iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Also a reminder, they haven't handed out all the Nobel Prizes yet, so if you get a late night phone call from country code +46 (Sweden) or +47 (Norway), you better answer because if it goes to voice mail, they'll just give the Peace Prize to the next person on the list.

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OK then. Time for 1000% Canadian tariffs on Tesla and Starlink.

Tweets from Elon suggesting dismantling Canada

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For your next visit to the eye doctor, a checklist

I've got an eye appointment coming up, s a reminder - some suggestions for your next visit to the eye doctor:

blog.hayman.net

Some suggestions about what to say.

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CRA closed the conversation with "Have a lovely rest of your day." I advised them to check back with me in November to see if I did.

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April 8: Submitted 2025 taxes. Awaiting refund. June 9: Asked CRA what's going on. "Check back after August 19" August 20: Asked CRA what's going on. "Check back after October 7". October 8: Asked CRA what's going on. "Check back after November 4". I wonder what they'll tell me on November 5.

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just hypothetically, how bad of a Canadian would you be if you're excited that a Canadian just won the Nobel Prize for Literature but also you have never heard of her

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y'know what, I hate everybody that ruined the simple way you used to be able to send email to people and they'd actually receive it

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In a Jeopardy Daily Double, you can bet all your money, or up to the highest value on the board. Have $4000, bet $4000, that's a "True Daily Double." Everybody cheers. But what if you have $200 and bet $500? That's even better than a True Daily Double, isn't it?

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Also in the Department of UW Warriors Band Nostalgia Department of Nostalgia, here is a letter The Queen sent the band 47 years ago this week.

A letter on Buckingham Palace stationery, which reads: “Dear Mr. Hayman - I am commanded by The Queen to thank you for your letter of 20th September er and for your kind message of loyal greetings which you have sent on behalf of the University of Waterloo Warriors Band. Her Majesty also appreciated your invitation to visit the Warriors Band the next time she is in the Waterloo area in Ontario.”

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Here for nostalgia: an ancient UW Warriors Band recruiting poster from 45 years ago

Black and white poster of a euphonium orbiting the earth, with the text “Occupy Space: Join the Warriors Band’

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Y'know what, relying on an email list from the UW Warriors Band 40th Anniversary is not a great way to reach people about the 60th Anniversary. (Waterloo band friends, if you haven't heard about the October 17 gathering, please get in touch!)

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whyisthisinteresting.substack.com

This is amazing and needs to spread worldwide: the Pittsburgh Parallel Parking Championship h/t @mathewingram.com and his delightful newsletter: newsletter.mathewingram.com/?...

The Pittsburgh Parallel Parking Championship Edition

On a long-standing family debate that became a street party.

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Kids, get this: you used to be able to "dial" the phone by flashing the switch hook in the right pattern. (And you were annoyed by people with a lot of 9's or 0's in their number.)

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I think it's learned how to make perfectly round holes from the local carpenter bees.

message when cancelling the previous service: "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RETURN THE ADAPTOR." I guess they don't need rotary-phone-capable equipment any more either

Switched to a cheaper home phone plan and one unexpected side effect is that my rotary-dial phone doesn't work any more. (frankly, I'm surprised it worked before.)

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I wonder if I could draw the design I wanted on it and they'd respect it. If the squirrels had any integrity, they would.

Local council candidate dropped off a. brochure and … it lists his web site as ".com" (not found) instead of ".ca" (correct.) I'm not sure I'd vote for this particular guy, but in the interests of local democracy I'll let him know (and that he could get the .com too for $10.)

Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

New Pumpkin Carving Strategy: Leave pumpkin outside and perhaps a talented squirrel will come by and excavate the interior for you.

A pumpkin on the ground; a hole has been cut in it and the pumpkin guts scattered along the driveway

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Yes, yes, I can hear all the youth saying "Why do you still have a home line?" well it's a phone number we've had for 20+ years, it might be the only way some people know how to connect with us so we can't just … you know what, i don't have to explain it thanks

Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Fifteen years ago today, our team meeting in IL1 ground to a halt as the news made it to Cupertino that Steve Jobs had passed away. Campus sure was quiet. And I remember how impressed I was that all of Apple's competitors - Google, Microsoft, even Dell - had something about SJ on their home page.

