iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

me after sleeping 8 hours for once in my life

Aladdin gif: 10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck!

Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"everyone else has to suffer with me." I really enjoyed this person's online presence but this is saying the quiet part out loud and it's telling. There are so many positive externalities to electing democrats, and if you can't see that you're lost. as the GOAT said, fix your hearts or die.

Skeet from @jtp.bsky.social
"you must think i'm an idiot if you read all that and still expect me to believe he is pro trans. and since i both candidates are anti trans, the benefit of the anti-trans democrat losing is that everyone else has to suffer with me. have a nice night."

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

8 miles — first long run since I got knocked back with a summer head cold

Me, I'm throwing up the peace sign and my roots are grown out

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

oh no... these people are all insane

A screenshot of a skeet and quote-skeet reading: "By the time someone's defending "minor" or "careful" use online they're already waist deep (and sinking)

It's the confirmation bias machine. Every user is convinced they're using it reasonably unlike all those people screwing things up. It's not that bad! It helps!

Zero tolerance. Always.

PSX Bunlith 🪄 BLM ACAB 🇵🇸
@b0tster.yeag.gay
· 19h
"i mean whatever, using AI to fix a bug or two isnt that big a dea-" block."

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

what is he fucking doing in there

musicology duck pic of construction by the whitehouse

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

very normal people in the replies to my criticism of DSA's foreign policy

from "@wifestroker.bsky.social"

"No you’re just a submental idiot that can’t read and only supports USAID because you’re a Cold War lead poisoning baby who can’t hold a single thought for more than five seconds"

"You’re perfectly fine with USAID being used to train right wing terror squads and dismantle democracy overseas when it helps Coca Cola get you cheap poison faster because you’re a bloodless freak parasite"

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

meanwhile on their own front page: "there is no way to tell if this is good or bad!"

Times Journalists Are Subpoenaed as Trump Escalates Pressure on Media

The Justice Department is seeking to compel testimony from reporters who wrote about the new Air Force One. The Times called the move a “brazen act.”

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Twitter crash-out stats never get old for me and we're getting some JUICY ones in the SpaceX filing

SpaceX said that the AI unit containing X and xAI generated only $818 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2026. By way of comparison, Twitter alone made $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2022, or about 30 percent more, before Musk bought it. A remarkable business mind, truly.

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Posting updates daily was always going to be a recipe for disappointment, but here at the end of Week 3 I've finally started rendering my hexes as hexes! I've also been experimenting with LOD and simulation "culling" outside of the player's region to improve performance..... that's been tricky lol

Oikomene screenshot, this time with a hex grid actually rendered as hexes!

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Or this one... "That tension between emotional experience and factual truth is particularly visible around climate change." ...oh?? Why is that??? The author never says!

That tension between emotional experience and factual truth is particularly visible around climate change. Climate activist Xiye Bastida, one of the most visible Gen Z voices in the global climate movement, has argued that social media allows younger users to experience climate change through human stories and firsthand accounts, creating an emotional understanding of the crisis that feels very different from reading scientific reports alone.

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

This excerpt is horribly written—at risk of chatvestigating, it really reads as AI generated at times. Take this section for example... the author "brings us back to the polar bear" from the lede, but then doesn't actually say anything novel or make a new insight about the polar bear video!

The distinction matters because social media collapses journalism, entertainment, activism, advertising, and personal confession into the same visual and emotional language. A climate report, a meme, a war video, a conspiracy theory, and a personal trauma story can appear seconds apart, all competing equally for attention and belief.

Which brings us back to the polar bear.

When it comes to issues like climate change, young people are often forced to process the scientific reality of the crisis alongside the emotional weight of inheriting it. “The planet is suffering, and we don't have the luxury of time anymore,” Bastida said in her 2020 TED Talk. “I truly feel that if all of us took care of the Earth as a practice, as a culture, none of us would have to be full-time climate activists.”

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Day 12: Villagers walk to and from their daily 'activities', including going home to their shacks to sleep at night. However I have some suspicion that I've introduced a bug with how villages cluster...

