iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 01/10/2026

@hotdogsladies.bsky.social Don’t want to give you trauma flashbacks or anything, but I’ve heard you talk about Diplomacy enough times to think you might enjoy this.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 30/09/2026

Diplomacy has been my favorite game since high school. Hundreds of games in college, an email judge I ran, a Chromatic variant map I laminated. I couldn’t get enough. Then thirty years without a table. So I built one. Come sit at mine. blog.kestrelsnest.social/posts/2026-0...

blog.kestrelsnest.social

I built Diplomacy for the browser. Come play.

Dip is free browser Diplomacy with no accounts: play with friends at any pace, or against house players who negotiate in plain English, remember every promise, and sometimes break them.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 26/09/2026

I had a goal of building three specific games during my Virgo Month of Leisure, but I had some time to spare and my stretch goal is in sight.

A phone screenshot of Dip, the web version of Diplomacy I'm building, in a dark slate and parchment design. The header shows me playing Austria under the name Kestrel, with 8 centers, 8 units, and 18 centers to win, against six house players. It's Spring 1908, and the status reads "Waiting on you." Below that is a zoomed-in, parchment-style map of the Balkans and central Europe titled "Standard Diplomatic Chart," with zoom, Fit, and My units buttons. My red units hold Bohemia, Tyrolia, Venice, the Adriatic, Ukraine, Sevastopol, Bulgaria, and Greece, and red target markers sit on Vienna, Trieste, Serbia, and Rumania. A solid brown arrow shows Ukraine moving into Rumania, and dashed arrows run from Sevastopol to Rumania, the Adriatic to Venice, and Greece to Bulgaria. Gray armies sit in Munich, Galicia, and Budapest, gold Turkish armies in Constantinople, Ankara, and Armenia, green Italian armies in Rome and Apulia, and blue units in Piedmont and the Ionian Sea. A "What happened" panel at the bottom is partly hidden behind the browser toolbar.

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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

A crowded broadsheet with way too many fonts. It says:
Forget ChatGPT Flyers
Say it with
Broadsheets
Unlimited fonts
Stretch them
Or cram a really long sentence into one line for no good reason
No whitespace
Mix capital and lowercase
Pointing hands
(They're called manicules!)
Don't be left behind
Broadsheets are the future

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 24/09/2026

I saw him when I was 16, opening for the Monkees. Even then, with far fewer songs in his portfolio, he still played longer that they did and had a different costume for most every song.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 24/09/2026

Wiz-War, Waving Hands, and also another I played while in the SCA back in college: Hnefatafl. Three games make a collection and a collection needs a home. So here's my game hall. Come play! gamehall.kestrelsnest.social/

gamehall.kestrelsnest.social

Kestrel's Hall

Free board games in the browser. Play with friends by link or alone against the house. No accounts, no adverts, nothing sold.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 22/09/2026

It’s an MVP, definitely playable, one human vs the computer. I’ll add multi-player and continued refinements, and it’ll only get better from here.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 22/09/2026

Since I've been recreating favorite games from my college years, there was one we used to play on the sparc stations in the computer center, dueling wizards using hand gestures to cast spells. Turns out to be based on a 1977 pen and paper game. Anyway, here's hands.kestrelsnest.social

hands.kestrelsnest.social

Waving Hands

A duel of gestures against a rival wizard, after Richard Bartle's 1977 pencil-and-paper game. Free to play in the browser.

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Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 17/09/2026

dudes rock

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 18/09/2026

It's yet to be seen if this was brilliant or the dumbest idea I've ever had, but if you start a Wiz-War game on my site there's a dedicated button to challenging me to a duel that will alert me 24/7. Man, I love this game. wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

Wiz-War

A game of magical combat in a stone labyrinth. The classic 1993 sixth edition, faithfully reproduced — play free with friends, online or around one device.

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

god this is good

flight of the concords scene with murray, brit and jemaine.

"How's this, then? Ed Sheeran, beloved by all, left without an opening band at present. Enter you two."

"What if we want a free Palestine, Murray?"

"I reckon you'll get lots of things for free when you're proper rockstars. This might be your ticket."

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 13/09/2026

How do I follow up a day with legends like Peter Hook and Cabaret Voltaire? By heading over to a bbq joint to catch the black and white polka dot French band everyone's been talking about along with (what, two nights in a row?) my favorite live band ever, Man or Astro-man?, that's how.

