iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Here is a compilation from the #TINS2026 #GameJam. Do you see any game here that you'd like to play a little more? youtu.be/0nWwQSrhym0?...

youtu.be

Ten Games from the TINS 2026 Game Jam, bursting with fun!

YouTube video by Martijn van Iersel

021

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I vote for S10 Au$tralia. Really fun game concept, nail biter until the end!

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I remember this one fondly. It was fun to play and very ambitious for game jam.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

So far the story of #i18n-puzzles has been told only at Java conferences, even though Python was definitely the most popular solution language. That omission will be righted next week at #PyConIt2026 2026.pycon.it/en/event/fix...

2026.pycon.it

Fixing time zones for fun - twenty programming puzzles to master internationalization. | PyCon Italia

Join PyCon Italia May 27th to May 30th 2026 in Bologna, Italy!

020

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

This Saturday in Amsterdam, come playtest indie games and see cool creative stuff. I'm giving a talk on maze algorithms! Creative Coding Amsterdam + Amsterdam Indie Game Devs organize this event together. www.meetup.com/amsterdam-in...

meetup.com

Assembly, Sat, May 9, 2026, 2:00 PM | Meetup

On the **9th of May**, we're joining forces with the **[Creative Coding Amsterdam](https://www.meetup.com/creative-coding-amsterdam/)** for a full afternoon and evening at

230

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Now that's a long object life time!

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Luckily you can easily vibe code an alternative, if you need it. Here is mine: amarillion.github.io/higgins/

amarillion.github.io

Dr. Higgins - Learn a Language

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

More notifications, more haptic feedback, more flashy animations. These increase retention, but also frustration. Accessibility, and actual learning, suffer.

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Duolingo (currently using it to learn 中文) is a nice case study in gamification. It's also a cautionary tale against over-reliance on A/B testing. Giving you features that are research based, metrics-driven, experimentally PROVEN, but only suitable for perfect plastic people. 1/2

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

How do you convince a software organization to adopt micro frontends? Curious? come see my lightning talk tomorrow at @amsterdam.voxxeddays.com

Speaker Badge - Martijn van Iersel - Voxxed days Amsterdam - The micro frontend game: a demo of cross-team scalability

041

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

You could say, the software development department becomes an evolutionary algorithm 😀.

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Evolutionary algorithms gave us the concept of fitness functions. But my talk was more about how to use fitness functions to steer enterprise software development.

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Today I joined JUG Noord @jugnoord.bsky.social to talk about my favorite topics, 🦍evolution & 🤓software development. Thanks for inviting me!

131

Reposted by Martijn van Iersel

SiegeLord @siegelordex.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

TINS 2026 is coming in May: tins.amarillion.org Most jams just have a theme, but TINS gives you 5 rules! Restriction breeds creativity. Here's my 2024 entry: siegelord.itch.io/wasting Deliver supplies in space! The rules were: Trains, Art Nouveau, Customization, Quadratic Formula #gamejam #gamedev

siegelord.itch.io

Wasting by SiegeLord

Land on disease-wracked planets to deliver supplies, and help develop a cure!

032

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I invite you all to my 72h Game Jam! May 29-June 1st Random rules, Open source tins.amarillion.org #GameJam #TINS #TINS2026

Banner with the words: TINS Game Jam 2026 - May 29 - June 1st

011

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Thanks for sharing, I'll see if I can learn new tricks. In the mean time I'm optimizing and cleaning my own solver and it's getting to a decent state. amarillion.github.io/genuary26/da... On my laptop, I can check ~5M permutations per second for the WASM version, and ~20M/s with native C++.

amarillion.github.io

Emscripten-Generated Code

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Yes, this video was my inspiration. Matt Parker mentions that they found all 1.7M+ solutions, but I couldn't find more information. I think it's by @mscroggs.co.uk - Matthew, are the sources for your partridge problem solver public somewhere?

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Rest assured, it does fit in the end 😀 Just watch the animation play out.

110

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I wrote a solver to generate all possible solutions. But it's so slow, I thought I better start the animation from a near-solution.

