iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 05/07/2026

That takes me back! I went there (and took this photo) 30 years ago

A Parisian street with a hanging cafe sign that shows the text ‘Le Loir dans la Théière’ and a picture of a dormouse in a teapot

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 28/03/2026

🇳🇱 Tulips, Rotterdam

A large patch of red, yellow and blue tulips, and other flowers, with the Euromast in the background skyline

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 15/03/2026

@hildur.bsky.social I’ve been enjoying your outdoor photos for a week or so, and today I’m in Reykjavik for the first time, feeling exceptionally satisfied that I happened upon Hlöllabátar 😀

A concrete and red-neon sandwich bar’s takeaway window, with someone standing facing it in a winter coat, hood up and hands in pockets

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 18/12/2025

Back in the day, Fetch was a Mac FTP client 😀 🐕

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 17/12/2025

Also, a lot of them conventionally come in matching pairs, such as the typical examples in this slide from hilton.org.uk/presentation...

Use opposites precisely (presentation slide)

Consistently use opposites in standard pairs.
Typical pairs include: start/stop, begin/end, old/new, next/previous, source/destination, target/source, open/close, show/hide, insert/delete, get/release, increment/decrement, fetch/send, create/destroy
☹️ first / end
😀 first / last

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 06/12/2025

🇳🇱 Coolhaven, Rotterdam

A harbour in the city of Rotterdam on a sunny day, with moored barges, trees and benches in the foreground, and tall buildings and the Euromast in the background

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 30/11/2025

Or join a choir - no (non-human) instrument required 😀

8-part choral sheet music on a music stand, during a rehearsal, with conductor in the background

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 26/11/2025

🇳🇱 Linker Rottekade, Rotterdam

Bare trees on the path next to the river Rotte, on a sunny autumn day

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 08/11/2025

💡 Saturday tip: I have just used a dental soft pick to clean the compacted fluff from my phone’s charging socket, with damaging the connectors. Now it reliably starts charging when I plug it in ⚡️

A white plastic dental soft pick, with a green brush tip with tiny soft bristles

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 06/11/2025

New HTTP API error response status - Tonny Garić at #JFall

Tonny Garić Standing in front of a conference presentation slide, with the text ‘HTTP 200 🤡K’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 25/10/2025

River bridge lanes in the Netherlands, from left-to-right: bus lane, road, two-way cycle path (red tarmac)

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 24/10/2025

🚲 Bus stop islands are normal in the Netherlands, but new enough in London for a recorded announcement: ‘For your safety, please cross the cycle lane with caution’ #cyclingInfrastructure

Central London street with a bus stop island next to the bus lane, and a separated cycle path between bus stop and pavement

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 03/10/2025

I have now arrived at the spiritual home of committing changes directly to the main branch 🚆

Train station: platform sign reads ‘Acton Main Line’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 19/09/2025

It’s a classic text, as is the sequel, ‘The Theory & Practice of Gamesmanship (Or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating)’

‘The Theory & Practice of Gamesmanship (Or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating)’, by Stephen Potter

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 19/09/2025

I always thought that was ‘One-upmanship’, by Stephen Potter

One-upmanship, by Stephen Potter - ‘how to win life‘s little games without appearing to try’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 29/06/2025

Does your product roadmap actually show options to explore, or do you really have a product *metro map* that only goes in one direction? #product

Map of line m2 of Lausanne Métro and its stations (Ocmey, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 17/06/2025

… with the possible exception of a nice little gingerbread house essenrezept.de/wp-content/u...

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 21/05/2025

When the #NDCOslo keynote leans into product management: ‘our industry is too solution-oriented… we need to be more problem-oriented’

Laila Borgia on the main stage, shown on big screens, with a large standing audience

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 07/05/2025

Unlike @andersnoras.com I was on time for @einarwh.bsky.social’s excellent @devoxx.uk story about the two zombies of architecture and agile: ‘both dead, but still walking among us’

Einar Høst on stage with the title slide: ‘A Meeting of Zombies’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 27/04/2025

#Rotterdam – the view north-east from the 58th floor

Rotterdam skyline view with skyscrapers and the river Maas in the foreground, and the Willemsbrug bridge

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 27/03/2025

The Sock Puppet pattern: ‘when one team talks to itself through an API’ - @einarwh.bsky.social at #boosterconf

Einar on stage with slide that reads ‘The Sock Puppet’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 26/03/2025

Front row seats for #boosterconf in 🇳🇴 Bergen

Kristin Wolff and Anne Høymyr on stage; presentation title slide reads ‘Unpredictable, Unavoidable, Unstoppable’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 06/03/2025

🇳🇴 This month, I’ll be at Booster conference in Bergen, 25-29 March

I'm speaking at Booster conference 2025: Zero-bug policy success, Peter Hilton

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 05/02/2025

Yes, you have a good point there 😬 cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/u...

