iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 15/04/2026

If you haven't seen, I'm building an iPad app to show digital maps for the D&D campaign I'm running on a display for my players to see. It's still got a ways to go, but we can render DungeonScrawl maps in app!

A screenshot of an iPad app that's displaying the map of the first level of the Undermountain from the D&D 5th edition adventure module "Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage".

172

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 06/04/2026

I last minute printed a breakable egg and used that as a little tactile prop for when the main big bad of the session hatched. I had my player characters break open the egg and scatter pieces around the map. There was nothing inside as the Ankheg paper mini wouldn’t have fit, but it was still cool!

A battle map for a D&D session. There’s a circular room about 16 squares in diameter (about 80 feet), with a 2 square (10 foot) wide tunnel on the southern end. There are stalagmites around the edges of the cavern, with a 4x4 square (20x20 foot) slightly raised platform in the middle. The remains of a 3D printed breakable egg are on the raised platform, which pieces of it scattered throughout the cavern. An Ankheg stands in the remains of the egg, with the player characters (represented by three wooden meeples, one blue, one black, and one purple) within melee range of the Ankheg. The black meeple representing one of the player characters is laying down, as their character has reached zero hit points and is unconscious.

010

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 01/04/2026

It’s done! We finished the USS Enterprise LEGO set on stream tonight. Us Star Trek fans are going to be feasting if we get more sets, cause this was such a good building experience.

The completed USS Enterprise LEGO set, sitting on its stand on a wood table.

150

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/03/2026

Alright, let’s try this streaming thing again, shall we? I’ve got the second half of the LEGO Enterprise to build. Let’s see how far we can get tonight. twitch.tv/legosjedi

Half of the LEGO USS Enterprise set. The drive section is sitting on its stand. The instruction buckler for the saucer section is in front of it. The box for the model is behind it, blurred, looking menacing.

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 21/03/2026

I don’t know how to do anything normal. This is for one two-hour segment for @zeldathon.com’s Side Quest, and then it’s all getting torn down.

A folding table with a bunch of technology to run a segment for Side Quest. It consists of an M4 Mac mini and 27-inch monitor, a Sonnettech PCIe Thunderbolt enclosure, and a Behringer X-AIR XR18 digital mixer. The XLR connectors of an XLR snake are plugged into the digital mixer.

Our living room in marathon mode. There are three shotgun mics on boom stands behind the couch, with the mics hanging over the front of the couch. The mics are plugged into an XLR snake on the floor. A speaker sits on the floor, also plugged into the XLR snake. A GameCube for the game for the segment sits next to the speaker. The coffee table has been pushed out of the middle of the floor. A TV sits on the coffee table and is displaying Zeldathon’s twitch chat. Behind the TV is a mirrorless camera on a tripod. Two LED panels on stands light the couch.

1110

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 30/12/2025

Did you like the look of the LEGO Deku Tree product shots from the @zeldathon.com Prize Network interstitial? That was all possible thanks to our sponsor, @lensrentals.bsky.social, who provided the slider, fluid head, and lens used to get those shots. Big thank you to them for their support!

A Sony FX3 (a digital camera) mounted on a motorized slider, which slides the camera back and forth along a track.

0165

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 07/12/2025

I’m picking up building the LEGO USS Enterprise set. Come hang as we put it together! twitch.tv/legosjedi

A partially built USS Enterprise LEGO set. What has been assembled sits on a table. The instructions are open to the start of steps for bag 5 (out of 30 bags).

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 02/12/2025

They actually made a Star Trek LEGO set. Let’s build it on stream! twitch.tv/legosjedi

A picture of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D LEGO set, along with the Type 15 Shuttlepod Gift with Purchase LEGO set.

060

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 19/11/2025

Time for some FTB Stoneblock 4! twitch.tv/legosjedi

The main menu for Minecraft, stylized for the FTB Stoneblock 4 modpack.

000

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 19/10/2025

It’s always pretty easy to tell when I’m at a convention or Zeldathon or some event like that.

A bar chart showing the number of steps taken over the past week. There’s a line that runs horizontally to indicate the threshold for 10,000 steps. From Sunday, October 12th to Wednesday October 15th, when I was at home, the chart shows those days as being well under that 10,000 step threshold, with the highest count being about 4,000 and the lowest count being below 1,000 steps. There’s a sudden jump to over the 10,000 step threshold for the next day, Thursday, October 16th and sustained through Saturday, October 18th, for the time that I’m at TwitchCon. This chart is expected to drop back down to well below the 10,000 step threshold after I return from TwitchCon.

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 07/10/2025

Oh, this is cool to see. I got an email about the SHIFT RPG Kickstarter, and was scrolling through the campaign to then see a message of support for @kickstarterunited.org and their strike for better worker’s rights in the middle of the campaign description. www.kickstarter.com/projects/shi...

