iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Seeing who is seated closer to or farther from Trump is the 2020s version of seeing who had a spot closer to or farther from Brezhnev on the reviewing stand for military parades in Red Square.

Screengrab of a screengrab of a Truth Social post, shared by the @RapidResponse47 X account, from @realDonaldTrump showing the seating chart for today's Oval Office meeting. The four closest tech figures: to his left, Elon Musk and then Sundar Pichai; to his right, Jensen Huang and then Mark Zuckerberg

Original post on X: https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2104963292678803924

0165

Love having DMARC on my personal domain fail for no discernable reason, resulting in Gmail rejecting messages sent from a personal Google Workspace account. (I *think* I fixed that by copy/pasting the right values from Google's support doc; at a minimum, my e-mails are taking longer to bounce.)

I'm not going to say he's irrefutably wrong to want that...

100

NASA Asked Several Former SR-71A Staffers To Help Secret Restart | Aviation Week

NASA getting an SR-71 back in flying condition after almost three decades seems like the biggest kind of aviation boondoggle, but also a really exciting one... this report from @thedewline.bsky.social raises more questions than it can possibly answer.

aviationweek.com

Nearly 27 years after the final Blackbird flight, NASA quietly launched a project last summer to return an SR-71A to flight.

360

I'm sure that India Mobile Congress is a useful event, but whoever is doing PR for it has sent me 50 e-mails about it over the past 13 days. I don't get that many messages a day from most conferences that I'm actually registered to attend.

If only there wasn't a highway slashing through the city...

000

This evening's #transitadventure in Atlanta: MARTA to a robot bus to the Lee + White food hall by the Beltline trail (had a great dinner at Boxcar), then seeing a very shiny test train run through the West End station (the existing rolling stock is showing its age).

A green ATL Spoke bus, festooned with Lidar and other sensors, waits at the food hall.

A Stadler Rail CQ400 train pulls into the West End station, looking extremely shiny with lights accenting its streamlined front.

040

From one airport with a subway to downtown to another: Hello again, ATL! I'm here through Thursday for the cable industry's SCTE TechExpo (where I'm emceeing one stage for part of Tuesday, with the organizers comping lodging in return).

170

Safe travels, and have fun!

They did, just about this time of the year too.

000

Heads-up if you're flying out of IAD today: The Aerotrain is only running on one of two tracks from the main terminal, so you have to wait longer than usual as trains to the B and A/C gates take turns.

140

In relative terms, SpaceX barely knew what it was doing with Falcon 1, and that rocket reached orbit on its fourth launch. Starship is much more ambitious, and yet...

130

Refreshingly enterprising stuff from our cities' transit agencies.

120

FYI to Amex cardholders and Metro riders in the D.C. area: Check your offers to activate a $2 cash-back deal on tap-to-pay @wmata.com fares, good on up to five rides through Dec. 31.

Screenshot of this offer's details as seen in Amex's Android app:

"WMATA - Tap to Pay

Spend $2 or more by tapping to pay, earn $2 back, up to 5 times (total of $10).

Expires 12/31/26

In-store only

Travel"

172

The 14th launch of Starship has not been boring, that's for sure: Successful launch, then one of 33 booster engines out; booster splashing down under control and then (predictably) exploding; one of six second-stage engines shutting down on ascent; orbital insertion burn called off but now back on.

151

Would rather not think about that atm

We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen again in 2027.

100

The Nationals' 2026 season is in the books with a 6-4 win over the Mets. Which means we have officially seen the last of the Nats Park signage for the defunct and disgraced cryptocurrency startup Terra.

The scoreboard at Nats Park with the video board below it showing Terra's "A decentralized economy needs decentralized money" message.

2131

Rob Pegoraro @robpegoraro.com · 26/09/2026

Don't ask me what possessed my wife and I to go to Nats Park to see baseball in this Dickensian weather. (Verdict on our starting pitcher after two innings: Herz so not good.)

Nationals Park as seen from the 400 section, with rain misting over the field and a visible paucity of fans.

