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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱

@instantiator.bsky.social
813 followers 1.2K following 378 posts

Senior tech lead and developer, fellow at Newspeak House, keen escape room and puzzle gamer. (he/him) instantiator.dev #CivicTech #Volunteerism #OSS #RetroComputing #Tzedakah #Vegan #BLM #CollectiveIntelligence #CI #ProDemocracyTech #PDT 🌱

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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 17m
Now I have several excellent books to look forward to while I wait for the next Murderbot Diary, DCC, First Law*, or Ana & Din mystery... *I know, I know, "you've got to be realistic"
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 19m
So the Dispossessed was a good read and I figured this seems like a great jumping off point for other stories, too bad she didn't write any, BUT THEN I CHECKED!
The Hainish Cycle (novels and stories) by Ursula K. Le Guin. This is an image of a box set with all the novels listed on the side including: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word for World is Forest, The Telling, and Five Ways to Forgiveness
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Thank you, I'll remove it now. I'm still a victim of my own predisposition.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
libro.fm are really cool. #Voting #BannedBooks #AudioBooks
A screenshot from the libro.fm app where they've highlighted collations of books about the right to vote, and banned books on their front page.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Discounts from a bunch of referral programmes that I'm on! instantiator.dev/referrals/ 🟢 Discounts for Huel, Fairphone, Octopus, Snapmaker, Agria 🔵 Support local bookshops with libro.fm 🟣 Find work with Jack & Jill
A screenshot of discount vouchers from my site including:
£20 off Huel, €50 off your first Fairphone, £50 to join Octopus Energy, 5% off 3D printing products, £20 gift card joining Agria (pet insurance), and a link to join libro.fm (they're like Audible but they support local bookshops)
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
OpenDisplay is OSS, really cool, and succeeded where AirPlay failed. Buy this dev a coffee! ☕️ opendisplay.app
opendisplay.app
OpenDisplay — free, open-source Sidecar/Duet alternative
Use your iPhone or iPad as a second monitor for your Mac. A true extended display over USB or WiFi — Retina-sharp, low latency, with touch and scroll. No subscription, no dongle, no account.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Reddit. Burger menu. Settings. Account settings. Scroll the bottom. Turn off all those exploitative ads 👍
A screenshot showing the section at the bottom of your account settings in Reddit. It has toggle switches for: alcohol ads, dating ads, gambling ads, politics and activism ads, pregnancy and parenting ads, religion and spirituality ads, weight loss ads.
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Anti-Reform @antireform.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Learning from history ... "How the East End Stopped Mosley's Blackshirts at Cable Street in 1936" via Very Brexit Problems verybrexitproblems.com/blogs/news/b...
verybrexitproblems.com
How the East End Stopped Mosley's Blackshirts at Cable Street in 1936
On 4 October 1936, five thousand men in black shirts assembled to march through the East End of London. It was a deliberate provocation, aimed squarely at the Jewish community living there and it had ...
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Working on TCP was the perfect project to test and improve dev-qual - a collation of hooks, scripts, skills and guidance to help coding assistants write high quality, readable, maintainable code: github.com/instantiator...
github.com
GitHub - instantiator/dev-qual: A collation of guidance, skills, and scripts that help coding agents deliver high quality code.
A collation of guidance, skills, and scripts that help coding agents deliver high quality code. - instantiator/dev-qual
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Tiny Computer People is an agent orchestrator, geared towards low power and local LLMs. Groups of agents with different specialisms collaborate to solve problems together... github.com/instantiator...
github.com
GitHub - instantiator/tcp-server: Tiny Computer People manages one or more companies of agents that collaborate to complete tasks.
Tiny Computer People manages one or more companies of agents that collaborate to complete tasks. - instantiator/tcp-server
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I am once again reminded of the joy in Case 163: Vacation, from the Codeless Code: Fables and Kōans for the Software Engineer... thecodelesscode.com/case/163 💖
thecodelesscode.com
The Codeless Code: Case 163 Vacation
An illustrated collection of (sometimes violent) fables, concerning the Art and Philosophy of software development
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Absolute childhood nightmare fuel.
It's the witch from Granny's Garden in her full Teletext pixelated glory. She's got a cyan face with a hook nose and a hook chin coming up to meet it and her teeth showing. Her hair is green and she's wearing a magenta hat. Although she's in profile, the one yellow eye you can see is looking right at you. Below is the caption "ha! Now I've got you!"
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
You made your own horse's mouth and now you can lie in it.
A screenshot from a Google Search (in AI mode) answering the question "are youtube adverts getting worse?"