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Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Tired of paying $25/month for a home phone where we only get maybe 1 legit call a month, so we are gradually getting rid of the home phone by switching to a different provider that's only $5/month.

Your corporate travel agent would actually FedEx you a paper ticket; if it was last-minute, they'd issue a dreaded "prepay" ticket which meant you had to go to the airport and wait for Air Canada's slowest employees to use their slowest system to print something. that terminal has been torn down

also, kids, listen up: your plane ticket used to be an actual piece of flimsy paper, and your boarding pass was a cardboard sleeve that the ticket slipped into, and occasionally slipped out of, and when that happened, you were in trouble.

Or that time I was flying home from Pittsburgh on Air Canada, and I walked up to the Nordair (RIP) gate and said "Here's my Air Canada actual paper ticket … can I fly with you instead?" and they said "Sure."

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I remember thinking, circa 2000, "I've flown every week for an entire year and there's hardly ever been anybody in the seat beside me."

One of my facebook memories came up today from 17 years ago where I mentioned how much fun it was to have a trip that started in one month and ended in another because you might get to read two different issues of the in-flight magazine. Got me thinking about other never-again air travel things….

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Luckily for the captive audiences of the world I eventually figured out a way to build a demo that was different every time, and I thank you all for letting me build an app that played your school fight song with a bouncing ball, and I especially thank the brave people who agreed to sing along.

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Prior to the lifting of the SDK NDA, it was pretty weird. Anybody could download the SDK and build something, but we weren't allowed to talk about it, let alone show it to you, except in very tightly controlled settings (and no way they were letting boneheads in the field like me show it off.)

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Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

18 years ago today, the NDA on the first iPhone SDK was lifted. That night, I ditched my MacSysAdmin 2008 presentation and built an app in front of people instead. Eventually I mastered advanced techniques like 'putting images on the tab bar items', but you gotta start somewhere.

screen shot of a simple iPhone app with three tab views labelled ‘Wednesday’, ‘Thursday’ and ‘Friday’

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coming soon: Doug Ford announces plans to tear up the busway

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sure, me and the thousands of other people that show up in a LinkedIn search :-)

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Wait, hang on, a desktop pencil case made from floppies? Hmm…. youtu.be/YNqYEMuoQAI?si=TQIn3...

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So… #CFL in Québec… It's time to adopt the mighty Narwhal. ("Narval" en Français.) THINK OF THE HATS YOU COULD SELL WITH A TUSK COMING OUT OF THE FRONT. Les Narvals de Québec. A mighty whale found in the Canadian arctic - including in northern Quebec, with a fearsome tusk coming out of its head.

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(OK, the 2020 stanley cup was won by the Tampa Bay Lightning, who beat the Dallas Stars 4 games to 2, and the entire thing was played in Edmonton in September because maybe you remember how weird 2020 was. hence 'Canadian-based.')

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I suppose if you spam enough Apple people you found in your LinkedIn search, someone might reply. Seems like an odd way to get info for your 'single investor client' though.

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Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Some researcher on LinkedIn wants my view on John Ternus's leadership. "This is for the internal use of a single investor client looking into promising businesses and leaders. " Um, I dunno, I guess he's a nice guy, I don't think I ever actually met him, and I'm retired anyway, so how's that?

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Six years ago today, a Canadian-based team finally won the Stanley Cup. That was weird.

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Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

selfie video creators with iPhones, I'm begging you: Settings > Camera > Mirror Front Camera, turn this OFF. If you don't, then the text on your shirt, on your hat, on that sign in the background is backwards. And it's very distracting.

A view of the Camera settings on an iPhone, with "Mirror Front Camera" turned OFF

Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

and to answer your obvious question, yes, it does discuss the difference between cement and concrete. briefly. until john wilson gets distracted.

Steve Hayman 🇨🇦 @shayman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just back from seeing and thoroughly enjoying John Wilson's "The History of Concrete." Although I didn't learn much about the history of concrete, it was still a fun mind-bending free-association journey of random this and that and you should go see it, especially if you liked HBO's "How To"