iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Sebastian Bae @sebastianbae.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

Don't forget you can still order your pre-order copy of my forthcoming "Littoral Commander: Australia!" It is the first expansion featuring new national forces and a collaboration with the Australian Army Battle Lab! 🦘 💥 🎲 dietzfoundation.org/product/litt...

dietzfoundation.org

Littoral Commander: Australia

Designed by Robert Engen and Scott Jenkinson, Littoral Commander: Australia is an expansion to Sebastian Bae's critically acclaimed Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific. LITTORAL COMMANDER: AUSTRALIA i...

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I hadn’t thought about that sketch in years but I think that really works

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Radosław Sikorski @radek-sikorski.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year. The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Jill Sargent Russell, PhD @jsargentr.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

The more you make the back end unreliable, the more the front end is eschewed. Nobody is buying your kit if you signal you will brick it on a whim.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

What he really wants is Canada as a non-voting occupied territory, not a state.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

I want someone in the press to ask him what he thinks the effect of adding Canada to the union would be on the electoral college, when as a single state it would be wildly to the left of California.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Dr Keith 🎃 Wilson @keithwilson.eu · 01/02/2025

“Al seems to have more godparents than even Sleeping Beauty. And, regrettably, more than one significant prick.” 😂

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

AI Anne Frank bothsidesing the Holocaust in today’s dystopian nightmare.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

The L5R roleplaying game has some awesome mechanics that I swiped for Siege Perilous. Fantastic game and setting. Borderline criminal that they’ve stopped working on it.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

I tried tipping at a nice hotel the way the author suggested some years ago, and the desk clerk got flustered and went to tell her manager on me. Almost died of cringe and was left wondering wtf I’d done wrong. Haven’t tried it since.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Looks to me as though the Democrats would be the ones to seriously benefit from actually annexing Canada. There’s nothing in this for Trump beyond scaring a weaker trade partner when he’s about to try to strike a new and much shittier deal.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

And yeah sure they could take over 🇨🇦 by force and just pillage what they wanted without absorbing us into their “democracy.” They’ve always been able to do that at will. But there’s no scenario in which this is a less costly option than just trading with us. Which is why the US never has done it.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

The only way to do it for Republicans would be to annex 🇨🇦 and then find some way or reason to keep us as second class citizens, unable to vote, unable to effect the electoral college. Thats an unattractive sales pitch and one that is unlikely to result in compliance.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Either way, legitimately absorbing 🇨🇦 loads the US with 41 million new people whose politics skew way left compared even to Democrats. This is a non-starter for Trump politically within his own party. It’d be like the early 19C debates over admitting new states to the union.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Now, Trump is a man who knows his electoral college math better than he knows the names of his children. In which of these scenarios does he come out ahead? 🇨🇦 as one big state would be a second California. 🇨🇦 as individual states would *not* be swing states, except maybe Alberta and Sask.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Or say 🇨🇦 is absorbed and each province becomes its own state. Territories can probably go on being territories.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

But what about peaceful options? Say🇨🇦 is absorbed peacefully and becomes the 51st state. Just one state for the whole country. Doesn’t seem likely but sure let’s take him at his word.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

It could be done as a military occupation and a territorial non-state status for 🇨🇦, kind of like Puerto Rico. Plausible but *extremely expensive.* Much, much more expensive than just buying stuff from 🇨🇦, and with a high risk threshold that we wouldn’t go quietly.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

From my perspective an actual US annexation of Canada needs to be put in the following perspective:

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Look, I’ve no doubt Trump wants to play hardball with Canada in trade negotiations and that we’re in for hurt. But the annexation talk is a negotiating tactic, same as him insisting that we have nothing the US needs. It is meant to rattle Canadian leadership, which is in flux right now.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Australians low-key anxious today that Trump wants to annex Canada and not them.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

I kept my PhD embargoed and non-public for years on the explicit advice of my publisher. It was not a secret, it was a non-compete issue for sales of the book that was based on the PhD.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

nacho likes airplanes @nachochip.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

“Bluesky is an echo chamber” Yes of course it is, I tailored it to my taste, interests, opinions, and community. I’m here to have a good time, not argue with strangers lmao

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I have been taking my time deciding whether to restart a social media presence here and had just started crafting content again. But I’m not going to if community protection isn’t taken seriously here. This sort of thing has killed friends of mine. @safety.bsky.app

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

I played more LC in the last twelve months than everything else combined and multiplied by two.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

For me it’s design and have a life. I spent a depressingly small fraction of my time actually playing anything.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Scott permitted me precisely one joke in the JCCs and I spent it on TimTams, I’m afraid.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

My first draft of the cover image was a platypus in tac gear and I really don’t know why they didn’t go with it, that’s littoral as fuck.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Sebastian Bae @sebastianbae.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

The Australian Army's Battle Lab led the development of the Australian expansion for my "Littoral Commander" #wargame series. Roughly 100+ copies will be delivered to various Australian units. A commercial variant will be released later in 2025. #wargaming 🎲

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

That’s what I use, but I was still an hour into copy/pasting all the text and adding in alt-text for all the images when it went kaboom, so nah.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Accidentally closed the app after an hour of composing my first long-form thread and lost it all, so fuck this, I’m going to bed. Taking recommendations for a different piece of software to draft skeets with before posting to here.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I was just reflecting that, much like Trump, JAM seemed to be able to get away with anything. Wasn’t he re-elected again after the whole railway kickback scandal?

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

So long as you avoid the specific phrasing “inspired by forty-rod whisky,” which is banned as unparliamentary language, accusations of drunkenness in Ottawa seem fine.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

At staff colleges you usually have to go after the highest ranked student instead.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Definitely a sex thing that some ER night shift doctor is going to be telling stories about for the rest of her life.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 30/11/2024

superb point: if we take Sam Altman at his word about the relative risk of the tech he's gleefully building, we should all be hunting him for sport

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

To me this remains the most heartbreaking of all the abuse revelations.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Soft pastel on canvas is a right bugger to work with, by the way.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

For the last two years my daughter and I have done a personal art piece for my department’s Secret Santa before Christmas. This year I did one for our Centre’s program coordinator. Lately she’s been wanting the Untitled Goose Game goose instead of dragons. 🪿

Pastel on canvas piece featuring the goose from Untitled Goose Game standing atop a mountain of papers and paperwork. Caption says “Save Us, Bel.”

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

You may be on to something, that was far and away my most popular material back in The Bad Place.

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Robert C. Engen @robertengen.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

I can run my mouth for hours in front of an auditorium with hundreds of military officers but have completely forgotten how to social media.

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Reposted by Robert C. Engen

Altmetric @altmetric.com · 18/11/2024

We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how: docs.bsky.app/docs/advance... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics

docs.bsky.app

Action Intent Links | Bluesky

Authors, websites, and apps can use action intent links to implement "Share on Bluesky" buttons, or similar in-app actions. Logged-in users will be directed to the corresponding action view in the Blu...

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