iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Did I cry at great-grandmas funeral in 1997? Why do you ask?

A picture of grave marker for George (1900 - 1939) and Annie (1901 - 1997) Onions

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Apple UI team blazing conjugation like bosses

Screenshot of an iOS notification from the app Shazam. The headline says: “Recognize Music”, and the text reads “Music Recognition is already recognizing music.”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

So great! Here’s a couple more shots…

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I took some pictures in the style of street candids, but sharing them feels disrespectful to the hard work they put in. Instead, here are my two favorite cosplays I witnessed with my own two eyes.

An image depicting cosplay. An very large (10’ tall or so) inflatable representation of Trogdor the Burninator from Strong Bad’s emails.

Cosplay of the polka-dotted drummer Klek de Poitrine of French-Canadian microtonal all stars Angine de Poitrine. He stands in a hall and make a triangle symbol with both hands at the camera.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

First of all I don’t know how to “quality” something. Second of all, eww.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Apple Music appears to be showing alt-image text for Pink Floyd albums instead of cover art.

$A screenshot of the Apple Music Pink Floyd page. It shows the layout with "Latest release", "Top Songs", "Essential albums", and "Albums", but all of the artwork has been replaced with terse alt text. For "Essential Albums" it has: * "A wall of white bricks with red graffiti" for The Wall. * "Two men in suits shaking hands one man is on fire" for Wish You Were Here. * "A prism refracts light into the spectrum" for Dark Side of the Moon. * "Four young men viewed through a Kaleidoscope" for The Piper at the Gates of Dawn". For "Albums" it has: * "Four men walk across the ruins of Pompeii" for "Pink Floyd at Pompei * "A man rows across a sea of clouds" for The Endless River (Deluxe Edition) * "Two giant metal faces in a field" for The Division Bell * "Ultralight flys over rows of hospital beds on a beach" for A momentary lapse of reason (2019 remix) * Rows of hospital beds on a beach" for A Momentary Lapse of Reason$

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

My favorite part of the bible is the Parable of the First Person Shooter

Screenshot of a video game store featuring game titled “Jesus Simulator”. The illustration shows white Jesus ascendant in heaven, angels looking up at him as he glows and looks up to his godly father represented by billowing clouds

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

The illustration reference must have been this trading card we made. I’m in the blue shirt and illustrator made me front and center. Pat, with the speaker on his head, made it to the repair bench with a sawed off arm in the drawing.

A trading card picture of a bunch of people, the staff, sitting amidst a pile of vintage Fender amps. It says “The Trading Musician”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Here’s an ad from the mid 90s when I worked at The Trading Musician (rip). It ran in @thestranger.com, which was famously known for @dansavage.bsky.social’s column and kink-forward personals.

A newspaper advertisement shows a detailed comic of a dungeon with BDSM themes. The picture shows a man being spanked with a paddle, weird sex robots, a businessman clawing to get out, a man being pegged behind the counter, and a lot of other weirdness.

Hand lettered text reads:

“Get out the whips and handcuffs! It’s The Trading Musician’s Fetish Guitar and Equipment Sale

Acoustic contact mics that can be mounted on anything. (ANYTHING!). Strange-shaped electrics…Fat keyboards from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s! Touch the infamous IRON CROSS GUITAR! MEET SINGLE PERSONS WITH SIMILAR INTERESTS! Check out our necks, bodies, tubes, speakers, microphones and cases! Learn new positions in which to hold your guitar!

Don’t just fantasize about better equipment; go out and get it! Try our new twisted stomp boxes & vintage sex machines! Circle-jerk in the drum shop… used sound systems for your special events! Instructional videos and how-to books! Black leather straps with spikes…

5908 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle Washington, 522-6707

* Ask about our torture chamber basement treatment
* Sessions available with our dominatrix owner (Robin von Bartlett)
* *Special rates for collectors who can’t play a G chord!!!*
* Mention this ad and get a free lube job on your guitar

Illustration by Tracy • Lettering by Jeri Francis”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Yes! We posted pictures of clouds. We could do that here, too. Call it #cloudsky? #cloudblue? #bluecloudskycloudcloudcloud?