The summary answer: "Yes. YouTube advertisements are noticeably worsening in frequency, length, and intrusiveness."
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
OpenAlternative @openalternative.co · 03/09/2026
90,000 stars for LocalSend. The pitch never changed: drop a file, pick a nearby device, it's there. No sign-up, no cloud, no cables. Turns out that's exactly what people wanted. openalternative.co/localsend
openalternative.co
LocalSend: Open Source Apple AirDrop Alternative
Free, open-source file sharing tool for nearby devices. Cross-platform support with end-to-end encryption, no registration required, automatic device discovery.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Can't believe it's been 2 years. Always in our hearts, baby bell 🫶
Photo of a historical database screen showing Gabriel Bell (Benjamin Sisko). Born April 1987 and died September 2024.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Anti-competitive nonsense. (I'm aware that's the German version on libro.fm. I know Audible get a lot of exclusive deals. It's just sad.)
Screenshot from Amazon's Audible app showing The Will of the Many audiobook, priced at £7.49.Screenshot from the Libro FM app showing The Will of the Many audiobook, priced at £32.33. Libro FM support local bookshops. It is sad that they are unable to sell this book at a reasonable price.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Yes! Rich, full origin stories. In little children's books! I would gladly kickstart an animated series, but I'll settle for stickers...
A graphic of all the Mr Men. You'd think it's a selfie, what with Mr Tickle at the front, but you can see both his hands.Philip J Fry from Futurama. It's the "shut up and take my money" meme.
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Asa Dotzler @asadotzler.com · 15/08/2026
If you want your files to live on your machine that you own and not in Microsoft's cloud that you don't: - OneDrive folder: select all -> right-click -> Always keep on this device. Wait for the sync. - OneDrive Settings -> Account -> Unlink this PC. - Settings -> Apps -> OneDrive- > Uninstall.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Apex. Predator.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Momo, a little black cat, is peering between tree trunks and under some foliage at something out of shot. What if it's the little robot from Matt Dixon's drawing?
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
He thinks he's supposed to act cool.
Momo, a beautiful little black cat, sits on a patio. He is looking towards a wall where sunlight that would ordinarily be dappled, because of gaps in the trees behind us, is now showing the eclipse effect - slim crescents of sunlight.Momo is looking away from the wall now. It looks like he's trying to act unimpressed like an anxious teenager in the 90s who doesn't want to be called a geek.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
There are too many abandoned creatures in the world. We brought them to life and we let them down. If you'd like a companion animal, adopt.
This is Momo. Adopted as a pair with his sister, Suki. A year later, they are still friends. She was fearless from the start, and Momo has come out of his shell now that he knows he's safe.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Can confirm that I did and that it was very silly. 🌕
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 11/08/2026
Happy book birthday to the trade paperback edition of The Shattering Peace, now available wherever you buy your books (in North America; the trade paperback UK edition comes out Thursday). If you've not caught up on the latest installment of the Old Man's War series, here it is -- enjoy!
The Trade Paperback cover is geometrical forms in front of an orange to pink gradient. It looks smashing.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
My wife, who is a leading criminologist, went to another town for a conference in June. I came along for the ride, and took myself to an exhibition about The Moon and touched a Moon Rock. I am 44 years old. It was a brilliant day out. My one regret is that we couldn't both go.
Photo from an exhibition about the moon at The Hold, in Ipswich. A case shows two pieces of moon rock - one light coloured and one darker coloured.

