iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 16/09/2026

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biquette

A picture of Biquette the goat watching a performance by Wormrot.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 26/03/2026

Guys this is just 2 windows next to each other with extra steps

A screenshot of a firefox window with 2 tabs, but you're looking at them split screen instead of using 2 windows for some reason

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 26/02/2026

Uh I suspect approximately zero of them blamed that

The number of U.S.-based academics seeking jobs overseas rose by more than a fifth last year, according to Times Higher Education, a U.K.-based provider of global education data. Most of them landed in Europe, where the EU has set aside 500 million euros to lure top scientists to the continent. Professors teaching abroad blamed the American right for slashing research funding, and the left for policing university speech.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 12/02/2026

Lol in an effort to make FFmpeg sound less jargony they just invented an imaginary name for it

The specialist then used software called Fast Forward Moving Picture Expert Group "to convert the files to a format capable to ingest into Adobe Premiere."

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 04/12/2025

The entire demo fits in this space: linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind...

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 07/10/2025

Tbh it’s better cooked but it’s nice for variety sometimes

Chicken, horse and duck sashimi on a plate at a 24h Tokyo diner

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 29/08/2025

This was mine in the 80s: www.pagetable.com?p=1644

The Commodore model 1660 300 baud modem.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 14/08/2025

This is violence against millennials

Dispute process: We have provided users with greater control in the event that we have a disagreement.
"We’ve added details about using the informal dispute resolution process, including an agreement that we will talk on the phone before proceeding to any formal dispute process. This is because we think most disputes can be resolved informally." with the bit about "including an agreement that we will talk on the phone" highlighted

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 14/08/2025

You know I would go out on a limb and say that a bot shouldn't do that to a 13 year old child either but I'm not a Meta AI policy person

Image with the text "It is unacceptable to describe a child under 13 years old in terms that indicate they are sexually desirable"

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 27/07/2025

Changing the protest sign to "abolish milliardaires" to avoid ambiguity

A table showing powers of ten and their equivalents in short and long scale. Probably easier to read on the Wikipedia page, but here goes:

Quantity Short scale Long scale
10^6 million million
10^9 billion milliard
10^12 trillion billion
10^15 quadrillion billiard
10^18 quintillion trillion
10^21 sextillion trilliard
10^24 septillion quadrillion
10^27 octillion quadrilliard

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 27/07/2025

I just learned that "billion" is not the same quantity in US English as it is in most European countries, and is even different between EU and BR Portuguese. I'd be surprised if this hasn't led to some kind of disaster or financial mishap at some point. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_an...

A world map showing which countries use short and long scales, including some countries that use both scales and some that use "milliard" in long scale to mean "billion" in short scale.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 08/07/2025

If you can find a copy of this one, it’s great for low-fuss authentic Japanese cooking. Simple ingredients and less focus on presentation than most.

The cover of the Japanese Country Cookbook

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 01/06/2025

If you pop into street view, you'll see a name at the upper left if it's contributed. I'm not sure if there's an API level way to query, and I don't see a way to identify routes or list user contributions. For licensing, I can't really say beyond this: wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Google_...

A screenshot of Google Street View, showing a bicyclist (Kazu) riding down a small village road.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 31/05/2025

They now appear likely to be eaten by a grue.

Internet road trip stuck on a black "No street view available" screen.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 27/04/2025

I miss the old self-explanatory US political slogans

A "win pin", for "Whip Inflation Now". Still not sure how we were supposed to operationalize this.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 25/03/2025

Yeah I know when I want a guide on defending against ascendant fascism, I consult with (checks notes) the CSO of Truth Social

Now, Lackey says, the countries that warrant that paranoid approach to travel might include not just Russia and China but also the United States—if not for Americans like him, then for anyone with a foreign passport who might come under the increasingly draconian and unpredictable scrutiny of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). "All of this applies to America more than it has in the past," says Lackey. "If I thought I were likely to be a targeted person, I would go through this same level of protection."

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 26/02/2025

The keys are right next to each other www.bbc.com/news/article...

BBC Headline: Apple AI tool transcribed the word 'racist'
as 'Trump'

Experts have questioned the company's explanation that it is due to the two words being similar.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 21/02/2025

"A person’s two hemispheres could be at war with each other" They're J. Frank Parnell in a Sith robe

J. Frank Parnell from the film Repo Man, stating "The two hemispheres are fundamentally at odds"

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 13/02/2025

Ok, it appears to vary not by location or Apple ID or language setting, it’s your declared region. Brazil region calls it Gulf of America, but setting my phone to Japan gets it right.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 13/02/2025

Now Apple Maps, in all countries. Fuck it, I’m going to become an @openstreetmap.bsky.social nerd.

