iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 05/10/2026

The illusion of choice: I try to avoid Amazon for purchases when I can, so for online shoe purchases for stuff I can't find in my local brick&mortar places, I've been using Zappos. Only to find out today, that Zappos was bought up by Amazon all the way back in 2009. Oh well. I still like these [...]

Photo of dark blue suede Sperry Topsider shoes

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 01/10/2026

This is the only product that I purchase where the supposed purpose of tariffs beyond just another way for government to grab some of our earnings - that is, as an incentive for domestic manufacturing to sprout up in the face of foreign based competitors that have less overhead - has actually o[...]

photo of a translucent green bottle of "twist of lime" Topo Chico, bottled in Mexico

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 21/09/2026

An ICE agent shot another person today, just 14 miles from my home - at 1:00pm on a Sunday in a busy area. Details are still coming out as to what happened, but from my understanding the man shot, Wilber Perez, was at time working doing DoorDash deliveries, and had come here two years ago from [...]

meme showing a red circle with slash across the symbol of the US Department of Security and "ICE" - meaning to end these organizations

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 20/09/2026

I'm coming a little late to this, as I missed it when it first came to the theaters, but both myself & my kiddo loved loved loved "Project Hail Mary". A refreshing & rare story of a human & an amiable alien using their intelligence & cooperation to save the day, we both had real laughs & tear[...]

Animated Gif of "Rocky", a 5 rock like legged/armed super intelligent alien from the planet Erid, in the movie "Planet Hail Mary"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 18/09/2026

Behind all the "we can't let China beat us out in the race for AI" chatter from the tech-bros & mega-corporations is them trying to prep US taxpayers for ending up on the hook - for yet another bailout when the bubble inevitably pops on all of their poor business decisions. IF we do allow a b[...]

meme showing quote from a Bob Marley lyric saying "Don't let them fool you - or even try to school you"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 17/09/2026

For 21 years I held the distinction of being the last mastering engineer in North America to cut music on a commercial basis using Direct Metal Mastering - but I am happy to say that this distinction has now ended, with not just one, but two studios now offering DMM to the general public - Ster[...]

photo of the author as a young man, in front of the Neumann VMS-82 Direct Metal Mastering record lathe, at Europadisk, Long Island City, New York, June 2004

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 11/09/2026

In part of honoring "never forget" beyond just an empty slogan, for eye witnesses to the Twin Towers falling (such as myself), hearing the President of the United States, fabricating a total fiction of what they did on 9-11, to the point their fake story was essentially an attempt at "stolen v[...]

photograph of wreckage of one of the World Trade Center Towers, afters its collapse, September 11, 2001

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 10/08/2026

Yes, Tex-Mex food can certainly be tasty, but the magnificence of Tex-Somali cuisine should not be under estimated. Food pron courtesy of the Cedar Park Farmers Market. #foodpron #tex-somali #austin #tx #texas #cuisine #yummy #photos #food

Photo of a Somali steak wrap with lettuce, in an East African tortilla with a side of cucumber, tomatoe & onion garnish.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 30/05/2026

Tangible versus Virtual. Here's a great example of how the promise of streaming has been betrayed by cartelized corporate greed. First photo is my recently delivered box set of "The Expanse", 19 DVD's all for $32.40 USd including tax & shipping. Second photo is the... see complete post

Photo of The Expanse DVD boxset containing all 6 seasons, sitting on Total Sonic Media's mastering console

Screen shot of Fandango's bundle for streaming all 6 seasons of The Expanse - costing $59.99

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 30/04/2026

I have had the same Herman Miller Aeron chair as my studio seat, which I still sit like a kid in, for 20 years now, to the point I wore through the entire front webbing over that time. Luckily you can just easily replace the seat module. They included all the needed to... see complete post

Photo of a Herman Miller Aeron chair with broken seat webbing, in front of a mastering studio console

Photo of a Herman Miller Aeron chair with broken seat webbing, as seen from above