Picture of pretty clouds on a deep blue sky over apartment buildings, looking east from Queen Anne hill in Seattle.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

1982. The future was anything we wanted it to be.

Picture of book titled “The Design of Medical and Dental Facilities” by Jain Malkin. A sticker on it has a hand written price of $10 from PATM (Page Against the Machine bookstore)

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

In a different class, later, I had to brand and create collateral for a convention. I decided to make a convention for conspiracy theorists called CONSPIRICON. Here's a bad photo of a poster I did for it. Of course, that's a sugar pill.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

While the too-long one chilled for a month or so before editing I dashed off a too-short novella. The first needs cutting the second needs expanding. We start with cutting and second-drafting, tomorrow, a little bit each day until every edit is making it worse.

Picture of a printed manuscript, a sheath of pages. The top sheet reads “53,900 words.” At top right. In the middle text reads “THE HANGED MAN, by Martin McClellan.” The light on the paper is warm.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

"What are you fighting for?" RIP 💔

The cover of Marianne Faithfull's Broken English, which has the artist and title in all caps yellow type in the upper left, and is otherwise a dark blue tinted duotone photograph of a woman's face with her arm shadowing her eyes, a cigarette between two fingers, the tip neon pink.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Seven years ago I took a photo of a very Lynchian sort of character sitting with that sign.

At the Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Burbank, a woman sits on a bench wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. She has hair past her shoulders, and it's primped up a bit in an 80s style. She's leaning on her left knee, in front of her, the Bob's Big Boy character stands tall, polished in red-checked overalls, holding a burger in one hand over his head, his astro-boyish hairdo gelled to a point in front, his white t-shirt pinstriped with blue lines.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Did you know moles, when they eat an earthworm, hold it in their teeth and use their paws to squeeze out all the dirt the worm has inside before eating it? Kind of like Google used to do with bad information before they served it to you.

Screenshot of a Google search summary. It shows a picture of a mole, the animal, poking out of a mole hole. It says: "AI Overview: Moles are [highlight] noncancerous skin growths that appear when pigment cells cluster together.[end highlight]." It says more about moles, the skin growth, not the animal.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Here is a noted horrible man of history, Alexander Graham Bell, whose death helps us remember that all bad men die, kissing his wife Mabel Hubbard Gardiner Bell, as she cosplays as a pyramid.

An old photo from 1903 of an old man with a large beard in a suit kissing a woman in a white blouse and long skirt who is standing inside of a framed pyramid shape, with many sub-pyramids breaking up the space. At the bottom of the photography is wax pencil scribblings, probably index numbers from some library or another.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Oh thank you! I’ll seek that out. Glad to know it’s true. Also, ai sucks.

Screenshot of Apple summary of a Bluesky notification that reads “Mike Fragassi focused on wholesome comedy after being unnerved by his performance”.

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

In space nobody can hear you roll

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

My grandfather was happily married but in an alternate world I feel like would have been king of the dating apps

Vintage photo of a man in a marina standing next to a large marlin strung up to a rope. He’s smiling, holding a fishing rod in white slacks, dress shoes and a nice shirt

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

First draft, done. Started 4 years and 2 days ago. Way too long at nearly 180k words, but the novel is there waiting to be carved and sanded.

Photograph of a stack of letter sized paper a few inches thick. Upper right, text reads “179,400 words”, and centered it says “HOLDING SPACE
by Martin McClellan”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

I picked up this 1984 book called The Erotic Tongue, I love a good lexicon. I was surprised to find the publisher wouldn’t even spell out the words it talks about in the pages. So. Many. Asterisks.

A hand holds a book called The Erotic Tongue: a sexual lexicon, by Lawrence Paros. It as a faux corner peel in the bottom right that reveals: “The last word on s*x”. A speech balloon in the upper left reads “terrific, entertaining, well researched, and just plain f**king good” - George Carlin

A photo of a page from the book. The text reads:

…By then, "nice" people had forgotten completely how to f**k, and the word had become our principal four-letter outcast.
Mere mention of it caused flesh to creep and cheeks to flush.

Few people spoke of it openly. Only the kids were telling it like it f**kin' is. And for them it was only beautif **kingful, far f**kin' out, and outta f**kin' sight.