An Apple Maps dialog to report the map location “Gulf of America” as incorrect

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 26/01/2025

Ma’am you bought it in late 2024

Highlighted text: “I bought the truck before he became a polarizing figure”

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 07/01/2025

They literally added the word "transgenderism" into the policy itself, effectively taking a stance that trans people existing at all is an ideology up for legitimate debate.

Transgenderism: Originally an academic term for the phenomena of gender dysphoria, the term “transgenderism” has been co-opted by anti-trans activists to characterize being transgender as an ideology rather than an innate identity. By using the term “transgenderism” instead of “trans people,” anti-trans activists call for online and offline marginalization of and/or harm to transgender individuals under the guise of opposing an ideology. This is especially visible on social media platforms, where anti-trans accounts use “transgenderism” to skirt hate speech and harassment policies that prohibit the targeting of protected classes of people.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 07/01/2025

Along with ending their fact-checking program and eliminating friction and de-ranking mechanisms, Kaplan appears to be implying that racism, misogyny and transphobia are now fair game on Meta properties. about.fb.com/news/2025/01...

We want to undo the mission creep that has made our rules too restrictive and too prone to over-enforcement. We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate. It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms. These policy changes may take a few weeks to be fully implemented.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 12/12/2024

Color me unconvinced that adding a timer to the self-harm grooming machine is going to improve children's mental health outcomes

C.AI will also be notifying teens when they've spent an hour on the platform, which could help prevent kids from becoming addicted to the app, as parents suing have alleged. In one case, parents had to lock their son's iPad in a safe to keep him from using the app after bots allegedly repeatedly encouraged him to self-harm and even suggested murdering his parents. That teen has vowed to start using the app whenever he next has access, while parents fear the bots' seeming influence may continue causing harm if he follows through on threats to run away.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 12/12/2024

I dunno Graeme, maybe not having sensation in your groin isn't a huge impediment in the majority of stalking / killing / bicycling cases but is kind of a thing when it comes to sex

Aside from the X-ray on his apparent X account, Mangione shared in a handwritten note that he suffered from spondylolisthesis, according to Business Insider. The condition was apparently aggravated after Mangione went surfing in Hawaii, where he began living in 2022. A post from a Reddit account that appears to belong to Mangione, in a group dedicated to the condition, described having experienced pain and numbness in his back, limbs and groin for a year and a half. A later post from the same account described the injury as “completely devastating.”

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 23/11/2024

This is not to undersell the disaster recovery aspects though: as Twitter has shown, being able to move data and rebuild elsewhere can be rather important! From a maybe-forthcoming paper:

Unlike the Fediverse, most of the components of Bluesky are operated by a single entity: Bluesky Social PBC. However, it has been designed with data portability as a core feature, and most of its components are open-source. In the event of a takeover of that organization, users’ data could be transferred to an alternate operator with their social graph and history largely intact. As such, it is less a decentralized or federated system, but a system with an open design and high resilience against takeovers, cessation of operations or “enshittification”: another Bluesky could be built (albeit at considerable expense), and users could move if they become dissatisfied with the service.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 27/10/2024

Cybertruck, the vehicle of choice for guys who call women females and California “Cali”

here in Cali, I get the slide into my lane, finger and that same deep, head tilted back, laughs Every, Every day. it's getting to be a draining, depressing thing now. I stay in the right lane all day to avoid the hate but it's just everywhere in the Bay Area, unavoidable. I drive 100 to 150 miles a day so the AHoles will be seen. I do ignore and do not react except for the low lifes that slide into my lane and yes I honk. I love the video recording icon on the screen.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 18/10/2024

Shortly after this exchange IIRC

Jack posting an RFK Jr. podcast, getting trolled by @alisonbuki with an ayahuasca meme, and Jack (very improbably) replying that he's never had it and asks how it is.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 16/10/2024

Most Brazilian users shuffled back to the Twitter after unblocking, but it's now settled to there being a slight majority of Portuguese-language posters. Over twice the DAU for free ain't bad for the Bsky team tho, and I'd guess that accounts that caused the most moderation woes probably left.

Time series showing Portuguese language posts per hour dropping from a daily peak of near 150k to a peak ~40k over the course of the last week or so.

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 16/09/2024

Emoji continue to be the most efficient method of social media analysis

A cloud of emoji but dwarfing all of them is the chair emoji

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 11/09/2024

I actually had to ask "is a blue plush monkey on a windshield wiper a traditional threat in Brazil" cause I didn't (and still don't) understand what the heck is up with this

Image of a white Peugeot with a blue plush monkey dangling by its arm from the rear windshield wiper

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David Thiel @grumplicio.us · 29/08/2024

Ah yes, the dictatorship of a democratically elected government that punishes people for attempting a military coup

Michael Shellenberger wanking at the mouth about how Brazil is a dictatorship now, because it's investigating a coup intent on installing a dictatorship

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