iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Vallery Lancey

Micah @rincewind.run · 27/09/2026

Discworld QOTD, from The Wee Free Men

Witches are naturally nosy,” said Miss Tick, standing up. “Well, I must go. I hope we shall meet again. I will give you some free advice, though.”
“Will it cost me anything?”
“What? I just said it was free!” said Miss Tick.
“Yes, but my father said that free advice often turns out to be expensive,” said Tiffany.
Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye.

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Adriana Valencia for AC Transit Ward 3 2026 @valencia4actransit.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Please read @georgespies.bsky.social 's entire thread. Then, please: vote for me this November. I'm running to make buses work not just for those who are dependent on transit, but for everybody.

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Seamless Bay Area @seamlessbayareaca.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

We are excited to announce our endorsement of three candidates in this November election: @valencia4actransit.bsky.social for AC Transit Ward 3 Sara Barz for BART Board of Directors District 8 And Robert Raburn for BART Board of Directors District 4

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Robert Prinz @prinzrob.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

These types of transit service cuts are tantamount to surrendering to climate change. It doesn’t have to be this way, vote #YesOnRTM & volunteer now to multiply your impact. Opportunities every day here: luma.com/connectbayarea

Map of BART station closures if transit measure fails

“EXHIBIT 3
Potential Muni Cuts: Headaches for Riders and Only Temporary Cost Savings
Route cuts and reduced service hours would save Muni money in the short term but would also lower fare revenues and therefore are no fix for the agency's fiscal woes.
Source: SFMTA.
Photos: Sergio Ruiz.
CUT UP TO 20 MUNI
ROUTES
Corridors with multiple routes, downtown express, hilltop and nelghborhood connections
$70M-$150M
DOUBLE WAIT
TIMES
Metro train service, Rapid and
Frequent routes
END REGULAR
SERVICE AT 9 P.M.
Limited Owl network only from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
REDUCE OR CUT HISTORIC SERVICE
3 cable cars lines and F Market &
Wharves streetcars
$30M-$80M
$30M
$70M-$140M”

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Robert Prinz @prinzrob.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

SPUR’s new report details how catastrophic it will be for Bay Area transit riders if the public transit funding Measure RTM fails. But drivers will feel it too, w an estimated doubling of Bay Bridge crossing times and more than 3X longer through the Caldecott Tunnel. www.spur.org/sites/defaul...

“The Bay Area's Top Three Highway Bottlenecks After Potential Transit Cuts
The Bay Bridge, Caldecott Tunnel, and I-680 in Walnut Creek/Concord would experience some of the most significant travel delays in both directions if looming cuts to transit service are not prevented.
Bay Bridge
+33
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+43
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK
Caldecott
Tunnel
+20
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+27
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK
1-680
(Walnut Creek/Concord)
+15
MINUTES
A.M. PEAK
+20
MINUTES
P.M. PEAK”

“EXHIBIT 4
Traffic Delays at Most
Current Highway
Bottlenecks Would
Double With Proposed
Transit Service Cuts
Line and station closures and reduced service frequency would compel transit users to drive, worsening current highway bottlenecks.
Source: SPUR-Jacobs.”

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 21/09/2026

I’m still new enough to computer glasses that I keep putting them on in my first meeting of the day, when I see my image without them.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 20/09/2026

I'm still a big believer in Kubernetes, but 2026's security environment really stresses foundational decisions that made Kubernetes and the ecosystem appealing to use/build on. A single cluster is WAY too permeable of a security boundary in 2026 if any running container/VM gets compromised.

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Transbay Coalition @transbaycoalition.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Greetings from MacArthur BART after the RTM event this morning! Going to a Day of Action event means that not only getting to meet cool people, but you also get some cool swag to show your support!

Three people stand in front of the MacArthur BART fair gates. In the foreground is a person wearing a mask in a yellow shirt. In the midground, there are two people holding up YES on MEASURE RTM signs.

