iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Don't let your wife see that, Sam. She might get ideas

Photo of Artemisia Gentileschi's baroque painting of Judith beheading Holofernes (I took the photo last week at the Capodimonte museum in Naples)

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Real low effort on this one. Hope I'll have time to do more for the next one #OliveArtClub

A picture of two wet tomatoes, one with a leafy stem, and one without, on a light-coloued wooden table. Arrangement somewhat matches the photo in the post I'm replying to.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I like the inclusion of this vital information about the good boi who retrieved it a previous time it was stolen

Screenshot from the Wikipedia article “FIFA World Cup Trophy” showing the following text:

On 20 March 1966, four months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall. It was found seven days later wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a suburban garden hedge in Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, south London, by a black and white collie dog named Pickles.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

This was in the Danish national art museum in Copenhagen. Here’s the information panel for the painting:

The Information panel for the painting in my main reply above, written in both Danish and English. Some of the English text is transcribed below.

Artist: Laurits Andersen Ring, 1854–1933, Danish
Title: At the French Windows, The Artist’s Wife (1897)
Medium: Oil on canvas

Description: Ring was married in 1896. The following year he painted this declaration of love for his wife, Sigrid Kahler… [description continues; I can try to transcribe the rest on request]

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Had to stop part way through the photo shoot to fight the guard who came to arrest me for stealing the apple from Castle Bravil.

A screenshot from Oblivion showing another view of the table from the post above. Behind the table stand a couple of unbotherd-looking non-player characters. Next to the table lies the corpse of a man in the armour of the Bravil City Watch.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Still Life with Apple In-game screenshot (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion)

A cropped screenshot from the video came The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, showing a medieval-looking red dining table strewn with food items, wine bottles, and pewter vessels (one of which, a bowl, contains a possibly human skull resting on a pile of blackberries). In the middle foreground a red apple rests on a piece of green cloth, very loosely resembling the image in the post this is replying to. The game reticle hovers over the apple, taking the shape of a red hand (which in this game signifies an item that would count as theft if taken) and hovering under it is the text “Apple”, under which are symbols indicating it is worth 1 coin and weighs 0.2 (don’t ask what unit of weight).

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

I was thinking too hard when I first saw this and had to stop. Now I've jotted down a list. Still had to be pedantic about the definition of song and exclude all instrumental pieces

A list of songs in cursive handwriting in blue ink on yellow paper (title – artist):

* Northwest Passage – Stan Rogers
* Trustful Hands – The Dø
* Hey Bulldog – The Beatles
* Unto Us a Child Is Born – Handel
* Michael Row the Boat Ashore – some Black folk on the Sea Islands
* Restless – Gordon Lightfoot
* Reflection of Him – Smith & Dragoman
* A Case of You – Joni Mitchell
* Cleaning Out My Closet – Eminem
* [crossed out] La goualante de pauvre Jean – Edith Piaf
* Circumstances – Rush

The blue Lamy Safari fountain pen used to write it is lying at the bottom, and lying on the table next to it is the broken end of a pencil.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Dry erase marker on white board

Photo of a white board with a line drawing in blue marker, showing a vague attempt at drawing OP's photo of an olive and pimento on a plate

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

After the Storm (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2016)

A pensive-looking Japanese man sits in a small, tall bath tub filled almost to the brim, in a somewhat shabby-looking bathroom, holding a pale and about to scoop some water.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Maybe he's talking about this guy

A still from the film Arrival, showing a misty scene, with a huge, dark, seven-legged figure looming over a tiny-looking woman, who looks up at it in awe. The figure is one of the pair of Heptapods who the characters named Abbott and Costello.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Bob approves of this message

An old photo of Canadian politician Bob Rae giving a thumbs up with a kind of goofy smile

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Lunch at mission control is a sandwich.

Mission control for the Artemis II mission. A line of serious looking NASA and Canadian Space Agency staff sitting or standing in front of various computer terminals at a desk labelled CAPCOM. At the end of the line, though is a lady eating a delicious sandwich.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

You know you can know something intellectually and still not be fully, intuitively conscious of it. Now I’m understanding something about the moon: it moves. It’s not a rock that sits there getting lit and unlit. It moves, and is not yet in the place it will be when they circle it. #Artemis #moon

Screenshot of a NASA visualization of the Artemis II mission, showing the Integrity spacecraft’s current location (as of 15 or so minutes before this post). The blue trail of the spacecraft’s projected path is shown looping through empty space along the moon’s path, with the moon itself still off to the right. When watching the visualization live, the moon has visible motion.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

"Isn't life disappointing?"

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Exhibit: No one is going around naming their evil corporations after any of Beorn's possessions.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

This was one of the great moments in Olympic history. And then it got better #MilanoCortina2026

At the edge of the skating rink for the 2026 Olympic Figure Skating Gala, two men stand waving both hands in the air. On the right is men’s gold medalist Mikhail Shaidorov on the ice dressed as a panda. On the left is JACKIE CHAN waving two panda dolls in the air

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Same area decades ago. It's really too bad that rail-to-trail conversion is an irreversible process

Historical black and white photo from the 1950s or '60s (Source: Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario Facebook page) showing the area along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa highlighted in the post above. On the right, the straight canal stretches to a distant curve, and on the far side is the same linear park that can be seen today. Im the centre of the image are a several parallel railway tracks right up along the canal, looking busy with passenger trains and a few workers. On the left are some work buildings and cars parked on muddy ground, then a line of trees.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Given decades of interplay between Westerns and Japanese samurai films, The Last Samurai is kind of interesting in the way it closes the loop by having characters from the Old West show up in a jidai geki.