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 11: Working on improved villager AI, including villager 'activities' that will allow villagers to fell trees and plant farms near their shacks.

Oikomene screenshot of a village with plots of farmland near the shacks

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 10: mages exist now if Arcana is your best combat stat, you get a staff and MP that drains when you cast lightning bolts at things - shows MP in the HUD

Oikomene screenshot of character creation with a magic 'staff' as your starting weapon

Oikomene screenshot of player being chased by a panther and a wolf: I've only got so much mana to go around... 😬

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 9: Added a "How to Play"

Oikomene screenshot: How to Play
Oikoménē — the inhabited world

You are an adventurer in a world that lives without you. Hunt creatures, fell trees, find ruins, trade with settlers, and watch villages grow into cities — or burn to the ground. The world remembers what you do.

Movement
The world is a hex grid; you move in six directions. Numpad is always available: 4 west, 6 east, 7 NW, 9 NE, 1 SW, 3 SE. The keyboard preset is configurable in Settings (Hex / Cardinal / Arrows).
Each step has a short cooldown. Hold a direction to walk continuously.

Acting on the world
F (Numpad 5) interacts with the tile you face — fell a tree, talk to a settler, open a vendor. Space (Numpad 0) attacks an adjacent creature. T trades with a vendor on your tile. C takes cover (only on a Building, Wall, Gate, Bridge, or Ruin).

Skill checks
Some interactions trigger a 2d6 + Attribute + Skill roll against a difficulty class. The world keeps running while the dialog is open. Failing a check costs Stamina — the cost depends on the check type (chop / ford / scramble).

HP, Stamina, and death
Damage absorbs into Stamina first; a hit that would zero Stamina costs exactly 1 HP regardless of overflow. Stamina recovers +1 about three seconds after the last damage or failed check. HP recovers +1 every Morning. If you die, you respawn at the origin.
Default-stat starting characters ship with HP=2 and Stamina=2 — invest in Hull (HP) and Resilience (Stamina) at character creation if you want a thicker buffer.

Weather and cover
Weather is per-region and shifts over time. Sunny and Overcast permit normal Stamina recovery. Raining suppresses recovery entirely. Storming drains Stamina by 1 per recovery window — the storm alone won't drop you below 1, but combat on top of it can.
Press C while standing on a structure tile to take cover. While covered, weather effects on Stamina are suppressed. Moving breaks cover automatically.

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 8: Improved pathing logic for animals and most monsters - they now plot a path to you if one exists instead of getting stuck behind cliffs and rivers - also rain and storms affect your stamina, but you can take 'cover' under any man-made structure

Oikomene screenshot of two blood chasers following me across a ford: "wtf, these guys can swim now?!?"

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 7: fog of war remembers what structures you last saw Now when you leave an explored area, the game remembers what structures were built — you'll see a snapshot of buildings and bridges from your last visit, even after they've changed. Returning to a ruin or a city may now be a surprise!

Oikomene screenshot: coming home to find a ruin where your shack should be

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 6: when villages upgrade to cities they get walls with a single passable gate Also: - combat wakes sleeping creatures - added support for ranged attacks

Oikomene screenshot: Character creation now gives you a slingshot if Marksmanship is your best combat skill

Oikomene screenshot of the player hanging out inside a city's walls: hey this place is starting to feel kinda civilized!

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 5: villages and cities are no longer single tiles. They're **multi-tile clusters** now — a main trade building surrounded by shacks. Also: - passive perception checks reveal hiding creatures - added a bunch more monsters and animals with distinct placeholder markers to identify them

Oikomene screenshot: Killed by a Panther

Oikomene screenshot: singin' in the rain

Oikomene screenshot: discovered a village!