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Jeffrey Tumlin 🏳️‍🌈 🌁 @jeffreytumlin.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Bay Area transit advocates gathered signatures to save transit, and now they're delivering the vote. Want to make a difference for our region? No better place to invest your time than informing voters and networking with future leaders luma.com/connectbayar...

luma.com

Connect Bay Area · Events Calendar

View and follow events from Connect Bay Area on Luma. Organizing for the Regional Transit Measure on the November 2026 ballot. Vote Yes on RTM November 3rd! ConnectBayArea.com

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Rebecca Saltzman @rebeccaforec.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

AC Transit and Director Joel Young thought they could sweep his harassment under the rug by hiding it and then lying about it. No way were we going to let that happen. Young isn’t fit for office, and since his colleagues won’t hold him accountable, voters must. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

sfchronicle.com

AC Transit director harassed female colleague, investigation finds

AC Transit Director Joel Young, a candidate in the November Ward 3 election, was investigated for a complaint of unwanted physical contact against a female director.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 16/09/2026

I work on alignment (getting people to agree with one another).

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Cyrus Hall @cyrushall.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This Thursday, we're kicking off the ground game for the Regional Transit Measure, with events in each of the 5 counties. There are 50 days until the election. In that time, we need to convince Bay Area voters to invest in public transit! In San Francisco? Come rally and then talk to BART riders!

luma.com

Yes on RTM Day of Action: Rally in Downtown San Francisco + BART Crawl! · Luma

We're kicking off the Yes on RTM campaign in San Francisco at the Powell St. Cable Car Turnaround! Hear from elected and community leaders about how vital it…

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 14/09/2026

Pragmatism is just a scam to make people more dependent on better outcomes.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 12/09/2026

It’s tough to position myself as a go-to design reviewer, because very very often my review is “I disagree with the shape of the solution“, or worse, “this problem does not exist”. *drags on a cigarette* It’s all incentives, you see.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 09/09/2026

This day felt like a tipping point in a long, drawn out, and uneven apocalypse. It profoundly changed my urgency on long-term climate impact. We have had many better days since. But this is where we are going.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 07/09/2026

I’m trying to think about how to better share photos, because I’m not anywhere near as online as I used to be, and posting them to social media ad-hoc just isn’t satisfying. Do I get a Glass account? Do I hop on the newsletter bandwagon?

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 06/09/2026

My favourite thing about San Francisco is how easy it is to walk up a hill and suddenly feel like you’re in a separate place from the city.

A zoomed in view of tall colorful houses/apartments around Bernal Hill, seen from a distant high spot. The west curved trail up the hill is prominently visible, with some tiny people walking on it.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 04/09/2026

I think it’s a bit funny and sad that, impact wise, a chunk of nonprofits functionally exist as “We have an email list we can send someone else’s CTA to, and it’s a high-quality mailing list because people had to be interested enough to donate to us”.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 03/09/2026

Two very different things that bother me in transit stop consolidation discourse: 1. “Do less” appeals to bureaucrats and analysts because it’s easy. 2. Most riders’ #1 problem is slow and lacking transit. Most discussions feel more ideologically partisan than grounded in what helps riders.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 02/09/2026

Header of transit when talking about COVID, the 👏 Chronicle 👏 always 👏 delivers 👏.

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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Another reminder that firefighter/police/emt opposition to policies like congestion pricing, bike lanes, road diets, pedestrianization, etc. typically have nothing to do with legitimate public safety concerns and everything to do with maintaining personal driving and parking privileges.

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Elizabeth Kennen @elizabethkennen.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Yosemite Serenity 🎨 A peaceful scene celebrating wonderful #Yosemite for Friday #Scape. I loved painting this in watercolor, inspired by a summer visit. Prints available in my @fineartamerica.bsky.social shop. 💙 1-elizabeth-kennen.pixels.com #art #watercolor #nature #California #NationalParks

Watercolor painting of Yosemite. Mountain and trees in the background, river and rocks in the foreground.

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Lorin Hochstein @norootcause.surfingcomplexity.com · 26/08/2026

Every risk register should have an entry that reads “we have misjudged the risks” which is in the “likelihood: high” and “impact: high” region of the risk matrix.

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#1 Lifelong Houston Cougs Fan Brandi 😾 @itsthebrandi.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Pallas's cats stalking prey always look like they're trying to get invited to a party but are too shy to just ask if they can come

Pallas kitten looking out from large pipe

Pallas kitten peeping from behind something

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Peter Hartlaub @peterhartlaub.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Wrote this one for all the transit kids. Here’s the story behind @sfmta.bsky.social’s iconic logo — and the people (including Muni and a certain Chronicle columnist) who tried to kill it. Long live the worm! 🚌🚌🚌 www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/arti...

sfchronicle.com

This man designed Muni’s ‘worm’ logo. Critics wanted to kill it

In 1975, Walter Landor’s new Muni logo was disparaged and ignored. Fifty years later, it has become the ultimate San Francisco icon.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 19/08/2026

