iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 01/10/2026

I worked with @cwervo.bsky.social years ago and remember walking around DynamicLand together. So exciting to see that they're taking those ideas forward!! Congrats on where you've taken Folk Computer @cwervo.bsky.social! www.motivenotes.ai/p/against-us...

motivenotes.ai

Against Usefulness

In a Brooklyn warehouse, a man handed me a piece of paper that was a running computer program.

1132

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 18/09/2026

I’m making a book! The book consists of pairs of images joined by text. I use a custom embedding-based system to pick images which rhyme, then write between the pics, focusing on what the camera misses I'm starting with a limited-edition booklet Follow along at pairwisebook.substack.com/subscribe

001

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 12/09/2026

The Japan and Singapore chapters in particular blew my mind and gave me hope for the future of cities

110

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 12/09/2026

I listened to this and it was fantastic, tho IMO the subtitle oversells it. A more accurate description would be: mostly a history of 20th-century land policy in Asia. Within its territory tho, it's unsurpassed.

110

Reposted by Justin Manley

jean @jeanniebabies.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

As a knowledge worker I find it unsettling how explicit the current crop of LLM tools are in their attempt to get me to internalize the logic of management. Like personally I do not want to review PRs and tell other people what to do all day, that’s why I’m a programmer and not a middle manager

182

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 06/08/2025

Tooze: "China is the decisive variable in climate politics going forward...when I say that China becomes the singular centre of the entire global energy drama, I’m not exaggerating. It’s true. It is the entire fossil game and by far the dominant wind and solar player." en.ccg.org.cn/archives/88518

en.ccg.org.cn

Transcript: Adam Tooze at CCG

To the latest event information and expert opinions?

020

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 06/08/2025

plus queer bodies transforming themselves to be cooler and more comfy plus general solidarity and comradeship and coziness

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 06/08/2025

allegory of a post-Trump society (🐻 California Republic!) plus radical emancipation of machine intelligence plus breaking free from big tech platforms (💥take that, Grando Sando!)

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 06/08/2025

just devoured @annaleen.bsky.social's Automatic Noodle in less than 24 hours. Just what I needed 🤖🍜🎯😊 -- soooo on point!

110

Reposted by Justin Manley

Hunter Owens @hunterowens.net · 21/07/2025

The MJT is one of the greatest places in all of Los Angeles. I hope they recover and reopen soon (and weirder than ever) lacmaonfire.blogspot.com/2025/07/jura...

lacmaonfire.blogspot.com

Jurassic Technology on Fire

I'm late to the news, but a fire of unknown origin broke out at Culver City's Museum of Jurassic Technology on the night of July 8th. Founde...

43813

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/07/2025

NOOOOO!!! I really hope MJT can come back from this. A seven-engine fire?!?!

010

Reposted by Justin Manley

Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

In a world where more people obsess about their work being inherently meaningful, I hope that you see your job relatively close to the left side of the chart...

1616558

Reposted by Justin Manley

jean @jeanniebabies.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

A tale of two cities, Chicago bike edition: On the left is CDOT's map of bike infrastructure on the North Side, and on the right is the South Side. Even without the legend, you can tell that these are two different worlds, with I-55 acting as a border between them

A screenshot of CDOT's interactive map of bike infrastructure on the North and West Sides of Chicago. The map is bounded roughly by the south branch of the Chicago river to the south, Harlem Avenue to the west, Oakton Street to the north, and Lake Michigan to the east. Lots of greenways and protected bike lanes are visible across the extent of the map, with scattered off-street trails visible here and there as well.

A screenshot of CDOT's interactive map of bike infrastructure on the South Side of Chicago. The map is bounded roughly by the Calumet Channel to the south, Harlem Avenue to the west, I-290 to the north, and Lake Michigan to the east. Lots of greenways and protected bike lanes are visible north of I-55, but there is very little aside from painted lanes south of that. Off-street bike trails are visible along the lakefront, on which the Lakefront Trail extends down to South Shore, as well as the Major Taylor Trail on the far South Side and a few sections of trail near Wolf Lake on the far Southeast Side.

7626

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 12/06/2025

how it started vs. how it's going on the Elizabeth Line

a bench against a pale grey wall with a darker grey silhouette smudged on the wall above each seat on the bench

a bench against a pale grey wall with a colorful sticker on the wall above each seat on the bench

020

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 16/05/2025

wise words seem obvious once spoken. past me needed to hear this. maybe also present me.

010

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 08/05/2025

and Rufino Tamayo's 1925 Fábrica (the Tina Modotti photograph above is called Telephone Wires, and she made it between 1923 and 1929)

a red brick factory with a black pitched roof. in the foreground is a black water tower perched on narrow legs connected by trusswork. black smokestacks are attached to the factory, and putting out pale clouds of smoke or steam. next to the black water tower is a dark pole from which are stretched wires cutting across the sky and through the clouds of smoke.