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

#Genuary #Genuary2026 #Genuary14 Prompt: Everything fits perfectly! Fit 9 squares of 9, 8 squares of 8, etc., inside a square of 45. A.k.a. the "partridge problem" (think of the Xmas carol). See the animation at amarillion.github.io/genuary26/

272

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Here using both the ZX Spectrum palette and resolution.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

#Genuary #Genuary4 #Genuary2026 Day 4: LowRes Revisiting another classic. Drawing Bresenham lines in XOR mode, creating this pretty Moiré pattern. On #zxspectrum, XOR mode was an optimization, but with current tech, it's a performance hit as it requires reading bitmap memory, a big no-no.

140

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

#Genuary2026 #Genuary #Genuary3 "Fibonacci forever" - I went for a classic visualization of the golden spiral. Matching Fibonacci rectangles with a logarithmic spiral is actually rather finicky.

Golden spiral overlaid on Fibonacci rectangles.

030

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

To be honest, it's only showing one principle here: squash & stretch.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

Starting off #genuary with a very simple animation. Genuary is one creative coding prompt per day, let's see how many I can get done in a month! #genuary1

A bouncing white circle leaving a gray trail.

040

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

It might be different for you because you're catering to a specific niche... But IMHO bsky and twitter are a very poor way to reach actual gamers.

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Smart phones are like little babies, constantly whining for attention with the permission checks, the accounts and the pin codes, the migration wizards, the id scanning, the terms of service, the cookies, the feedback requests, the pop-up ads, the feature tours, the notifications... 😫

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Icing on the cake from @fairphone.bsky.social: Our brand-new $$$ FP6 was soft locked on the TOS approval screen. Checkbox and Next button overlapping so no way to click either. I got through this by decreasing text size in the accessibility menu. Without help, my mom would have had to return it.

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I had to go through this for half a dozen apps on two separate phones. Draining, exhausting, and impossible to figure out for non-tech people. As far as I'm concerned, Google, Android, Chrome, ING, DIGID, SIgnal, Samsung and Fairphone all share equal blame in this UX disaster. 4/n

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

This is then followed by each app eagerly offering to show you around to discover all the new features. Yay! 3/n

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Even with the migration wizard, for each app you need to: * Remember your username & password * scan passport or ID (in case of banking & digid) * approve TOS and/or accept cookies * Set up a new pincode * Click away ads * Set permissions for location, notifications, file system, etc. 2/n

100

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

How horrible is the user experience of setting up a new smart phone 🤮. Today I did tech support for my elderly parents who both bought a new smart phone - they were still on Android 9 and essential apps (banking) stopped working, so they needed a new phone. Here follows a rant 1/n

110

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

POV: you're a non-native developer in the Netherlands and you have to pronounce the word Buienradar 100x during your talk 😄 (No shade, it's a great talk by Neel Bhatt) #jfall

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Of course that station has changed completely. Back then it looked more like a dirt starter base.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

This takes me back... I'm here to speak at #jfall. But Wageningen is also my alma mater you know...

120

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

And this Thursday you can find me at #JFall. I'll be speaking on two topics, no less, and both of them are about #gamification. i18n-puzzles AND the micro frontend game.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Last week, me on stage speaking about #i18n-puzzles. Thanks for having me @tweakers.net developer summit!

110

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Het Duitse equivalent van steenkolenduits

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

It occurred to me that the examples you give are perfect for the backend-for-frontend pattern, as it's now much easier in Java to combine, bundle, or transform requests to a backend.

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

There was some discussion on avoiding UTC for *future* timestamps. I'm still looking for good examples (involving instants in time) where UTC doesn't fit. Do you know any?

000

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Yes riding the escalator up while this view unveils, is how Antwerp says "welcome".

010

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Sorry, that should be interactive rebasing. Stupid autocorrect.

110

Martijn van Iersel @mpvaniersel.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

I like lazygit a lot for letting you compile a commit out of a few lines in the middle of a file. But I never got the hang of how it does interactive regarding.

100