iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 30/09/2026

I may have a problem; I just ordered another one...

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 27/09/2026

Relative wear on Yubikeys...

Three Yubikeys, showing progressive wear

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 25/09/2026

Another day, another quantum leap forward in software engineering

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 20/09/2026

Whoever owned this phone last was _really_ picky about their Tinder matches...

A refurbished Pixel phone with a visible horizontal wear mark in the middle of the screen. The shape suggests someone has forcefully swiped left repeatedly.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 19/09/2026

In today's episode of "It Ain't Stupid If It Works"...

A USB-A Yubikey on a keyring plugged into a Google USB-A-USB-C adaptor (used for legacy phone transfers), plugged into a Pixel 6 Pro being used to login to Bitwarden via WebAuthn.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 18/09/2026

Remember "Don't use rude words about LLMs, you might make them angry!"

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 14/09/2026

TIL Sydney will get a total solar eclipse in July 2028.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 03/09/2026

<Attenborough voice>: The receding ice signals the beginning of the thaw and the herald of spring for the simple people of this remote land.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 26/08/2026

Heads up NSW peeps, flu is spiking:

Graph showing a spike in influenza-like presentations in NSW.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 26/08/2026

AI bros: AI will usher in a golden age of prosperity and from from sickness and toil! Also AI bros: bsky.app/profile/hailey.at/post/3mt…

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 25/08/2026

No cheating. Share the last photo of the sky from your camera roll

120

Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 09/08/2026

Starting to show some adoption...

2 Grafana gauges showing IPv6 as 97.8% of the traffic though my router.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

Step #5: Success! It's been in production for a couple of weeks now and seems to be holding steady. It's not quite as strong as I'd like; I have another magnet so I might end up attaching it on the other side of the door to finish the job properly.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

Step #3: Apply messy magnet to the door.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

Step #2: Make a fucking mess, then apply mess to the magnet.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

Step #1: Clean and sand the surface for maximum grip. (You can see that the magnet is already starting to chip.)

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

Problem #2: While the oven frame is steel the part of the door that butts up against it is aluminium. So we need some manner to attach our magnet to _that_ side. Seems simple, just epoxy it on. The only problem is heat again; household epoxies start to break down at about 60℃.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

OK, let's look into fucking magnets! Neodynium ones! ~2.5Kg force per CM²!? Awesome, give them them to your kids, what could go wrong?

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

The door frame, inside the door area but outside the main oven seal, is steel, a evidenced by this helpful little fridge-magnet. What if I attached a magnet to it, a really strong one, to pull on the door closed!

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

The oven came with the house and the door hasn't *quite* closed properly on one side for some time; not unusable but annoying. Thing is, the replacement parts are $300+, assuming they would fix the issue anyway; I should probably just replace the whole thing but frankly I can't be arsed right now.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 06/08/2026

The oven door doesn't close properly? Right, we're going to MacGyver the shit out of this thing ... with Fucking Magnets!

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 18/07/2026

Oh look, it has a chatbot. Let's see what it thinks about SpaceX...

AI chatbot thinks that SpaceX is publicly traded.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 18/07/2026

The site is for an AI-driven investment platform BTW.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 27/06/2026

Maree made me a weighted blanket for my birthday.

A blue & green multi-colored crocheted blanket spread on a table. Shiny beads a woven into it.

111

Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 23/06/2026

Someone said this online and I had to check but: the Iran MoU funnels more money to Iran in one go than the all aid to Israel since 1948 combined, including military aid.

Graph of US foreign aid by country; Israel is $318 billion.

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 13/06/2026

Mildly interesting; a local-LLM powered graphical text-adventure engine: github.com/newideas99/open-dungeon

Advertisement for The Hobbit, including the text: "THE HOBBIT program is capable of very sophisticated communications, including features not previously thought possible on a microcomputer: adjectives, adverbs, multiple sentences, are just a part of the power of this program."

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 18/05/2026

You'd think the one thing the spicy autocomplete machine would be good at is actual autocomplete but no.

Autocomplete falling to make the link between "sausages" and "butcher"

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 13/05/2026

And this worked example of a share investor only talks about indexation (resulting in a lower tax rate) with no mention of the 30% base rate.

"Cost base indexation
Zoe purchases shares in a company for $100 on 1 July 2027. She then sells her shares on 1 July 2032
for $125, having made a nominal gain of from this investment of $25, with an investment return of
4.6 per cent per year.
As the shares were purchased after 1 July 2027, Zoe’s capital gains are subject to cost base indexation.
Inflation is 2.5 per cent each year Zoe holds the assets and, using ATO tools, Zoe can work out that the
indexed cost base of the shares is $113. Zoe's taxable capital gain is reduced from $25 to $12 under
cost base indexation. This is slightly less than the taxable capital gain of about $13 under the 50 per
cent discount, meaning she will pay slightly less tax."

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Steve @tarka.haltcondition.net · 13/05/2026

e.g. this part talks about adding the 30% base rate in order to encourage movement to "higher density housing and shares while reducing incentives for debt-financed investment in some areas, like existing detached housing". But the current assumption is that the 30% rate applies to shares too.