iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Morose Barnacle

Momo @heyheymomo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Did you know you only need a small brain to make silly little drawings?

4 panel comic: Panel 1: pink blob guy on a table, pencil in their hands. Grey circle on a piece of paper and a glass of water on the table. They say “look here” Panel 2: Proudly, they hold up the drawing of a grey blobby character on two stick legs up in the air. The pink blob says “I drew this!” Panel 3: Satisfied they sit back down on the table. They now go “it’s not much, but..” The grey drawing looks a bit peeved because the drawer is calling it “not much” Panel 4: But it’s okay, because now the pink blob is very pleased finally. He says “it came from my brain!” Holding the pencil up. The grey drawing blob is happy again, too. End well, all well!

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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 05/10/2026

The SPEAKER implies. The LISTENER infers. The DUDE abides.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

But DON'T watch the steam trailer--it spoils the story! I wouldn't read up on it either. It's best to go in blind. And if it's not obvious, it's not a little kid friendly game. Has mature themes--PG-13 maybe (and only because it's all pixelated).

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

written story rather than a game. IMO, 4 Travelers does it right--actual immersive storytelling that feels natural and not just forwarding the story by clicking through dialog boxes. I played it last week (it's short--I was able to get through in one sitting), and I'm still thinking about it.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It isn't a point and click like an old Sierra game with an inventory and puzzles, but you do control the character and must interact with the environment to progress the story. I've played story-games where you're clicking through dialog box after dialog box and it feels like it should've been a

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If you want to kick off spooky season with a short horror PC game, try If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers! It's a FREE point and click game/story on steam. Set in the 1920s with beautiful pixel art! Music is awesome and uses real 1920s recordings. Some gore (as far as pixels can be gory).

The "cover" art for the game If On A Winter's Night Four Travelers--in gold sorta art deco font with a creepy steam train and shadows.

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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I feel like the debate about what parts of AI are good and what parts are bad should wait until we solve the worldwide crisis caused by the fact that almost of all of its evangelists in both tech and govt are morally, intellectually, and ethically unequipped to oversee it, when not downright evil.

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Jesus, take the (wh)eel! Did you know that there were eels on the table at the Last Supper? Da Vinci's famous painting has a plate of grilled eel & oranges -- a popular local dish that Leonardo himself probably enjoyed. The ingredients show up on one of his shopping lists! 1/2

Closeup of the plate of eel and oranges from Da Vinci's Last Supper. The eel is sitting on a plate, cut up into 4 pieces. Little eel nuggets, if you will. There is a glass next to the plate with what we should probably assume is wine, but which could also be Mountain Dew Code Red. Wine makes more sense canonically. Mountain Dew makes more sense comedically. You decide.

There are several rolls on the table that look a bit like potatoes but can't possibly be, and a small bowl behind the eels. You can see a hand behind the bowl; it belongs to James the Greater. He seems like he's telling the eels to slow down, and use their walking feet. Which, is just silly, tbh.

One wonders if you could read his future from the lines on that hand: early martyrdom, a post-death sail to Spain, a pilgrimage by Shirley MacLaine...it's probably all right there.

I suspect that James the Greater probably wanted his friends to call him Big Jake, but it never happened. Life is full of such little tragedies.

Da Vinci's Last supper, with the plate of eels and oranges highlighted. You know this painting, and I don't feel the need to describe it. If nothing else, "The DaVinci Code" made it famous, but not for eel-related reasons. More's the pity. I do think it's interesting to extend the DaVinci Code hypothesis and presume that *every* figure in the painting besides Jesus is secretly Mary. Did Jesus travel around with a harem of hairy women? We can infer it from the painting. And...you know...it worked for Jerome. So why not?

FYI: you should have known that the much decried* performance at the opening of the Paris Olympics wasn't about the Last Supper. There were no eels. IFKYK.

* There are people in the world who seem to build most of their lives around feeling personally attacked, and who live to decry All The Things. They are almost never the people whom the world is actually besieging, and you can tell because they have the time for performative public martyrdom. They suck.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”

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Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Upon graduating medical school in 1881, Arthur Conan Doyle did a doodle of himself waving his diploma over his head. The caption reads: "Licensed to Kill." My new book SLEUTH-HOUND is about Conan Doyle's professor, Joseph Bell - the real-life Sherlock Holmes. Out Oct 20! linktr.ee/drlindseyfit...

A simple doodle showing a man, Conan Doyle, waving his diploma over his head. Underneath the doodle it says: Licensed to kill

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Me too! Us kids loved King's Quest, Space Quest, and the Carmen Sandiego games. I actually still have it in my closet, and it was working when I set it up one afternoon a few years ago.

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LEE GATLIN @neilaglet.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Some old ones for #batmanday

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The sky over the wendys is especially lovely right now.

Sunset reflecting on clouds over a parking lot and a wendy's restaurant.

