iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 13/09/2026

OK, what’s next in Project All Public Conversations Must Be About AI All The Time? Well, “we’ve achieved AGI” only lasted a few days but “AI will kill us all” has legs. And “AI will take your job” is still strong. Goooood. What’s next? We have “AI girlfriends” and “AI food” cued up for November

The Bilderberg Group, or the Trilateral Commission, or the World Security Council, or something: a bunch of shadowy figures controlling everything

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 02/09/2026

Without saying your age, what is your favorite movie that came out when you were 20 years old? This is harder than it looks. Pretty much all my favourite films came out AROUND when I was 20 but not actually IN that year. Weird that all the best films in history came out exactly when I was that age

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 31/08/2026

As ever, the Map Men explain county names correctly!

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 16/08/2026

getting there with the look of it, I think. I'm not great at this stuff, but I feel like I'm getting this to be something like it wants to be in my head!

A snippet of a page of a TTRPG supplement, with big bold heading text at strange angles, against large colour blocks in red; it looks quite striking, if I do say so myself. The largest text, partially cut off, reads "VITRIOLIC POWERS"; below that is "TABLE I - LESSER VITRIOLIC POWERS", and below that a table describing a power called "Detect Vitrium".

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 13/08/2026

Has anyone been to this "Museum of BAM" thing at nook gallery in Kings Heath? It's supposed to be a sort of partly-fictionalised history of Brum. And heavily coded with the best Batman film, too. Clearly I need to drop in at some point in the next couple of weeks

A large poster with much imagery taken from or alluding to Batman, the 1989 Tim Burton film. It reads "MUSEUM OF B()AM" and "A CELEBRATION OF BIRMINGHAM" in the film's title font, where "BAM" looks like it's meant to be the dread "BHAM" but with the (comic) Joker's face over the H. In the middle, Jack Nicholson as the Joker throws his arms wide in a purple trenchcoat (it's from the scene where Trust is playing as he's giving away money in the parade) and scattered around are images of Michael Keaton, Batman, Kim Basinger, and the like in sort of polaroids or old fashioned photos. At the bottom it says "7 August - 30 August 2026, nook gallery, Kings Heath" with the BAM!BAM! and nook logos.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 05/08/2026

Where could you and the people choosing the next Bond have diverged on the immensely complicated flowchart of choosing? It is a mystery.

A flowchart. It reads: “pick someone Stephen’s mum thinks is dishy”, which goes to a decision box reading “some choices will annoy some shouty people on the internet. Do we care?”
A branch labelled “obviously No” leads to “the choice was easy”
A branch leading to “cravenly yes” leads to a series of boxes reading “welcome to / the infinite hell of / pandering to / more pathetic villains / than Bond ever faced”

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 03/08/2026

The tournament at Harrenhal seems to be the bloody Omphalos of the A Song of Ice and Fire world: just about everything that formed their current world seems to have got started there. I wonder what actually happened there? Maybe this will tell me. www.rsc.org.uk/game-of-thro...

Me standing outside the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre in Stratford upon Avon, next to a big sign for The Mad King, the play

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 03/08/2026

Either Bill Sienkiewicz or Alex Ross, I think, although having gone to look for a good example of Sienkiewicz's work (I was thinking Resurrection Night) I found a bunch of stuff he's done which I would not have expected, so maybe not!

The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade. A print by Bill Sienkiewicz. It's sort of messy, abstract, the image made up of blobs and lines and not at all photorealistic; a heavily muscled Batman looms standing behind the Joker, shirtless and sat in a round wicker chair. Batman is in shadow; the Joker is lit by a bright light which over-exposes his face. He's manspreading remarkably. Batman looks angry, with teeth gritted; the Joker is, not surprisingly, smiling with disconcerting glee.

Two panels from Kingdom Come, painted by Alex Ross. I should really have picked the iconic Shazam shot, but this one's funnier. An aged Bruce Wayne sits with Clark and Diana in a cafe. Bruce says that Luthor sends his best. Clark asks: really? And Bruce says: no.
The art style is, it's painted rather than drawn and inked. I am short of art-crit words to describe this sort of thing, but it looks very Alex Ross to me; instantly recognisable.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 27/07/2026

Birmingham City Council, no! An email: "register on the electoral roll", with a link to some random site (elecreg.co.uk). The email saying "check it's authentic, at www.birmingham.gov.uk/ecanvass%22. Actual official council webpage! well done! And the web page. Which DOES NOT MENTION ELECREG. Argh!

The email as mentioned.
(no transcription here: the pertinent parts are the registration link and the council link, mentioned above)

The council web page as mentioned, at the council link, which is public, and which does not mention the elecreg URL to confirm that it's legitimate.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 27/07/2026

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice In Chains. Who dares to condemn?

Portishead's "Dummy": a blue-tinted photo of a woman descending a corridor of stairs, taken from below and starkly lit by white lights, as a wide horizontal stripe across the album cover with empty blue above and below like the thickest cinema black borders ever. "Portishead" and "Dummy" are above and below the image, to left and right.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 24/07/2026

Folding up a bag of Smiths scampi fries, as is right and proper. My daughter does this and it really annoys her partner. I am quietly proud. (Also she tells me that they don’t do Cheese Moments any more! The humanity!)

