iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 07/09/2026

Intrusive ID collection has become normalized enough that I just got a phishing email that went straight for demanding I upload a government ID to them. Button in the email goes directly to this form, zero attempt to build credibility or increase urgency.

screenshot of a dreamhost-branded phishing form with a dropdown for selecting ID type, box for social security number, instructions for uploading photos of the front and back of an ID, and a couple checkboxes for terms of service and legalese "confirm I'm the account holder or authorised [sic] representative"

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 04/09/2026

If you've used Link, Stripe's fast payment system that's on lots of online checkouts, you're defaulted into them selling your data. Not really clear to me in thousands of words of policies if that's just name + address or includes everything you've bought. app.link.com/settings/dat... to opt out.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 15/08/2026

The Ipad is sitting on a first-party keyboard, so this is two silly bugs. I guess I could turn it off and back on again, but the message about it being freshly-restarted is accurate.

photo of an ipad, the lock screen says "Your password is required after Ipad restarts" and despite the presence of a hardware keyboard, there is a giant software keyboard hovering across the middle of the screen

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 12/08/2026

Oh no, apple, you're not tricking me on the phone, too. (18 isn't down below, it's lying, there's only 26.)

Screenshot of settings saying "Update to iOS 18.7.8" with a red notification dot

Screenshot of clicking through and it admitting there's only iOS 26 to update to, no 18.x.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 05/08/2026

Incredible lack of polish visible every couple minutes.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 22/07/2026

Here is a useful jujutsu revset I wrote in the hopes someone knows a less ridiculous way to express this: lobste.rs/c/n2dlgq

snippet of a multiline revset, each says "at_operation(@-, @) |" and every line has one more - than the previous

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 22/07/2026

Very true. It has the opposite reputation, but IRS is actually quite friendly and helpful if you call, for instance. I took this screenshot last week because I was surprised I couldn't file a mandatory annual report.

screenshot of the Illinois Secretary of State website/personal homepage of Alexi Giannoulias complete with giant portrait, and a red error message saying "LWCA filings are not acceptable through the online filing system."

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 20/07/2026

They've been boiling this frog for a year or so, but I'm sorry to see Reddit go. I remember exactly where we were standing in the ChiPy meeting at Google's first Chicago sales office when Aaron told me to check out his startup. I wrote it down in the little notebook I carried before smartphones.

screenshot reading: Log in to use old Reddit

To keep Reddit safe, accounts are required to access old Reddit. Log in, or continue without an account on reddit.com.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 14/07/2026

Our apartment building comes with a storage unit in the basement. We like to buy in bulk to save, but then forget we have extras in place we don't see often. It took a mildly embarrassingly long time to realize I should just leave a reminder on the item itself so we know when we run low.

an open box of No. 4 paper coffee filters with a post-it note on it reading "3 more" and "run descaler every 100 filters".

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 10/07/2026

similarly, it is physically painful when someone's hot take is dead right but gets the facts and reasoning obviously wrong.

meme image of Wesley Snipes crying and pointing a gun, no text added

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 30/06/2026

It's a nice quiz for showing how many dimensions the topic has. I got a very odd result: the text is roughly fine (tho close to a Forer Effect example) but I had to look up the title/patron and it's a blogger who died of mental health issues 3 years ago + didn't write substantively about AI?? Wat?

screenshot of the "Kontextmaschine" result

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 16/06/2026

Maybe the only misstep I've seen in Tailscale is that on signup you pick which giant company with no customer support should be able to lock you out of Tailscale. Then to emulate them, Tailscale forbids you changing behemoths or even submitting a support ticket about it.

screenshot of Tailscale docs reading: Set up an identity provider

When you activate your domain name with Tailscale for the first time, you must choose which identity provider you want to use.

screenshot of Tailscale customer support form reading: Due to limitations on how GitHub's authentication interacts with Tailscale, it's not possible to migrate to/from GitHub as an identity provider at this time. See our list of Supported SSO identity providers.

The button to submit a customer support ticket is missing.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 11/06/2026

I was making other updates to my LinkedIn profile and someone forced Patrick Collison to write a grownup profile, so I am stealing his wonderful gag.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 24/05/2026

I wonder when the Steam Link icon will be updated from the 2015 Steam Controller to the 2026.

The icon for the Steam Link iOS app. A blue roundrect with a white circle and the silhouette of a steam controller with the unique dual circular touchpads.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 14/05/2026

Was thinking about this n+1 article about how Netflix has characters announce things because I watched Rogue One; it would've been 15 minutes shorter if characters weren't constantly yelling the plot into their phones or explaining each other's motivations to 3rd parties.