Photo of a replacement seat module for a Herman Miller Aeron chair

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 21/04/2026

and memory (let alone attention span) is indeed in seriously short supply these days -> #politics #philosophy #memory #milankundera #authors #novelists #quotes #antifascist #freedom

a photograph of Czech author Milan Kundera, a middle aged man with gray hair, dark eyebrows and piercing eyes, facing the camera, with hands clasped in front of his mouth - with a quote from him: "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 19/04/2026

My jam was the "100 Grand" - don't think this is what is embedded in your medulla though.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 19/04/2026

Oil rig counts, now versus last week, versus last year. This is what the supposed "drill baby drill" looks like under the Trump regime (i.e. a total fiction). Makes even more absurd of his claim that exports can be ramped up, beyond a tiny fraction, to cover the loss o... see complete post

Screen shot of Baker Hughes oil drilling rig count for USA, showing loss of 2 from prior week, and 42 less compared to same time last year.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 14/03/2026

Was excellent hanging out with fellow Texan mastering engineer, and all around mensch, Harold Larue for the start of this year's downsized SXSW. Started last night with a delish dinner at Ramen Tatsuya and then went next door to the iconic Saxon Pub, where we took in a... see complete post

photo of Harold Larue and Steven Berson inside the Saxon Pub, Austin Texas, for SXSW 2026

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 07/03/2026

No, it's not AI, just photos of the saiga antelope, a hold out with roots in the ice age, living in the plains of Siberian, and sadly endangered now. I love these faces! #Photos #photography #cuteanimals #endangeredspecies #exoticanimals #saiga #antelope #animalpics

Photo of a saiga antelope facing forward.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 15/02/2026

Once upon a time I was cool, and did cool things. Pic of the author playing bass with False Face Society at the Eight by Ten, Baltimore Maryland, circa 1990. #Music #bassplaying #electricbass #bassguitar #rock #grunge #photos #1990's #nineties #nostalgia #mullets

Photo of a caucasian man in 20's, sweaty in a white tank top t-shirt, with longish mop top mullet fish black hair, and scruffy 3 day facial hair, playing an Alembic bass

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 09/02/2026

Current view. Have now fully adopted Ardour 9 as my main DAW app for my mastering, as this update contains a few vital navigation & gui improvements, as well as allows for region (aka object) based plugin fx now. I believe mine one of just a very few professional dedic... see complete post

Photo of Total Sonic Media's mastering studio, showing B&W Nautilus 802 floor standing speakers, a desk full of analog hardware equalizers and compressors, the Antelope Amari interface, a painting by Maurice Berson of an abstracted orange guitar emitting sound waves, and a large wall mounted screen showing Ardour 9 recording a stereo track into a mastering session.

A screenshot from a MacMini M4 running Ardour 9 digital audio workstation.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 09/02/2026

In order to watch the Super Bowl, as well as get access to the Jurassic World movies to satisfy my kiddo's current obsession with all things dinosaur, I did a month's subscription to Peacock. In installing the Peacock app onto my Android phone running a "degoogled" crD... see complete post

Screenshot of TrackerControl app running on an Android phone, showing blocked fingerprinting and other tracking requests being made by the Peacock app

Screenshot of TrackerControl app running on an Android phone, showing blocked advertising and analytics requests being made by the Peacock app

Screenshot of TrackerControl app running on an Android phone, showing a list of 10 embedded tracker libraries found in the Peacock app

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 05/02/2026

Wow, this is cray cray, proving in a major way the meme started by xkcd is absolutely true. Seems that "sudo", the function that allows super user administration level commands to be enabled on millions of computers running Linux & BSD, including most of the servers th... see complete post

screen shot from an Android phone of an article from "The Register" with headline stating "Sudo maintainer, handling utility for over 30 years, looking for support"

screen shot from an Android phone of the website of Sudo & openBSD developer Todd C Miller's website, where he is asking for help in continuing to maintain sudo

an illustration by XKCD showing a stack of towering unwieldy blocks labeled as "all modern digital infrastructure", on top of a foundation of larger blocks, but with one thin block holding up an entire end all on its own, labeled "a project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 02/02/2026

