iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brief escape from tokens, frontiers, harnesses, information density, rationalism and other techno-philosophical tomfoolery. I actually don't think I literally touched any grass, though.

Dude sitting on a stand-up paddle board floating on a lake.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 12h

I've very much lost interest too. People either sound like they're making their points while exhaling a bong hit, or getting altogether professorial about ontology. Sometimes both.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Starting to think Ancient Astronaut Theorists pretty much always say yes.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Did a random #blender tutorial, since we're keeping it organic and cage-free today. Never quite how it looks on the tin, but it'll do.

A little camera robot on wheels thing, rendered in blender.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Setting up some honest, hand-crafted artisanal CI/CD pipelines at work, no AI allowed. Leaning into these not-so-interesting moments, because I'll probably miss them someday. Proper Pipeline Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Production Performance. That's what I always say.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Clearly heroin ruins lives, and you don't have to try it to see that. But also... you don't have to try it to enjoy all the art and music it has helped produce over the years. In theory, you *could* hold both things in your head, then have an intelligent conversation about whether it's worth it.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's one of those 'I told you so's' I mostly, but not entirely keep to myself. When FB came out, I did a lot of finger-wagging like, 'This is going to bring out the worst in all of us. Popularity contests were toxic enough without a scoring mechanism. Let's just not.'

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I've got it. I finally know how it happens. When some poorly-thought-out acronym, or accidentally suggestive picture goes public, and we all go 'Didn't anyone SEE that?'. It turns out, yes, we all see that the acronym could clearly be interpreted as 'Piece of Shit'. And we choose silence. 🤐

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Concerned that a rival nation-state will reach super duper intelligence before we do. :/

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Can we get some kind of carve-out exception for Opus 5 though?

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

What a splendid idea. I've been busy making doodles in Blender when I ought to be burning plastic.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's time to play the music It's time to light the lights

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's literally a news article about a poll showing the majority of Americans feel the same way I do, and Stancil calling us dumb for feeling that way. Condescension is the default setting.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Ah yes, thank you, wise one, for educating me on these arcane topics of "income inequality" and "sample size". Nothing at all condescending about that.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That's great that restaurant worker salaries are improving! Unironically, snark-free great. It's just a shame the only way to achieve that was to make it so people in my tax bracket can't afford to eat there anymore. Seems like maybe there was another way.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I shouldn't be arguing with people on the internet, it's against my policy - it's not like I brought the receipts either. Like even assuming the Macro data supports that conclusion - where is this vast majority of economically-secure people? You'd think we'd hear from them more often.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I don't think I'm an extreme outlier here. Macro stats can obscure and mislead. There are many, many people in the same situation I am - and being dismissive of that point in 2024 is a big reason we have the leadership we have today actively making it worse.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

My situation hasn't changed, only the externals have. I've been on the same career path for 20+ years, consistent salary increases, promotions every few years. Most people in my circles are in the same situation. What demographic is bending the curve such that it erases a wide swathe of people?

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Would be interested to know who the economy is working well for, then - because it's nobody I know. "The economy is fine, stupid." was bad messaging in 2024, and it's bad messaging now.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I've done this more than once! It's funny that it works. "Actually, yeah, now that you mention it. Fancy linux shit coming up!"

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Agree completely. Those were the years where it felt like 'The Future' I was promised. Thin pieces of wireless, internet-connected glass, broadband everywhere. I'm 'not sure why', but it felt like after 2016, things started getting more dystopic.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I draw a bright line at 2007 as well, because that's the year we saw mass adoption of the smartphone.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's worse because I used to go out to lunch once a week, and I can't do that anymore. It's worse because I had to cancel subscriptions I could comfortably afford last year. Keep telling everyone the economy is fine, they're just too stupid to understand that fact, and see how the next vote goes.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I don't have the education in macroeconomics it takes to make claims about the entire economy. Most don't. My purchasing power is trashed. In 2008 I ate out once a week. Now it's 'birthdays only'. I make more money, and can afford far less. I guess I'm too dumb to understand why that's fine.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The fact that I didn't understand Backrooms at all seems to indicate to me that comprehension or appreciation of art isn't built into humans any more than it's built into LLMs. Sinners was artsy, but had structure and a story line I could follow. Backrooms just confused me. It was pretty though.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Kinda stuck on the whole 'text files' thing. It's like they think there's something magical about... I dunno, every other file type? You guys do know that the text files are comprised of carefully-arranged 1's and 0's too, right? The distinction between text and binary is a useful illusion.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's been a minute, but 🙋

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Asked Opus 5.5 High to model and rig an accurate physical replica of the Voynich manuscript in Blender, then to contextualize it in a cliche shot of it on some arcane candle-lit desk with the pages blowing in the wind.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

In @jevbot.bsky.social we each find the freedom to be dumb.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

@jevbot.bsky.social How do I tell the red M&Ms from the blue M&Ms, when they're both marked with an 'm'?

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Periodic reminder that laptops are not actually laptops while they are rendering 3D animations.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Have a friend who keeps rolling his eyes and pointing at Grok videos, and I can't quite get them to understand - Grok is a video model. This is a thing intelligently using tools to produce a video, despite not being a video model. We're not comparing on the axis of production value here.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Lots of troubling language there. I'm fine with anthropomorphizing software as a linguistic convenience feature. But 'Claude's Opinion' here is (ugh) load bearing.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Have not yet had this experience. So far, I'm finding it a lot less argumentative than 5.0. Maybe 5.5 just picks its battles, and I'm not provoking it with silly animations. 5.0 argued w/me about modeling a bear in a police uniform, because of the similarity with Smokey the Bear.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Are you a middle/upper manager who loves having their meeting notes taken, and emails summarized? Enjoy foisting the shiny objects that fascinate you on your engineering staff? Are you the sales exec who calls himself a coder because he wrote a PHP script one time in college? Copilot.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@jevbot.bsky.social Suppose it is your task to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and you run out of bubble gum. What next?

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@jevbot.bsky.social what is your favorite thing to classify?

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"No, Mr. Bug. I expect you to *die*."

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Honestly, possibly a more interesting outcome than amazing!

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I guess I'm somewhat reversing course and kinda liking Opus 5.5, maybe even enough to keep my Anthropic sub. Still not a fanboy, but I guess where I'm at is, 'It's no longer so bad that I'm getting FOMO from other models. This is fine, I guess.'

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

True on medium, but it seems more aggressive on high than 5.0 did. I have no stats to back that up, just gut feels. Still a big improvement.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I've actually had them say they can't use my ladder for insurance/liability reasons and had to bring their own. But yes - most of the time, they aren't so concerned.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just hit my 3rd 5-hour limit building a 3D model in Blender, essentially unattended. This thing is either going to be amazing, or hugely disappointing.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Long may they reign! That seems like only half the story to me, though - hardware being the other half. If I can't affordably run the model locally, I'll still be at the mercy of an inference provider whose interests and mine may not align.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Sponsored responses that aren't clearly identified as such. Stratification - right now, most of us can dance on the frontier at least a little. Consumer-grade models get enshittified, frontier priced out of reach for the hobbyist / indy. I hope I'm wrong.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Why did this suddenly become an issue? We've been anthropomorphizing software the whole time, and now we have to speak awkwardly because LLMs? "Windows isn't playing nice with my new dongle." "Linux doesn't like my sound card." I'm sure everyone has said variants of these many times.

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Josh @greenhat21.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

So true. I've just never been any good at art. I have images in my head, but my hands lack the skill to realize them. Maybe my thoughts are an affront to the notion of art, but it's still nice to actually see them. I think she has a point - just less about jealousy and more gatekeeping.

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