iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Some bugs makin' pretty things

A close up photo of a leave which has been nibbled into a lacy lattice by tiny yellow caterpillars, some of which are still visible at the edges of the leaf.

A photo of a dry stick missing its bark. A long y-shaped groove has been cut in the stick by an insect. All along the length of the groove, smaller grooves branch out and end, making it look like a kind of relief circuit board.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Attempt to edit it closer to what my eyes saw...

The same photo as before, but the image is more shadowy, and the golden leaves on top are firey bright.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The sun was touching the top orange leaves of this tree, it was absolutely blazing against the grey wall, it stunned me. The photo definitely does not capture it...

A wide leafy tree close against a grey brick wall. The tops of some boughs are turning yellow and orange, and a spray of leaves at the top is bright yellow and red, moreso than the rest of the tree.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#unicycle day 19. Today's goal started as trying idling but that's apparently still a ways out for me, so goal changed to sitting firm in the saddle and letting the cycle take my weight. Holy COW is my riding ever smoother. I can actually roll around corners too!

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Sitting by the pool, reading my book club book in a sunbeam while the kids swim... This may be the last one of the year, holding on to it while it lasts!

Photo of a long haired child in floral swimsuit, distorted underwater among rainbow colored ripples on the blue pool bottom. Feels a little abstract and etherial.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Here's a slightly clearer photo, maybe?, cropped.

A small round moon surrounded by blackness. Light on the top, red in the middle, dark on the bottom. Craters and seas are visible in the penumbra.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

In a moment very uncharacteristic for Vancouver, the clouds broke and I actually got to see Space Stuff! In a moment very characteristic for me, I ran out to the hill with the wrong lens and 12% battery on my camera, so I got what I got.

A photo of a partial lunar eclipse, a full moon half-red, floating between two long grey clouds on a dark sky.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Stargazing app: There's a lunar eclipse tonight at 21:17! Me: Fantastic, thank you for telling me! How's the visibility at 21:17? Stargazing app: Absolute shite!

A graph of sky visibility for the next 24h. A portion of the graph is labelled "lunar eclipse", and that section is full of solidbwhite squares indicating poor visibility.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

#unicycle day 16: I put air in the tire and HOLY CRAP it's a totally different animal now. Its so responsive and easy to make corrections, but requires about 3x the tension in my body to react. Anyways: today's goal was a figure eight, and the tight turn at the end was a bonus!

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Anyone know what this weird thing is out by UBC? It looks like a bunch of fake beaches, extremely fascinating haha! #ubc #yvr #vancouver www.google.com/maps/@49.245...

A 3d maps image, aerial shot of a couple dozen huge rectangular ponds in 4 rows nestled among tall trees and farmland. Each pond gradiates from a thin beach at one end through murky green water at the other. There also appears to be a yard full of large basins or pots or something.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

This is so exciting! This is easily one of the loudest sections on the line, I can't wait!

A letter from TransLink describing the pending work to replace the rails between royal oak and Edmonds.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Do you just sit and think about that house on the cover of Starship Titanic? I do.

The cover of the video game Starship Titanic (written in beveled block text). A space ship with a shape like a submarine is shown in dramatic perspective on a dark green lightning filled sky, with a huge keel as tall as the ship is long that stretches down to farmland below. A seeming spotlight shines on the bottom tip of the keel, illuminating the farmland in the darkness. A tiny white house with a red roof sits next to the keel, throwing the whole thing into scale as an absolutely monstrous space ship.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Sharing tips for putting a tarp under your tent with my camping-noob friend

An ms-paint drawing of two tent shaped blobs sitting on a brown line representing the ground. The one on the left has a wide blue line under it, extending past the sides of the tent. A cyan line representing rain comes down from the top, slides along the side of the tent, hits the blue line, and goes under the tent. That tent is frowning. On the right, an identical tent, except the blue line under it folds under, and the cyan rain line rolls down the side and disperses into the ground. That tent is smiling.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Plugged in my steamdeck, immediate stink of hot metal and burning plastic. The charging port is totally fried now.