A square concert flyer with a warped, wavy halftone pattern in black and burnt orange, like a distorted TV signal. Across the top in tall white italic block letters: "ANGINE DE POITRINE," with "MAN OR ASTRO-MAN?" beneath in smaller matching letters, and "DJ JEWEL (KEXP)" below that. In the center, a black-and-white photo pair with an orange border: on the left, a musician in a striped shirt and a tall pointed cap plays guitar mid-leap, one leg kicked out; on the right, a drummer wearing a knit mask sits behind a polka-dot-draped drum kit, a cymbal stand beside them. An orange circle over the drummer's shoulder reads "SOLD OUT." Along the bottom in white letters: "SATURDAY SEPT 12 2026 • STUBBS."

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 13/09/2026

I've heard many many versions of Ceremony, but after all these years my favorite is still played by Peter Hook.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 12/09/2026

Crafty folks are awesome. The people watching yesterday was even better than the music.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 12/09/2026

There was a gal walking by with yarn pompom earrings that were tits. Another gal in front of me stopped her with complements. After the first kept walking the second turned to her boyfriend all excited: "I'm going to make those tomorrow! I know how to make pompoms and I know what tits look like!"

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 12/09/2026

Today begins with this amazing lineup. I'll have to leave early because the night shows I'm attending overlap and are at a venue across town, but they will be worth it.

A concert poster stapled to a yellow-painted wooden wall, printed in black and red with off-white text. Behind the lettering, a grainy halftone image shows three musicians standing in front of a Soviet-style apartment block. Header reads "LEVITATION 2026" in a stylized font. The lineup in descending size: "MOLCHAT DOMA," "CABARET VOLTAIRE," "PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT," "AUTOMATIC," "DITZ (UK)," "NOVULENT," "I SPEAK MACHINE," and "DJ DEVIL WOMAN." Below that: "PRESENTED WITH END OF AN EAR." A black footer band reads "SATURDAY SEPT 12 2026 · FAR OUT LOUNGE," "AUSTIN, TEXAS" in a round badge, and "FULL LINEUP, TICKETS & INFO: LEVITATION.FM," with a row of small sponsor logos along the bottom including Marshall, Montucky Cold Snacks, Pacifico, White Claw, Espolòn, Liquid Death, Rhythm Señorita, KUTX 98.9, Gold Rush Vinyl, and others.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 12/09/2026

New venue and lineup for part two of today's installment of the Virgo Month of Leisure. I'm so lucky and grateful to be here, to see my hands-down favorite band to play live.

A concert poster with a black background and wavy, distorted orange-and-black halftone stripes rippling across it, like a warped 1960s sci-fi TV signal. Bold white italic text at the top reads "MAN OR ASTROMAN? / MOHAMA SAZ." In the center is a grainy black-and-white photo of four band members crowded together, one in a space helmet and another with a hand raised toward the camera, framed under a panel reading "ASTRO INDUSTRIES." An orange circle in the upper right corner of the photo says "SOLD OUT." Across the bottom, white text reads "FRIDAY SEPT 11 2026 • 13TH FLOOR."

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 11/09/2026

Also, you deserve great experiences like this. I hope you can find them as often as you’re able.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 11/09/2026

That’s so great to hear! One of my old physics teachers I adored was portrayed in Oppenheimer, and I lived and went to school in New Mexico, so that personal connection amplified that 70mm experience for me. I still get emotional about it.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 11/09/2026

Way to go, Noah! I’m hoping to make it to a theater before that one goes away. My last one was Oppenheimer at a 70mm IMAX and this one seems worth it too.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 11/09/2026

This afternoon's lineup for this charmed life I lead.

A concert poster stapled to a yellow-painted wooden wall. The design is black with a red halftone photo of a punk band on stage: a singer with arms raised, a drummer behind a Ludwig kit on the left, and a guitarist on the right. White text reads: "LEVITATION 2026. BIKINI KILL. DIE SPITZ. GIBBY HAYNES: BUTTHOLE SURFERS MANIA. SWEEPING PROMISES. MELT-BANANA. POWERPLANT. GROCERY BAG. DJ METAL AS FUCK. PRESENTED WITH KUTX." A round cream-colored sticker on the right says "LOW TIX! TIER 1 (crossed out) TIER 2." Along the bottom: "FRIDAY SEPT 11 2026 • FAR OUT LOUNGE. FULL LINEUP, TICKETS & INFO: LEVITATION.FM. AUSTIN, TEXAS," followed by a row of sponsor logos including Marshall, Montucky Cold Snacks, Pacifico, White Claw, Espolòn, Liquid Death, City of Austin Economic Development, Rhythm Señorita, Goodwipes, Gold Rush Vinyl, and KUTX 98.9.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 11/09/2026

“Last of the Summer Sausage” sounds like a Roy Clarke Britcom focusing on Richard Bucket.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 08/09/2026

Look, I love fun as much as the next guy but I know my limits and cqlleezy fun is way past them. No thank you.