An extract of the campaign description for SHIFT RPG. In the middle of the description is a message of support for the Kickstarter United union and their current strike to get better working conditions in the form of a minimum salary for all workers and a four-day, 32-hour work week.

040

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 07/09/2025

I’ve been slowly building up my physical media collection again. Today’s haul from our various used media stores.

A stack of physical media consisting of the Star Wars: A New Hope soundtrack on CD, Tom Baker’s third and sixth seasons of Doctor Who on Blu-Ray, the LEGO Ninjago Movie on Blu-Ray, the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, and At World’s End) on Blu-Ray, and Die Hard on 4K UHD Blu-Ray.

030

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 03/09/2025

It’s done! I’ve got control over a scene in @pocketbard.bsky.social through a Stream Deck. Looking forward to putting it through its paces for the next session I DM in a couple weeks.

010

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 27/08/2025

Still have some work to do to clean this all up and make it a better UI on the Stream Deck, but between using macOS’s accessibility API and an open source Swift library, I can now control @pocketbard.bsky.social with a Stream Deck.

140

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 21/08/2025

So, who am I seeing at TwitchCon in San Diego?

An order confirmation email for TwitchCon San Diego 2025. The main text in the screenshot of the email reads “Hey, legosjedi, you did it! You’re going to TwitchCon San Diego 2025.”

030

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 07/07/2025

We did it! It’s done and looks really good!

The USS Voyager from the show Star Trek Voyager in plastic building brick toy form from Blue Brixx.

040

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 08/06/2025

Zeldathon, now brought to you in 6K thanks to @lensrentals.bsky.social. That’s 2 more K than 4K! But not really, cause nothing else we use supports 6K. So still coming at you in 1080p60.

A Blackmagic Design Studio Camera 6K Pro.

070

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 12/01/2025

lol and as I sent that, two more for the collection came in.

The movies The Matrix and Jurassic World on 4K UltraHD Blu-ray.

030

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 02/01/2025

My bedroom is slowly coming back together after Side Quest. My rack is assembled again, with a couple of changes. Now there’s an X32 Rack for my mixer, and since all the I/O for that is on the back, I was able to reclaim 1 RU of space since I didn’t need to pass cables through the front of the rack.

The A/V rack in my bedroom. It consists of, from bottom to top, a power conditioner for power distribution, an X32 Rack digital mixer for audio mixing, a patch panel to pass Ethernet connections from various devices to the network switch above it. That network switch is a UniFi USW Pro Max 16 PoE. Above that is an 8 input, 8 output HDMI matrix from OREI. Finally, above that is a shelf that holds an M1 Mac Mini, a SonnetTech PCIe enclosure with a Blackmagic Design Decklink Quad HDMI Recorder card that’s connected to the Mac mini over Thunderbolt 3, and a first generation Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 that’s connected to my gaming PC to get audio in and out of my gaming PC from the X32 Rack digital mixer.

1130

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/12/2024

And finally, some games! Everyone loves games! Excited to add all these to the rotation for our biweekly game nights.

3 board games stacked on each other. From top to bottom, Dungeons & Dragons: The Yawning Portal, Betrayal at House on the Hull 3rd Edition, and Catan: Starfarers

150

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/12/2024

This really cool Millennium Falcon encased in resin (I think?). Not fully pictured here, but it’s got a base with some LEDs in it so it can light up.

A small Millennium Falcon miniature encased in what I believe to be resin. There are some painted pieces of wood that are supposed to be asteroids, as well as some flecks of paint to be stars. This comes with a base that has LEDs in it, plus a remote control, to light up the little diorama.

000

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/12/2024

And some clothes! Can never have enough graphic tees.

000

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/12/2024

I’m excited about this. I got a couple of other DIY electronics kit, but this one seems to have the most variety of interesting components, from displays to RFID sensors to a joystick. Excited to take another stab at learning this side of tech.

The Kepler Kit, a DIY electronics kit for the Raspberry Pi Pico W.

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 25/12/2024

Christmas haul thread? Sure. Excited to have more movies to add to the collection, and looking forward to learning more patterns to apply to the video game I’m making.

A row of books above a row for Blu-Rays. From left to right, the books are Stories of Your Life and Others, How Not to Get Eaten by Owlbears, and Game Programming Patterns. The Blu-rays are Arrival, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Muppet Christmas Carol, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Arrival, 2001, and Wrath of Khan are all 4K Blu-rays, and Wrath of Khan has both the theatrical and director’s cuts. The film Arrival is based of Stories of Your Life.

490

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 20/12/2024

Post your favorite Star Trek character but wrong answers only.

The character Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, voiced by John de Lancie.

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 23/11/2024

They all have been added to the pile of LEGO I need to build at some point.