Cartoon with Perl-style swearing symbols in the speech bubbles

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 05/02/2025

😀 Here’s % Arabica Kyoto

% Arabica Kyoto’s beautiful espresso machine

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 04/02/2025

Well, I did already say to a roomful of students today, ‘Don’t be like Humpty Dumpty, because his code isn’t maintainable’

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’
Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 04/02/2025

‘Naming heroes and anti-heroes’ is certainly a better title, but naming hero isn’t such a good story, I fear. Good naming is a habit of diligent good choices, and you can’t always be good at it. But an anti-hero can always be bad at naming in the same way, and there’s one for each anti-pattern:

Summary of naming things badly

Meaningless: foo
Vague: data
Verbose: text_correction_by_editor
Abbreviated: acc
Diluted: order_invoice_document_file
CRUDdy: address_updated
Wrong: shipment (when it was really an order)

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 04/02/2025

Exactly! That was indeed one of the slides from the presentation I did today about naming things. Juliet must have been one of those terrible programmers who named variables ‘foo’, although to be fair, she was only thirteen.

‘What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet’
Romeo and Juliet, W. Shakespeare

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 03/01/2025

Worthing isn’t as pretty, but front seat of the bus is still #winning when it’s clear enough to see Brighton and the Seven Sisters in the distance 😀

View from the top-deck front seat of the bus, on the coast road with beach and sea to the right

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 22/12/2024

My Bluesky feed feels your pain 😬

This post on my feed, next to Very British Problems posting ‘I meant to tidy the house today but I've accidentally just looked at my phone for 8 hours instead.’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 23/10/2024

I was going to low-key hate macOS Sequoia’s new ‘tiled windows’, until I found out where to suppress their margins 😬

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 01/04/2024

One cappuccino costs ¥800, so two cost… ¥1601. Should someone have used a different rounding rule for adding VAT? 🤔

Starbucks receipt for two cappuccinos, priced at ¥1456 plus 10% tax, total ¥1601

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 04/02/2024

Note that I made the mistake of cutting the potato cubes too big, making the filling too lumpy

Samosa spices and vegetable filling in separate pans

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 12/01/2024

Rotterdam ships & skyscrapers

Ships moored on, and skyscrapers surrounding, the river Maas in Rotterdam

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 08/01/2024

There was a whole series of books about product annoyances: www.oreilly.com/search/?q=an...

Book cover: Word Annoyances - how to fix the most annoying things about your favourite word processor

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 08/01/2024

At this point, I’m too confused by this Euro-English ‘Prename’, and Euro-English in general, to remember whether 'forename' is legit British English 😬🤔

Web page form with a field labelled ‘Prename, Surname’

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 12/12/2023

Berlin: Christmas trees or reindeer portals? Breitscheidplatz: yes!

Christmas trees, many lights, and illuminated reindeer jumping through oval portals

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 03/11/2023

This! 🙌🏻 For me it was specifically learning how to brown the onions properly so it tastes richer, even when vegetarian.

A bowl of rich, dark mushroom curry, with beans and rice

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 30/10/2023

Thank you for the ProdPad mug, @simplybastow.com, and suggesting a Brighton cafe I didn’t know 😀

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 07/10/2023

I just found this on the outskirts of Rotterdam. People, I have questions 🐓🥚🥚🤔

Hen with two eggs sculpture in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 26/09/2023

Meanwhile in a Mermaid code block in Notion… graph LR classDef default line-height:1.1em classDef outcome color:#090,stroke:#090,fill:#efe o1(My objective):::outcome o1 ---> o2(My first\nopportunity)

A Notion code block showing Mermaid graph syntax in split view, with the code and a minimal opportunity solution tree preview

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