170

Checking out a robotic convenience store during last weekend's visit to L.A. and buying a can of flavored fizzy water there yielded one perspective on the future of retail. Venhub's Q2 earnings filing offered a different perspective.

pcmag.com

I Stopped By This LA Convenience Store to Have a Robot Arm Hand Me a Snack

VenHub's robotic store offers surprisingly cheap prices for snacks and sundries.

231

Seems I blew off a PR pitch to meet with Mashinsky at Web Summit 2021: "Celsius is the leading global cryptocurrency earning and borrowing platform. They’ve seen explosive growth over the past year, surpassing $25 billion in assets and 1 million + customers." Hope their check to Edelman cleared!

020

Says the guy who has posted pictures from AF1 :)

100

More on today's flight: shout-out to the United flight attendants who helped recover a Bluetooth headphone I fumbled below my seat*, first by looking themselves, then having a tech come on board after we landed to fish it out. * a complex biz-class seat, courtesy of a PlusPoints upgrade clearing.

160

I was at Web Summit 2021, where Celsius founder Alexander Mashinsky spoke. But there's nothing in my notes about his center-stage talk. I hope that wasn't because his came right before mine, because then this fraudster would have technically been my opening act.

130

Today's inflight viewing: @benmckenzie.bsky.social's Everyone Is Lying To You For Money. Highly amusing, especially (speaking as a regular Web Summit panel moderator) being reminded of what prominent placement crypto bros have gotten at tech events like that conference.

131

I followed the signs for the G gates, but I'm gonna to have to check my Google Maps location history to see just where I went. This was somehow my first AMS departure to the U.S. originating from Amsterdam; my one earlier flight to States from here started in VNO.

100

Thanks! But what's up with the e-gate right after security?

100

Since I finally slept almost all the way to 6 a.m. today, it's time to return to Eastern Time. Great spending a few days with you, people of #HumanX; thanks, Amsterdam. 🇳🇱 ✈️ 🇺🇸

030

I went through three passport e-gates at AMS to get to my "gate," aka door to a bus to my IAD-bound plane. One of those e-gates may have been a consequence of the Star Alliance lounge's location, but two would still be too many. Is "AMS" Dutch for "FRA"?

130

Rob Pegoraro @robpegoraro.com · 24/09/2026

Can you think of any world leaders whom you would like to put on this train?

Sign on a train in the Netherlands shows a destination of "Den Haag Centraal," the central station in The Hague.

261

Er, Friday evening. (Thanks, jet lag!)

100

Rob Pegoraro @robpegoraro.com · 24/09/2026

Five days later, Google's AI Overview now lists LAX's runways in the correct order. In a search when I'm signed into my account, it doesn't list mention their lengths and widths but does show those details in a signed-out search. 🤷‍♂️

070

Nah, the context was pretty clear that this was about U.S. AI platforms.

100

The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way

A story that should warm the hearts of copy editors everywhere: A failure to proofread a filing for a shell corporation set up to funnel illegal campaign contributions led to this corrupt scheme being exposed. (The part about Trump's DOJ quashing this investigation? Less heartwarming.)

propublica.org

After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump admini...

1166

Interesting pattern I've seen in more than one #HumanX panel: Speakers talk about the need for technological sovereignty for the EU and cite the experience of seeing Anthropic's Mythos model held from release--"a real wake-up call," one said--but then they don't say "Trump" or "the U.S."

132

This panel--also featuring Aikido co-founder Madeline Lawrence and Noma Security CISO Diana Kelley--was a lot of fun to moderate. It's great when your fellow speakers lock into "yes, and" mode.

New AI-Designed Materials Show Promising Potential to Remove "Forever Chemicals" from Drinking Water in Industry-First Breakthrough - Kemira

One result of Cusp's work so far: helping the Finnish firm Kemira develop materials to bond with and remove PFAS chemicals from water. That fits into a pattern I keep seeing of AI being more useful when put to work in designated domains.

kemira.com

Kemira Oyj press release, May 21, 2026 at 9.00 EEST

041