Two further displays are below that, with a label saying "touch real moon rock". Each has a small dome with a piece of "touchable moon rock" in it. An instruction says "Feel the shape of the moon rock from underneath."

Light coloured rock label: "This rock is from one of the pale areas of the Moon. Its white colour comes from its minerals which are rich in calcium, like bones and teeth."

Dark coloured rock label: "This rock is from a dark area of the Moon. It's solidifed lunar lava, called basalt. It erupted from a volcano on the Moon billions of years ago as lava, flower downhill into a large crater or depression, and then solidified into rock."

Further moon facts!

"When the Moon formed, its molten surface cooled to form this white rock  called anorthosite. Its pale colour is due to minerals rich in calcium and magnesium. This white rock makes up much of the topograph (high areas) on the moon such as the mountains."

"The young moon was volcanically active and billions of years ago, laval erupted from large volcanic fissures. This molten lunar lava flower downhill and collected in large craters and depressions. It cooled to form the large, flat volcanic areas made of dark basalt rock. These are the dark areas you see when you look up at the moon."
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
In Clacton right now. (Real, not AI!) #VoteBinface
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
🤯 Bicycle tyres and car tyres have the same air valve, but bicycle tyres* need much higher air pressure. *Except for mountain biking, it seems. YMMV.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
TIL that Claude Opus is not insane (in this particular case) and that a "happy-eyeballs dialler" is a real pattern. (Request an IPv4 and IPv6 connection at the same time, prefer the IPv6 response if available.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_E...
en.wikipedia.org
Happy Eyeballs - Wikipedia
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
robert j bennett, ceo, results omega @robertjbennett.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
hey! that’s today!!
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The ancient magic is still alive. I found an affordable pair of sunglasses that I like. Now the heat wave is broken, clouds have filled the sky, and we may never see the sun again. Sadly, as we have also recently installed water butts, it will be forever cloudy but never actually rain.
A snowy forest background with text overlaid: 
"Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!"
"How awful!" said Lucy.
- C. S. Lewis
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The next grown-up, serious read... Not quite as many airlocks, beam weapons and alien races as my usual fare - but lots of character development!
A screenshot of the libro.fm audio book reader app, showing that it is playing the Lean Tech Manifesto.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
He's an apex predator.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Workarounds for a bug that prevents you from changing the configuration of your Sky Hub. It'd be nice to move away from Sky sometime or, at least, replace the router with something a bit more open... instantiator.dev/post/sky-hub...
instantiator.dev
Sky hub blues
There’s a bug in the Sky Hub that stops you from changing a whole bunch of settings. It’s a genuine mistake that Sky won’t fix. Here are some workarounds to help you control your home network…
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I've been enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I recently read a review by someone I respectfully disagree with, so here's a more positive perspective... I appreciate it may not be for everyone, but I've found it a surprisingly good read. instantiator.dev/post/dcc/ #DCC #DungeonCrawlerCarl
An XKCD comic with dialog: "Are you coming to bed?" / "I can't. This is important." / "What?" / "Someone is wrong on the internet."An image of Dungeon Crawler Carl. First book of a series by Matt Dinniman. It's brightly coloured, and the cover is largely text, but there's an image of Carl running through what looks like a spikey cave, clutching a stick of dynamite, with his cat Donut in tow.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Can't quite believe this 20 year old piece of kit from the bottom of my cables box saved the day! USB-C to USB-A to Belkin gigabit USB 2.0 ethernet adapter (released in 2006), to ethernet to shonky Sky Hub. Magic! ✨
Photo shows a Belkin F5D5055 gigabit USB 2.0 ethernet adapter connected to a USB-C / USB-A adapter and an ethernet cable. It was released in 2006.
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Scare-o-lyn Petit @carolynmichelle.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
From pages 38-45 of this remarkable book is a section on journalism that is so urgent, so compelling, so precise in identifying some of the major flaws and failures of mainstream journalism as an industry at this moment in time, that I wish I could make all American journalists read it.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad, as held by me on an NYC subway car.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
