mandatory OS update - Can't make a cup of coffee because the machine can't connect to wifi - Can’t drive the car because the fob battery died

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Fletcher Nichol @fnichol.com · 28/04/2025

Happy Canada Election Day! It’s our right, our privilege, and our freedom to elect our representatives and leaders. If you haven’t already, please do vote!

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