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John VanEnk

@sw17.ch
540 followers 227 following 454 posts

Tacoma, WA. I work at Fastly to try and make the Internet a better place.

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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 16h
October 4 - Nothing here is what it was before.
Flowers crafted of metal arranged on an old piece of wood. Inside the center, a spider is or was.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 04/10/2026
October 3 - I bet it can still signal.
A bulb suspended in place by a horizontal wire because its original housing is missing. A spider has added its own strings.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 03/10/2026
October 2 - A utility pole that's been doing its job for a while now.
A utility pole. Above, out of view, is a street light. There is a large crack running down the middle. Some galvanized marking hardware seems to be missing.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 02/10/2026
October 1 - What remains of a fence board.
The remains of a fence board exposed for unknown years. Tunneling and rot run through it.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 14/08/2026
A terminal screenshot showing the `true` command. "true - do nothing, successfully".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 20/06/2026
look at him
a snail crawling through some yellow plants
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 04/06/2026
creature
a black dog with a graying muzzle looking at the camera and blepping her tongue just a bit
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 13/03/2026
Cassie isn't sure about this.
A large black dog looking unsurely over her shoulder at me as she is about to step down into a snowy yard.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 13/03/2026
My view from my office window here in Tacoma this morning.
A view from a ground floor window looking out over a back yard covered in snow during active snow fall.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 06/12/2025
friendship ended with taylor swift
now
sabrina carpenter
is my
best friend
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 20/09/2025
Someone doesn't like the sound of a nail gun.
My dog under my desk resting her gray muzzle on my knee.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 15/09/2025
This is Boop. They had to do some yelling.
A white sheep biting a cage.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 15/09/2025
Big pumpkin. John for scale.
A 1000lb pumpkin named "Big Dumper".An 800lb pumpkin.Me standing in front of the 800lb pumpkin.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 15/09/2025
Who needs mint? I love the Washington State Fair.
A large drum of mint oil with a sign indicating it's valued at $10,000.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 25/06/2025
Marge Simpson holding a potato labeled RANKED CHOICE saying "i just think they're neat"
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 18/06/2025
nice couch
me sitting on a couch that looks the same as the one i'm replying to
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 30/04/2025
Meme where Bobby Hill holds up a sign against a window, and Principal Moss says "if those kids could read, they'd be very upset", but it's been rephrased to say "if those rebels could tell left from right, they'd be very upset".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 30/04/2025
nyandor
A still shot of Diego Luna's face from his role as Cassian Andor. Also there's nyan cat rainbows trailing off the right.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 29/03/2025
The PNW throws up moss anywhere you can't quite reach.
A chain link fence limiting access to a concrete ledge on which grows thick pillowy moss.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 25/03/2025
Just doing some reading about the design of cryptographic protocols.
A screenshot of the Wikipedia page for Alice and Bob, but with all occurrences of "Alice and Bob" replaced with "Hegseth and Waltz".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 28/02/2025
thanks for 16 years, bud. i'll miss you.
my cat on his back legs pushing his head into my open hand
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 11/02/2025
@rincewind.run I was digging around for my favorite Pratchett quote today and thought of you after I found it. Basically this entire page, and the three lines on the following: "Does what?" "Make a sound. If it falls down when no one's there to hear it." "Who cares?"
"More or less. If you spend your whole time thinking about the universe, you tend to forget the less important bits of it. Like your pants. And ninety-nine out of a hundred ideas they come up with are totally useless."

"Why doesn't anyone lock them away safely, then? They don't sound much use to me," said Brutha.

"Because the hundredth idea," said Om, "is generally a humdinger."

"What?"

"Look up at the highest tower on the rock."

Brutha looked up. At the top of the tower, secured by metal bands, was a big disc that glittered in the morning light.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"The reason why Omnia hasn't got much of a fleet any more," said Om. "That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does a Falling Tree in the Forest Make a Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles," he added. "Always coming up with amazing new ideas, the philosophers. The one before that was some intricate device that demonstrated the principles of leverage by incidentally hurling balls of burning sulphur two miles. Then before that, I think, there was some kind of an underwater thing that shot sharpened logs into the bottom of ships."

