iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

My favourite piece of random blogged advice so far: "If you're regularly killing applications, you should probably upgrade your hardware."

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 19m

So we appear to be using resources but not actually achieving anything. In many ways this is a familiar aspect of the modern condition, but I think we'll try something a little different.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 22m

The problem with pressing ancient digital tech back into service is that you don't always know whether something's going wrong or whether it's just THAT slow

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 27m

Exactly how many fonts are you downloading, my dude?

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 27m

I cannot use the drop of box there is evil parrot in it

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28m

I mean... maybe, but it would be completely irrational. EFTA membership would actually mean being a "rule-taker" where EU membership does not. Plus I don't see the other EFTA states going for it.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29m

I've actually just been working across a bunch of different accounts of how you set it up for different distros - I thought I'd learn more that way, and it's unlikely anyone else is doing exactly the same stupid thing as I am :)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

There was definitely a moment when iCloud sync was functional - I think they had to retool the entire app to make it work.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

I'm actually pressing a 2011 MacBook Air back into service as my Linux laptop. So far it's a dream. But hence also mucking around with Wine to get Scrivener running. (I might also poke it and see whether it'll handle Ulysses... probably not.)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Well, they're actually making the show, so they definitely know what's going on. I'm just sitting here looking at the First Look photos. But I have faith :)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

God that's a lot of files.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Wine should have a special "don't show me the MS-branded yuck during installation" mode.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 1h

Ugh. Windows things are now happening. Nasty grey boxes are besmirching my Linux terminal. All in quest of writing without surveillance or AI.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

It's gonna be great :)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

Does anyone know why the Proton for Linux apps are such Bad Boys? Errors are always encountered while processing them. (Though that doesn't seem to be a problem.)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

You say "do this" and then you get to watch a lot of things happen. It's a lot more tangible than the Blue Bar of Installation. Processes are processed, bytes are bitten, kilos are flopped and so on.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

There's something very soothing about watching Linux install things through the terminal window.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

Oh. "Winbind" not "winebind". Yeah. That'll do it.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 2h

EFTA comes with all the things people object to about full EU membership, plus some downsides which full membership doesn't have. It did come up in the post-2016 discussion, but went away because it doesn't really help and it's quite hard to achieve, IIRC.

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Radical Graffiti @radicalgraffiti.bsky.social · 18h

"Nuclear War is Bad for Kittens" Poster spotted in York University in Toronto, Ontario

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

Seems excessively generous :)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

(But saying “allele” like “a payday” makes genetics sound so funky)

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

Q: why can’t orangutans play comic songs? A: because there’s no ook allele.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

Yeah, I think he screams the right kind of melancholy and misery. Obviously, Smiley in the books is physically unprepossessing, but even (or especially) Guinness was appallingly attractive.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

If you’re going to take urgent action to save steel in the UK on strategic grounds, are you really not going to do the same for water?

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 30/09/2026

“A group of US hedge funds” does not, on the face of it, seem likely to be the kind of owner which would reverse decades of under-investment and tackle the coming fresh water crisis.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29/09/2026

I’m on the book side (obviously) and I had a lot of opinions which I very helpfully shared with my brothers during development :) But I haven‘t actually seen any rushes etc.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29/09/2026

As the piece makes clear, yes.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29/09/2026

Again: Switzerland is interestingly complicated.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29/09/2026

Today in "decisions in kerning"

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 29/09/2026

I believe that's "Twiglet".

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

Jasper was busy training his raven.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

I saw James play back when King Giles was still Prince of Yorkshire. He beat Johnny Connors 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, 6-0 to win Richmond. One of the finest sedum court performances in the history of croquet.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

At the moment all my focus is on sorting out the next thing, but that may also involve sorting out Sounder. Or it may have to wait until I write the third one!

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

Gosh. This is very... espionage-y.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

It's a bit more obvious in Sleeper Beach... though not a lot.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

As for time... after some fairly significant global warming and mitigation, but the precise date is subject to plot detail later in the stories.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

I never actually thought it would become a very important aspect of the stories, so it's a little loose, but the actual answer is: Greenland.

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Gaia Vince @wanderinggaia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Nations will be competing over immigrants soon, and they’ll go where they have the best opportunities #NomadCentury

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Reposted by Nick Harkaway

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 28/09/2026

Services aren't real, Ben. Only goods made by manly heterosexual men in oil stained coveralls actually contribute to the economy. It is 1776 and I'm somehow already an idiot.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

I think that’s a very good shout. I go with “raises” but it’s the same response. But I also think that in this case the battle for the original meaning is lost, in part because the original meaning is a rather wilful classical import which has no obvious relatives in the language.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

As you can see from the responses, it’s one people feel surprisingly strongly about - I suspect because even in the 80s it was contested, and therefore something of a shibboleth...

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

Usually not criticise, but often be unable to parse the sentence. I then have to explain and everyone is embarrassed. I dislike playing don; it’s a bad look for me.

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 28/09/2026

Yes, I saw, and rather liked :)

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