iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Happy There Will Come Soft Rains Day, to those who celebrate. Be nice to your smart devices.

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up,
seven o 'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock
ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time,
seven-nine!
In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces
of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two
cool glasses of milk.
"Today is August 4, 2026,
" said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling,
"in the city of
Allendale, California.
" It repeated the date three times for memory's sake.
"Today is Mr.
Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable,
as are the water, gas, and light bills.
"

Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Have I slipped too deep into my rural headphase when I catch myself online ordering a traditional Austrian scythe? No, I have not, and you best not tell me so when you see me swinging it.

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

When my brain broke, I set about trying to fix it the same way I do with anything — by pulling it apart to figure out what's jammed. This started as a cultural history of writer's block, and ended up in the neuroscience of how creativity itself works (or doesn't): thestory.au/articles/wri...

thestory.au

Grief Breaks the Brain: A Writer's Long Journey Back to the Page

When tragedy destroyed his ability to write, Patrick Pittman went looking for a way back to the page. But is the cure for writer’s block in your heart, or in your head?

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Quite the RFP from the DND/Canadian Armed Forces, this one — a challenge to develop potential tools that "repurpose existing urban infrastructure as a distributed, passive sensing network” with AI as a middleware layer. Can’t see any issues with this! None at all! www.merx.com/public/suppl...

$CAF’s current detection and monitoring capabilities rely on purpose-built, dedicated sensor systems that are costly to procure, slow to deploy, and difficult to scale across the breadth of Canada’s urban landscape. Meanwhile, Canadian cities already operate thousands of cameras, acoustic arrays, air-quality monitors, vibration sensors, and wireless access points that generate rich, continuous data streams—none of which are currently exploited for situational awareness by DND/CAF. The opportunity is to develop an AI middleware layer that sits on top of these existing feeds, transforming ambient urban data into actionable intelligence without installing new hardware. This is a force-multiplier concept: turning every city into a sensor grid that can detect unauthorized drone activity, unusual vehicular or pedestrian patterns, anomalous radio frequency (RF) emissions, chemical or environmental signatures, and emerging threats in real time and at a fraction of the cost of dedicated systems.$

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Always dreamed of going to a World Cup game in my city. I’m so glad tickets are affordable and my dream is within reach. 33rd vs 74th ranked teams in the world in a first round match, for the low, low cost of half a house (not in Toronto, to be fair).

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Just realized at least some of the letters Barry Lopez and I wrote to each other over the years are now in his papers at Texas Tech. Or at least, I guess, mine to him. His to me sit treasured in a special little cubby on my desk, within reach when I need them. txarchives.org/ttusw/findin...

txarchives.org

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Inside every FinTech there are two wolves. One wolf runs the beautiful product that lives up to its name and makes investment a maybe enjoyable thing even for us broke folks, and sells it with genuinely brilliant John Wilson ad campaigns. The other wolf does this shit: thelogic.co/news/wealths...

thelogic.co

Wealthsimple gets the go-ahead to launch prediction markets trading in Canada - The Logic

While sports and elections remain off-limits, the move could mean broader adoption of the controversial betting markets

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Ah, damn, Fred Wiseman’s gone. I think my single most formative film experience was a documentary class way back in the day where the lecturer brought in a 16mm print of the then still sorta banned Titicut Follies. It completely changed my perception of the whole medium and what it could be for.

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Beautiful tribute site to the late great Nicolas Nova @nicolasnova.bsky.social put together lovingly by Fabien Girardin. May this forever be a well to dip into whenever you need to be reminded how to look at the world in different and more generous ways... www.nicolasnova.net

nicolasnova.net

About — Nicolas Nova

Anthropologist, design researcher, and writer

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Reposted by Patrick Pittman

National Media Awards Foundation @canadamediaawards.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

🎨 A Perception of Misbehaviour—the Legacy of Op Art Arcade Finalist for Best Arts & Culture Storytelling at the 2025 Digital Publishing Awards Congrats to @patrickpittman.bsky.social and Chris Frey! 🔗 zurl.co/b9DKB #DigitalPublishingAwards #DPA25

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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Kitchen sink magic realism is a hell of a tough thing to pull off, to not just use easy wonder as an excuse to wallow in squalor. Andrea Arnold's Bird (on @mubi.bsky.social) is that rarest creature – I'm still feeling the glow of that life-restoring embrace in its immense wings. Absolute master.

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