A still from The Last Samurai (2003). It is a wide frame with the centre foreground taken up by a man in a late 19th century US army uniform, aiming down the sights of what looks like a classic Colt revolver. Behind him, out of focus, are a few ranks of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers, noticeably lower than the American, who is probably mounted. A green field stretches behind them.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Just as The Talking Heads predicted

A screenshot of from Genius Lyrics showing words from the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime:

[Verse 3]
Water dissolving, and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Under the water, carry the water
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean
Water dissolving, and water removing

[Chorus 2]
Letting the days go by
Let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by
Water flowing underground
Into the blue again
Into the silent water
Under the rocks and stones
There is water underground
Letting the days go by
Let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by
Water flowing underground
Into the blue again
After the money's gone
Once in a lifetime
Water flowing underground

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Is she friends with Giorgia Villa?

Italian Olympic gymnast Giorgia Villa does the splits across four massive roundels of Parmesan in a publicity shot for Big Cheese

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Ah just like every year then

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Four recently-listened albums. There’s some random things I listened to on Bandcamp in between but can’t find again.

Bill Evans Trio — Sunday at the Village Vanguard

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

I love it when the moon does something crazy and you see people in all different countries post following the terminator's ceaseless westward march

A phone photo of tonight's lunar eclipse. The moon looks like a tiny marble since it's a wide lense. It is heading toward totality, so there is still a crescent of full illumination on the southward side, while the rest is faintly red-orange in colour, illuminated by a thousand sun(sets/rises)

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Interesting to think about the fact that two of the most memorable images of colonialism involve a larger-than-life figure holding up a telegraph wire

The 19th century famous image from Punch Magazine titled The Rhodes Colossus, depicting Cecil Rhodes straddling Africa, holding aloft the Cairo–Cape Town telegraph line

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Employee who put your address in a spreadsheet: "I didn't know there was going to be a hit"

Still from the Godfather Part II, with Fredo looking defeated in a reclining chair.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Aurora (2018, dir. Bekzat Primatov). Kyrgyzstan's answer to Magnolia, and it's a very good answer!

Poster for the Kyrgyz film Aurora (2018)

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

“I’m quite spry for my age”

A still from the 1970s Doctor Who episode The Green Death. The Third Doctor, a white-haired man in a tartan overcoat, holds up his hands and is mid-speech.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

These aren't the best movies of the 21st century; I haven't seen enough movies to say that. This just a selection of films I love for different reasons. Each one stands for a world of others.

My ballot for the New York Times best movies of the 21st century readers' poll:

NOPE (2022)
The Bourne Identity (2002)
24 City (2009)
After the Storm (2017)
Certified Copy (2011)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Before Sunset (2004)
Aftersun (2022)
Extraordinary Stories (2011)
El despertar de las hormigas (2019)

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

We used to have ambition

Photo of the Leaside Towers in Toronto, two enormous 44–story brutalist condo towers that were built in the late '60s

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Makes me think if this scene from Kore-Eda's "Like Father, Like Son": “It’s about a lot more than time.” “What are you saying? For children it’s all about time.” “There are certain jobs only I can do.” “But no one can take your place as your son’s father.”

A still from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s film "Like Father, Like Son". Two Japanese men sit at a table at kids' restaurant (their families are off-screen). A blue toy robot sits on the table between them.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Finally finding a list of fake books that isn't AI-generated. "Someone wrote this, yes."

The "someone lived this" scene from Blade Runner 2049. A woman dressed in white looks up from a large white microscope-like apparatus with tears streaming. We are looking at her through a pane of glass, in which we see a vague reflection of the man she is looking at.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

If you see this, show me how the moon looks to you tonight

The full moon shinning brilliantly above some coniferous trees with a few stars around it. Its light is so bright it's causing lense flare in the camera

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

A film we a lot to say about truth and democracy. This one shot has stuck with me, with the unnoticed presence of Pompey, the Black man who cannot participate in the election but is nonetheless prepared to defend it.

A beautifully composed shot from Liberty Valance, a black-and-white film set in the Old West. In the centre, a man facing the camera, who is an immigrant but is white, proudly shows a US citizenship certificate to election officials who sit facing away from the camera in the foreground. In the background, looking tiny and pushed off to the left side, can be seen the face of Pompey, a Black man who is prepared to protect an election meeting he cannot participate in.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

The Greenland National Museum in Nuuk has the best little ivory guys

Various small ivory figures in a typical Inuit style in a museum display case (I forget how old they were).

Close-up of one of the groups of ivory figurines shown in the last photo. These ones are mounted on a stone. Near the top, a man in parka appears to be fighting off three polar bears. He has one lifted right over his head and is about to through it at a second, while a third sneaks up behind him.

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M-Rob @mirobin.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Even a city as advanced as Coruscant understands the importance of preserving this hallowed institution

Establishing shot of Dex's Diner from Star Wars Episode II. Basically a classic American streamline diner dropped into a futuristic city, with various aliens walking by.

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