000

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 08/05/2025

god these are so good! here's Fermín Revueltas' 1921 painting Subestación (La Indianilla)

a painting mostly in tones of ochre of a single-story building with a pitched roof. it is connected to another similar building. to the right, we see poles bringing a dense skein of wires down to the ground, where they gather at a point. in the foreground at the bottom of an image is a body of water where the wires and the poles create a wavy reflection. in the background are four large black pillars -- perhaps smokestacks in the distance -- joined by a series of trusses.

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 08/05/2025

it feels appropriate that the cover would call out to me with a picture by Tina Modotti, since the first I remember thinking about the aesthetics of telephone poles was in a class on Mexican art. Almost ten yrs ago, I wrote a paper on the wires of her contemporaries Fermin Revueltas & Rufino Tamayo

a row of telephone poles, perfectly lined up so that the poles are all hidden behind the frontmost one, and only the crossbars can be seen growing ever smaller as they recede towards the bottom of the frame. the telephone wires mostly echo this same perspectival recession, except for a few wires strung from left to right across the upper portion of the image. the background is a rich brown, lighter at the edges. along the bottom of the image can be seen a few distant telephone poles.

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 08/05/2025

take photos and videos of telephone wires for fun, so...obviously I'm gonna be excited about a book called "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication". yes PLEASE!

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 08/05/2025

sometimes I come across a book in a bookstore and think: this was written SPECIFICALLY for me. never more than today, tho:

120

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/04/2025

this is Milanese design (and design for public services!) at its best: a synthesis of hard-wearing ancient materials (granite, concrete) with new (steel tread plate; steel tubing; paint) to produce a useful, lasting, and distinctive public space

010

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/04/2025

it's not just the color scheme, though -- it's the way the metro line COMMITS to its bit: that tight grid (grey on the walls, yellow on the ceiling); those 45-degree angles tapering to sharp points used to finish the support posts

a staircase. grey stone floor, grey stone walls. to left and right, on either wall, are yellow banisters fixed to the wall with circular red pins. at the bottom of the stairs is a brightly-illuminated wall, grey with a tight grid pattern, and a pair of bright red doors. above the doors is a horizontal line of small square lights

a fare barrier on the Milan metro. the barrier is made of panels of dark grey glass held up by a support post painted bright red. the support post has a cruciform plan, with the arms of the cross tapering at a forty-five-degree angle to a point at the top. the glass panels are attached to the red support post with four bright yellow rectangular panels.

the end of a bright yellow banister, fixed to the grey stone wall behind it with a circular red pin.

a yellow railing on a warm-toned stone base, seen against a cooler-toned grey marble wall.

020

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/04/2025

I wouldn't expect grey, yellow, and red to go together, but somehow the M3 metro line in Milan makes the combo look SO cool. I look forward to any chance I get to ride this line as an opportunity to be immersed in this crazy color world

on the left side of the image, a yellow banister descends diagonally along a grey stone wall, presumably follow the tread of stairs which are out of view below frame. the yellow banister is fixed to the grey wall with circular fittings painted a contrasting bright red. natural light -- perhaps from a subway entrance -- illuminates the upper left part of the image. on the right the grey stone of the wall changes to a horizontally-striped wall covering made out of metal and painted red

a grey wall with a grid pattern topped by a row of square lights in a long metal yellow fixture. along the base of the wall, five bright red circular seats

a ceiling with a square lattice painted bright yellow. the lattice is almost as deep as each square is wide -- perhaps three inches. in the foreground are two ceiling light fixtures with the bulbs set in decorative round mesh circles painted yellow (one with a red border). in the background are four triangular yellow lights, also fixed to the ceiling

a barrier on the Milan metro. the verticals are painted red and have pointed tops; the tubular barrier itself is yellow. everything else (floor, walls) is grey -- the floor is steel tread plate, while the walls are stone (granite?)

260

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 30/03/2025

The London County Council has been defunct since 1965, and this coat of arms hasn't been officially in use since 1986, when Thatcher abolished its successor the GLC. But in some parts of London at least, the seal is still lovingly kept up!

a colorful heraldic crest on a stone pillar. Above the crest, on a sky-blue scroll, the words "London County Council." Below, on a similar scroll, "Maitland Park Estate." The crest itself consists of blue and white wavy horizontal lines representing the Thames surmounted by St George's cross (red cross on white) covered by a golden lion surmounted by a golden crown

020

Reposted by Justin Manley

Kári Tulinius @kattullus.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Ursula K. Le Guin on the true pain of being a writer

Screenshot of a single question and answer from interview in the Times Literary Supplement with Ursula K. Le Guin. Here is the quote:

If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be?

In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book.

3350291277

Reposted by Justin Manley

If you know you know @privatechand.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

“Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business…Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive govt funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

theguardian.com

I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky

3201114

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 02/02/2025

learned enough about metalworking this weekend to make a rough-and-ready stand for a corn bulb by welding steel rods together 👨‍🏭

120

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 24/01/2025

the telltale clue for me was that the street sign almost hidden behind the taxi reads "Pageantmaster Court". Once I saw that it was easy to find the building!