A massive pile of sealed boxes for various plastic brick models. From top to bottom, there’s a Type 6 Shuttlecraft Blue Brixx set, the Delta Flyer Blue Brixx set, the USS Defiant Blue Brixx set, the USS Voyager Blue Brixx set, a Danube Class Runabout Shuttle Blue Brixx set, the Dungeons & Dragons LEGO set, the ATARI LEGO set, the Loop Coaster LEGO set, and the UCS AT-AT LEGO set.

120

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 23/11/2024

And then this fifth one cause I can only add four images to a skeet.

A Blue Brixx (a German plastic brick toy company) box for a USS Voyager model, as seen in Star Trek: Voyager.

120

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 23/11/2024

BlueBrixx (a German plastic brick toy company) most recently had the Star Trek license, but it just expired or something, so they had a discount on what stock they had. Naturally, I picked up a few things.

A Blue Brixx (a German plastic brick toy company) box for a Type 6 Shuttlecraft model, as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

A Blue Brixx (a German plastic brick toy company) box for a Delta Flyer model, as seen in Star Trek: Voyager.

A Blue Brixx (a German plastic brick toy company) box for a USS Defiant model, as seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

A Blue Brixx (a German plastic brick toy company) box for a runabout model, as seen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

120

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 01/11/2024

And then, just for comparison, here’s it side-by-side with Ivory on my Mac, which is the app I use for Mastodon.

A screenshot of Ivory (a Mastodon client) next to the official Bluesky client, both running on macOS. The Ivory window is about twice as wide and twice as tall as the Bluesky window.

000

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 01/11/2024

Realized that I could run the Bluesky app on my Mac since Apple Silicon and… Is so wee!

The Bluesky iOS app running on a Mac. The window is small because it’s running at iPhone screen size resolution and it can’t be resized to be larger than that.

140

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 11/08/2024

I mean, when you think about it, is it really a Zeldathon if we _donn’t_ have a van stuffed with various things?

The back of a van with the whole back row and one of the middle row seats folded down to make space for the various things for Zeldathon, including a whole gaming PC, a cooler, several folding tables, plenty of luggage, and boxes with other A/V gear.

171

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 28/04/2024

Chicago is cool. They have a dinosaur.

The Field Museum Brachiosaurus Dinosaur at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. It’s just a dinosaur skeleton, just vibing in the middle of the airport.

110

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 21/02/2024

This feels like a failing boot drive, right?

A File Explorer window from Windows. The window is blank, the progress bar at the top is mostly full, though this was after several seconds of waiting, and the sidebar only displays the item “Quick access”.

000

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 26/01/2024

Was doing some maintenance on the Decked Out server I run for some friends, when I found this guy. Pain, buddy… whatcha doin?

A Minecraft warden named “Pain” from level 3 of Decked Out 2. He is somehow in the hole that leads to level 4. He’s not supposed to be in the hole that leads to level 4.

161

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 18/12/2023

Sometimes, someone (*cough* @douggernaught.bsky.social *cough*) mentions a dumb idea and then you have to make it a reality. Anyway, Controlled Chaos is still live where we're playing Half-Life 2 with a crowbar. twitch.tv/zeldathon

The Wii safety screen that reminds you to use the wrist strap and to make sure there's adequate room around you, except the Wiimote controllers have been replaced with crowbars. There's a fake "getty images" watermark overlaid on top.

010

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 13/12/2023

I'm sure someone has made this meme already, but

The "Look at me, I'm the captain now" meme, but the text is "Look at me, I'm the dungeon master now" with an image of PearlescentMoon's skin overlaid on top (this is a Decked Out 2 meme).

070

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 12/12/2023

Gonna share my Twitch Recaps here. Lots of Vault Hunters watching this year. Also not a strong year for streaming, but considering trying to get back to something more regular for 2024.

My Twitch Viewer Recap for 2023. I watched 1,042 hours, visited on 320 distinct days, and sent 3.4 thousand chats. My top channels were HazelTheJoy with 170 hours watched and 442 chats sent, followed by SergeYager, DeadPine, Zeldathon, and TangoTek. My top watched categories were Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and The Sims 4 somehow??? I was in the top 10% of viewers for those categories. My favorite emotes were zeldaEyes, zeldaParty, and legosjEdiPog. My bonus achievements were Top Twitcher, Category Champion, and Gift Giver.

My Twitch Creator Recap for 2023. My 13 streams had a total of 29 hours watched. I got 6 new followers and 1 new subscriber. 487 chats were sent during my streams. My top categories were Minecraft (where I was in the top 10% of streamers for that category), Hades, and Just Chatting.

020

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 28/09/2023

I’ve been watching so much Decked Out 2 from the Hermitcraft server that I had to go to my local game store and pick up the game it’s based on. Excited to play these with friends in the future!

The board game “Clank: A Deck-building Adventure”

2152

Grant Butler @grantjbutler.com · 04/08/2023

@infantinoduck.bsky.social’s playing GameCube LEGO games the way they were meant to played: on a 4K 70-inch flatscreen TV.

The file save menu of the Bionicle game for the Nintendo GameCube.

141