TIL that Terry Bisson, author of Thinking Meat, passed away in 2024. I read it in the 90s. I loved it then and I love it now. Rest in peace. #ThinkingMeat
web.mit.edu
They're Made out of Meat
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Work hard enough to defeat the Level 1 bot, and get through to a human, slightly less helpful than a Google search. Their special moves: 💥 conflicting advice! 💥 ask you to disconnect and tell them when you have done it! 💥 unnecessary upsell! 💥 escalate to a team who will tell you nothing is wrong!
The "sky" logo. It's the word "sky" coloured with a combination of sunset colours - oranges, reds, purples, and a deep sky blue.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
This was going smoothly until today. I optimised my storage and accidentally deleted all my filters... I woke up to ~20 unwanted emails and counting. Time to rebuild!
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Neal Curtis @nihilcurtis.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Just a reminder for those not familiar with UK media, please don't circulate posts or articles by the Daily Mail, the paper has been aligned with the far-right since the 1930s and continues to promote the forces of modern fascism.
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Humble @humblebundle.com · 04/07/2026
Immerse yourself in the rich sci-worlds of multiple Hugo Award–winning author John Scalzi with books short stories like: - Old Man’s War - Starter Villain - Redshirts - and more! Supports @wck.org | bit.ly/448EYpA
The John Scalzi Collection: Old Man's War & More | Humble Book Bundle
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Reposted by Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱
Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 29/06/2026
Why are attacks on Muslims not labelled as terrorism? An attack on worshippers outside an Edinburgh mosque prompts a wider question about how Britain defines terrorism westenglandbylines.co.uk/politics/hum...
westenglandbylines.co.uk
Why are attacks on Muslims not labelled as terrorism?
An attack on worshippers outside an Edinburgh mosque prompts a wider question about how Britain defines terrorism
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
🦇
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
HTTP response code 418 "I'm a teapot" is proposed in RFC 2324 as a suitable response for teapots that have been asked to brew coffee. www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2324/ What's missing is response code 218 "tea's up!" for teapots being polled for tea that have steeped for long enough.
rfc-editor.org
RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0) | RFC Editor
This document describes HTCPCP, a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standar...
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
They're doing their best. It's hot!
Two cats lie on a gravel path in the heat reaching out to each other, paw to paw. They look like they're posing for The Creation of Adam. It's a collage and below is the famous painting. God reaches out to touch Adam with his forefinger.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
That video was created with number-jam - a new tool to help obscure number plates in videos. instantiator.dev/post/number-...
instantiator.dev
Experimental development with number-jam: a number plate obscurer
number-jam detects, tracks, and obscures vehicle number plates in video clips - and was an experiment in AI-assisted development.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
London is getting hotter and its definitely a trend. #ShowYourStripes 2026 is 20th June. showyourstripes.info
Vertical stripes running from left to right show London temperatures over the years. Decades ago they were pretty blue, now they're hot red and it's definitely a trend.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Momo, who has never done anything wrong in his entire life, would like to share this PSA that he created for you. Check your wheel hubs for perfect little angels every time, folks. (Cannot believe I caught this on camera. He's ridiculous!)
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
TIL there's a free LLM distributed with MacOS Tahoe (provided you enable Apple Intelligence). #wat #ridiculous #ymmv Installing apfel enables a server and command line interface for it ➡️ apfel.franzai.com ✅ OpenAI compatible server ✅ CLI and chat interfaces ✅ MCP support ✅ On-device and free
apfel.franzai.com
apfel - Your Mac Already Has AI
Your Mac already has AI. Apple ships a language model with macOS -apfel unlocks it with one brew install. No downloads, no API keys, no config. The fastest path to local AI.
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Lewis Westbury 💛💙🌱 @instantiator.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
This cat is assembled incorrectly.
Momo, a cute little black cat, has curled up except for one paw which is pointed backwards. He seems perfectly happy about this.
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