Such slipshod filmmaking works for the streaming model, since audiences at home are often barely paying attention. Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.”

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 27/04/2026

GitHub's having another rough day. Note the different number of PRs in the tab vs table. I've also seen a repo 7 PR in the tab and 3 in the table. And different users are seeing different results for the same repo.

screenshot of github's PR list where the tab shows 1 PR but table shows 0 PRs

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 22/04/2026

Write a pre-tool hook that denies the program/args you don't want it using and prints a message saying the correct thing to do.

quick bash script to, if in a project with a .jj directory, detect and prevent 'git' commands with a message telling the llm to use jj

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 17/04/2026

I got curious to query the monthly word count of Lobsters comments. Average is 618k, or roughly 10 nonfiction books per month.

screenshot of a sql query for wordcount by month of the last year, they range from 589k to 773k; query took almost 16 minutes to run

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 09/04/2026

If you want a picture of the future, imagine an LLM stamping on a human community -- for ever.

screen shot of https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/issues/1996 - an issue in the Lobsters repo that's LLM spam for an LLM skill to post LLM spam to Lobsters

screenshot of https://github.com/sales-skills/sales/blob/main/skills/sales-lobsters/SKILL.md - an LLM skill that treats a discussion forum as a marketing resource

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 19/03/2026

I get these once a week, but this is by far the most polished version I've seen of this invitation to commit fraud. Mostly posting for business folks who might benefit from a vivid example of what's targeting them.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 12/03/2026

@bikelaneuprising.bsky.social What is the jacket made out of, or is this the reflective coating? I've never seen a warning like this on a jacket before, I'd like to look up more info.

screenshot of BLU's jacket shop page reading "Performance tested above 30°F. Temps below that could damage the jacket."

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 12/01/2026

Similar sentiment here attributed to Karl Jilg.

Drawing of a typical downtown sidewalk with pedestrians but the streets are bottomless pits

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 31/12/2025

Just... wow. I retyped this comment and it autocompleted issues from random other repos. Lobsters is a Rails app, none of these are from our repo.

Another screenshot, now the autocompletes are for "Add Collider3d implementation", "feat: updating urllib3", and "fix(deps): update log4j-core" etc.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 31/12/2025

Here's a new one for core GitHub functionality becoming unreliable: I typed `#1843` to link a PR and the picker autocompleted 5 unrelated issues/PRs, mislabeling all of them as #1843. I need to prioritize exporting issues + PRs, I feel like I'm making a mistake by leaving that data at risk of loss.

A github comment starting "In #1843" with the issue autocompletion open. All 5 issues/PRs are labeled "#1843", but none of them are the real PR #1843.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 26/12/2025

Prompted by my neighbors going out of town for the holiday and leaving their alarm clock on... iOS can play various white noises. Settings -> Accessibility -> Audio & Visual -> Background Sounds (worth adding to Control Center). I think it's intended for tinnitus, but also useful for light sleepers.

screenshot of the Background Sounds settings

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 18/12/2025

I love some of these urgent warnings I get nowadays. Great, remind me again in a year or two.

screenshot with an orange-highlighted warning reading "Your disk space is limited (640.1 GiB)"

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 12/12/2025

I try to stay grateful for free things but I am losing my cool with how GitHub can no longer count to 10 comments without taking off its socks.

screenshot of a github issue thread with the now very familiar label "6 remaining items" with a button reading "Load more"

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 06/11/2025

The distinction between high and low culture is a scam created to sell less low culture.

Calvin:
A painting. Moving. Spiritually enriching. Sublime. ....“High” art!

The comic strip. Vapid. Juvenile. Commercial hack work. ....“Low” art.

A painting of a comic strip panel. Sophisticated irony. Philosophically challenging. ....“High” art.

Hobbes:
Suppose I draw a cartoon of a painting of a comic strip?

