iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 03/10/2026

Aquans don't have their pupils directly on their face skin like TAS humans?

Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

If you really need to force push, using --force-with-lease *is* better than --force, but you need to either be extremely careful about when you fetch, specify an explicit lease ref, or use --force-if-includes if possible. And most of all, you need to be aware of its limitations.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

Many tools (like certain IDE plugins) will also fetch automatically in the background, which results in the implicit lease being updated behind your back.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

I've seen people online say "I tried --force-with-lease and it failed until I did another git fetch, and then it worked." That fetch changed the lease, nullifying the protection the original lease provided. It's like taking the batteries out of your carbon monoxide detector so it stops beeping.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

Also note that if you git fetch right before git push --force-with-lease (without an explicit lease ref), it's exactly as if you had used plain old --force.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

Aside from correctly handling that race condition, --force-with-lease is just as "bad" as --force: it still rewrites history, and so shouldn't be used on branches whose history must be preserved, particularly shared branches like main.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

With plain --force, you'd silently nuke those new commits. With --force-with-lease, the push fails, because the remote sees that the branch isn't pointing where your local repo expected it to be.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

Here's the scenario it actually protects you against: 1. You've fetched the remote history and decided you really do need to rewrite it. 2. You rewrite it locally. 3. Before you force push, someone else pushes other changes to that branch that you aren't aware of.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/09/2026

Many #git users think --force-with-lease makes a force push safe. It *is* strictly safer than --force, but: - It only guards against one narrow scenario - It's easy to disable that protection without realizing it

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 06/09/2026

Is this "Stream Anytime" wording new? I saw this while trying to find a Blu-ray on Amazon. The button takes you to Prime Video, and the price shown is the "Buy HD" price, but calling it "stream anytime" seems like a weaselly attempt to justify digital purchases being eventually revoked.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 06/09/2026

Looks like a perfect setup for a Nintendo R.O.B. competitor: Commodore B.O.T. (Bidirectional Orbital Typer)

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Reposted by Laurence Gonsalves

Technology Connections @techconnectify.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I remember learning in kindergarten that HOMES was a useful acronym for remembering the five great lakes. A bit on the nose to change it to SHAME, isn't it?

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 27/08/2026

This clip of Peter Cullen explains how he came up with the voice of Optimus Prime, and from the sounds of it, the tone he set in that audition ended up becoming a big part of what made Optimus Prime a character worthy of being looked up to. youtu.be/zryfjSaxXLo

youtu.be

Peter Cullen explains how he created the voice for Optimus Prime

YouTube video by TFcon

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 27/08/2026

As a kid, Transformers was one of my favorite after-school shows, and Optimus Prime was my favorite character. I even dressed up as him for Halloween. (Visibility was *not* good. I ended up inadvertently "transforming" when I tripped over the curb of someone's driveway because I couldn't see it.)

A child (me) standing in a homemade Optimus Prime costume, standing in front of a doorway with a jack-o-lantern on the doorstep. The costume is mostly cardboard boxes, painted red and white, with colored paper and foil details.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 27/08/2026

The first time I was saddened by the news of Optimus Prime's death was when I watched Transformers: The Movie (1986) in theaters. The second time was today. RIP Peter Cullen

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 25/08/2026

I heard 1.0 only works on *solid* glass.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 30/07/2026

Consider who the character that said that line turned out to be.

Screenshot from Star Trek: Discovery. Lorca is saying to Stamets "... Alongside the Wright Brothers, Elon Musk, Zefram Cochrane?"

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 29/07/2026

The trackball was great for moving the cursor around. I feel like the cursor navigation in modern day Gboard (swiping on spacebar) might have been inspired by this.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

The little guy on page 153 reminds me of Myst's "falling man", somehow. Was this encounter with the wave before or after he fell into the fissure?

Two human silhouettes, side-by-side.

The left one is Myst's "falling man" graphic, but rotated so his feed are facing downwards. He looks like he's trying to comically imitate a zombie in this pose.

The right one is the running man from page 153 of Zen & the Art of the Macintosh, blown up to the same size as the Myst guy. He's pixelated, and looks like he's wearing a suit with a jacket and tie, and is running to the right, away from the Myst guy.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

I didn't even think this had anything to do with the sound, I was just trying to save water. However, the instant the leak stopped, the sound also stopped. That tiny leak had created a vibration that went through the wall, resonated with the hallway, and the feedback loop produced the sound.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

Outside, I noticed that a hose had been connected to an outdoor spigot near the door, but hadn't been completely tightened, so some water was dribbling out the connection at the wall. I tightened the hose connection a quarter turn.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

When I went out that door I was surprised to find that the sound was barely audible out there. I even went back inside to double-check. Maybe the sound was coming from some device in that hallway? I couldn't find anything.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

This sound had been going on all morning, and I assumed it was unavoidable. However, when the workers went on break, this tone continued, so I went to see if I could find its source. I assumed it was outside our side door, since inside the house it was loudest in the hallway leading to that door.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 23/07/2026

