iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

en.wikipedia.org

Iron Ring - Wikipedia

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 05/09/2026

Gym strip has definitely migrated eastwards since I was a kid. My Albertan ears had no idea what BC people were on about.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 04/09/2026

in case there’s ever a wall-sized version, there’s a “do you know what gym strip is” boundary on the BC-Alberta border, and I think—based on relatives—that somewhere between the Soo and Moose Jaw moving westwards it goes from ”a hamburg“ to “a burger”

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 01/09/2026

just spent weeks trying to get cable TV properly sorted out for my father-in-law with dementia—which I incorrectly imagined was a solved and much simpler problem—so I can only imagine how much this thing is gonna get yelled at in frustration, all of it stupid low-hanging fruit.

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404 Media @404media.co · 17/08/2026

EXCLUSIVE: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Investigation by @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social here: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

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ceej @ceej.online · 31/07/2026

ANTHROPIC: Our son loves humanity and for the low price of trillions and trillions of dollars will usher in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity! OPENAI: Our horrible oafish son is hacking web sites without our permission. ANTHROPIC: (eyes narrowing) Our son is also evil

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Steve T PhD @thelasttheorist.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

If you then asked AI for an etymology of "monter," IT WOULD GIVE YOU ONE. [Kyle Reese voice]: "That's what it does! That's all it does!"

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Steve T PhD @thelasttheorist.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I wanted to fix all the "monters" in the e-book but our contracts with the publishers were to make an exact e-book, not a new edition of the work. So, maddeningly, I had to complete the ebook with lots of Gila monters. Cute little guys.

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Steve T PhD @thelasttheorist.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

It's pretty impressive that 404's story put a stop to this pipeline to the wood chipper. As a former e-book production person, I just want to add some considerations about the *data* the AI companies were getting, and implications for the output.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 21/07/2026

Instead of forcing everyone who uses the Internet to cough up their sensitive personal data to private companies and to the federal government to “protect” kids, regulators and law COULD go way harder at rooting out the many freaks and creeps in high tech company leadership positions, like at Meta

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 21/07/2026

so to greenlight an unbearably sad little popup plaza for a crony, a mayor's office can move mountains, but if for some decision a bureaucracy for its own mysterious reasons hides information, there's just no way such an office could intervene, my expectations are very unreasonable and naive

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 15/06/2026

I asked a birder friend a few years ago what you call the black birds with the yellow heads and he said yellow-headed blackbirds and I said yeah, those ones, what are they called

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 31/05/2026

“free as in mattress.”

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Daniel Janus 💙💛 #StandWithUkraine @danieljanus.pl · 28/05/2026

Programming in #Clojure on the #reMarkable, the way God intended. (Better video and a writeup coming soon)

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skeet shooting @saemg.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

also it requires digital backdoors, which means not only do we lose secure private communication, but these backdoors are found and exploited by bad actors and/or abused by those with access cryptographic experts have repeatedly proven that there is no such thing as a secure encryption backdoor

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Avi Lewis @avilewis.ca · 27/05/2026

5/ There's an official petition to withdraw C-22, sponsored by NDP MP @jennykwan.bsky.social. More than 2,600 Canadians have signed. We need more. Add your name and ask others to do the same while it's still at committee: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

ourcommons.ca

Petition e-7416 - Petitions

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 01/10/2025

I let out a full guffaw when he pulls the sword off the wall because, of *course*. Then the LEDs come on. Genius. (Just finished reading book 8 and, really, every page that involves Roddy is a pure delight).

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 29/09/2025

No, but I wouldn't make plans for 36-ish hours following, if my classmates back in the day were anything to go by.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 29/09/2025

I'm not sure if they still do it, but definitely do not try to get yourself on the screaming hot wings wall of fame, no matter how much of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that might seem.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 17/09/2025

If I remember right, the liquor store at 8th & Cambie in Vancouver started out its life as an elevated McDonalds like this one.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 16/09/2025

I love computers for not having to do perspective by hand any more, but very don't love that software vendors just don't seem to be able to resist thinking they know my job better than I do.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 16/09/2025

Then I'm also an outlier. It bugs me that the data representation in SketchUp is just a tiny bit too anemic, and that the BIM everthing-in-a-defined-category approach just assumes the edges of "yeah that's a wall" aren't fuzzy as heck in a lot of halfway-interesting buildings.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 08/09/2025

Perhaps better: make it one of those little free library-style boxes on a post to celebrate it. (Oh and my brain immediately sprang to this so as to be an enabler on the RPi issue): bowshock.nl/irc/)

bowshock.nl

Start your own Internet Resiliency Club – Bow Shock Systems Consulting

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 07/07/2025

Obviously this is right off to the side and hardly the point, but when this particular hairsplitting organization to end all hairsplitting orgs can't figure out an "its" from "it's" (and whatever the heck "its'" is) I suggest it might be time to stick a fork in it.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 26/06/2025

Oh, damn, this is _such_ a thing in the world that should have a name. (I'm sure there's a long German one). Things that are mechanically simpler have compensating practice demands. Other examples: charcoal barbecues versus propane, sourdough versus yeast ...