Calvin:
Sophomoric. Intellectually sterile. ...“Low” art.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 30/10/2025

The cat has canceled this morning's Lobsters office hours stream by jumping up and spilling my cup of coffee over basically everything on my desk, including a bunch of important paperwork. I'm going to be cleaning all morning and am not in a great mood to present. Perp attached. Will do PRs ~lunch.

black cat lounging behind a big Roget's thesaurus with goblin ears and sin in his heart

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 14/09/2025

A spammer promoting an AI coding tool spammed my repo. I reported the spam to GitHub. They kept the spam and, after hiding him for a couple weeks, restored the spammer. I can't resolve the problem because I can't ban the spammer. So now every page has this irritating banner forever. GitHub, wtf?

a screenshot of an obnoxious yellow header on a github repo saying "You have one 1 unresolved abuse report. View report"

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 27/08/2025

Welp, google search no longer respects minus for excluding words. A friend couldn't repro so this is an A/B test or some odd behavior in response to my preceding queries.

screenshot of a google search for "activerecord specify log level docs -rails" and all the results have "rails" in the title.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 01/08/2025

Heck, we haven't even settled our argument over what to call it. (Photo is Quinn Slack, speaking at HeavyBit DevGuild. I sent him an invite. Photo by @mikejulian.com.)

Guy presenting at a tech conference; the title is 'Next 3 Months in Coding' and the top bullet point is '"AI writes 90%" of code becomes obviously true to everyone except lobste.rs' and yeah the weird quotes are in the original.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 26/07/2025

Periodic reminder that if you generate random alphanumeric codes, you probably want to avoid generating naughty words by leaving out the vowels.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 24/07/2025

web.archive.org/web/20051212...

screencap of Elrond in lord of the rings, captioned with his line "I was there that day, 3,000 years ago. The day the strength of men failed."

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 17/07/2025

No stream today, unfortunately. The ISP wants to repeat the process where they'll send a tech out tomorrow to confirm that it's fine when the line is dry. :|

Simpsons TV showing "Technical Difficulties please stand by" title card with a puppy having unplugged a power cord

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 31/05/2025

Ah, thought I was focusing like on mastodon, didn't mean to crop. Here's the full thing with the same hash on both lines, or you can just see it at github.com/lobsters/lob...

uncropped version of previous screenshot, showing it's the same commit attributed to me and rando

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 31/05/2025

GitHub PRs and issues have gotten pretty janky the last ~7 months but attributing my commit to a rando who's never interacted with the repo is getting into "you had one job" territory.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 30/05/2025

BeOS was too good for this world. (screenshot snagged from www.jfedor.org/shots/)

A sample BeOS desktop with lovely, consistent widgets, icons, and typography

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 15/05/2025

Ah, bitshifting. First image is the failure where even the difference is a pain in the ass to spot. Second image is the bug. Super obvious fix right. For funsies I am porting a Golang function to Lua... which means going from 0-based arrays to 1-based. It's fine, I have lots of hair to pull out.

test runner, complaining of a failure where two 26-letter long strings of random letter differ by a single letter in the middle

a wall of lines of 26 lines of code that have slightly different magic numbers, all like: str[7] = Base32.ALPHABET[((id[4] & 15) << 1) | ((id[5] & 128) >> 7)]

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 13/05/2025

Sure! The behavior is odder than I realized, even scrolling didn’t always close it.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 13/05/2025

Once a week Slack sends me a notification to look at one same particular channel because “your team has been talking”. No one has talked in any channel on that server for 4+ years.

Screenshot of the slack notification described with the name of the server and channel blocked out.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 01/05/2025

The Chicago Department of Transportation surveyed residents about planning and reproduced the one map of Chicago. image.citynews.chicago.gov/lib/fe301171...

Choropleth map of Chicago community areas that looks like every such map of Chicago. In this case, high response counts on the north side and west loop.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 18/04/2025

The big visual change is that comment folders and upvoters moved into one column. This cleans up an inconsistency, saves horizontal space, and just looks nicer. Overall elements are more consistently positioned and spaced, often by a pixel or two, making pages easier to scan and read.

screenshot of Lobsters; to the left of comments there's now the comment folder, upvote arrow, and score, horizontally aligned down the side

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 14/04/2025

Hit a good checkpoint on the merged story UI refresh, so I shipped it. Nicer header and now threads are split up by which link they're responding to. I have 4,159 top-level threads to check are sorted right... I guess that's next stream! Details: github.com/lobsters/lob...

screenshot of the top of https://lobste.rs/s/oe4yec with four links merged into one story, and a header indicating a tree of comments is in response to one particular link

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 08/04/2025

Microsoft allowed me to opt-out from having my data used for LLM training. And also opts me back in after a few tenths of a second, so I can be allowed to opt out again and again.

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Peter Bhat Harkins ✔️ @push.cx · 08/04/2025

How 'bout today, huh? Rex Manning day.

close-up photo of Rex Manning from Empire Records

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