iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Today I'm announcing that I too will not be performing on Ed Sheeran's upcoming "The Loop" North American tour. Thank you all for your support and understanding.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Cars have advanced collision safety systems. This street, like most major streets in Chicago, has a 30mph speed limit, and the natural flow of traffic in that stretch of road is much slower than that. If a driver hits a fix object hard enough to die here, that's their own damn fault.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

This infrastructure choice implicitly communicates that the lives of bus riders are worth sacrificing to preserve the safety of a reckless speeding driver.

Picture of an in-tact Chicago bus shelter, circling the structural joints designed to easily give way in a collision.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Breakaway bus stop shelters should be banned and replaced ASAP. On the corner of Western and Fullerton in Chicago right now:

Photo of a crashed bus stop shelter in Chicago.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

The fact that preemptive fuel rationing isn't even on the table right now shows how unprepared both our leaders and the American people are for the hard times ahead.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Every time I see one, I'm reminded of my own joke that if you're a paleontologist, you just call it "Terry's". For real though, it's on the list of places I have to eat at when I visit home.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Just got home from NYC after a very stressful day dealing with my flight being cancelled on Friday. I'm glad the Knicks won. I'm also very glad to not still be stuck there trying to get to the airport.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

If Chicago fixed its transit, I would sell my car in a heartbeat, but I can't subject myself to the whims of busses not showing up and constantly dealing with creeps on the train, so I'm stuck paying $7k a year to have a shepherd around a car in one of the most dense American cities.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I'm so tired of owning a car. Just woke up on a nice vacation to remember that the street I live on does street sweeping twice a week for some reason so I'm garunteed to get a ticket. All the other streets near me are residential permit zones.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

NYC is making me reconsider my stance on medium density. We should just push for such aggressive densification around downtown that the neolib shills who run our cities are forced to maintain public services and spaces for the city to function.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

This should be the standard for democratic mayors everywhere. We could have an entirely different country in 20 years if we consistently had leaders like this in office.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Mamdani is genuinely so good at his job. Closing a historically bad budget gap while also expanding public services, tackling quality of life issues, maintaining good relations with the state government and staying out of the crosshairs of a hostile federal government.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

This would be my profile picture forever

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Plant based or lab grown alternatives are the best hope, but the massive subsidies we give to the beef industry need to shift over to alternatives if it's going to be adopted en mass. Agriculture lobbyists will not let that happen.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I've developed a very atypical but functional routing system so that I could get processed guitar signal directly into Discord/Zoom calls separate from my microphone (great for lessons and band meetings) and there are no tutorials showing you how to do other things while using this setup.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Okay, one AI application I would actually really get behind is a desktop assistant that helps you with your audio routing needs. I just sat down for a long guitar practice session and ended up spending 2 hours trying to route a guitar amp plugin, a metronome, and a Webcam into OBS to record a clip.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

In Chicago, if you live in a cheap/old building, your passive aggressive roommate refuses to run the AC below 90°, or you work in an underfunded school, then however hot it is outside, it's at least that hot inside, probably hotter.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I know this because I grew up in Texas. The most sun the average Texan gets in August is walking across a Walmart parking lot, and they'll spend 10 minutes circling the lot for a close spot to avoid it.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

My classroom got to 81°F today with the AC on. It's easy to poke fun at people in cold climates for their susceptibility to warm weather, but every indoor space in the South is equiped to have AC blasting 24/7. Southerners spend their 100+° summers scurrying from one giant refrigerator to another.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Doctors want the treatment to be their idea so they can feel like heroes and not treatment dispensers.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The Democratic primary system isn't broken. It's working as intended. Every "flaw" in the process is an opportunity to tip the scales.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

We killed at least 1,300 civilians (likely many more), unleashed a carcinogenic oil cloud over Tehran that will kill many thousands more, and created an economic shock that might tip us into a multi-breadbasket failure. Why should we be outraged over 7 US soldiers who knew what they signed up for?

