iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 07/09/2026

In agreement and support of your post, I offer that it *is* Luddism, and that the Luddites were exceptionally cool actually and not anti-tech. We should be proud to be Luddites. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddites

A screenshot of the linked wikipedia article. It says, "The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who protested the usage of certain types of automated machinery owing to their concerns over worker pay, labour savings, child labour, working conditions, and output quality."

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 05/09/2026

something about the sky and the ruins feels like Melee Island 💙

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 20/08/2026

I only learned what it was called recently, but I think I kinda intuited it in 1990

A night-time screenshot from The Secret of Monkey Island, showing dark woods in blue tones.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 12/08/2026

there's a giant glowing banana on the beach

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 04/08/2026

www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=alti...

A screenshot from wolframalpha.com, showing that at an altitude of 81.28m (266'8") the horizon is 32.2km (20 miles) away, which is also how far you'd have to travel along the surface to reach the point that was your horizon from the air. (Or in other words if you flew off straight on a tangent from the earth for 32.2km, you'd be 81.28m above the surface.) Below is a little triangular diagram illustrating the equation. More info at the link.

altitude | 81.28 meters = 266.67 feet = 266' 8" horizon distance along surface | 32.2 km (kilometers) = 20.008 miles = 32200 meters = 0.0050485 a (Earth equatorial radii)

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 19/07/2026

The puppet may or may not have been built, but that isn't a real photo.

horrifically mangled bystanders? or perhaps just genAI garbage.

disconnected strings? or the random output of a slop-machine.

lighting that looks like it was done in MS Paint? or probably just genAI.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 15/07/2026

Neither does Wiktionary en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Luddite... ...or a quick search without AI

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 15/07/2026

Merriam-Webster doesn't say what your AI says it does.

A screen-grab of the Merriam-Webster definition of "Luddite", which gives two definitions: (1) "one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest" and (2) "broadly, one who is opposed to especially technological change".

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 06/07/2026

bah, that came out awfully in the browser version, in firefox at least.

A nicely laid out bunch of emojis all in rows and columns. Basically, there are man-face-emojis and woman-face-emojis bot with and without robots, and some pointing and clowns and strong arms. The takeaway is supposed to be that non-AI-users see all AI-users as clowns, and all AI-users see other AI-users as strong, except for the men-AI-users, who also see the women-AI-users as clowns.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 04/07/2026

"we saw you across the bar and we really dig your vibe"

A still from Star Trek: Enterprise, showing Feezal Phlox with one of her three husbands. Not pictured: his other two wives.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 20/06/2026

To be honest, I keep seeing these posts and it costs me brain cycles to work out whether you're yaying or naying, nuance notwithstanding. It's like Bilbo's speech. "There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment."

A still from the Fellowship of the Ring movie, Bilbo's party guests looking confused, after Bilbo has said, "I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." In the book, the next sentence is "There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment."

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 19/06/2026

Friday night is popping off in the Netherlands www.lightningmaps.org#m=ses;t=3;s=...;

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 11/06/2026

We all know that Ryker LARPs as the chef of the Enterprise NX-01. That means when he plays Voyager, he's RPing as Neelix. You know it's true. #StarTrek #Facts

Commander William T. Ryker in a chef's uniform.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 09/06/2026

Then maybe you'll like this! bsky.app/profile/amic...

Screenshot of the puzzle / room escape game CRT7 by Amicable Animal

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 08/06/2026

I think the vibe I was reminded of was probably the older/simpler spectrum games, or maybe even projects from magazines that you had to type yourself. But here's a selection from an image search (cherry picked, of course).

A ZX spectrum golf game, with lots of solid colours and green and blue stripes and dithering

A ZX spectrum athletics game, with lots of solid colours and a crowd made with a repeating pattern

A ZX spectrum game showing a weirdly stylised multi-floor cutaway of a school building

A ZX spectrum game using simple tiles in dithered greyscale to make an isometric view, and a big ugly HUD using up 1/3 of the screen

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 04/06/2026

my mate snook away from a tour of the Robinson's factory. you will not believe the photos

Screenshot of a Half-Life 1 mod (Half-Life: Insecure, I think) showing a glowing silvery-green river of good flowing through a weirdly textured alien canyon, in low-poly and low-fi textures.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 03/06/2026

I couldn't find it anywhere on the coast of Spain, but I spotted it when I zoomed out! Turns out this is mostly Morocco, but the city is Melilla, which is an autonomous Spanish city on the Moroccan coast, near the Moroccan city Nador. The more you know!

A screenshot of Google Earth, with a peninsula on the north coast of Morocco circled by hand, with a label that says Nador in Arabic and Latin letters.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 25/05/2026

...and these are Lost Light, Sides of Sable and Hand In Glove. You can try out all these and more at #ECGx tomorrow evening. Details in the QRP above!

A screenshot of a first-person puzzle game in a cave with a bright pink laser beam. The cave looks bright and crystaline.