Yeah, dirt and cattle don't vote, and only roughly 20% of USA's population lives in rural areas. But beyond that, most places are a gradation of purple, not some mythical monolith. Here's a map that considers population densities, so is way more reflective of reality. #uspolitics #elections #maps

USA Presidential electoral map from 2016, showing population densities, and lots of empty places.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 01/02/2026

Latest nerd accomplishment - got Open Media Vault installed on this diy NAS with overkill hardware, AMD FX6350, 12GB RAM, and super quiet. Now comes the hard part, getting it configured so it does something useful. All I want it to do is backups of orders in progress, ... see complete post

photo of a desktop computer with lid open, showing ssd, 2 sata hard drives, bequiett cpu cooler, bequiett dark power psu

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 30/01/2026

Rest In Peace to the brilliant comedian, actress and writer Catherine O'Hara. For me, SCTV was a must watch throughout my kidhood & beyond, and Catherine often provided some of the characters that generated the gigantic laughs I got from that show. And her talents exte... see complete post

black & white photo of Catherine O'Hara when she was in her late 20's

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 30/01/2026

Cuba to me represents a perfect example of how sanctions almost never work towards their supposed intended goals. It's been 66 years since the USA started and continued embargoes and restrictions against trade and travel with Cuba, and in that time all it did was entre... see complete post

photo of a street in Havana, Cuba, showing some "classic" cars from the 1950's still maintained and running

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 30/01/2026

Happy to see the Recording Academy is doing the right thing, in awarding Fela Kuti a posthumous Grammy for lifetime achievements. Ebami Eda 4ever!! #FelaKuti #afrobeat #music #grammys #naras #recordingacademy #awards #nigeria

Screen capture of headlines in article from the BBC, showing a black&white photo of Fela Anikulapo Kuti smiling and the words: "Music legend Fela Kuti becomes first African to get Grammys Lifetime Achievement Award"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 29/01/2026

For Android users: the ad-free anonymous YouTube front end apps New Pipe & Tubular both stopped working for me, but luckily PipePipe *does* work. f-droid.org/packages/InfinityLoop13… #Fdroid #android #foss #youtube #degoogled #google #newpipe #pipepipe #tubular #apk #apps

Screen shot from an Android phone showing the PipePipe app (ad free YouTube frontend)

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 27/01/2026

Rest In Power to iconic drummer & producer Sly Dunbar. In sessions and tours with the likes of Black Uhuru, Peter Tosh, Grace Jones, Bob Dylan, Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, among numerous others, and in his own group with equally iconic long time collaborator bassist Rob... see complete post

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 27/01/2026

Deportation, in the vast majority of cases, is such an incredibly stupid policy to begin with. First - if someone is convicted of an actual violent crime, then they need to be incarcerated as applicable in an ethically run facility here in the USA - not sent elsewhere... see complete post

photo of two protestors standing in front of a brick building, holding signs, the first saying "stop deportations now", the second saying "no human being is illegal"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 25/01/2026

The snow finally made it's way down to central Texas last night. #photos #snow #austin #texas #atx #winter #winterstorm

Photo of a half inch of snow on the ground in a suburban cul de sac in central Texas, with a kid in a purplish-brownish jacket and an olive hoody facing away from camera, with a large heart with the word "love" inscribed into the snow in front of them

Photo of an empty suburban street in central Texas at night, with a half inch of snow on the ground

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 14/01/2026

**The Labyrinth 40th Anniversary review** *long post warning* Had a rare family movie night at the cinema this past weekend, seeing the 40th Anniversary reissue of The Labyrinth. My kiddo didn't want to see Avatar 3, so given that this classic was something that my wi... see complete post

photo of a movie theater hallway, with a "Labyrinth 40T" lighted sign above a cinema entrance

photo of a movie screen showing a scene from "The Labyrinth", with a young Jennifer Connelly (as Sara) speaking to David Bowie (as the Goblin King Jareth)