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Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 19/09/2026

A #BlueskyLullaby for tonight: Today's my birthday—and the day I was born was also the day NASA's Voyager spacecraft snapped the first-ever photo showing the Earth and the Moon in a single frame. So I figured I'd close out the day with this Aaron Neville duet with Jim Henson. See you around.

youtube.com

Sesame Street: Aaron Neville And Ernie Sing Don't Want To Live On The Moon

YouTube video by Sesame Street

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Professor Peter Matthews @urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The hubby and I are off to a posh restaurant (Michelin starred) for our wedding anniversary tonight. So, in the spirit of making BlueSky slightly more fun, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done in a posh restaurant?

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It was nice of them to warn you! Reminds me of traveling with Grandma in late 80s, and she ordered steak tartar without knowing what it was. We only knew English and the waiter knew no English, so it took some time before they understood she wanted it cooked. They were very kind and cooked it.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I've been looking at rental prices in my city and oof! There's a 208 sq ft studio apartment asking $1070 that requires a $250/month "community package." To be fair, it's a well laid-out 208 square feet, but on the other hand, it's 208 square feet for $1300. 🫤

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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This is your reminder (or maybe my reminder) to pump as much art and beauty and humor into the world as you can before you check out of here. Not only for the world, but for you. In fact, mainly for you. Because it's the only way to make this enjoyable or even survivable.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

You know the park service is serious when they use triple exclamation points.

A wooden sign set at the edge of a cliff that reads: "NOT A TRAIL DANGER STEEP!!!"

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Tragic!!! I did this once with a gooey chocolate cake. I squatted over the wreckage with a fork, ate a slice from the non-floor part, and then cleaned it up. My apartment had matching plaid carpet in the kitchen and bath, and it shockingly didn't stain! Those old synthetics were indestructable.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I'm sure this must be due to the crazy winter we had in Utah last year when it practically didn't snow at all! Like, the lake bed is 75% grass!! I'd hate to see the lake if we get another year of little to no snow. They'll have to change the name to Panguitch Pasture and it'll be a muddy cow pond.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I've seen the lake low plenty of years, and one year there were no cows at all because the lake was so full it came all the way up to the road and surrounded the power poles, but never this low. I've also never seen so many cows summering there before either. Happy cows, at least.

Escaped brown cow grazing on the wrong side of the road/fence.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is a photo from the cow side of the lake (there is water in the lake, just not nearly enough of it!) There are always cows in summer, but they graze near the road, and the far side of the pasture is boggy where grass gives way to lake. (Those scrubby trees is about where the lake should start.)

Cows in a pasture and way out in the distance is the lake. (The lake shore *should* be about where those scrubby trees are growing.)

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This picture is so crazy to me. It's Panguitch Lake, Utah, last week. I've never ever ever seen it so low--not anywhere near this low--and I've been coming up here since I was a little kid. For scale, those teeny itty bitty brown specks where the mountains come together in a little valley are cows.

Dramatic clouds over the dry grassy lakebed of a mountain lake.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Mountain wildflowers from last weekend in Dixie National Forest. It rained a decent amount in August (monsoon rains, I guess), so lots of flowers. Scarlet Paintbrush and Little Sunflowers (that is its actual name), Aspen Bluebells, Rock Jasmine, somewhat spent Silvery Lupine, and 2 ??? flowers.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

On the plus side, the damage revealed a heretofore unknown layer of wallpaper in my kitchen. That blue flower is just darling! I felt a little sad to cover it up.

A grey wall with a round sliced out of the skim coat in preparation before patching, revealing a bit of 1920s? wallpaper of a blue flower with orange stamens on a pale grey background.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

My former upstairs neighbors left a surprising amount of wall damage, so this weekend I cleaned, spackled, sanded, spackled and sanded some more, taped, painted and cleaned again. My calves are killing me from so much stepladdering, but I think I've perfected the art of feathering a paint touch up!

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

That is the best slug selfie I've ever seen. You both look so happy!

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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

they’ll figure it out if they get hungry enough

Supermarket aisle sign with items listed top to bottom: Can Fish, Microwave, Soup.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Apparently the best spot to ride Big Thunder Mountain is at the back--if passing a small kidney stone is something you want to do while on vacation. cnn.com/2016/09/28/health/kidney-stone-roller-coaster-study-trnd/

cnn.com

Little kidney stone? Ride a roller coaster, says study | CNN

A urologist claims the twists and turns of a good thrill ride could provide relief.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Looking stuff up always leads to such weird and delightful rabbit holes! From Wikipedia, "Big Thunder Mountain Railroad" (namely, the Disneyland ride):

Kidney stones

In the October 2016 Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, a paper entitled "Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the Evaluation of Renal Calculi Passage While Riding a Roller Coaster" was published.

The paper's author, Dr. Wartinger, found that patients of his had passed kidney stones after riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World on vacation, including one who passed three stones on three separate occasions.