Awkward photo of the USB C port on a steam deck. The little plastic tab inside the port is blackened and deformed.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

This amazing cloud shadow. (Not so amazing that it's visible because of the smoke, but yeah.)

An evening photo of a mostly clear blue grey sky over a dark tree line. A stack of whispy clouds curls around a hot yellow sun, and a shadowy dark replica of the clouds streaks through the sky beside it.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Current read: Walkable City by Jeff Speck.

Cover of the book, featuring a top down photo of a wide crosswalk, with pedestrians on it. Some of the white lines give way to the title of the book and author, in bold white letters.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

I always thought the SimCity SNES cover was so rad. THE. SKYSCRAPERS. ARE. LETTERS. 😱

Box art from the SNES Sim City. The worlds SIM CITY are written in orange gradient block letters, but they're actually the tops of skyscrapers rising up in intense perspective towards the viewer, rising up from a blend of in-game art and illustrative art of a city below.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Some magic line was crossed today and suddenly I actually spent a bit of time "playing" my SimCity remake, and not just debug-poking it. #indieDev

A screenshot of a very simple pixel art city game. Green, blue, and orange tiles are laid out in a grid of dark grey roads. Some of the roads have little white pixels on them representing cars. A couple toolbars are on the screen as well.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

UGH I hate this framing so much. Apple App Store really seemed to cement it with its charts as primary discovery mechanism and it's driven me bananas since. The idea, "lots of people are spending money on this so you should spend money on it too!" feels deeeeply twisted to me. "Buy what's popular!"

Screenshot from steam:
Top Seller, ranked #18 in your region.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

#unicycle day 11. I can mount 19 times out of 20, and go in a straight line basically until I run out of road. First attempts at intentional turning have been a moderate success, as shown by the three quarters of a U-turn here.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

"Some tasty looking garbage you got there..."

A photo looking up through the slatted roof of a garbage enclosure. A young raccoon is peeking down over the weathered timbers, licking its lips.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

And if it was just like, `curl`-ing the url I was visiting with a numeric code or something, I'd be like, okay, I get it. But it wants me to run THIS? Like how the hell can I trust that? 🤣 (If someone wants to tell me that this is indeed a hack and the site has been compromised, I'd feel better!)

13 solid lines of densely obfuscated code, containing commands to download things.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Uh, ran into this captcha today. This is... EXTREMELY not okay???? Am I missing something?

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Ugh, this notification just popped up. I'm so tired of everything advertising to me.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Lookit these cute little houses!!!

Screenshot of the NES version of sim city, a browny, bluey palette draw grey and red boxes with R and I symbols in them, little black pixelley train tracks abound, and tiny 2-color brown and tan houses dot the landscape.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Waaaaoooh the C64 version of Sim City 😍 This is so COOL (via the extremely interesting gamehistory.org/simcity/)

Screenshot of a very low-fidelity version of sim city: the buildings are just black and grey splotches with a boxy C in the middle, the roads a couple parallel rows of pixels. The construction menu is flat black icons on a grey background. The silhouette of an airplane looms over a solid blue river.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Looking at these diagonal grooves in the door floor plate on the SkyTrain. They are quite deep, like 3mm. They are slipped towards the midpoint of the door. I wonder if the intention is to guide feet/objects *into* the train, if they get caught in a closing door.

A downward photo of a SkyTrain door and a person's leg. The dirty aluminum floor plate running along the door has narrow grooves running along its length parallel to the door, and some wider, deeper grooves with rounded ends set at 45 degrees and pointing into the train.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

This is a very postmodern contact info on this cup.

A white to-go cup with an orange label with a photo of an orange. It says, on multiple lines:

Forget.
1 8 8 8.
Info @.
WWW.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Unicycle day 7: after about 45 minutes of falling, I finally clicked on a piece of advice I got early on: to always mount falling forward, like you're already rolling. It turns out stopping and catching your balance from this is easy, but getting going from still is hard!

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Okay! Starting the next one! I'm very excited to read this! It's always mentioned everywhere and was the top rec when I asked for urbanism books. And hooeee is it stout! 585 pages!! I'm simultaneously thrilled that it's serious, but also intimidated. Wish me luck!

Cover of the book, golden with black text, aithor name in red.