A retail display box of squishy foam stress toys shaped like dumplings, labeled "Dumplings" with "1776 ★ 2026" and the misspelled slogan "Cqlleezy Fun!" on a patriotic backdrop featuring a bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, and fireworks. The box sides read "Celebrate 250 Years of Freedom!" A hand-written yellow starburst sticker says "250 Edition Dumplin $4.00." Inside are about a dozen pleated dumpling-shaped squishies in different designs: red with a gold "250," navy blue with white stars, plain red, gold with "1776," a red-white-and-blue swirl with "250," dark blue with fireworks, and mint green with the Statue of Liberty. Shop towels and canned goods sit on shelves in the background of a discount store.

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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The cats graciously put on a magic show for us last night. I figured out how they did most of the tricks, but I didn’t say anything, because that would have been rude.

Two cats on a platformed tower. One is on the lower level, head hidden behind the middle section. The second is on the top tier with only their head showing.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 03/09/2026

I built some scripted scenarios in my game for testing purposes, and decided to turn them into little highlight reels to also demonstrate the game engine and entice folks to come play. The boards are ready for you! wizwar.kestrelsnest.social/clips/the-leap

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

The Leap

A pit yawns in the corridor — but the die says the intruder sails clean over it, onto the trapper's doorstep.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 01/09/2026

We've lost some great folks this past week and today we can add Wendell Berry to the list. He really was one of the good ones. www.kentucky.com/news/local/a...

kentucky.com

‘Another great light gone out.’ Kentucky author, activist Wendell Berry dies at 92.

Wendell Berry championed small farms, agrarianism and conservation for decades.

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arr @arr.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

my daughter is watching Hook and it's so magical to re-experience that from a child's perspective: the first time you realize a movie can absolutely suck shit

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Reposted by Eric Wagoner

Lucy Bellwood @lubellwoo.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Shout out to "dried substance (possibly cheese)." Gotta be one of my favorite book materials.

Show tag for a piece called Poetrtie. Stuttgart, edition Hansjörg Mayer, 1967. Clear plastic, plexiglass, metal screws, dried substance (possibly cheese). Deluxe edition of 7.

The book in question, open on a museum shelf. The pages look like shriveled sheets of orange plastic printed with words. We know better. They are possibly cheese-filled.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 30/08/2026

Just played several games of Wiz-War with college friends in three different states and it was just like we were sitting around a table again like thirty years ago. I might have cried a little. I can't believe I finally made this thing. wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

Wiz-War

A game of magical combat in a stone labyrinth. The classic 1993 sixth edition, faithfully reproduced — play free with friends, online or around one device.

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Reposted by Eric Wagoner

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The Wreck of the Cantor Fitzgerald Howard Lutnick is more Gordon Gekko than Gordon Lightfoot, and he's shipwrecked US-Canada relations while his boss Sundowns. If you could read my mind, you'd know I'd like the Gales of November 2026 to sink them to the bottom of "Lake America." by Maureen Dowd

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 24/08/2026

Well, 2026 is actually that year. I'm still testing it, so for now it's only playable top-down on the board, but I've made sharable links for instant replays done in FPV! Here's me winning a particularly fiendish game: wizwar.kestrelsnest.social/watch/3mfmds...

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

Kestrel's turn — a Wiz-War instant replay

Round 8 of a game of Wiz-War, magical combat in a stone labyrinth. Watch the turn through Kestrel's own eyes, then deal yourself in.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 24/08/2026

For over thirty years, I have been wanting to build a first-person view version of my favorite board game, Wiz-War. It's been a running joke of mine, every year I make a to-do list or write a plan for myself "This will be the year I make FPV Wiz-War."

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

Kestrel's turn — a Wiz-War instant replay

Round 8 of a game of Wiz-War, magical combat in a stone labyrinth. Watch the turn through Kestrel's own eyes, then deal yourself in.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 22/08/2026

I drove two hours this morning to a state park in west Georgia to spend the day with some wonderfully inclusive Norse pagans.

A print of Odin and his wolves in black ink. He is holding a full color trans flag. The print reads “Odin says trans rights”.

