iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 2h

After 140 years and four generations, my local bookshop has closed down. 😕

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Ik dacht even: wat moeten de Chinezen nou met Croky?

Bericht van nu.nl: Oud-leidinggevende Belgische chipfabrikant verdacht van spionage voor China

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Date yourself with a commercial from your childhood. (I was bullied to no end during first grade because I looked like the actor)

youtube.com

Bichoc (Délichoc) reclame met Bart de Graaff (uit jaren 80)

YouTube video by oonai5000

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Bought a lovely book by Johan Egerkrans on the Norse Gods

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Ik blijf het vreemd vinden dat mijn abonnementsgeld voor @nrc.nl wordt doorgesluisd aan @economist.com en @nytimes.com. Hoe helpt dit de Nederlandstalige journalistiek?

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Lovely quote from “the Eye of the Needle” (Ucho Igielne) by Wiesław Myśliwski. The last sentence reads “History is the science of all sciences.” I couldn’t agree more. (See alt text for full translation)

On more than one occasion, he tried to convince me that history was not the past. No matter how long ago it happened, it was always happening now, during our lifetime. For it is only history that helps us find our place on the map of time. History is the science of all sciences.

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Reposted by Arjen Poutsma

GOTO Conferences @gotocon.com · 06/08/2026

From XML Spring MVC to annotations to functional APIs— @poutsma.bsky.social shares 19 years of "living with past mistakes" in Spring. Expect bubble sort stories, API design lessons, and honest engineering hindsight. Watch: youtu.be/1o2E2n0KDZ4?...

youtu.be

A Long Spring: 19 Years of Living with Your Past Mistakes • Arjen Poutsma • GOTO 2025

YouTube video by GOTO Conferences

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Editing of my #BlackLancers campaign continues in our vacation cottage, before the rest of the family wakes up.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Our vacation home for the coming week

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I made a house rule to replace #CallOfCthulhu's notoriously lengthy full auto rules. Roll Firearms (MG) as normal: • a Regular success kills 1 target, • a Hard kills 2, • an Extreme kills 3. This drops the number of dice rolls from up to 30 to 1, with a similar distribution.

Output from a script that compares the standard Call of Cthulhu automatic-fire rules against the new house rule, for a machine gun firing on a group of people, using Monte Carlo sampling: each row simulates thousands of randomized rounds to estimate average outcomes. Both methods assume each target has 13 hit points.

The table covers skill levels 30, 45, 60, and 75%, and group sizes 1 to 3; with groups larger than 3, the standard CoC rules end up with too many penalties to hit.

Each row has two sets of three columns: "RAW down / RAW rolls / RAW wipe" for the standard rules, and "final down / final rolls / final wipe" for the new house rule. "Down" is the average number of people killed per round; "rolls" is the average number of dice rolls needed to resolve the attack; "wipe" is the percent chance of killing everyone in the group.

Across all rows, both methods kill a similar average number of people, but the standard rules take anywhere from about 5 to 34 dice rolls per round, while the new house rule always takes exactly 1.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Black Lancers: my WWII #PulpCthulhu Campaign of Polish Tankers and Nazi Sorcery is finished. I began writing it in 2017: nine chapters, from Poland, via Hungary, Italy, France, Scotland, and finally Germany. Done.

The epilogue of the Black Lancers campaign. It reads:
EPILOGUE

Once demobilized, the vast majority of the soldiers of the 1st Polish Armoured Division do not return home. The Soviet-backed government strips many veterans of the western armies of their citizenship, and denies them their pensions. Most who do return are arrested.

In Britain, the Poles are excluded from official victory parades and denied standard military pensions, forcing many into hard labor or low-paying civilian jobs. General Maczek works as a hotel bartender in Edinburgh.

The Dutch prove more appreciative: once news of the general’s financial situation reaches the Netherlands, collections are organized on his behalf and the government grants him a pension. Several hundred Polish soldiers end up living in Breda with local women they met during the war.

With the collapse of communism in 1989, some veterans are already dead; others make the journey home for the first time in fifty years.

At the end of this campaign, the Keeper should go around the group and talk to each player in turn about the fate of their hero.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Perhaps that statue wasn't so bad after all.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Of course I had to kit her out with some D&D bling: fancy dice, and a dice bag & tray from @allrolledup.bsky.social

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

@floorrusman.bsky.social Fijn dat je weer terug bent in de krant. Het lijkt me moeilijk om zo’n persoonlijk onderwerp te schrijven.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Dat Mona Keijzer ergens 'geen touw aan vast te knopen’ vindt, is voor mij niet verbazingwekkend.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Most people are surprised when they find out I’m a football fan. I did not start out as one, in fact I hated it when I was younger. But my father watched football every Sunday night, and we only had one tv, so I did as well. 1/3

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

As someone who watches too much football, the most irritating thing about international tournaments is for the casual fans to get out of the woodwork, and flaunt their ignorance across social media, unhindered by any expertise. In many ways, the World Cup is the Eurovision of football.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

My 11-year old had her first school D&D session today! She loves it and has been continuously describing her character to me all evening. She loves to sing, so of course she picked a bard. ❤️

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Well, good thing I didn’t wake up early to watch the match.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

“It's too hot today This megacity chugs away Its stifling heat wobbles the concrete Twelve hour days Where plastic boys mold plastic It will all stay and never decay”

youtube.com

Home

YouTube video by Orbital - Topic

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Breakfast for the four-year old.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I have been invited to Miffy’s birthday party.

A number of stuffed animals seated around a table, having tea and cake.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Every hometown’s got an ominous megastructure, what’s yours?

Santa Claus, a statue by Paul McCarthy in Rotterdam.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

TIL that the London underground is so hot because of over a century of collected heat from brakes, people, etc., collected in the clay. The #CallofCthulhu scenario writes itself…

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

The one advantage of this blistering heat is that we have solar panels ☀️

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Deep in the editing trenches of Black Lancers, my Pulp Cthulhu campaign set in WWII. I started in 2017, and now have roughly 100 pages left to edit. Almost there!  #CallOfCthulhu #TTRPG #PulpCthulhu #BlackLancers

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Early Father’s Day brunch! Uitsmijter due to the lack of Full English over here.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Moroccan tagine with pistachios and mint

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Content with second place. I don’t think our CL run will be long though.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

I have been speaking at conferences for 20 years. I rely on seeing the audience to gauge confusion, pacing, and engagement. Please stop blinding speakers with stage lights for video production. If I cannot see the audience, I might as well present over Zoom.

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Arjen Poutsma @poutsma.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Today I saw the Spear of St. Maurice in the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków. Should be familiar to players in my ww2 Black Lancers Pulp Cthulhu campaign! @oldscouserp.eurosky.social @mcookie123.bsky.social @filmfan68.bsky.social @davepaters.bsky.social @lintillaz.bsky.social @sam0vail.bsky.social

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