A library barcode sticker on the top right corner.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Finished the book! In the end I didn't learn much, but it would probably be a good primer for a young person just stepping into this mess! I really appreciated its values framing and wish it had pushed more in that direction. It feels fruitful and different than much of what I see about this.

As we've seen, the expression of intrinsic values tends to suppress competing materialistic values (the seesaw effect of p. 63). The sheer act of protesting itself undermines one of capitalism's basic supports!

A cartoon of the capitalism centipede on a crumbling pillar surrounded by protesters.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Protest!! The last half of this book is about how to change things, and this top panel is a nice summary of the last few chapters, about changing the system from within. I do feel like it misses a very obvious mechanism, which is voting/citizenship, but still a nice list.

Chapter 12: Protest.

The last five chapters described acts of economic resistance: boycotts, voluntary simplicity, buying mindfully, service sharing, responsible investment, and co-ops.

The next chapter is about public affirmation of values.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Yeaaah! Got the driver's seat today! 🙌

View out the front window of the skytrain, with the track stretching away in front as a black and blue train passes on the other side. A mottled grey sky matches the color of the grey plastic train interior.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Huh. The argument is against advertising being a deductible expense. Because it "takes" public time, attention, and space to advertise, it should be taxed instead! That strikes me as overly simplistic and probably punative to smaller players but... My friends can attest: I loathe advertising 🤣

So why not TAX advertising instead of subsidizing it?
A cartoon woman adds, "because who needs it?"

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Neat, another take on the same idea: a few pages back the book put forward the idea that "money is time", and this takes that thinking to its logical conclusion. Back when I was researching co-ops, the idea that "a person's time is the most valuable thing they can give" really struck me.

A very wordy comic page describing the function of a time bank: a system where a community trades hours of individuals' time, and tracks it like currency. Examples given include giving music lessons, cooking for someone, and maintaining a website.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

I've come across this idea of "local currencies" before, it seems incredibly subversive in a delicious way! There's a good research tangent there...

Comic page with lots of text, describing:
Panel 1: some communities create local vouchers referred to as "complimentary currencies". Beside: images of two unusual looking bills.
Panel 2: photo of a gathering where a crowd of people are watching some speakers describe large posters of those bills.
Panel 3: more than just encouraging local over chain businesses, in a kenya city they created additional trade because real bills were actually scarce.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Unicycling day 6: attempting to mount without support.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

This is an interesting point about "privatization": that if you are in a one provider/one user market, it's simply a monopoly. I think this is often the case when government functions get privatized.

The capitalism centipede crawls among a photo of Chicago. Narrator: note that a private prison or parking meter collector is very different from Betty's bun shop. CPM, for instance, has only one customer, the city of Chicago. And if Chicago doesn't like CPM, the city can hardly go shopping for a better deal. Not for sixt-some years anyways.

The caterpillar laughs, ha ha ha ha haaa.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Every time the Americans in my online dad group discuss parental time off, I get incandescent with rage on their behalf... But I assumed I was just a lucky one! I didn't realize paid maternity leave was so universal!

At this writing, all countries but three require employers to give new mothers (and sometimes fathers) paid leave, usually 14 weeks but often much longer. This map shows the three exceptions: the US, Suriname, and Papua New Guinea. The US standard is 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

A sketched world map with arrows pointed to the named countries. The capitalism caterpillar says, hey, time is money! A Black woman with baby in a rocking chair says, no actually, money is money.

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Heh heh heh, the high court...

Panel from the comic, of the cartoon narrator walking in front of the supreme court. The side text reads, "but no worries! The supreme court's majority assures us that independent expenditues, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption."

The cartoon character says, "I see why they call it the high court... They must have been high when they wrote that..."

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ipsquiggle @ipsquiggle.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

I think about values a lot but I've never studied them. This representation is really interesting! I've seen this kind of "oppositional pairing" for rights, but not values. I love this stuff!

A kind of pie chart labelled with 10 values:
Self direction, universalism, benevolence, conformity/tradition, security, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation.
Accompanying text describes how adjacent values go together, and opposite values are in conflict with each other. Developed by Shalom Schwartz.

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