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 10/01/2026

Hey, are there any Dungeons & Dragons nerdz on my feed? My kiddo is all too quickly (at least, as far as my perception of time) making the transition from kid to teen, and as she more & more abandons toys and lots of the activities we used to do together on the regula... see complete post

photograph of 3 first edition "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" hardcover books from the 1980's - "Dungeon Masters Guide", "Players Handbook", "Monster Manual"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 05/01/2026

What is sad, is that if there was an actual viable international court system, there would be plenty of very real crimes for which Maduro could be tried for - e.g. the authorization & orders from him to unjustly detain, assault, and even murder a multitude of Venezuela... see complete post

Photograph of Nicolas Maduro in handcuffs wearing a light blue hoodie, surrounded by US law enforcement agents, being led on a tarmac of a NYC airport at night.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 04/01/2026

The conjecture from some analysts is that Delcy Rodriguez & others in the Venezuelan gov & military made a covert deal to give up Maduro in exchange for being left in power, plus some form of economic and political concessions to Trump. That would kind of explain why T... see complete post

Photo from in front of the White House fence in Washington DC, USA, of a protester holding up a Venezuelan flag, while another holds a banner saying "money for people's needs, NOT the War Machine"

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 04/01/2026

IF the USA makes the mistake of ever putting boots on the ground in Venezuela, what will be easy will be neutralizing the Venezuelan military. But, similar to other previous failed attempts by the USA at "nation building", what will be hard will be what happens after t... see complete post

Photograph of a group of 50 or so "Colectivos" in a street in Venezuela - armed masked men, some on motorcycles, some walking.

Photograph of 5 members of the E.L.N. militia, in front of a red & black ELN flag, all holding rifles, wearing green jungle fatigues and black & red masks.

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 02/01/2026

Sad to hear that the venerable 8x10 music venue in Baltimore's Federal Hill, will be closing permanently soon. Grateful I got to play at it a handful of times back in the early 1990's, along with seeing a bunch of great shows there as well. Here's some artifacts I've s... see complete post

Flyer for False Face Society playing at Baltimore music venue 8x10, June 28, 1990

Flyer for The Delicate Prey playing at Baltimore music venue 8x10, October 20, 1992

Flyer for The Delicate Prey playing at Baltimore music venue 8x10, November 11, 1992

Flyer for False Face Society playing at Baltimore music venue 8x10, March 1, 1990

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 02/01/2026

Happy New Year everybody! Checking in with the latest selfie. Feeling a little fuzzy, but seeing with even greater perspective on stuff these days. Aight, time to get spinning some webs. #Hny #photography #selfie #spiders #insects #inspiration #memes #motivation #HappyNewYear

A close up of the face of a golden brown spider, showing 2 large eyes on top, 4 smaller eyes in a row below, and large hairy mandibles

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 27/12/2025

On Why I Am Leaving Corporate Social Media *warning: very long post* Originally posted this on Facebook over a year ago, after an extended hiatus there, and just prior to doing another extended logging off. I think it is relevant to all those moving away from corpora... see complete post

Meme showing Mark Zuckerberg looking like a stiff lizard person, in a blue suit, white collared shirt and cyan tie, while testifying in front of US Congress circa 2018. Text states: "Q. who are Facebook's competitors? A. The entire rest of the internet."

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 25/12/2025

Wishing all my Christian friends & family celebrating the birth of Yeshua ben Nazareth a Joyful Christmas! And wishing all my non-Christian friends & fam, that like me, will very gladly join in any excuse for chillin' together, gift giving, and feasting a very Merry Ch... see complete post

Photo of a gingerbread, snowman, and penguin inflatables sitting on a bench, and reindeers made of logs and sticks in a yard

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Steven Berson @sberson.at.app.wafrn.net · 17/12/2025

Hello good Wafrners! I am new here but really liking what I am seeing here so far. One issue: in trying to import my follow list from my main Mastodon account, I am error-img out in the Wafrn Android app (installed from F-droid). Do I need to just try this from desktop... see complete post

Screen shot of an error report in the Wafrn Android app, showing not able to import a csv of a follow list exported from Mastodon

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