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Reposted by Eric Wagoner

Martha Wells @marthawells.com · 19/08/2026

Finally! You have no idea how long I’ve had to pretend I didn’t know all this! #murderbot #murderbotseason2 #booksky

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 16/08/2026

Any of my online friends here used to play the super fun game Wiz-War back in the 90s? My friends and I played no doubt thousands of hours and never got tired of it. Anyway, with much love to Tom Jolly, I made a thing. wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

wizwar.kestrelsnest.social

Wiz-War

A game of magical combat in a stone labyrinth. The classic 1993 sixth edition, faithfully reproduced — play free with friends, online or around one device.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 14/08/2026

Flying in those planes were wild! I had to ride them pretty often for work in the late 90s across the southeast. I was in the front “row” one flight, no door to the cockpit (pre-9/11), and shortly after takeoff the pilot reached back, past my head, and started flipping switches on the ceiling.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 14/08/2026

That steampunk guy under the bridge might still be available.

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852dude @852dude.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Bro. People are cool as fuck.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 10/08/2026

Now that my game collection is digitally organized, I gave bggpipe the ability to model my physical space and help me organize that too. Here is the "vintage war games" cube both in reality and cataloged on my website (C3 in the Kallax unit): blog.kestrelsnest.social/myga...

A cube of my black shelving unit packed with vintage wargames. Two boxes stand upright on the left: Avalon Hill’s Advanced Civilization in red, and SPI’s StarForce, a green Designer’s Edition “Future-History Simulation Game.” Stacked flat beside them, top to bottom: SPI’s Sorcerer (Designer’s Edition), the red 1980 Doctor Who board game with Tom Baker and a Dalek on the box art, Avalon Hill’s Britannia (“Game of the Birth of Britain”), the blue Civilization (“Game of the Heroic Age”), Flat Top (“A Game of Carrier Battles in the Pacific • 1942”), and Deluxe Diplomacy with its row of national flags. The boxes show decades of honest shelf wear. A corner of a red Settlers of Catan box peeks from the shelf below.

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Ross Sayers @rosssayers.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

[James Stewart as Odysseus] now listen here, Agamemnon, I'm going home, y'see. You keep your fancy armour, I'm getting off this crummy ol' beach. [Spotting the Cyclops] now here's a curious fella, he's only got one peeper

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 07/08/2026

Getting all my games up into BGG is cool and all on its own, but it also lets me do something like this, embedding beautifully rich details about my entire collection on my own website: blog.kestrelsnest.social/mygames/ (This is a feature I built right into bggpipe.)

blog.kestrelsnest.social

// Kestrel's Nest

My board game library, cataloged from shelf photos — search it, browse it, dig into any title.

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 06/08/2026

I made a thing this week! I photographed my board game shelves, and now my whole collection is on BoardGameGeek, editions and all, for under a dollar of API use. Everything else runs on your machine. It's free and open source, with a logo by my kid: git.kestrelsnest.social/eric/bggpipe

git.kestrelsnest.social

bggpipe

CLI and local browser pipeline for cataloging board game shelves into a BoardGameGeek collection: shelf photos → Claude vision title extraction → BGG XML API matching → human review → automated bulk u...

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Eric Wagoner @kestrelsnest.social · 06/08/2026

I've been building an application that lets you take pictures of your game collection, whether they are on shelves, or stacks on the floor, or what-have-you, and matches them with the boardgamegeek.com database and creates a collection for you there. I'm so tickled with it!

Screenshot of a game-matching review interface. On the left, a photo of board game spines on a shelf, with a Cosmic Encounter box highlighted. On the right, the header ‘Cosmic Encounter’ is marked ‘Ambiguous, 2 of 54 to review,’ with a description of the spine art below. Four candidate matches from BoardGameGeek are listed—Cosmic Encounter editions from 1977, 2008, 1991, and 2000—each numbered with a thumbnail, rank, and owned count. Keyboard shortcuts at the bottom offer entering a BGG id manually or rejecting the match.

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T H E VV O R S T @milfparade.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

A few weeks ago I realized that tomorrow is the date the Ray Bradbury story “There Will Come Soft Rains” takes place. It’s a shame science fiction from 75 years ago isn’t relevant anymore

short-stories.co

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The voice-clock sang, breakfast was ejected, but no doors slammed. The garage chimed and lifted its door to reveal the waiting car. The house sat alone in a city of rubble and…

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Reposted by Eric Wagoner

TW @twesq.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

This goes hard

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