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 24/05/2025

My vague recollection is that some of it’s about occupancy restrictions, worries/assertions that big decks need to be treated as assembly occupancies and not really residential, ie. tightly packed with people unfamiliar with the exiting.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 20/05/2025

revise ecru rain water leader to taupe, coffee, cream, fawn or mushroom per UDP

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 20/05/2025

better if you ask for 1.4mm and also throw a quick note about ensuring standard ambient temperature and pressure into the general conditions

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 20/05/2025

89x140 studs but at 405 o/c (when 25.4 x 16" = 406.4). Sometimes use the nearest 5mm convention, sometimes not. I guess in fairness I wasn't spec'ing what _temperature_ I meant when I spec'd the length, so who knows how long the building was at that moment and so a bit of slop seems appropriate.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 25/03/2025

The latter, but before this fuckup I would have imagined they were at least aware of the existence of official secure comms channels.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 15/03/2025

Follow-up thought: I remember a bunch of these simple dev GUIs in NeXTSTEP and early Mac OS X / OS X Server. I can't decide if their absence is an indictment of the everything-a-pane-in-Xcode philosophy, or SwiftUI, or both, or neither.

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rgm @ryanmccuaig.net · 14/03/2025

I have some binaries that I have been maintaining for a client for 17 years. The last 6-7 years have been deeply unpleasant: the software is done and needs no new functionality, but it's still a day or two every September to figure out how I need to differently beg the new OS version to run it.

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Padraig @padraig.org · 03/02/2025

They should sell $10 tickets where you just get to boo the us anthem and don't have to stay for the hockey

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Peter Waldkirch 華彼德 @pwaldkirch.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

It's totally clear: if you care about climate action, or even just want politicians to make decisions based on fact and evidence, ABC is not the party for you. This look at ABC's climate votes is particularly humiliating for Mike Klassen. We deserve better. thenarwhal.ca/vancouver-mi...

When I emailed Klassen to ask about the discrepancy between his claims and Statistics Norway data, in reply he sent a treatise about Norway’s electrification and how it has imperilled both affordability and emissions reductions. Klassen’s emailed statement asserted that recurring equipment maintenance costs can “push heating expenses to 12 to 18 per cent of household disposable income.” Statistics Norway data shows average house maintenance costs in 2022 made up only 0.2 per cent of household expenditures, while spending on the “repair, installation and hire of household appliances” didn’t even register statistically.
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By email, Klassen asserted, “Norway’s ban on residential natural gas hasn’t reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.” But this, too, appears to be unfounded. “It is wildly untrue to state Norway hasn’t reduced emissions from household heating,” Ketan Joshi, a communications consultant and energy analyst based in Oslo, Norway, emailed in response to my questions. “Since 2010, emissions from burning fossil gas for power and emissions related to household heating have both fallen significantly.” The electrification of heating in Norway has led to an 80 per cent drop in carbon dioxide emissions from heating over the past 30 years.

I responded to Klassen to confirm the source of his long email statement, asking whether the source was a human or artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT. He replied by email, “I often seek expert help on complex issues like energy.” When I pushed again to confirm the source, asking whether the research used to compile his emailed statement was compiled by a human, I did not receive a reply.

Why Klassen is citing such questionable statements from an unnamed source is a mystery. This is the same councillor who opened his question period to staff about the gas ban by saying, “I think we’re all determined to … having a rigorous fact-based decision here.”

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Jill Atkey @jfatkey.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

I have some thoughts 👇 Supportive housing exists because our systems sometimes fail people. It’s the solution, not the problem. And we need more of it. A lot more. vancouversun.com/opinion/op-e...

vancouversun.com

Jill Atkey: Mayor Sim's call for a pause on new supportive housing leaves Vancouverites with more questions than answers

Ken Sim's call for a pause on new supportive housing creates questions and panic — an announcement without a plan puts lives at risk

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