A screenshot of a battle screen from a pixel art RPG. The player's party consists of what looks like a witch, dressed in purple, an armadillio and a bat. They are facing off against a snake, in a corridor scene.

A screenshot of a realistically rendered point-and-click game. A soviet looking signal device sits on a scuffed wooden desk, awaiting your input.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 25/05/2026

Here are some screenshots of cool games by our amazing #gamedev students! These are Gunheart, Borderline and Polarity

A screenshot of a lo-fi first-person game in shades of pink. In the HUD in a pink heart (like, anatomy, not emoji) and the word "BLAM!".

A screenshot of a 2D pixel art platformer, where the screen is split diagonally, showing both a fantasy and a sci-fi setting.

A screenshot of a lizard? dog? -like creature in the desert, in stylised toon-shading. It looks ready to pounce! There are a land mine and a cactus nearby.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 02/05/2026

this labeller is a very good labeller @facelabels.bsky.social, yes you are

An anonymised screenshort of a bluesky post. The content of the post is hidden, with the warning "Contains Trump's Face" and a button that says, "Show".

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 25/04/2026

I fear that we're overshadowing Doctor Gustav von Bunge, inventer of the bunge. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special...

a cropped wikipedia screenshot of a thumbnail and article summary for Gustav von Bunge, "known for his work..." (it is cut off)

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 17/04/2026

100%. Cables don't connect to the pole in any sensible way. Some just fade out. Magpie and nest are the wrong scale compared to the pole, which is round at the top but near the bottom it's lit flatly like a plank. And of course most of the jewellery are just melty blobs that merge into the twigs.

Red dotted lines and ovals drawn over the image from the top of the thread. The image is an AI-generated picture of a magpie sitting on a nest draped with an unrealistic amount of stolen jewellery, precariously balanced on top of a utility pole against an overcast sky.
The red dotted lines are added to show the path of the cables that (at first glance) ought to connect to the pole but actually, if you consider their angles and perspective, they just disappear behind it. The red ovals show two places where the cables just fade into nothing in the confusion of the dangling chains.
If you're using this alt text because you're blind, then maybe you share my frustration at how most people with normal vision seem to be able to look at slop pictures all day and not even see them.

Six enlarged details from the image from the top of the thread. The image is an AI-generated picture of a magpie and nest draped with an unrealistic, maybe even ridiculous, quantity of stolen jewellery: mostly chains and pendants, some with very brightly coloured, plasticky looking stones. The nest is precariously balanced on top of a utility pole against an overcast sky.
The enlarged details are picked out to show that the jewellery is mostly just a suggestion of jewellery shapes, mostly looking melted or half-formed. The are some twisted shapes that could be chains, or paperclips, or rubberbands, but don't really look like anything. There are places where the twigs of the next seem to be merged with the chains. In one section, some shapeless megenta gems seem to be threaded onto a twig, and some pale pink stones seem to be sprouting from the ends of twigs, as if they were flowers or fruits.
At the bottom of the layout, there are details of the pole. One shows the lighting on the pole just the nest, where it is overshadowed. Compared to the shadowing and density of the nest it isn't nearly shadowed enough. That said, you can clearly see that it's round, like a wooden utility pole. Beside it, the other detail shows the lower part of the pole, which is rendered like a flat plank of wood.
Overally, the whole thing looks obviously fake. I absolutely don't have an issue with that in itself. If someone had photobashed this together as a work of human creativity, it could be great. That would be art. Instead, someone got a generative model to spaff it out with no deliberation or expression. It's not a creation that means something, it's just a fake photograph that tells a lie, and hurts us all in myriad ways.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 04/04/2026

Quote reply the crack team of your most feared enemies assembled, to bring you down

David Bowie as the Goblin King in Labyrinth

Patricia Arquette as Ms Cobel in Severance

Ethan Phillips as Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 31/03/2026

#tdov ✊ power, respect and safety to trans folk, visible or otherwise

David Lynch (as Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks) saying (subtitled) "FIX YOUR HEARTS OR DIE!" (He's recounting to trans agent Denise Bryson what he said to transphobes in relation to her.)

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 29/03/2026

I mean, kinda both? maps.app.goo.gl/hcUiqEZEjenY... maps.app.goo.gl/4fZhAu8XvY7o... maps.app.goo.gl/gn1uFYSDEJfy...

screenshot of a 3d scene from google maps, showing Edinburgh city centre, with a big mess of different historical architecture seen looking south-west at the top of the Mile and Castle Esplanade, from an imaginary viewpoint above Prince's St.

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nickbell 🆗️ @nick.aetheric-games.com · 12/03/2026

ooo, close I see noise, especially on the colour pairs where I couldn't see the edge. Cleaned my monitor recently, but this made me see just how uneven the backlighting is.

A screenshot with a score of 0.0037.
Link with more details: https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd/?r=AXMhKP__72z5

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