A very small pyramid which used to be a crisp packet until it was folded up small in origami fashion, leaning against a pint of lager

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 13/07/2026

You know Troy? One of the great cities of antiquity, wooden horse, Helen and Paris, the Trojan War, all that? This city that bestrides history like a colossus was, in fact, about the same size as a small shopping mall. Roughly the same as the Bullring in Birmingham.

A map of ancient Troy (all nine versions) labelled "Historic Troy" and a snippet from Google Maps showing the Bullring and labelled "The Bullring, Birmingham". Maps are approximately the same scale, so as to be comparable, and Troy and the Bullring are indeed about the same size.
Troy (showing Troy I - Troy IX) is from https://archaeology.org/travel/interactivemap-troy/.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 07/07/2026

The bin welcomes the opportunity

Count Binface in full regalia (a space dark lord with a bin for a helmet) below the caption
BINDEPENDENCE DAY
TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 01/07/2026

yeah yeah get down with the trumpets #SkaDay

Post by Jay Chanoine (alt from https://mastodon.social/@Mabande)
"Christians, WTF. You get all up in arms about losing Easter to chocolate bunnies and The True Meaning of Christmas… THE BIBLE LITERALLY TELLS YOU JULY FIRST IS SKA DAY AND WE'VE NEVER CELEBRATED THIS."
Attached is a Bible excerpt from Numbers 29:1: "On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is a day for you to sound the trumpets."

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 30/06/2026

clearly IK+ (although that AC Shadows one is neat)

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 26/06/2026

Quote with a game you’re currently playing

A photo of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2014

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 21/06/2026

Plus, when I held him, he smiled. Just a little bit. I don’t think he actually knows about smiling yet really, but he’s inventing it from first principles. Good work, little man. I’m really looking forward to all the stories we’re going to read and tell together. Better get some Werther’s Originals.

Me, ginger white guy, holding my day-old grandson, considerably smaller ginger white guy

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 05/06/2026

It's a joke that's been around since the 70s, one of those things that was passed around as a photocopy. Nowadays it'd be called a meme :) (I cheated and looked up which book Pratchett borrows the swing idea in and it was Soul Music and I can't find my copy)

Various states of a tree swing with rope tied to a plank to sit on and a horizontal high branch of a tree, in a piece of faxlore from the 1970s.

1. "as marketing requested it" - a tree rope swing with three plank seats, stacked vertically
2. "as sales ordered it" - one plank seat but three ropes, one of which joins to the middle of the seat
3. "as engineering designed it" - a normal rope swing with one plank and two ropes, but the ropes are tied around the trunk instead of a high branch and the swing is therefore on the floor and does not, in any way, swing
4. "as we manufactured it" - normal swing but the ropes are tied to branches on opposite sides of the tree so swinging would come to a very abrupt stop when you smacked into the tree
5. "as field service installed it" - the picture mentioned upthread. A rope swing with ropes tied to branches on opposite sides of the tree, but with almost the whole trunk entirely excised so the swing can move freely; the top part of the tree is now held up by props to either side
6. "what the customer wanted" - a rubber tyre hanging from the tree by one single rope

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 31/05/2026

I’d give the dice chap a shout out but I thought he was called UK Made Dice and he wasn’t and now I can’t bloody find it again in all this #ukge chaos. So, sorry about that, chap. Nice dice though! I don’t normally go for the ornate ones, especially skulls (I’m not 14 any more) but I like these.

Dice in black and gold metal, looking a bit like skeletons, in a metal presentation tin

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 31/05/2026

Ok ok when you’re talking to actual @kierongillen.bsky.social and @friede.bsky.social and @gshowitt.bsky.social all at once, maybe a stronger person might be able to resist buying the hardback DIE RPG (and shameless name-dropping) but not me. It’s fabulous. The art is v nice.

Featureless enormous people with the appearance of 1920s statues à la Metropolis, staring without eyes down on a shadowed crouching figure. The style is colourful without being cartoonish, block colour streaked vertically

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 28/05/2026

You're right, Google. As of now, there is no f'in search. Not any more.

A Google search for 'how many fs in "useful search"'.

Below is an "AI Overview" reading:

There are 2 'f's in the phrase "useful search":
Useful
find (not present, "search")
Wait, let's break down the exact spelling:
u s e f u l (1)
s e a r c h (no 'f')
Ah, let's count them again!
Useful
Search... wait, there is no 'f' in search!
There are exactly 2 'f's in "useful search".
AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 22/05/2026

heya! Thank you! Unfortunately, that one's actually an issue with the transcript as published by @criticalrole.bsky.social themselves, as you can see. But their transcription team are cool and hopefully will be able to fix it if they're asked to!

The Critical Role cast in a YouTube video of C3E41, with the transcript displayed on YouTube to the right of the video with a duplicated phrase showing.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 17/05/2026

Gone through all the saved plastic boxes from Chinese takeaways for storing stuff and… paired them up with the correct lids and labelled them. I’m like the 2020s Marie Kondo.

