iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Microblogging social media is a joyless void because the main demographic is now in or near middle age. 15 years ago that was not the case. I think that sums it all up.

Last time I went on vacation I invented the concept of "carrying a small paperback book everywhere," and it happened to be "There Is No Antimemetics Division," which became my favorite book, and I fondly remember that experience. I am going to try to recapture this magic soon. A lot to live up to.

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Every podcast targeting 18-34-year-old men is sponsored by a sports gambling app and BetterHelp.

Ma'am, this is a Trader Joe's.

A car with “The good guys don’t bomb schools,” painted on the back.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 27/09/2026

I can't decide if I want to adopt hard navigation bar edges in iOS 27. I really like the soft edges of iOS 26, but soft edges on iOS 27 seem to extend past the actual navigation bar frame, which means a lot of manual tweaking on each screen with controls that should be stuck to that bottom edge.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 27/09/2026

Hi, excuse me, what's the code for the restroom? It's 56539900000000076389301651017482.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 27/09/2026

My story about drinking with a bunch of lesbians in western MA happened freshman year at UMass. I was invited to the Halloween dance at Smith College—I was gonna have my first-ever beer. On the empty bus ride over, a weird guy sat next to me, asked where I was going, and invited himself along.

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I have been thinking about what it would be like to hire someone to work with me, again. Besides the technical interview… how to select for someone with whom I could have complete trust in shipping code agentically and autonomously, while accepting that the code base is a complete reflection of me?

My hot take is that the rise of far-right ideology in modern times is simply because being the mean-spirited counter-culture opposition is universally cool and admirable. Breaking progressive social taboos gives the feeling of rebellion without requiring a commitment to other people's freedoms.

Does anyone remember iPSP, the iPhoneOS-lookalike portal for the PSP released before the original iPhone? It is the crowning achievement of my friend and me. We will never make anything more popular. The YouTube videos have over 750k views. www.brewology.com/?p=377 youtu.be/rKkMJTB6s3A?si=HhEY4...

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It continues to be the case that buying stock when red charts are being posted on Mastodon and selling when they stop being posted is a great way to make a buck. Not advice, of course, just an observation.

Babe, I forgot about our anniversary because OpenAI hacked my calendar. It's happening to everyone these days.

Weak opinions, held with a death grip.

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I have been using programming agents, across multiple worktrees, exclusively through the shell with tmux for the last year because I bounce between each vendor and want to access multiple computers from my phone. But I have been envious of the first-party GUIs and their remote mobile experiences.

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Our first heavy rain since having a portion of our roof replaced in June. Not as relaxing as it once was!

This will obviously happen. I wasn't kidding when I said the brain will become a vestigial organ, although I understand that's dramatic. It is already the case that not using AI for code review is irresponsible. This trajectory will continue.

Ted Lasso asks, "who says you can't go home again?" And I would answer, "the people who make Ted Lasso."

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Oh, huh, Opus 5.5 really can one-shot videos. This prompt was < 100 words and it took 10 minutes to make on my 5-year-old MacBook with no video production software installed. I guess this is the end of everything.

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It's smaller in your hand than you might think.

Photo of me, taken from the perspective of my web cam, holding iPhone Duo.

I got a $500 dental guard so that I could microdose microplastic while I sleep.

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I get it now. I spent the last three years trying to convince people of what AI would do to software engineering and then saw most people flip on their own timeline so I gave up. Everyone who just flipped didn't have the experience I did so they are now similarly compelled. Let it go, let it gooooo!

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Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 23/09/2026

Every app I want to make these days needs a sheet / drawer like Apple Maps and Shortcuts, but they hide it from us. They taunt us. I say we seize the means of production and cast off these chains!

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We are actually going to get the oft-derided-in-2024 future of people being able to generate their own endings for movies, putting themselves into TV shows, etc. The hype has, basically, always been accurate. It didn't require being smart, just having an unwavering belief in the trajectory.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 23/09/2026

For relief in computer hardware prices we need AI to hit a wall immediately and stop breaking into new economically valuable work—at the high end through new capabilities, and at the low end through cheaper capabilities. So long as the returns from running even A100s keep increasing, we are screwed.

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Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 23/09/2026

Fine, I'll say it: the Xteink is a piece of crap and it will not fix you. If it did fix you then you didn't need to be fixed.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 22/09/2026

Supporting iPhone Duo won't earn you any additional money so it is likely not worth the effort to crunch to support it. Maybe it will help you retain customers, but, eh.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 22/09/2026

Wonderful! My mom's perfectly functional iPad can't upgrade to iOS 27 so now I can't share photo albums with her anymore. Magical.

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Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 22/09/2026

I play pickleball once every six months with my dad, who is somewhere between a 4.0 and 4.5. I have to relearn the rules every single time, but I can play competitive doubles with him because I'm always taller, younger, and more athletic than everyone else. This will never change, I am sure of it.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 21/09/2026

Conventional wisdom has been to invest in Pokémon futures, but the S&P 500 has resoundingly taken over. Update your priors, folks.

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Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 21/09/2026

If my bike didn't have wheels it would be my grandmother.

We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Opus 4.5's release. I wonder what it will be like to live under the threat of rolling, accelerating automation of labor for the rest of our lives. What will that do to us, collectively, psychologically?

I cannot recommend psyllium husk powder enough, but you need to get several grams a day, and that's gonna be a lot of pills.

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I am not in a position to investigate, but did Apple roll out agent skills for migrating apps to support iPhone Duo? That seems like the obvious play. They could probably get 80% of apps 100% of the way there and the other 20% of apps 80% of the way there, automatically.

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This can't be right—I don't see any DraftKings ads on here.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 18/09/2026

If you have paid attention as a software engineer over the past few years you will notice a very persistent human behavior in which we are generally resistant to ever declare that our hard-earned skills are no longer necessary until we are beaten over the head with evidence. You lot are unreliable.

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My app supports iOS 16 through iOS 27, I have a 512 GB disk, and I have 6 worktrees with their own DerivedData and Simulators. I can't afford to download another Xcode beta and my family is starving. Please help me.

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Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 18/09/2026

I was skeptical before, but now I'm not: I think this iPhone is what will finally make you happy.

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Jev is going to be great for cost-effectively deciding which prior authorization requests to accept.

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I don't like listening to music that I listened to in college for this reason.

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I am embarrassed by how much I despise all white rappers that aren't Eminem and Mac Miller. Connor Price makes me 🤢

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FWIW, the people calling for pacing the frontier are not the same people saying AI will imminently kill us all. Regardless of their trustworthiness, we are ~12 months away from an open-weight Opus-5-caliber model that can run ablated on my parents' Windows 7 computer as part of a botnet.

The only Duo you should be worried about is the Father and the Son.

Kyle Hughes @kylehugh.es · 16/09/2026

I spent my entire adult life being afraid that when I could finally afford a house it would be at the absolute peak of the market before a terrifying collapse and… lo-and-behold that is what is happening. At least it's not a mistake I can make twice! Seattle will be the new Detroit in no time.