iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 3h

Look, kids, there's one thing you need to know about this man, and it is that he receives little if any respect.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 3h

It's not too late to get banned from some places, but WTF were you even doing with your teens and twenties?

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 3h

If you've reached the age of 30 and there is not yet a single commercial establishment of which you can say, "Oh, I'm not allowed to go back there. Ever." then you have wasted your life.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 4h

Annual reminder that the apostrophe in "Hallowe'en" is a hill I have arbitrarily decided to die upon.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 6h

Has Ryan Reynolds ever tried to get an ad deal with Reynolds Wrap? Because it seems like something he would try to do, but then Reynolds Wrap would be like, "No, no. You are a silly man, and ours is not a silly product."

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 8h

I live alone and I'm making brownies this morning, and you know what that means! Or maybe you don't. It means I'll be eating almost nothing but brownies all weekend.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 19h

"I found a hand puppet of yours" strongly implies that Lolly is already known to possess several hand puppets, and that finding them by the pool is not an unexpected event.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 19h

Is this McEldowney's attempt at Hallowe'en?

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 19h

I still remembered the day I discovered this about risotto. It's very time-consuming (it's one of those dishes you can't walk away from), but it results in risotto.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 22h

I feel like there's a possible single costume that is all of these at once.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

The fact that the manager on a casino floor is officially called a "pit boss" is a pretty clear sign that this is an exploitative & predatory business. If you didn't know about casinos and heard someone describe their job as "pit boss," you would assume this person is involved in something criminal.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

If you've had the same insurance for MANY years . . . don't. Shop around. You will almost certainly find MUCH better rates. All those "loyalty benefits" are not worth it. You're paying a HUGE premium for the convenience of not shopping for a different provider.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Fun fact: If your insurance rates have been raised two years in a row and you're not shopping around, you're almost certainly being ripped off. Insurance companies will deliberately start hiking your rates by unconscionable amounts once you make it clear that you're not thinking about switching.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Wharton State Forest is especially nice because it's in the pine barrens, meaning the soil is very sandy, but the trails are packed enough to give it that perfect amount of give. Not like running in loose dirt, but not like running on pavement, either. It's a pretty ideal running/walking surface.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

My upper floor is just two bedrooms and a bathroom, so if I'm up there, it's either to sleep or I'm coming back down shortly, and the laundry is near enough the stairs that I'd notice it stopped.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

In Latin, "metallica" means "one condemned to dig in the mines" (feminine).

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

If you're looking for NJ suggestions, the Princeton area has lots of running trails, including the quite renowned D & R Canal State Park. Closer to my neck of the woods (pun intended), there's the enormous Wharton State Forest, particularly near Batsto.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

"Jonah! We've been holding up the sackcloth and ashes festival just for you! Where the devil have you been?" "Okay, so I got on the wrong boat at Joppa . . . and it kinda just spiraled from there . . ."

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

YouTuber described an area has having "a ton of polar bears" in it, and I thought to myself, "a ton of polar bears is like 2 or 3 bears, tops. Might just be one especially large bear."

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Reminder that if you're ever in a public restroom and find yourself seriously worrying about what kind of genitalia the other people there have, then you're the one who doesn't belong there. Get the fuck out. Go use your toilet at home. The rest of us are not safe around you.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Can't kill as effectively if your muscles are all cold and tight. Gotta stay warm.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The colder box on top is more efficient, as some of the cold air escaping the extra cold box can flow into the cold box. I also have a bottom-freezer unit, but wish I did not.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

One of the first things I did upon buying my new washer-dryer is find out how to disable the WiFi functionality. I don't need my washing machine telling my phone that the clothes are washed. If I'm in the house, I'll know, and if I'm not in the house, I can't do shit about it.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

My dog clearly understands that "¡Ay, qué lindo!" refers to her. As far as she is concerned, it is a name that sometimes strangers call her.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Eventually Sparta was just like, "Okay, that's enough of that. You Athenians have clearly lost the plot and need to be ruled by your betters." And then there was no more democracy for a millennium or two.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I'm just saying that what destroyed the democracy of Athens was that an aging, prosperous populace made increasingly irrational decisions based on myths, rumors, and old hatreds, costing Athens all of its allies and causing it to embark on a series of military misadventures. Sound familiar?

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

I like big buttes, and I cannot lie You other brothas can't deny When an isolated hill with vertical sides And a flat top hits your eyes You get sprung

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The fifth is we just go back to chatting directly with people in our communities and maybe just reading relatively neutral and non-editorial reports of what is going on elsewhere. But the communities are virtual rather than geographical.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Ooooh, are you like cursed? Did your ancestors refuse to offer hospitality to a science witch?

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

There's a local youth sports program that a lot of my students volunteer with, and their service hours used to be signed off by "Rusty Kelly," whom I always imagined to be a delightful old steampunk robot. Haven't seen that name in a few years. I guess ol' Rusty Kelly finally retired.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

A lot of life is maintenance. Sometimes the only reward is things not getting worse. Sometimes it's not even that. Sometimes the reward is things getting worse more slowly.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

A burger is a sandwich, and the inalienable right to drive a sandwich cannot be done away by legislation. I believe this was settled by the 2018 case of "In re Hot Dogs."

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Attorney here. It's true that you don't need a license to drive a sandwich in most U.S. states.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Never put anything in the middle of the microwave. That's the forbidden zone.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Shortest possible three-syllable word.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I feel like Iowa really dropped the ball by including that W. It could've been all vowels and pronounced the same way. Ioa.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

🎵Be. Creative. 🎵B-E Creative 🎶B-E 🎶C-R-E 🎶A-T-I and V and E

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

She's just realized nothing she experiences for the rest of her life will ever be this funny. She is broken.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

So when are they going to create an Academy Award category specifically because of the existence of Andy Serkis like they did for Best Makeup after "The Elephant Man"? He is certainly the greatest motion capture performer of all time (so far), but there's no specific category for that.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I like to think that instead of dying, Saint Nikolaos of Myra actually just went into a state of suspended animation, from which he emerges for only one day a year, to deliver gifts to children. This is why he is seemingly immortal. He's actually only aged about 4.5 years since his "death" in 343 CE

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"Okay, folks . . . this will be a lot easier of those of you who ARE ready to rock just remain silent. Anyone who is NOT ready to rock, MAKE SOME NOISE!!!"

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Also, one cannot be transfer moon ownership until the tontine vests, so no paying someone else to walk on the moon for you and then transfer ownership to you. Only AFTER you are the last surviving moonwalker can you pledge it to another.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think we should all agree, as a species, that if we're ever down to just one person who has set foot on the moon, then the moon becomes that one person's property. It's like a tontine, except anyone can join it by simply walking on the moon.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I know I'm technically a day late IN Korea, but 뜻깊고 행복한 한글날 보내세요!

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It's meant to be mixed in, which doesn't work nearly as well with cold beverages as with hot ones.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

One day one of 'em is gonna figure they can put "99/10" up there, and you'll all be sorry. You let this happen! It was a slippery slope!

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

They should make a law abolishing this whole "an 9/10th of a cent" scam that we've all just accepted as a normal way to price gasoline. It's not normal. It shouldn't be allowed.

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Simon Templar @karpovsmachine.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Dear political ad distributors: I have already voted by mail. You can stop now. Please stop.

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