iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 2h

potato harvest! grocery store tater sprouted a while back so I buried it in an old pot and voilà, three for the price of one

iPhone photo: a hand holding three about fingerling-sized potatoes with dirt still on them

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

as of today the tile AUTOPLAYS obviously I claim sole credit

Screenshot of the LA Times app with the top Streaming News tile actually showing streaming news instead of just being a blank gray

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My Lawyer: we’d like to enter a character witness’s testimony into the record, Your Honor, Amazon’s About You Judge: I see, even the AI finds him folksy, good-hearted… Prosecutor: If it please the court, we can prove this description is lifted from one of the defendant’s own product reviews

Screenshot reads: “Provides water for small critters during the summer”

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

*you will have to click on this screenshot to enjoy the notification synchronicity

Screenshot: a Seattle Times notification reading “WA town has broken ground on a tower to keep people safe in case a tsunami hits” floats above a Bluesky timeline that features a photograph of a human-sized toadstool “tower” with a red door, and small window, honestly unlikely to be of any help against a tsunami

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

circling back to this every time you open the app the “top story” placement is bumped by a large “LA Times Studios Streaming” tile which is never updated & contains no info on its contents, anti-breaking news essentially

Screenshot of LA Times app home page view showing how a blank “Streaming” tile is given top position despite conveying no news at all

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

WSJ: Spending on AI Is Becoming Almost Impossible for Businesses to Budget *story notes that choosing lightweight models over $$$ flagship does not necessarily help

Screenshot of graph

How well can businesses forecast Al spending?

On target (within 10%): 11%

11-25% off: 39%

26-50% off: 35%

50% off: 13%

No forecast:2%

Source: Mavvrik and Benchmarkit's 2026 State of Al Cost Governance Report survey of 396 organizations conducted April and May

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

pregaming by rooting on my late tomatoes to ripen while we’ve still got sun

iPhone photo: a few greenish-orange tomatoes grow near the top of a tomato plant on a deck, to the right is a branch from a Meyer lemon plant, it’s a sunny October day with blue skies

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

thought you might want to see this driftwood log, nbd if you’re busy

iPhone photo: a large, bleached driftwood log stretches like a giant’s femur from left to right of frame, bottom third is round rocks, middle is Puget Sound, top third is blue sky with thin grayish blue clouds, vibe is somehow eldritch, confrontational

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

today was pedicure & leg day, pushed a PR on basis of being told I have “beautiful feet” by the nail tech 🦵🏻

iPhone photo: two shins in navy blue joggers, two feet in black gym shoes, leg press with eight 45lb plates

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Yesterday’s bird bystanders, a flicker and heron

Photo: a flicker hunting for food in the grass on a hillside, reasonably camouflaged with brown and black back and gray neck, brown cap, but a red stripe on lower neck is eye-catching

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

from my pitch for a live action Bambi (& Thumper), not necessarily these two, it's just conceptual

Photo: a young deer is standing beneath a apple tree, the branches making a dark green umbrella, watching as on the edge of a hedge a white-tailed bunny hops away

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

it came to me in a dream* *another Bluesky post

Crude Photoshop where the little vampire girl silhouette from the “Let the Right One In” movie poster has been replaced by the Meta Muse mascot

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

feeling a little bearish wrt my personal consumer confidence index like six months of steadily worsening indicators, and almost certainly whatever belt-tightening you’ve been doing is not keeping up think we’ll see major shifts soon as people give up on temporary measures

Screenshot: on Jan 6,2026, GasBuddy was predicting yearly average gas prices to fall below $3/gal, “lowest since 2020”

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s a perfectly normal job working on a frickin’ volcano. With…

Dr Evil making “lasers” scare quotes with his fingers

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

such a beautifully modern illustration of the observation that romcom and horror exist on the same axis

Swan Boy (by Branson Reese) panel: Noel is airily declaring: “Eh, I'm sure we only hear about the bad ones. Stalking probably works fine most of the time.” This reasoning is supported by a screened-back view of the survivor-bias bomber meme tho bc this is Noel he’s getting the survivorship bit backwards.

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

terrific alpenglow on Always Snowy last evening

iPhone photo: looking across the dark blue waters of Port Susan to where Mt Baker looms large on the horizon, its snowy upper reaches reflecting the pinks of sunset

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

this is absolutely a gag cutaway from an Arrested Development ep where a tech CEO has been convicted of “light” genocide

Screenshot: story header from The Guardian where Zuckerberg performs a sickly rictus of good humor while holding an AI whatsit aloft, behind him looms the cutesy mascot in red plaid that ordered the bodies burned

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Orca pod, Port Susan, Camano Island

Photo: expanse of gray-blue water, in center frame are four orcas and maybe a fifth little one? Three large black dorsal fins are visible, one with a smaller fin close beside, and then the fourth orca is spouting

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

my soup label said it only had 3 grams of fiber, which to me sounded like rookie numbers that needed to be pumped up, so I added some fiber powder and reinvented this stuff, except with corn in it

Mattel’s green-ooze Slime being poured out of its plastic garbage can container

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

this is a member of the San Franciscan buffalo community (2021)

Photo: a chestnut-colored buffalo facing away from the camera in a green autumnal pasture, looking to the left of frame, photo is cropped to fill the frame with the torso, it's twilight but a last bit of sun shines on the hump and on the left hooked horn

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

in 2003(!) a dream buffalo showed up one night and naturally I couldn’t stop talking about it (if that screenshot doesn’t embiggen successfully there’s alt text)

It’s a poem, innit!

