iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bare in mind these tunes I knew before studying Japanese! Its a raw memory of the song back before I didnt know Japanese. Replayed in my mind today. Its actually pretty cool when it happens.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 22h

A few times now I hum some Japanese tunes I play on Osu! and now I'm a few months in, I hum a song and replay gibberish in my head but sometimes I realise there's a word I know in that song and then I get a mini "no way" moment. 🤣

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Jack @jackwright.online · 28/09/2026

Darn :( I want to use my VPN. 😭

YouTube refused to provide data, asking for a login to confirm the requester is not a bot.
Your IP might have been temporarily banned by YouTube, you can wait some time or switch to a different IP (for example by turning on/off a VPN, or by switching from WiFi to mobile data).
Please see this FAQ entry for more information.
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OPEN IN BROWSER

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Jack @jackwright.online · 28/09/2026

Okayyy! That looks cool! I will 100% check that out. Thanks. 👌👌

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Jack @jackwright.online · 27/09/2026

YouTube refuses to load on my phone with GrapheneOS when I don't have the Google Play Store (even though Google Play Services is separate). So I just installed the Google Play Store and then... just denied it network access. Which works.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 27/09/2026

FINALLY this is so handy!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 26/09/2026

So AI slop is ok even if it's trained massively off of open source? This is crazy. 😭

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Jack @jackwright.online · 26/09/2026

The word "often" is intentional! Because you genuinely can get smart things - it just requires research, technical skills and effort.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 26/09/2026

In tech the word "smart" is often just a euphemism for the word "spy".

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

Physical weights count too I guess. Scientifically it checks out. But I did mean the burden of study as being heavy. 🤣 Should have clarified.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

A streak of just 2-3 days of bad study nights with Japanese is really discouraging. Anyone learning, make the process rewarding enough for it to feel motivating but not too easy to barely learn. I find when I tune my study and lift some weights that spark comes back!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

:1 kinda looks like a pouting face

A shot of Fern's face from Frieren (anime) pouting

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

Yeah I do feel like that's a more sustainable way to show support!! That's true. 😁

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

I do get where you're coming from though. 😂

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Jack @jackwright.online · 25/09/2026

I think a lot of people do it not to pity themselves but to have a bit of humility. The hope is it makes the other person feel better about their misfortune than oneself, like saying "you're not alone". I think sometimes people don't even mean it!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 21/09/2026

If the cost of buying a mini PC wasn't so much, I'd have considered this as my next TV experience. It would have been so versatile and powerful and I think quite seamless. But alas, the market shot me down. :(

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Jack @jackwright.online · 21/09/2026

Last step: hardware. 😭 I was looking at Intel N150 mini PCs, but the price is outrageous. N150 would have been great because it has hardware deciding support for all the latest video codecs like VP9 and AV1.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 21/09/2026

I thought, the trackpad + keyboard combo would actually be a pretty nice experience controlling a TV. So I was going to try it! Plasma Bigscreen is OSS, by KDE. I was going to use Nix, which would give me the latest software and kernel. Vacuumtube for YT. Sponsor block too. Seemed cool.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 21/09/2026

I did have a look into Plasma Bigscreen! It looked very cool. I was tempted to just use a Logitech K400 as a "TV remote" with a CEC adapter to make my keyboard control TV volume.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 21/09/2026

I felt more comfortable learning grammar when I translated word-for-word, literally, a Japanese sentence into English. Translation tools take semantics, context, and meaning and then re-formulate into English and this can make the grammatical differences unclear for newbies like me.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

Yeah, yeah. Apple isn't our friend. But when you look into it, on the TV front, they have no banner ads in the OS, works with DRM, it's polished, and importantly collects very little data relatively speaking. And they data they do collect I'm willing to compromise on.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

I'm thinking of getting a new TV, but, wow. Modern smart TVs are a privacy joke. I think I'm going to meet in a pragmatic middle: buy a new TV, keep it PERMANENTLY off the network, and then use an Apple TV box.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

I don't want the "it can technically work" argument to be a basis for recommending Duolingo. If it was that Duolingo is easy to get started with, simple, and gets people into language learning then this would be a very different conversation!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

