iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I read this last week and as I've been wrapping up 7, having this article in mind has definitely helped me keep up with the plot!

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Oh hell yeah that one is great. So satisfying to rack up the score with air-to-sea special weapons.

For real. I’m finally getting to the end of it and some missions, especially in the first half of the game, are just too exacting. But it’s such a cool game that I’m glad I spent the time to replay and clear them!

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Funny thing is that, apparently due to being a relatively late entry in the history of strangereal conflict, there’s plenty of science fiction in this game. It just takes place within a terrestrial atmosphere.

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Mission 19 totally succeeds at being a big air-to-air boss fight. That’s good stuff. If this had an outer space theme instead of being fighter jets some nerds would really have lost their minds over it.

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I’m wrapping up the last missions of Ace combat 7 right now, pretty much the whole last third has been extra good, and you’re telling me this is what I now have to look forward to? Aaaaaaugh

I’ll find out about the game when I play it, but I can say right now that this is fun.

grace @gracemachine.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Reposted by DonE

For obvious reasons, I haven't talked much about it on here, but my father died suddenly while cycling. Grateful to @sltrib.com for letting me eulogize him and write about the absolute moral necessity of making roads safer for pedestrians and bikers.

sltrib.com

Voices: Deaths like my father’s are not anomalies. They are the bloody cost of our car-obsessed world.

“We can, we must, take action now, before some new senseless death proves the need for change all over again,” Grace Benfell writes in an op-ed.

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

17 was alright, good to see how the more close-range identification works with with a defense mission. 18 was a bit anticlimactic - not as much tension in that duel as I thought there would be based on earlier fights, but maybe the anticlimax is part of the point.

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

16 might be the best mission in the game? So many complications - night escort through an urban area where communications are down and there’s factional fighting, transitioning to a protective dogfight. And plot all the while. Great stuff. #optionalplaying

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Reposted by DonE

shy🎀 @shy.center · 27/09/2026

Lost one of my heroes today. Slinger Francisco, also known as Mighty Sparrow, passed away at 91. Trinidad's most famous calypsonian, always infusing his songs with sharp political wit and humor. A friend and influence to many, including Van Dyke Parks. Here he is performing "Jean & Dinah."

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Earnest soulslike rageposting is good posting

DonE @optional.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Over 9 miles on today’s long run! Planning on raising that by a mile a month ahead of a half marathon at the start of next year. #optionalrunning

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15 was rad. Big story moment!

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Successful run sure looked badass on the replay tho

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Rebecca Nagle @rebeccanagle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

14 was fun, love a low altitude valley run. I still think the checkpoints are goofy, tho. The narration calls out waypoints as you progress through the valley, but they don’t correspond to checkpoints if you get crossed in an instant-failure searchlight.

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Reposted by DonE

#LandBack! The Penobscot Nation regained 11,297 acres of their ancestral homelands near sacred Mt. Katahdin in Maine. Its the first phase of a 30,000-acre land return. tribalbusinessnews.com/sections/rea...

tribalbusinessnews.com

Penobscot Nation regains 11,297 acres in first phase of major land return

The Penobscot Nation has regained 11,297 acres near Katahdin as partners pursue a $32.5 million effort to return more than 30,000 acres.

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artemis, scary boss of stop caring @stopcar.ing · 24/09/2026

Guy who has only seen Backrooms encountering a Dalí panting for the first time: “Getting a lot of Backrooms vibes from this, but why is it so sexy?”

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Reposted by DonE

Somehow, @mads.haus convinced me to publish a Sonic essay on Stop Caring. Please read/share this beautiful essay on Sonic the Hedgehog, its ecological themes, and how Sega's current and future actions might potentially jeopardize its own environmentalist messages. www.stopcar.ing/never-give-u...

stopcar.ing

Never Give Up The Fight

A look back at environmentalist themes in the Sonic games—and how Sega might jeopardize them.

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The *performance* of straightness isn’t so confusing: thanks to heteronormativity, that’s being done all around me almost all the time. Which is part of why hanging out with other queer people can feel like coming up for a breath of fresh air.

While I’m taking sexuality, might as well say that it’s people and situations that make something sexy. Gender can be (and often is) a feature of that, but it’s not a necessary one. And that’s the shortest way I can find to say that straightness, as an abstract concept, confuses me.

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Bi/pan guy in a straight-passing relationship is often a way to be the invisible queer in the room tho

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I am visible today and every day, but today I am visible in a particular way.

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Well hey, I’m looking forward to doing that!

DonE @optional.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

“Man, the DMV sucks. I sure wish it was run like my health insurance company.”

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Reading an article about some “network state” horseshit and it’s like… some people think a government run like a for-profit corporation is somehow going to be an improvement? I mean, I get how the people reaping the profits might think so, but how is anyone else convinced?

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Oh, I want to read that one. How is it?

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DonE @optional.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Funny, I’m just about to be around d the corner from the vintage synth museum. Cool that this was recorded there.

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backloggd's bot detection ruining the embed is a feature, not a bug in this case

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hell yeah, like video games are made to be played, books are made to be read, and movies made to be watched, records are made to be handled and listened to!

My dissertation was about how present day molecular biology and bioinformatics are constituted by everyday interactions between humans, biological materials, machines, code, and statistics. I love laboratory studies. It was probably the only chance I'll ever have to write one!

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So either this ruling means that colleges and universities can't have codes of conduct that are grounded in respect for others, or speech against trans people is a specific exception. Either way, that takes me back to my initial point: this ruling is a bunch of bullshit.

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And let's say this was downgraded from hate speech to disrespectful speech. All kinds of institutions have rules against deliberate, disrespectful speech directed at other community members. Codes of conduct (which often have plenty of other issues, but that's another topic) often begin with that.

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