The Restoration
© 2003 Michael van Baker

They used to shoot it from trains, cloven-hoofed,
unconditional—they wanted hump meat, childhood,
the inexhaustible shaggy brown river to stop.

The smell dizzied them. The smooth wet nose
spraying snot in fear they took for slavering.

It would eat them if it could, it would.
It had a magic, a horned look; their knees shook,
tall grasses tripped them. Better prey.
§
We went North and prayed there. We sang
and sacrificed, ate the black-mouthed Chinook
and mailed Coho, wrapped down in frozen foods.

The Wolf came and chewed our stomachs all winter;
tea was spiced like apples. Crows took up residence

in the lightning-split tree, their ashcan call like
bone-grate on blackboard, inside them a television
broadcasting beaked praise of excrement and decay

When we heard it had come home, we went South,
thanking Salmon, thanking Apple Tree, thanking Crow
in advance, offering our eyes.
§
Its scent choked the unpurified throat, its clouded oily musk
hung in our lungs—a perfumed rutting bellow that settled
with soft-muscled grace into hollows, lolling in dust.

It was home and the head’s momentum checked,
swung around. There we were, kneeing the dirt, hoarse
breath like a grass fire, red-faced and fainting.
§
You remember, they used to shoot from trains, dizzied,
begging the inexhaustible to stop, to just stop.
Cloven, conditional meat. It would eat them.

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

in theory this bird center-frame, just behind a preening neighbor, is a rare-to-this-neck of the woods sharp-tailed sandpiper ought to be holidaying on the west coast of Alaska, maybe an El Niño tourist

Photo: a bunch (at least 14) of "regular" to the PNW sandpipers are perched on various driftwood logs and center frame, not wholly visible behind this jackass sandpiper who refused to move, is a slightly more chestnut version with a darker back and a dark chestnut cap

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Merleau-Ponty stays winning, would like to see more embodied phenomenology in the WSJ

WSJ excerpt:

In 1945, the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggested that we have an identity of our own from birth, but it becomes gradually more distinctive and, as he put it, "embedded" as we accumulate memories and experiences.
Identity isn't just in one's politics or favorite foods; it accrues in little things, glances and gestures and bits of wordless self-expression. There can be no self, then, without the body. And as long as the body remains, there is at least some indication of a self. That
alone is enough to allow us to look at a parent and still see something of the person we once knew.

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

a few weeks ago I got a month of Fox ONE to watch a Seahawks game, now trying to get money’s worth by watching Sunday games Experience is wildly bad, buffers frequently, 4K stream pixelates on and off, eventually froze for last 30 seconds of game Speed test shows 90 Mbps d/l

Frozen Fox ONE screen showing Atlanta Falcons coach with arms folded

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

“I hear yer a Fenian now, Mr Trimp”

Screenshot: Father Ted’s neighbor, standing on the opposite side of a stone wall, saying, “I hear you’re a racist now, Father”

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

cutting this website a little more slack now that I see it’s just six people and some servers in the back of a windowless van

iPhone photo: white work truck with an enclosed backend that says BLUESKY on the back doors

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

yesterday's news: a cormorant and great blue heron détente over territorial fishing waters

Photo: camera improbably left on useful manual settings of ISO 200 and 1/2500 sec, f 6,3 means I caught this cormorant's acrobatic arrival at a nearby pole, wings fanned out to slow speed, webbed feet not extended yet

Photo: great blue heron perched atop rotting pier pole, preening wing feathers with upside down head, end of beak poking under wing, it disliked having the cormorant rock up to a nearby pole so it squawked at it a few times and then gave up and flew off

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

behold the field of my great blue herons (parents and kids, which is why they’re being so sociable for herons) #EnglishBoom #CamanoIsland

Photo: looking across a stretch of blue water, foreground, with three rotted pier poles (left), then an area of marsh grasses dotted with great blue herons (from left, the gray body of one is next to the rightmost pier pole, then further back a second, then center and closer, a third beak visible, just to right, only body, a fourth, then far right against green shrubs a fifth

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Out & about “You will get hop-ons.” #redleggedcricket season

iPhone photo: tidal salt marsh, green grass and shrubs in foreground with a winding creek flowing in from the Sound, mountains in distance hidden by fluffy white clouds

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Adobe putting the work in for people who use a niche photographer's tool but, crucially, aren't interested in photography

Adobe Lightroom update message that says: "Now with Generative Expand - extend your photo beyond the bounds of the original
frame."

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

autumnal heron being polite to the paparazzi

Photo: a great blue heron stands in left half of frame, in pale grass with orange-purple flowers, water in the background, it is looking to the left of frame, yellow eye inspecting the photographer having stooped down to get more grass in the shot, dagger-like beak is two-toned, black on top, yellow-orange on bottom, there's a braided brown-and-orange pattern that runs down its long neck against a thin strip of white, while most of its neck is gray

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

seconds after I refill the hummingbird feeder, a quality inspector arrives, always some hardass never a thank you

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medievalmvb @medievalmvb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

quick run out to English Boom to check on the osprey parents and ma osprey & young’un were away from the nest and perched in the Eye of Sauron tree, looked like ma had caught her baby a sparrow-sized snack