iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 04/10/2026

There’s more! The four install discs for the game, plus the next two expansions. And the receipt for when I bought it all the way back in February 2005.

A bunch of WoW expansion retail boxes, and the original game manual.

A receipt showing me buying WoW for £30 in 2005, from Gametron Exchange

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 04/10/2026

A pamphlet advertising other current/forthcoming Blizzard games was in the box. Oof.

A Blizzard Product Catalog pamphlet with a night elf on the cover.

A promo for StarCraft: Ghost “Coming soon to next generation consoles” 🙈

An advert for the Blizzard Insider email, with a screenshot of a very old version of Internet Explorer and an interview with Jeff Kaplan

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 04/10/2026

I miss boxed software and all its glorious quirks. Check out this gatefold Dark Portal!

The front of the box opens up to beck you to enter the World of Warcraft through the Dark Portal

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 04/10/2026

Found this with some old things in a dusty box… an ancient relic of some kind.

The box for World of Warcraft - the original release (UK)

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 02/10/2026

ha, I wrote something similar elsewhere

wouldn't it just be funny if after a successful progressive labour party conference Burnham were felled by being too close to Abu Dhabi in the fallout from the Man City affair

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 29/09/2026

Relegation to League Two. Ineligible for promotion for six seasons. This would ensure a minimum of 9 seasons outside the Premier League, which seems fair.

Should City lose their appeal, there will be endless talk of punishment for the club. The scale of any sanction will be a matter for the relevant process. If the behaviour lasted nine years, the consequences will inevitably be considered in the context of that
period

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 29/09/2026

I’m sure there’s absolutely nothing significant about a UK TV series from 30 years ago which showcased black music having more 1 out of 10 votes on IMDB than any other score.

It was one of Channel four's most distinctive and evolving brands. Flava was the first black music series to showcase the best in urban music from rap to hip hop, from soul to garage and from R'n'B to Drum'n'bass! Flava consisted of 6 series and included exclusive videos from the likes of Missy Elliot and Sisqo. It also included live performances from some of the hott... Read all

Stars
Kele Le Roc Beverley Knight Michelle Gayle

Average review score of 6.6 (no written reviews). Most votes are clustered on 1/10 and 4/10, with a distribution more evenly around 7-10

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 28/09/2026

When you’ve got a court appearance for spreading propaganda at 12, but you’ve got a competitive Hearthstone match at 3 news.err.ee/1610150341/7...

Oleg Bessedin at the Harju County Court courthouse in 2025, wearing a Hearthstone zip hoodie

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 17/09/2026

wait… only ‘in jeopardy’? Like they may not have actually been fired??

He said the men had put their careers in the British Army, which they had joined aged 16, in jeopardy. The men could still face a court martial or other form of disciplinary action from their commanding officer, the court heard.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 17/09/2026

I was talking about this elsewhere recently: I think Dr Ian Malcolm’s monologue about discipline from Jurassic Park (book) is instructive.

"I will tell you what I am talking about," he said. "Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.

"Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwise-ly. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.

"But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. There is no discipline lasting many decades. There is no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature. There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. Cheat, lie, falsify—it doesn't matter. Not to you, or to your colleagues. No one will criticize you. No one has any stan-dards. They are all trying to do the same thing: to do something big, and do it fast.

"And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don't even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it.
And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn't even conceive that any discipline might be necessary."

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 16/09/2026

Everyone will have an ‘where do I know you from??’ moment with actors like Stephen; for me it’s his brilliant turn as Harbin in a late series episode of Frasier.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 15/09/2026

tf when you accidentally a bot swarm

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei pulling a grimaced expression

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 14/09/2026

consistently turning up for the bad guys

Ed Sheeran in Game of Thrones, playing a Lannister soldier

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 14/09/2026

In progress: a shape packing plugin for Figma.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 13/09/2026

(Bill McKibben wrote about this for Rolling Stone back in 2012: archive.ph/2026.01.14-2...)

If you told Exxon or Lukoil that, in order to avoid wrecking the climate, they couldn’t pump out their reserves, the value of their companies would plummet. John Fullerton, a former managing director at JP Morgan who now runs the Capital Institute, calculates that at today’s market value, those 2,795 gigatons of carbon emissions are worth about $27 trillion. Which is to say, if you paid attention to the scientists and kept 80 percent of it underground, you’d be writing off $20 trillion in assets.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 09/09/2026

Can't wait to get the new iPhone Duo and the cool new dock

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 31/08/2026

The traffic in Vienna is intolerable.

A street sign in Vienna saying: 10. Karl-Popper-Straße

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 28/08/2026

Nothing quite says concern for the environment like a laminated AI slop advert for a river clean-up.

An AI slop advertisement for an event ‘Love the Crane” inviting people to help clean up the River Crane. It also says “Questions? Drop us a message or just turn up!” but there are no contact details whatsoever.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 26/08/2026

He finally made it 😭

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 26/08/2026

Oops, forgot to add alt text — that’s not like me! Trying again here:

Screenshot from Discord, showing an announcement message from ‘Zyzz Jobs’:

@everyone in case you missed it in the patch notes

In-game WOC exchange is live, meaning you can buy and sell items for real money, using the $WOC token

Many items are already listed, and you can get fully geared for just a couple of dollars

Looking forward to seeing what trades go down :AMFlex:

[ Simply press the $WOC Exchange option in the side bar to access from anywhere in the game ]

[It then shows a screenshot of items for sale with $ prices]

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 26/08/2026

Been watching the development of World of ClaudeCraft — an entirely AI-authored, vibe-coded WoW-like MMO with fascination. Today they have launched an in-game item marketplace using a new cryptocurrency called $WOC. I’m sure this absolutely won’t end in tears.

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Ben Darlow @kapowaz.net · 23/08/2026