iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

We lived in Nidau, a French and German speaking town, around 200m from the lake. My father then decided to move back to his canton of origin before I had to go to school. Ticino is Italian speaking and I spoke only German, so the choice was between moving back immediately or never moving back again.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Whenever I’m here I wonder how my life would have been like if my father hadn’t decided to move back to Ticino.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

The weather on Lake Bienne is just perfect.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

That's the Tremola, the old road. It's now mostly used by cyclists, motorcyclists and classic car owners.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

The Gotthard axis is an important transit route between northern and southern Europe. I don’t mind driving in a tunnel for 17km, but if I have time, I prefer driving over the pass because it’s more scenic.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

I have my annual family reunion this weekend, so it's almost guaranteed that the weather will turn the moment I'm driving home. I usually drive over the Gotthard Pass and always catch the first light snowfall of the season. This is last September.

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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

I am so jealous of this oblivious pile of fluff.

A large grey cat kinda spilling out of a wicker cat bed resting his chin on the edge of the bed. He looks comfy and sleepy.

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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

I just saw a TikTok like “the motivations of assassins don’t make sense anymore” but boy have they never. Hinkley shot Reagan to impress Jodi Foster. Oswald was such a complete mess people just assume the CIA did it. Guiteau killed Garfield because no one would make him an ambassador.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

They must have realized that many don't want to wait and torrent/download the show.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

And you can watch on Youtube one hour after the shows premieres in the UK. No more waiting 24 hours until the show drops on Youtube.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

The new season of Taskmaster starts tonight 😀 You don't even have to wait 24 hours anymore, tonight's episode will be on Youtube at 2 p.m PDT

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

I used to look at watches with my father. I think about him every time I take a stroll along via Nassa in Lugano and see a Vacheron Constantin on display, they were his favourite watches. I'm always mesmerized by the Overseas Tourbillon Skeleton, truly a work of art.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

If you see this, I implore you to post an image from your device without context.

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PythonMaps @pythonmaps.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Few people realise the scale of the Himalayas because static maps are a bad way to convey topography. Fortunately, we can use interactive maps to explore topography. Here is an example using Pyvista.

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Dr Kat Day (she/her) 🎃 🌑 @chronicleflask.katday.com · 19/07/2025

This isn’t the female gaze. This is the male gaze. It’s men who are obsessed with the physicality of other men. Women, in the main, would much rather see a man who looks like he’d make himself a stack of buttered toast and let you steal a slice

Screenshot:

No room for wokeness!
@Wokenessisevil
Notice how no one, not a single soul, has ever complained about the female gaze in entertainment.

[photos show Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher) with ripped muscles]

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draglikepull @draglikepull.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Excellent article on how the US is starting to weaponise its control over critical financial and technological systems against its own allies. Contains a good explanation of the sanctions stuff I've been talking about lately. www.wired.com/story/enshit...

Infrastructure tends to be invisible until it starts being used against you. Back in 2020, the United States imposed sanctions on Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, for repressing democracy protests on China’s behalf. All at once, Lam became uniquely acquainted with the power of the dollar clearing system—a layer of the world’s financial machinery that most people have never heard of.

Here’s how it works: Global banks convert currencies to and from US dollars so their customers can sell goods internationally. When a Japanese firm sells semiconductors to a tech company in Mexico, they’ll likely conduct the transaction in dollars—because they want a universal currency that can quickly be used with other trading partners. So these firms may directly ask for payment in dollars, or else their banks may turn pesos into dollars and then use those dollars to buy yen, shuffling money through accounts in US-regulated banks like Citibank or J.P. Morgan, which “clear” the transaction.

So dollar clearing is an expedient. It’s also the chief enforcement mechanism of US financial policy across the globe. If foreign banks don’t implement US financial sanctions and other measures, they risk losing access to US dollar clearing and going under. This threat is so existentially dire that, when Lam was placed under US sanctions, even Chinese banks refused to have anything to do with her. She had to keep piles of cash scattered around her mansion to pay her bills.

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Bleuchz @bleuchz.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Lou is writing an angry fax to Darche as we speak.

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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

If you don’t understand how anything works, everything is a conspiracy.

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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

it is hard to fully appreciate just how incredibly *dumb* America’s Troubles will be. Our Years of Lead Paint.

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Phil PlAIt @philplait.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

One of the things that *actually*, *truly* makes America great is NASA. And Trump has slit its throat.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I got so uncomfortable I had to close the stream.

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nobody @petbugs13.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

well it's obvious there was no intelligence involved in the decision

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Lemon ravioli are next. I usually make a big batch with ricotta, grana and finely grated lemon peels and keep them in the freezer. I haven’t made them yet, so the pictures are from last December.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

I listen to your podcast mostly when I'm cooking dishes that take several hours. This time it's more than 4kg of ragù. Thanks for entertaining me while I was cutting onions and carrots.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Last Monday, my delivery window was from 10.10 am to 12.10 pm and UPS left me a note that they couldn't find me at 12.20 pm. I was home, having lunch, and they didn't even ring the bell 🤬 I had to pick up my package at an access point the next day.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

We're having August weather (30°C or more) since June 11 and there is no end in sight 🥵

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Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 29/05/2025

Sci-fi view of The Future: We'll all have flying cars and holidaying on Mars! Disease will be fixed with a quick blast from a Star Trek thingy! The Actual Future:

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Hard to believe they’re talking about the same event.

Headline from the independent: Trump gives rambling speech about trophy wives, golf and the 'great late' Al Capone in politically-charged West Point address

Headline from the New York Times: Trump Gives Commencement Address at West Point, Stressing a New Era

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I wasn't aware that real men don't eat soup. Do these people hear themselves? Walz was being kind when he called them weird.