We've been getting some renovation done on our home for the past couple of weeks, and this morning there was a terrible high pitched tone coming from this work. It was loudest in the hallway to our side door, and second loudest in my office, which is almost right above that hallway. 🤕

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 21/07/2026

Our house used to have a central vac that used a ¼" phono plug for the "power head" connection. When it eventually failed I learned that apparently it had been recalled many years before, partly because it ran 120VAC through this connection.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 19/07/2026

That's the way I would have looked on my phone a few days ago, except I have button navigation instead of gesture navigation enabled. Then my phone got an update that moved the buttons from next to the address bar down to a new bar at the bottom of the screen — the middle row in my screenshot.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 19/07/2026

The new UI layout in Chrome for Android really makes for a cluttered bottom of the screen, especially with button navigation enabled. This is the way the bsky.app looks on my phone in Chrome. Three separate button bars, each with its own "home" button (at least the last is a circle, not a house).

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 16/07/2026

I didn't notice the laptops in the third picture, so when I looked at the 4th one I was very surprised by the actual scale. You can fit so many iPods in this iPod

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 27/06/2026

I went down the garden path on this headline when I first read it: I initially read "steps" as a verb. The funny thing is, it almost works that way because stepping up the waterslide requires walking on water.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 20/06/2026

Getting out of Cubiclefloor Age is tricky.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 11/06/2026

That problem could be solved by exhaling into the water, not into the tube. The real issue is the pressure differential. There are two ways to solve this: 1. Use a compressor at the surface. 2. Do this in a cartoon or comic strip.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 27/05/2026

Is it just my imagination, or does the voice in Ubuntu's "Test speakers" tool sound kind of like Frieren's English dub voice?

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Reposted by Laurence Gonsalves

Brandon - Love and Hex @crookedgoat.ca · 26/05/2026

Language Barrier The fantasy trope that every member of a given species speaks the same language is a bit silly. Co-author credit to my daughter, who came up with the concept. For more of my comics, read "Love and Hex" on Webtoon! #comics #webcomic #dnd #ttrpg #dragons #funny #art #bskyart

Feral Comics #21 by Brandon Weigel.
Panel 1: A trio of human adventurers - a short female rogue with a bow, a male fighter in armour with a sword, and a female mage in a robe with a staff, are in a cave. Sets of red and green dragon talons reach toward them from the camera perspective. The fighter looks afraid, but the mage puts a hand out to stop him.

Fighter: "Look out - Dragons!"
Mage: "Don't worry. I studied Draconic!"

Panel 2: Two huge dragons look menacingly at the trio, while the mage attempts to communicate in a script that looks like the dragon language from Skyrim. Translated, it says, "O mighty dragons, we beseech you allow us safe passage through your territory."

Panel 3: The dragons talk to each other while the human mage goes on. The green dragon looks confused, but the red dragon looks smug and confident. They do not understand the mage. Green dragon: "Humans! What do you suppose they want?" Red dragon: "Don't worry. I studied human."

Panel 4: The humans are puzzled as the red dragon addresses them in Chinese. Translated, it is saying, "Welcome, humans! Please take your boots off when you enter the cave. Would you like a biscuit?"

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 26/05/2026

Superman's heat vision is infrared: invisible to humans, but cameras pick it up, which is why we see it in the movies. Or maybe Metropolitans just know how to mind their own business.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 21/05/2026

I've really been enjoying these moon phase "images" you've been posting! When I saw this one it inspired me to implement an animated clock with this style of rendering. I've posted the code here, github.com/xenomachina/..., and here's a screen recording:

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 18/05/2026

It's interesting to note that GIF87a could not do animations: it was just a multi-image container format. 89a bolted on animation support via an *optional* delay between images — but they also added a user input flag, like they weren't sure whether they were going for animation or slide shows.

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Reposted by Laurence Gonsalves

Christine Lemmer-Webber @dustyweb.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Canadians, we have limited time to take action on C-22, the disaster surveillance (and much other terrible things) bill: opencivics-labs.github.io/dontsurveil.... Make your voice heard. There's not much time left!

opencivics-labs.github.io

Canada is about to weaken every lock on your private messages — dontsurveil.me

Bill C-22 would force every messaging app in Canada to build a second key, and give the copy to the government. What's changed, what's happening now, what's next.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 14/05/2026

@standard.site A question about site.standard.document: Is bskyPostRef supposed to point to a post owned by the same user (ie: in the same repo), or is it possible for it to reference a Bluesky post from a different user?

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 13/05/2026

Worse: they returned only the lid.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 13/05/2026

Is that Sun one on the right the kind of optical mouse that requires the reflective mouse mat?

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 10/05/2026

Named after the sound people make when they're reminded these things existed.

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Laurence Gonsalves @laurence.gonsalv.es · 10/05/2026

I'd apparently internalized the bit about it being an abstract exercise, as the page itself uses very similar language to describe itself!

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