The doctor then tested this result, with the permission of Disney, with a 3D model of a kidney by riding the ride over 20 times.

The study found nearly 70% of the time, the kidney stone was passed, with results varying depending on which row they were seated.

The study also found that Space Mountain and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith failed to cause this result.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

People throw in whatever they like or have ripe, too--zucchini, bell pepper, chilies, avocado, etc. Cucumber would be a good addition too! You usually see it at summer potlucks or cookouts. It's served as a dip with corn tortilla chips, but people eat it as a side without chips too.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Cowboy Caviar is an easy US recipe. Not sure if it's interesting, but it uses a lot of summer veggies! It's a cold chopped side salad with a light vinaigrette dressing. It's primarily corn, tomatoes, onion, peppers, and a rinsed can of beans.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Had a lovely weekend out in the mountains. A bit of rain on a couple of days, but mostly gorgeous.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

...comes from here! This is Cedar Breaks National Monument. It's worth a stop. It's usually less crowded than the other scenic red rocks in southern Utah. It's an hour detour from I-15. I recommend the Sunset Trail (1 mile, so 2 miles total)--scenic overlooks at either end and is entirely paved!

Cedar Breaks--dramatic red rocks, pines, and a sky full of puffy clouds.

More dramatic red and white rocks and pines and puffy clouds.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

This is Coal Creek in Cedar City, Utah, just at the mouth of Cedar Canyon. It's always that color. It's orange because the water...

A low, muddy red-orange creek with green scrubby trees overhanging it under a blue sky.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

One of the most Salt Lake City pics I've taken. (If reddit is to be believed, the apartment behind the billboard pays the same rent as the rest.)

A newish boxy brick 6-story apartment building with a Reagan billboard advertising Minky Couture blankets only a foot or two from the building's facade.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I recall an 1840s source where everyone thought a guy had gone off to commit suicide. His friends assumed this because he left a distressed ambiguously worded note on the floor--and he had left home without his hat! (They did find him--hatless--and rescued him.)

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Granted, the violence felt gratuitous at times, and it's being marketed as sci-fi/adventure when the pacing feels distinctly more horror/adventure to me (is that a genre?) But it's a unique original story and the acting was top notch! Fun, but the body count's higher than any Jurassic Park film.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Went and saw The End of Oak Street with my parents yesterday. They're a bit picky with their movies. They both said they didn't like it, but I haven't heard them talk about a movie this much in years! 📽️

Movie poster for The End of Oak Street: white misty suburban neighborhood with a family standing and looking up at one side and the teeth and nose of a dinosaur at the other looking down.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I feel bad for my local pizza place guys. Obviously the AC's out because even though they put out this industrial fan thing out, walking in the store feels like walking into an oven! (Not quite as hot as a pizza oven, thankfully, but pretty close.)

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Josephine beckbook.com Riesman @josie.zone · 25/08/2026

Dolly Parton and Arnold Schwarzenegger pose for Annie Leibovitz and Rolling Stone in 1977:

Dolly stands in front of Arnie flexing, such that you can't even see his head behind her hair. HEAVENLY BODIES COLLIDE is the title of the centerfold photo

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M. Belanger @sethanikeem.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

“How will we ever replace them?” FUND. THE. ARTS.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I just dropped my deodorant on my hairbrush, and now it looks like someone indulged an intrusive thought and took a big bite out of it.

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Special mention to Boney M whose 1978 cover almost made it sound disco. (This is not a criticism. Those vocals are awesome.) Incidentally, all disco is excellent cleaning up music. m.youtube.com/watch?v=nCye...

m.youtube.com

Heart of Gold

YouTube video by Boney M. - Topic

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

And Fiona Apple makes you feel like you scored tickets to a small venue concert filled with people way cooler than you and all effortlessly fashionable, and maybe it'll rub off on you a little. m.youtube.com/watch?v=CsPn...

m.youtube.com

Heart of Gold

YouTube video by Release - Topic

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

With covers by Diana Krall (2015) and Fiona Apple (2025) as runners up. m.youtube.com/watch?v=6IeA... Krall is slow and soulful (what a luxurious voice!),

m.youtube.com

Heart Of Gold

YouTube video by Diana Krall - Topic

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

My favorite version is Johnny Cash's cover released in 2003. (It seems like he frequently made covers better than the originals.) m.youtube.com/watch?v=jxOy...

m.youtube.com

Heart Of Gold

YouTube video by Johnny Cash - Topic

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Morose Barnacle @morosebarnacle.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Tonight I've been listening to all the covers I can find of Neil Young's Heart of Gold (1972) on repeat while folding laundry/doing dishes. The original: m.youtube.com/watch?v=c7eB... (With James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt on vocals!)

m.youtube.com

Neil Young - Heart of Gold (Official Audio)

YouTube video by neilyoungchannel

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