iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 27/09/2026

A finger, hovering over the screen. Do I tap like? The post is perfect as it is.

Obama meme post about a post having only two likes. The post itself only has two likes.

Maybe this post will only get two likes too

John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 13/09/2026

Curb cuts are a common, but over used, example of how an accessibility feature meant for one group (wheelchair users) makes life better for many others (parents with strollers, people on crutches, small children, etc) Alt text on pants comics will be my new example going forward.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 29/08/2026

A teenager spends time with his mom and his dad.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 13/08/2026

Also ironic (maybe? Alanis can weigh in). Like Obamacare, the haters have found a name in “The Obamalisk” that is so catchy, so perfectly fitting that within 5 years everyone will be calling it that. Within 10, even Obama will adopt the name.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 13/08/2026

“irony is the order of the day at the Obama Center.” @katewagner.wehwalt.net nails the eerie feeling of visiting. Our ironic moment: our visit led us to discover the Osaka Garden right next to it. A 130 year old, exquisitely designed (free to visit!) gift from one of Chicago’s sister cities.

A bridge over the water at the Osaka garden in chicago

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 13/08/2026

It’s striking how many people described fixing a specific problem as if doing so would fix ALL PROBLEMS. Some were big problems! Clean running water whenever you want, remember every loved one forever, etc. It’s a reminder of the “one weird trick” fallacy. Fix a big problem ≠ utopia

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 07/08/2026

Hi 👋 professional universe general contractor, just chiming in. When building a uni you ABSOLUTELY want a design phase. Skipped that once and we had to kludge together some quantum entanglement to keep the whole thing together. Def read both books before jumping into any personal uni projects.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 25/07/2026

Inside you there are two wolves…

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 18/07/2026

“It’s 480 BCE, our Spartan warriors have been beaten by the Persians and everyone is talking about Homer’s Odyssey. It’s 2026…”

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 29/06/2026

I am by no means a parenting expert, but one thing I do know is that one of the most important things to teach a kid is what it feels like to be enthusiastic about things. And the way to do that…is to be enthusiastic about things.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 18/06/2026

Soup bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Gazpacho.”

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 16/06/2026

There’s a very niche market just waiting to be served with a wallet made out of Russian nesting dolls

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 11/06/2026

Oh man, the whole thing is so so so much better than the screenshot

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 06/06/2026

Denis Villenueve’s adaptation of Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea cycle

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/06/2026

When everything is “load-bearing,” nothing is.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 31/05/2026

Oh! and aaa resolves to street address (for any form that hasn’t integrated with geo-completion)

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 31/05/2026

Have you added @@ for your email address and ## for your phone number? Huge help for filling out forms on mobile. Of all the little time saved things I’ve done in my life, this has probably been the biggest win. xkcd.com/1205/

xkcd.com

Is It Worth the Time?

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 27/05/2026

I highlighted a bunch of passages when I read @tricialockwood.bsky.social’s No One is Talking About This years ago, and every now and then one will pop up again and I am forced to pause and sit in awe of just how perfectly she puts her finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist.

Politics! The trouble was that they had a dictator now, which, according to some people (white, they had never had before, and according to other people (everyone else), they had only ever been having, constantly, since the beginning of the world.
Her stupidity panicked her, as well as the way her voice now sounded when she talked to people who hadn't stopped being stupid yet.
No One Is Talking About This
Patricia Lockwood

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 24/05/2026

Well you know how the old saying goes: “Don’t measure at all, cut baby cut, 🚀🚀🌕.”

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 14/05/2026

Not if you design it right…

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 05/05/2026

I’d start a professional whack-bat league

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 04/05/2026

no one: me: funny you should mention that. I've memorized all the lyrics to Tom Lehrer's The Elements - there's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium...