I have one secret trick to solve a lot of data scale problems, and that secret is “limit how many elements go into a n^2 process”.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 10/08/2026

This piece gets at the emotional side of a problem I’ve been flagging: it’s getting harder and harder to tell how much actual thought/effort (and “correctness”) is behind what you read. It’s easier than ever to spit out something that has the chameleon shape of reasoning and effort and emotion.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 08/08/2026

Been binging @ifbookspod.bsky.social, and I'm enjoying the pattern in bad books that took off: It's easy to sell a laughably incorrect or harmful argument when it makes the audience feel validated in their worldview, or presents a cheap status-quo-preserving hack to complex socio-enonomic issues.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 06/08/2026

There’s a software engineering joke that: - Senior engineers are document engineers b/c you own detailed planning - Staff engineers are spreadsheet engineers b/c you make complex information legible - Principal engineers are slideshow engineers b/c you align people on macro state/plans

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 06/08/2026

No promotion attached, but I fear today is the day that I’ve graduated into becoming a Slideshow engineer.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 04/08/2026

I propose a test for talking about responsibility over AI actions: If I duct tape a knife to a roomba, put it in a room, and turn it my on, who is responsible for any nicks?

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 31/07/2026

For people who DO like tablet note-taking, what do you like and why? I go between notebooks and a large 2020ish iPad. The iPad feels awkward. I’ve looked at reMarkable many times but I’m not totally sold on it.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 31/07/2026

Something I find fascinating about the commetariate class, and I’m pointedly including YouTubers, is how they do not live in the same reality as others. “In 2016 everyone was doing this”. That’s not true. In 2016 some people chasing numbers were making posts/videos about this. That’s different.

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Cliff Pervocracy @pervocracy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

We went through an event on the scale of the US homefront experience in WWII but we can't talk about it because too many people will start screaming conspiracy theories we have to "teach the controversy" on our own experiences! often on our loved ones' deaths! of course we're not healing so well!

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 30/07/2026

Under-scrutinized aspect of LLM scamming: the unit economics change the shape of scams. You know why e.g. foreign prince type scams are painfully obvious? So that only people with the most greed / the least scam literacy respond to them. But when responding is cheap, why pre-filter?

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 27/07/2026

If fare inspection is known to be inaccurate, yet continues, it’s just an exercise in letting staff decide who they want to kick off the bus/train.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 23/07/2026

I just learned about a new workgroup that is extremely up my alley, and I didn’t try to join it because I already have a major responsibility to focus on. Please clap.

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 22/07/2026

I’m shocked that I’ve never been fired for publicly asking “should we do this” when management wants to own something new. It’s bound to happen eventually!

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Vallery Lancey @isthelaststop.com · 22/07/2026

TONIGHT! AC Transit staff and part of the board is attempting a coup, to prevent members of the board from actually advocating for the constituencies that elected them. “The board exists to rubber-stamp what we tell them and stay quiet” is profoundly undemocratic. Meeting: bsky.app/profile/geor...

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Good Authority @goodauth.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

What happens when foreign aid disappears? Here’s how countries are coping with the loss of USAID and the State Department foreign aid programs. Read the latest from @royaizadi.bsky.social: goodauthority.org/news/why-mil...

goodauthority.org

Why militaries benefit from U.S. foreign assistance cuts

Governments are turning to their militaries to fill the void left by U.S. aid cuts. But filling the gaps then expands military power across civilian sectors.

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Infrastructure Weak @infrastructureweak.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

This planning phase is critical. The Geary metro's feasibility and usefulness depend on how we conceptualize it now. Money is limited, even for public goods. If we innovate with pragmatic design, we can afford more stations, build the line all at once, and fund construction without waiting decades.

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Infrastructure Weak @infrastructureweak.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I've just published this article, Part 1 of 4 about the choices that will enable San Francisco to finally build a Geary metro. medium.com/@infrastruct...

medium.com

Plan the Geary metro right, right now

Part 1: Strong corridor; tight station spacing; frequent trains

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That Mack @thatmc.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

It’s an actual Dream Come True for me! Today I am driving a Muni Bus wearing the iconic Landor Livery, the true colors Muni is meant to display, designed by the great Walter Landor in 1975, introduced alongside the greatest logo in transit history, the Muni Worm.

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