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EM Simpson @emsetc.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

There's a great investigative piece - or book! - to be written about who is actually governing in this administration. Who writes the EOs, who decides when they go to Trump, etc. This is a reality TV show masquerading as a presidency.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 23/05/2025

so who do we think trump is manipulating the market for today?

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

I hope someone else scoops him up.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 22/05/2025

The Republican administration is also ordering all current international students (and postdocs, I believe) at Harvard to transfer or leave the country. www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05...

WASHINGTON – Today, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered DHS to terminate the Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification.

This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/05/2025

NEW: More than a dozen high-ranking executive branch officials and congressional aides made well-timed trades since Trump took office, most of them selling stock before the market plunged amid fears that Trump’s tariffs would set off a global trade war.

propublica.org

More Than a Dozen U.S. Officials Sold Stocks Before Trump’s Tariffs Sent the Market Plunging

Records show well-timed trades by executive branch employees and congressional aides. Even if they had no insider information, ethics experts say such trading undermines faith in government and the ma...

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Dan @cultureoflosing.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Definitely can't wait to see how the guy who failed miserably for 11 years leading a team with all of the money, resources, cache and power in the sport handles running... the fucking Islanders. I'm sure it'll go very smoothly.

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Dan @cultureoflosing.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

As I detailed on the latest episode of Islanders Anxiety... I've hated this douche ever since he whined his way out of Hartford. Not really feeling this. www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/...

sportsnet.ca

Maple Leafs grant Islanders permission to speak to Brendan Shanahan

The New York Islanders have been granted permission to speak to Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan about an opening in their front office, Sportsnet can confirm.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Who looks at the Leafs and thinks "Yes, I want that"?

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I was a student in Basel at the time and Subway was all over American tv shows. I had to know what it was all about.

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Francesca @frafont.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

I had the worst sandwich of my life at a Subway in Lörrach (Germany). Never again.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

"The bare minimum will reach the population - simply so the world doesn't stop us and accuse us of war crimes." www.bbc.com/news/live/cq...

BBC News:
IDF is destroying everything that remains of Gaza, far-right Israeli minister says
published at 07:19
07:19
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel's new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, August 17, 2023.
Image source,Reuters
We can now bring you some lines from a press conference held this morning by Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

He says the little amount of food entering the Strip will not reach Hamas: "The bare minimum will reach the population - simply so the world doesn't stop us and accuse us of war crimes."

"What will enter in the coming days is very little: a few bakeries distributing pita bread to people, and public kitchens providing one daily serving of cooked food."

Civilians, he says, will receive one pita and a plate of food - "that's it".

He adds that Israel's military is "destroying everything that remains of the Strip", describing the territory as "one big terror city".

He says civilians will be moved out of combat zones as the army leaves "no stone unturned".

"The population will reach the south of the Strip, and from there, with God’s help, to third countries," he says.

As we've been reporting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will take control of all of Gaza.

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The Daily Beast @thedailybeast.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office announced Sunday.

thedailybeast.com

Joe Biden Diagnosed With ‘Aggressive’ and Spreading Cancer

The former president, 82, was diagnosed last week after experiencing “increasing urinary symptoms.”

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Henning @geohenning.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

On May 18, 1980, Richard Lasher got up early to get some photos at Spirit Lake. Instead, he was forced to stop because of the massive, explosive Mount St. Helens eruption and captured this iconic photo with his own red Ford Pinto on the road. 🧪⚒️ #OTD www.hemmings.com/stories/mt-s...

Photo by Richard Lasher. Horizontal and vintage photo of a road in a mountain forest. Red car with a motorbike on the road. In the distance a huge ash cloud from the eruption of Mt St. Helens on May 18th, 1980.

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Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 11/05/2024

NORTHERN LIGHTS: Take my picture! Please! I don't look great now but the photos will be spectacular, bursts of green and pink! Take as many photos as you can! THE MOON: Do not take my photo, if you little apes dare to photograph me I will be so tiny, I swear to god I will make myself so goddamn tiny

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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

It’s especially galling that AG Pam Bondi personally wrote the memo approving the gift of the Qatari airplane. Her last job was as a lobbyist for Qatar! efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Ex...

Received by NSD/FARA Registration Unit 07/23/2019 2:45:32 PM
062719
CONSULTING SERVICES AGREEMENT
AMENDMENT ONE
THIS AMENDMENT ONE shall amend that certain Consulting Services Agreement dated June 28, 2018 by and between the Embassy of the State of Qatar (Embassy') and Ballard Partners ("Consultant").
In consideration of the mutual promises set forth herein, the Embassy and Consultant agree to amend the Consulting Services Agreement, as follows:
The Term of the Agreement shall commence on July 1. 2019 (the "Effective Date"), ar all expire on COB June 30, 2020, unless earlier terminated in accordance with t!
Agreement.
2. Appendix A is amended by adding the following:
"Additionally, the Consultant shall provide consulting and advocacy services regarding matters involving anti-human trafficking
The following Consultant personnel shall be designated "Key Personnel": Ms. Pam Bondi and Mr. James Rubin. Key Personnel shall be personally and substantially engaged in the delivery of the Services."
3. Appendix B is amended to modify the consulting fee to US $ 115.000 per month.
Except as expressly stated herein. nothing in this Amendment One shall alter or amend the terms of the Consulting Services Agreement.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, Embassy and Consultant have executed this Agreement by their duly authorized representatives.
By Embassy
By:
BBI
Consultant
Date:
July 17, 2019
.."''"

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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 11/05/2025

Everyone’s going to correctly focus on the ethics problems, but Air Force One is supposed to also be a secure communications platform, right? Nobody sees the issue here?

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