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

He constructs one machine (the rules of the play), then another machine (the rules of the actors putting on the play), and then constructed a meta-machine out of the interaction between the two. It’s so enjoyable to watch.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

Incidentally, it’s one of the reasons why Michael Frayn’s Noises Off continues to kill every time it’s performed even though it’s over 40 years old and arguably overdone. Frayn recognized that the act of constructing a farce machine is itself a machine. He created a farce about performing a farce.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

Having performed in a few farces, I can attest that putting one together takes an incredible amount of planning and attention to detail. It’s like putting together a mechanical watch.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

For the audience, it doesn’t really matter whether the social convention is “real” as @zachweinersmith.bsky.social points out. What matters is that it’s real to the characters. That’s it’s their “laws of physics” that they must obey. It sets up the whole intricate machine.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

Except instead of playing with physics the way the rolling ball sculptures (or mechanical watches or Rube Goldberg machines) do, farce plays with the mechanics of human relationships: social mores, allegiances, secrets, desire (hence why many of the engines of farce are sex/money/power/fame)

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 02/05/2026

Farce is one of my favorite genres because when done well, it’s superficially silly but underneath is a profound exploration of the human condition. It’s enjoyable the way people enjoy watching those intricate rolling ball sculptures. The intricate mechanics that all make weird sense together.

A rolling ball machine with lots of people standing around it

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 24/04/2026

It’s next-level silly to spend time making something efficient that doesn’t need to be done in the first place.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 21/04/2026

A type designer walks into a bar, with thick black lines accentuating her eyes, nose, and mouth. The bartender says “why the boldface?”

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 21/04/2026

Why did we call it “microblogging” when “take fountain” was right there?

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 19/04/2026

Ursula K. LeGuin, in the afterword to A Wizard of Earthsea. Wowee.

A Wizard of Earthsea
War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to "a war against" whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the "right" side and therefore will win. Right makes might.
Or does might make right?
If war is the only game going, yes. Might makes right. Which is why I don't play war games.
Ursula K. Le Guin

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 18/04/2026

From this essay bsky.app/profile/visa...

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 18/04/2026

@visakanv.com‘s description of good work having “an idea in the car” echoes the feeling of reading a lot of AI writing. The human impulse towards efficiency strips all the dynamic life from the writing. Lots of interesting parallels between the photocopier and LLMs as well, prob not a coincidence.

xerox'd flowers °
When my work does well, it's usually because the idea was driving. But then I get cocky, or arrogant, and think, "I was there. I was involved. That was successful. should drive this time." And it doesn't work, because there's no idea in the
car.
visakanv

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 14/04/2026

Quibi never stood a chance

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 26/03/2026

@visakanv.com “The lotus of my optimism grows out of the mud of my despair.” 🔥 It’s like the serenity prayer for the person blessedcursed with an overactive mind.

The lotus of my optimism grows out of the mud of my despair. And really, someone with a blissfully charmed life probably wouldn't think to make a big fuss about being optimistic and prosocial and so on. They'd just be that way naturally. It would be something that they'd take for granted. I don't take mine for granted, because I had to fight for it.
Visa

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 25/03/2026

Imagining a post from Confucius with Lao Tzu, Moms Mabley, Diogenes, Dorothy Parker, and Noel Coward all trying to one up each other in the replies

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 08/03/2026

Exactly right. It’s hard to see for the people who are into how things work (the technologists), because the technology alone is compelling enough. But for most people (who aren’t technologists), the tech needs be embedded in a product to become compelling in THEIR unique context.

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 08/03/2026

This reflects the difference between a “technology” and a “product.” Technology is how something functions. It’s amazing and fascinating to people who are into how things work (which is not everyone) Product is how something functions in a person’s specific context. Very different things!

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 08/03/2026

meta-note There’s a lot that is tragic (in the Greek sense of the word) about what happened to Twitter, but 1 of the most profound is the lost potential for it to be the medium for something like this. Not a post with a screenshot of a book. But another strand in a great web of connected thought

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 08/03/2026

(Re-)reminder to stop writing for everyone and write for someone instead, whoever that someone is for you (for me). Via @visakanv.com

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 07/03/2026

Absolute gem in @visakanv.com‘s FAN. To paraphrase: Ppl who are blindly confident are unlikely to worry about being blindly confident So if you worry about being blindly confident, you likely don’t need to worry about it as much as you do (esp if worrying holds you back from doing what want to do)

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John Stokvis @johnstokvis.com · 06/03/2026

plot twist: the tech CEO is the child and the venture capitalist is a hallucination, they're actually a surgeon and tech CEO is on the operating table and the surgeon is saying "I can't operate on this person, they're my child" and the surgeon is the mom

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