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

There's something deeply sickening about the overwhelming prioritization of American soldiers' lives over Iranian civilians' lives.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I payed $75 for a monthly transit pass. I think it's fair to expect some baseline standard of customer experience that doesn't have me asking if I'll need to make a self defense plea in court later.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I love that Chicago has trains and proximity to an L station is one of my top considerations when I look for housing. I just want to take the Blue Line without getting catcalled or accosted by a crackhead every other time.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

The left needs to be more serious about antisocial behavior on or around public transportation. Letting vital urban infrastructure be held hostage by unwell or malicious people to the point that most people actively avoid using it is not a progressive position.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I explored West Loop for the first time on my Birthday tonight. It looks ugly on Google Maps but is unbelievably gorgeous in person.

View of tall buildings in West Chicago in snow.

The Fulton Market District (Chicago West Side) in snow.

A cool looking tall building in West Loop.

A cozy little enclave with string lights, tables, and brickwork in West Loop.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

I'll pop in occasionally if there's a major event and it's genuinely worse than I imagined. The scary part is that teenagers still use it, and soon they won't be old enough to remember when it wasn't like that.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Imagine teaching high school. My "no food in the classroom" policy lasted a little over a week. Kids get a full class period for lunch and still eat full meals in my room. So. Many. Snacks.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Being in an original band with serious musicians who have a similar artistic vision to yours is great. Highly recommend.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Doing some reading on the Internation Fixed Calendar. It would make scheduling so much easier. If you wanted to schedule for a Saturday, it could only be the 7th, 14th, 21st, or 28th. If you see a deadline on the 25th, you'd know intuitively that it's a Wednesday.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I just did the math and realized that a calendar year could be evenly divided into 13 months of 28 days (4 weeks) with one extra day. Why have we done this yet?

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Fair enough I guess. I'd probably do the same if I came across a comment knocking extended range guitars or digital amplification systems. It just feels like a wierd quirk of a well intentioned social media feature.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Something weird about the custom feeds feature on here is that you'll make a snide comment about something you don't think about much, and someone you've never met who really, really cares about that thing will start beef with you.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Here's how these things should be on a user friendly computer in 2026: Step 1 - Install Runescape Step 2 - Install Discord Step 3 - Run Runescape Step 4 - Run Discord Step 5 - Call gf None of these should require dealing with AI co-pilots or tinkering/running scripts. Hope that clears things up.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

The closest thing to that is probably Linux, but I don't want to need a computer science degree to boot up Runescape and call my gf on discord at the same time.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Every time my classroom instruction is interrupted by an unskippable ad on a short video, I take a moment to remind my students how much money the district gives to Google every year. The least they can do is give us ad free service on teacher accounts during school hours.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

This won't mean anything to people outside of a very specific niche but the Odeholm Audio Thall Amp sounds sooo good. I need to figure out how to work this into a live rig.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

CNN is bought out. She served on a school board that was looking out for the families (which is literally their job) and you're reporting it like it's relevant context?

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

That scene was playing in my head for weeks. It really makes you think about how writers weaken the narrative impact by making a character dislikable before offing them. BCS never pulls punches to be more digestible, and I respect the hell out of it.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Abolishing ICE the next chance we get is the moderate position. Working for ICE after February 2025 should be flagged on every future background check.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

It's reassuring that having a filling meal after a period of dieting is actually not enjoyable. It indicates that healthy portions won't leave me feeling cheated after I lose the weight.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

I can't stand that there's not much of an alternative for networking for musicians besides Facebook. If we all switched to LinkedIn (not a great site, but not actively destroying democracy), it would function so much better.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

That sounds amazing! I'll need to try it

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

What is it with teachers unions electing the worst people to lead them? It has to be some sort of psyop.

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Katherine 🎶📚 @katherinemelb.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Microsoft operates under the assumption that PC users are either bozos who just need to send emails or tech wizards who are willing to learn the ins and outs of their computer to do more advanced things. Apple seems to understand that even their more advanced users want something that just works.

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