A Word of Caution

Because it was unwelcome both at home and at school, many of the kids took the Big F to the streets. There they created the mean motherf * *ker, a legendary figure who attained prominence in the sixties, as in "up against the wall, motherf* *ker!" It wasn't long before the ranks swelled to include the jive motherf**ker, the dirty motherf**ker, and the exotic muh-f**kah.
This is to say nothing of your basic, no-frills mother (also mutha).

Generally considered the worst forms of verbal abuse, these expressions can also become terms of respect, as when one street-corner man wishes to pay homage to another's toughness.

They should, however, only be used with great care, or you too could end up calling for your mamma.

Fighting Words

It was on the battlefield where the f**k found itself most at home and was accorded the greatest respect. Young men who had been taught to eschew the Big F in word and deed because of its obscene nature were suddenly confronted with an even greater obscenity - war. Knowing no other way to describe the

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

I should have used “Month”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Y’all are missing the f out. Come knock me off this list.

Screenshot from Apple Music’s Replay year end roll up. It shows a picture of musician Samantha Crain and a caption that says “you made it into Samantha Crain’s top 1,000 listeners”

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

I stopped typing my question when I saw Michael Jackson's face in my peripheral vision

Screenshot of a Google search. The search box says "what year did"

Autofill suggested (all casing SIC):
* what year did michael jackson die
* what year did the titanic sink
* what year did 9/11 happen
* what year did covid start
* what year did Elvis die
* what year did slavery end
* what year did beetlejuice come out
* what year did jesus die
* what year did tupac die
* what year did

To the right, an info box shows a picture of Micheal Jackson, and says "June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson / Date of death"

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Verifications » off switch » back button Total click count: 58 Total switches clicked: 20

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow verification notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Updating your profile » off switch » back button Total click count: 55 Total switches clicked: 19

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» off switch » back button Total click count: 52 Total switches clicked: 18

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow reports and insights notifications", and has two tabs: "Editor's choice", which is inactive, and "Reports and insights", which is selected. An on/off switch is set to "off", and smaller text says "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you"

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» News and reports » off switch » Reports and insights tab Total click count: 50 Total switches clicked: 17 Nice callback to the early sub-tab system, game designers. Could be overused, but you did a great job holding back.

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow editorial notifications", and has two tabs: "Editor's choice", which is selected, and "Reports and insights", which is inactive. An on/off switch is set to "off", and smaller text says "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you"

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Attending events » off switch » back button Total click count: 47 Total switches clicked: 16

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow event notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Pages » off switch » back button Total click count: 44 Total switches clicked: 15

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow page notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Groups » off switch » back button Total click count: 41 Total switches clicked: 14

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow group notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Messaging » off switch » back button Total click count: 38 Total switches clicked: 13

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow messaging notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Posting and commenting » off switch » back button Total click count: 35 Total switches clicked: 12

A screenshot from LinkedIn. The page is titled "Allow post related notifications" with an on/off switch that is set to off. Detail text reads "When Notifications are turned on, you may choose to receive the ones relevant to you."

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Weekly summary » off switch » off switch » Back » Back Total click count: 32 Total switches clicked: 11 RECORD LEVEL! 5 clicks scored getting to and from this single screen and switching both toggles to off. Damn!

A screenshot from LinkedIn. It's titled "Weekly summary" and has explanatory text that says "These are weekly catch-up summaries""

Below that, header says "Choose where you get notified"

It has two options. The first is "Push notifications", which is shown next to a bell icon. Explanatory text says "Pushed to your device immediately". To the right, an on/off switch is turned to "off"

The second is titled "Email" and has an envelope/email icon. Explanatory text says "Sent to your primary email". To the right, an on/off switch is turned to "off".

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Martin McClellan @hellbox.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

» Education » off switch » Back Total click count: 27 Total switches clicked: 9 Really appreciate the clean, placeholder-friendly copywriting effort they put into this game.

A screenshot from LinkedIn. It's titled "Education changes" and has explanatory text that says "These are catch-up updates and notifications about education changes in your network"

Below that, header says "Choose where you get notified"

It has one option, "In-app notifications", which is shown next to a bell icon. Explanatory text says "Delivered inside the app". To the right, an on/off switch is turned to "off"

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