iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 14h

OMG I was trying to find this exact clip last week 8-)

W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 14h

Interviewer: can you explain this gap in your CV? Control systems programmer: Rate-dependent hysteresis. The previous job ended quite suddenly.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 17h

"We didn't knock over that lamp!" "...*I* didn't."

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 20h

May the spirits of spinal ease be with you.

A cat sprawled half upside-down and contentedly asleep on a shelf of a cat tree by a window.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

What that says about the status quo is very depressing.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I must admit that the ones that let you wear an extra hat have a special charm.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Sympathy. It's not enough for them to have fun, everyone must *know* they are having fun. It can be very cute when you aren't trying to sleep.

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Reposted by W. Dow Rieder

matty @mattio.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is wild - somebody did a deep dive into the real stories behind this famous XKCD: sheets.works/data-viz/hol...

an XKCD comic showing a precariously assembled tower of blocks. much is labelled "all modern digital infrastructure." a thin leg down at the bottom is labelled "A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003."

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Well, it's pretty much how I do, when I do.

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Random three-body problem @threebodybot.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Initial conditions: m1=15.8 m2=11.3 m3=8.7 (solar masses) v1x=-1.206 v1y=4.62 v2x=6.389 v2y=-6.537 v3x=0.66 v3y=6.922 (km/s) x1=17.0 y1=-24.0 x2=12.0 y2=26.0 x3=-31.0 y3=-2.0 (AU from center) Music: Prelude in C Major – Bach

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Also means my unfinished (and being revised) story I've been calling a novella is already well over the line to novel 8-)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hmm. Was trying to think what the shortest novel I've read where that matters. I think it's Zelzany's "Jack of Shadows" which was a Hugo finalist (for novel) in 72. My paperback edition is 142 pages, 136 of them text. 342 words on the page I counted, so maybe 45k words? Times change.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

... Yeah. I mean, I *like* CK3 too, but this is a [expletive deleted] pop up ad in game.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 06/10/2026

Discworld QOTD, from Night Watch

But the helmet has gold decoration, and the bespoke armorers had made a new gleaming breastplate with useless gold ornamentation on it. Sam Vimes felt like a class traitor every time he wore it. He hated being thought of as one of those people that work stupid ornamental armor. It was gilt by association.

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Ethan Kocak @ethankocak.com · 06/10/2026

MAKE THE PACT theunfamiliars.site/comic/86/

theunfamiliars.site

MAKE THE PACT.

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

No lies detected

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Hurrah! Three cheers! 🎉🎉🎉 (I understand the aversion too well, and by all the gods, getting the Thing Done is worthy of celebration 8-))

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer. Non-fiction history, but also just won the Hugo for Best Related Work so, y'know... Best non-fiction book I've read in at least 10 years, full of remarkable history, vivid prose and wonderful insights.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Hey, the trickster language gods need sincere followers, too 8-)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Well, at least if he's the heir of Bohemia with those kinds of stats and traits, there *will be* people out to get him, so Paranoid makes sense, yeah.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

NICE! Sharing this with my online friends, one of whom is a shell and fossil collector. She'll help inform me what a lot of those are (other than "Whoa! Cool!" which is a given 8-))

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Well, I understand the Late Heavy Bombardment was mostly Jupiter's fault, but I think you need a mage to summon the lingering remnants of that (meteor swarm)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

If you think the giants that walked the Earth were bad, wait till you meet the ones that swam the seas...

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Luck, and may all intervening stages go well.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

...and which ones think they are safe because they are already drinking Sterno.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I haven't played Diablo since 2, but I recognize a good key unique with multiple important variable bonuses high or maxed when I see one. Congratulations 8-)

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K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com · 01/10/2026

ICYMI we're serializing a free light novel and it starts TODAY!

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

TFW when you are having a particularly bad attack of allergy to "someone is WRONG on the internet" and need to go do something that doesn't involve other people for a while...

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The void gazes also... And sometimes that's a good thing! 8-)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Thank you for the summary! Would have taken a lot longer (and been less pleasant) to dredge that out from anywhere else 8-)

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RARrrgets 🔞🏳️‍⚧️🪡 @yesthatargets.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I will abbrvte words before I delete that comma.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Let's run it through the translator and see what we get!" "...BirdBirdBirdBirdBirdBirdBirdBird..."

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I don't think I played it much in the arcade, maybe a few times (I wasn't very good at it and I played in the "pay a quarter or you don't play" era) but the players who *were* good were *very* good. It was a game with specialists 8-)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

If I were a mouse and there were a strange looking device labeled 'Mouseapult' near me, I would sure have a stress response 8-) Thank you for the explanation.

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Reposted by W. Dow Rieder

Golden Age of Piracy @goldenageofpiracy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Archaic word of the day: lief - willingly; gladly (First recorded in the early Middle Ages; Old English lēof) #englishlanguage #history #medievalsky

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A mouseapult sounds like something a murine supervillain would invent, so I am of course very curious to know what it is actually for.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

...your group doesn't have to go looking for trouble, they go visit to hang out. They already know where it lives.

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

...right. Coffee exists. I should have some as well...

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Sympathy. I generally consider spiders my friends, but friends don't sit on friends' bathroom light switches at 3 AM. There are limits, dammit 8-)

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W. Dow Rieder @riderius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

So, this guy has a track record for help with something unglamorous but *really* useful. The ability to dig in well and quickly saves so much else. If you want to help individually this is one of the most efficient ways to do it.

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