Brutha stared at the disc again. He hadn't understood more than one-third of the words in the last statement.

"Well," he said, "does it?"
"Does what?"
"Make a sound. If it falls down when no one's there to hear it."
"Who cares?"
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 10/02/2025
In 2014, a building collapsed next to the office I worked in crushing a bunch of cars parked next to it. Google added snowflakes for fun. This is still very funny to me.
A scene with a building collapsed on several cars. Several people look at the scene. It's covered in snow. Google observed the snow and added a falling snow animation on top of the image.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 18/01/2025
Cold!
The same view as the quoted post, but now the ground and roofs are covered in frost in the early morning.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 17/01/2025
Lemme know if you find this guy
A galaxy drawn in the style of Matt Groening
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 17/01/2025
Ground Clouds
Early-1900s homes and out-buildings in early morning fog.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 16/01/2025
A white disposable cup on a low table in a coffee shop. It has curly writing on it reading "Ponytail John".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 05/01/2025
The Minecraft server has been vandalized.
A minecraft sign reading "person who lives here loves c hates rust"
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 22/12/2024
I have a better idea.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 28/11/2024
Outside has ground clouds.
A street full of fog and street lamps.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 22/11/2024
do you want an office to lease?
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 20/11/2024
went outside, but differently
An aluminum can mostly obscured a vertical drainage pipe Fallen leaves between two curbs in a parking lotA security camera on a wall, but from behind.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 18/11/2024
went outside
mist in the mountains among treesmist in the mountains among treesthe view over the edge of a tall, old bridge spanning a significant valley over a rivera concrete pillar supporting a narrow concrete bridge. it's covered in graffiti of varying effort and skill level.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 17/11/2024
I found a rare thing just sitting on the shelf at a local place that specializes in mules, not whiskey.
Two near pours of Old Forester Birthday Bourbon in front of the bottle.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 17/11/2024
A barge being pushed by a tugboat in the bay.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 15/11/2024
When you're in a rush, there's always canned bean water.
A can of organic dark red kidney beans.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 14/11/2024
Look at him again.
My cat standing up against a stool and pushing his head against my hand, but also his teeth are showing a little. But not in an angry way.My tabby cat standing up against a stool pushing his head into my hand.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 12/11/2024
Do not.
A paper sign on an electric plug reading "don't unplug. keeps turtles alive"Two turtles stacked on top of each other in a greenhouse pool.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 11/11/2024
Look at him.
A tabby cat in a towel turned into a cat sling.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 31/10/2024
I drew this 12 years ago. It remains one of my most insightful observations in firmware development.
A block diagram on a whiteboard. It shows the network relationship for a SPI peripheral from an STM32 microprocessor and a switching device. Between the two devices is a cloud reading "EVIL DEMONS".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 28/10/2024
Look
Telephone wires strung across poles against a partially cloudy sky.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 21/12/2023
microplastics tofu
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 04/12/2023
I'm not sure what the quotations add here, but I don't like it.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 13/10/2023
They're finally selling "family size" packs! 🤤
A large bag of silica gel reading "DESICCANT SILICA GEL DO NOT EAT THROW AWAY".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 25/09/2023
from lwn on the design of "automatic buffer selection for io_uring" lwn.net/Articles/815...
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 22/09/2023
I want the rolly battery.
Two large batteries on wheels for airport use. They're about the size of a car. They say "zero emission" on the side.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 19/09/2023
You love to see it.
Me sitting in the aisle row of a plane, and the middle and window seats are empty.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 25/08/2023
This looks like a content warning badge and I want one.
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 28/07/2023
When you try to program the computer with friends.
A slack status message reading "Several people are typing".
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John VanEnk @sw17.ch · 18/07/2023
I saw something amazing in San Francisco.
A teal Cadillac Escalade parked in an alley in front of a hotel.
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