000

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/01/2025

I shudder to think of this tool being used by law enforcement

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/01/2025

oops nvm, I just did. I get it. This one is hard. It's not exactly fair. Still, a decent image-based geolocator should at least pick a place where there's enough foliage to make the image plausible. The random street it picked has a bit of ivy on top of the concrete retaining wall, but not enough!

on the left, a picture of goats behind a temporary fence eating the lush green undergrowth; in the middle, a map view of San Francisco with a dot along the winding streets just west of Mount Davidson Park; on the right, a StreetView view up a street with houses on one side and a high concrete wall surmounted by green ivy on the other side

on the left, goats behind a temporary fence eating the lush green undergrowth; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin in Mount Sutro Open Space Preserve

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/01/2025

thank goodness I didn't try it on this pic of goats used to keep weeds under control

goats behind a temporary wire fence against a backdrop of lush green undergrowth

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/01/2025

Here are the actual locations. There just aren't that many exposed outcroppings of red rock in San Francisco. There is red rock in Corona Heights Park, but not the random street GeoSpy picked. The red brick buildings are obviously the Golden Gateway Center, built in 1967 near the Embarcadero.

on the left, red rocks bathed in golden afternoon light; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin at Corona Heights Park

on the left, a view over the back of some houses with Sutro Tower in the background against a smoky sky; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin at the eastern edge of the Mission District, just west of the 101

on the left, a dusky view of a courtyard surrounded by blocky red brick buildings; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin just inland off the Embarcadero, slightly northwest of the Ferry Building

on the left, a pink and yellow house seen through flowers and foliage; on the right, a map view of San Francisco with a red pin on the Potrero Community Garden

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 21/01/2025

very underwhelmed by GeoSpy. Just tried it out with a bunch of pics I took when I lived in San Francisco. I selected these pics to be difficult, but not impossible. They all show public places. GeoSpy seems almost completely clueless about anything that's not a typical StreetView-type photo.

a screenshot showing three images: on the left, some red rocks bathed in golden afternoon light; in the middle, a map showing Glen Canyon Park in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down a road with some single-story houses on one side

a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a view over the back of some houses with Sutro Tower in the background against a smoky sky; in the middle, a map showing the 101 ramp towards Market Street in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down the 101

a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a dusky view of a courtyard surrounded by blocky red brick buildings; in the middle, a map focused on the outer Mission in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view down a road in San Francisco with two- and three-story stucco apartment buildings on either side

a screenshot showing three images: on the left, a pink and a yellow house seen through flowers and foliage; in the middle, a map centered on Noe Valley in San Francisco; on the right, a StreetView view of a yellow house flanked by two green houses in San Francisco

110

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 17/01/2025

London Short Film Festival is back!! Loved the kickoff program of short films from the '90s, especially "Latifa and Himli's Nomadic Uncle" by Alnoor Dewshi player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/wa...

Six filmmakers and one producer standing on a stage holding mics at a Q&A

010

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

I've done this and can confirm it's great 📚

010

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

(all photos above are installation views of Antonio Calderara's 1959 painting Vertical Counterpoint in Red, seen last month at the Estorick Collection in London)

000

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

Sitting at the end of the bench in the middle of the room, I can see the painting at last. It’s better in person, I promise.

a field of taupe with a column of paler, slightly cooler taupe close to the left edge, and another column of the same color on the right edge. at the base of each column is a rectangle of cool, dark gray-taupe. along the bottom edge, there is a slightly redder square

110

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

If I just bend my knees and lean to the side a little further, perhaps I can shunt the air vent on the wall behind me up and out of the picture.

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

Or does the painting in fact have the upper hand as it absorbs the gallery into its world of just-barely-perceptible variations of taupe?

dim, hazy reflections of picture frames. what is in the frames cannot be made out. taupe-on-taupe

110

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

Perhaps the artist, who throughout his work played incessantly with reflections, would be tickled that these pictures are so bedeviled.

a field of taupe with a diagonal line cutting almost-horizontally across, dividing the field into slightly darker taupe (above the line) and slightly lighter (below)

100

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

When I stand in front of the painting, my own obscuring figure fills the frame.

a person taking a selfie in a mirror, taupe-on-taupe

110

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 04/01/2025

I lean forward to get a better view of the painting, but the couple behind me is in the way.

two figures facing each other, taupe-on-taupe

130

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 01/01/2025

...and Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles @ Whitechapel Harold Cohen @ the Whitney Copy Machine Manifestos @ Brooklyn Museum Rothko @ Fondation Louis Vuitton Judy Chicago @ Serpentine Bloomberg New Contemporaries @ Camden Arts Centre Zach Blas @ Arebyte Murthovic & Thiruda @ Arebyte ...and more

000

Justin Manley @justinmanley.world · 01/01/2025

these exhibitions beat out... Haegue Yang @ Hayward Gallery Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst @ Serpentine Women Artists in Britain @ Tate Britain Hiroshi Yoshida @ Dulwich Gallery Mingei @ William Morris Gallery Angelica Kaufmann @ RA Elton John photographs @ V&A Harold Cohen: Refactoring @ Gazelli

100