We're now comparing schools, to some apps we can use on our phones. The point is, like schools being flawed in many respects, so is Duolingo. I couldn't drop out of my school and go a more optimal path as easily as uninstalling Duolingo and using something else. Otherwise I would have.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

You reckon? I've had it for a long time and it doesn't feel like a fisher price toy to me.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

Of course. Could be applied to anything. Duolingo just isn't as effective for many and the format is the reason.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 20/09/2026

I tried to use Duolingo in the past. I'd see content like yours warning me of it, but then I'd see responses saying "it works for me!" And "it's how you use it, it's only a stepping stone". But even then, it's still pretty bad in my opinion. There's having a start, then there's having a GOOD start.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 19/09/2026

Are we also counting that AI loves to unwrap and clone loads of things when it can't cope with the borrow checker too 😂😭 Makes me question the efficiency wins

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Jack @jackwright.online · 18/09/2026

Been running GrapheneOS for a week or so! It's going well! Its reported drawbacks haven't really affected me. It feels refreshing. And it does work with pretty much all my apps.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 18/09/2026

One day I will stop clarifying haha

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Jack @jackwright.online · 18/09/2026

あああ。。。😆 優しいい 500~言葉にアンキちょっとを読む１日本人友達、私を助けだいる！ It takes me like 10-15 minutes to write such a short response. 😆 Goodness knows how natural it reads. But it's genuinely a no translator attempt.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 18/09/2026

ありがとう😁日本語は楽しいだよ日本語を勉強4ヶ月 That's my best shot 🤣

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Jack @jackwright.online · 18/09/2026

I'd assume it's like fast English to me, I can conformably listen on 1.75x. I'd like to imagine that but pretend it was Japanese. One day it'll be real, not pretend, damn it! 🤣

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Jack @jackwright.online · 16/09/2026

Everytime I watch Mamdani's press conferences and speeches I yearn for more politicians like that. I wish all politicians to be like him. I enjoy watching him even though I don't live in NY. His way of leading brings me joy.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 16/09/2026

Ahhh yeah! Of course! 👨‍🍳👌

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Jack @jackwright.online · 16/09/2026

Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I get it but I'm interested

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Jack @jackwright.online · 15/09/2026

Waiting for the first "exploring an abandoned datacentre" video. Not that it'll happen soon, but it'll happen eventually I feel sure. And it won't just be one.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

And one big perk, there's no such thing as "depends on" relation management. It'll know, and it'll handle the relational dependency graph all for you.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

There's so many hidden micro decisions that I feel will make this seeder great. Looking forward to sharing it when I publish it!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

It's geared towards dev environments but the idea is that it will be possible to seed a deep relational database with data that can actually resemble production. And it works great for integration tests with support for idempotent rows and deterministic data. Can work with any ORM too.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

I'm working on a new OSS library that solves data seeding for large scale apps. And I'm pretty pleased with it! It was actually used in a real project of mine and spawned out of frustration for nothing existing that was good enough.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

MSG isn't bad for you. It's arguably better than salt due to having 1/3 less sodium. The glutamate part is found naturally in some vegetables and well known cheeses. MSG is great!

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Jack @jackwright.online · 14/09/2026

I am going to try Kagi. People say it has the best search results around as the customer is the person who's searching rather than advertisers. It looks like a solid alternative search engine. Con is, it's actually a paid search engine. But... it might be worth it.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 13/09/2026

It came out in 2022. I gotta give it time. I managed to get it working but it just wasn't easy to set up with my specific situation.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 12/09/2026

I think I'm enjoying learning Japanese because it's a very human skill to learn and master which is quite refreshing to me in these times. It unlocks so much in the real world, and is an opportunity to speak with people I can't currently speak to.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 12/09/2026

Whoa, Matter feels very over-engineered. Having used ZigBee, I thought wow Matter is modern! But it's so bad. 😭 It's soooooo finicky to set up and new devices.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 12/09/2026

I'm both so excited for the remake and want to play it but I don't want to buy a Switch 2 just for one game. 😭 So I'm probably going to have to pass on it.

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Jack @jackwright.online · 12/09/2026

I get the costs associated with making these easy to clean, and how it can introduce more points of failure and warranty claims. But what's so hard about having a mini door or something that I can open on either end so I can rinse it from the inlet?

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