A bunch of disposable plastic boxes, all of which have lids, and which are labelled with letters

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 13/04/2026

If you see this post an image you saved because it made you laugh.

4 panel comic of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader fighting with lightsabres in Star Wars. Darth says: I made you some toast. Kenobi replies: it's a bit on the dark side, isn't it? Vader: lol. Kenobi: lol

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 10/04/2026

I haven't got the book, but I have got the "splinters", a sort of PDF preview of it, and it's neat. I especially like some of the art: whoever did the style where it all looks blurred and distorted, like this picture that leads in a chapter, has a very nice style indeed. Wish I knew how to do that!

A bald man in a dark jacket and light shirt grins unpleasantly. It's a painting, but distorted, as though it's made up of a load of transparent pieces all laid on top of one another and misaligned.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 02/04/2026

This is the 5th edition book I had here in the UK when I was a kid. I can still quote it much from memory; the stuff about Fang, bits of rules here and there. I think having read this and Dragon Warriors and Titan as well as D&D/AD&D gave me a sense of range in fantasy ttrpgs which helps to this day

Tunnels and Trolls: The Complete Fantasy Game Rule Book
A red cover on which a beleagured adventurer fires a bolt of magical energy at a marauding troll (take that, you fiend!)

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 30/03/2026

problem with network speed solved. also, pretty patch cable with yellow ends, you are the weakest link (literally), goodbye. probably will still buy @8none1.org a beer anyway :-)

screenshot of fast.com showing 950Mbps download speed

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 10/02/2026

Guy Fawkes is executed in London after ̶ ̶t̶r̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶l̶i̶a̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ playing Super Hexagon in public

A 1606 etching by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher, depicting Fawkes's public execution in Westminster

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 28/01/2026

this is cool. Minor bug report image below: is it doing regexp searches for stuff rather than proper parsing? (I suppose making a parser which understands all the borderline-invalid-but-we-used-it-as-a-hack stuff is v. hard, ask any browser engineer)

relicss showing that it doesn't like a CSS comment reading /* html blah blah..., presumably because it regexp-matched "* html" as the ancient IE star html hack

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 22/01/2026

Amazingly, the PC Gamer headline is a proper reflection of what was said. What most annoys me is they believe they have a right to do a thing they acknowledge is damaging, which'll maybe be good eventually (which they acknowledge it isn't yet) and the only limit is "quick! before the bubble bursts!"

PC Gamer headline: "Microsoft CEO warns that we must 'do something useful' with AI or they'll lose 'social permission' to burn electricity on it" by Tyler Wilde

Right now, the zeitgeist is a little bit about the admiration for AI in its abstract form or as as technology.
But I think we as even a global community have to get to a point where we are using this to do something useful.
That changes the outcomes of people and communities and countries and industries. Otherwise I don't think this makes much sense.
In fact I would say we will quickly lose even the social permission to actually take something like energy, which is a scarce resource, and use it to generate these tokens, if these tokens are not improving health outcomes, education outcomes, public sector efficiency, private sector competitiveness across all sectors, small and large, right? And that to me is ultimately the goal.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, Davos 2026
youtube.com/watch?v=1co3zt3-r7I

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 12/01/2026

It took me three weeks to get to making these, but that gave the panettone a chance to go stale. Delicious. Great work on the recipe! And it's fun mixing it all up with your hands, isn't it? www.nigella.com/recipes/pane... for anyone else who wants to try them

Nigella's panettone stuffing squares; like savoury brownies artfully displayed on a black patterned plate on a fire-engine red table mat

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 03/01/2026

Be careful today. It’s quite slippery outside.

Gravel outside on which rests a pair of slippers

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 31/12/2025

Well done Yorkshire Heart for Quaffer. A very easygoing beer, which I suppose is exactly the point given the name. My dad would have been well pleased with it and the strength of it, and I’m enjoying it a bunch.

A tap badge for Yorkshire Heart’s Quaffer, a session pale ale at 3.4% abv

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 08/12/2025

Name an actor who you think has an iconic voice. Eartha Kitt.

Eartha Kitt, sharp-featured black woman with high cheekbones, wearing a hair wrap and a cocktail dress with her arms crossed her long-nailed fingers spread

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 04/12/2025

Excellent chance for 2000AD to do the Punisher thing and make it clear that this ain’t the way.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 26/11/2025

hugely missed opportunity in The Mighty Nein animated series, in my opinion

Still from The Mighty Nein animated series.
A dark-skinned woman with a dark topknot and wearing a blue gi over athletic clothing (Beau) is searching a bed of lichen. A scruffy-looking pale-skinned man wearing a ragged overcoat and long scarf (Caleb) is holding a flaming torch and facing her.
Beau: You ever been to a Cobalt Soul library?
Caleb: Nein.
Beau: Nine? We haven't got nine, we've only got seven.

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Stuart Langridge @sil.kryogenix.org · 22/11/2025

Today’s cooking experiment: honeyed figs stuffed with nuts and pepper. Cheers to @tastinghistory.bsky.social for the recipe. I should really be watching gladiators fighting while eating these. www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/roma...

A plate of figs covered in sticky honey and stuffed with ground nuts.

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