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 4: the world was too small. Tripled the size (~22k → ~67k tiles), rewrote river generation as a BFS-from-ocean distance field (flowing downhill from mountains), NPCs build bridges automatically near new villages, and surfaced a Safety rating with the region's top concern (predators vs monsters)

Screenshot of Oikomene in its state EOD May 1st... rivers now flow from mountains to the ocean on the outside edge of the map; each region gets a 'Safety' grade based on the presence of predators and monsters

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 3 was a monster. Added: 🐺 wolves, deer, rabbits — with specific AI dispositions 🗡️ items, loot, equipped weapons, an inventory ⛰️ cliffs and rivers (impassable terrain markers) 🌅 day/night cycle 🌧️ per-region weather (sun, rain, lightning) on a Markov chain

A screenshot of Oikomene with visible biomes, varying terrains, and new species of animals

Another screenshot from Oikomene: "it's raining everywhere but here!" (Shows a bug where you can see weather effects even in unexplored regions of the map)

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Day 2: Claude says it implemented settler AI but mostly what we did was fix movement controls and make the character creation screen usable

Screenshot of janky character creation screen for Oikomene

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Here's what it looked like on Day 1:

A screenshot of Oikomene v0.0.01 (just a bunch of brown squares representing warthogs and a bunch of green squares representing trees in a great slate gray void)

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

I'm starting with the 'small' version, which is (sensibly) single-player for now. Here's an excerpt from the "Bible" I wrote up for it last week It's worth noting that I've also been working on designing my own TTRPG system and I've drawn some mechanics from that

Vision
Oikoménē (οἰκουμένη — "the inhabited world") is a real-time, hex-grid RPG with the long-term ambition of becoming an MMORPG. Its distinctive design idea: ecology and civilization are emergent from probabilistic simulation rather than hand-authored zones. Player actions ripple through living populations, shifting biomes, and emerging civilizations. Hunt all the warthogs in an area → they go locally extinct. Cut down all the trees → forest becomes desert. Clear monsters from a habitable area → settlers arrive → village → city. Raze a city → it becomes a mass grave on the map.

The world remembers. Every tile carries history.

Pillars
Probabilistic ecology and civilization. No hand-authored zones; everything emergent from simulation.
Real-time presence with narrative beats. Move and fight in real time; pause for skill checks and narrative interactions (Disco-Elysium-style 2d6+mod).
Long-running consequence. Effects play out over real-time hours/days; the world evolves whether you act or not.
Single-player → MMORPG arc. Single-player demonstrates the simulation. Multiplayer is the eventual home of the moral/social loop (Hero/Villain Halo, bounty hunting, settlement politics).
Inspirations
Disco Elysium — narrative skill checks, 2d6+mod resolution, attribute-and-skills character system
Civilization — hex world, biomes, civilizational time scale
No Man's Sky — procedural world feel

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

For the past singular week, I've been building a computer game in Rust / Bevy with Claude and it's some of the most fun I've had with computers since I first got into coding

A screenshot from the current development version of Oikomene

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

There's the nosedive I've been looking for

Screenshot of The Economist's presidential approval aggregator at https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker; it says,
"435 days into Donald Trump's term
The president's net approval rating is -20,
down 1.1 points since last week.
36% approve, 57% disapprove, 7% not sure"

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

checking in on a guy in my founder-sphere who started insane-posting about Dubai in a very definitely "I'm not getting paid to say this" way last year and... yup that tracks

screenshot of a LinkedIn post that reads:

"Thanks for all your messages. My wife and I are keeping safe in Dubai.

We are incredibly thankful for the outstanding work the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces in the UAE are doing to keep us and other citizens safe. And I am amazed by the amount of spirit and support everyone here is showing and giving each other.

The media is also overplaying the real damage done. The rate of missile and drone interceptions is incredible. Yes, they happen a lot, sound very scary and shake you in the middle of the night, but thats the sound of us being protected. Right now, its honestly mainly affecting my Garmin sleep score streak and resting heart rate score.

Work continues as normal, grateful to live in a country that protects its citizens and hoping that this whole situation will end. And most importantly, praying in particular for the safety of the Iranian people and my / my wife's Iranian family. "

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Lord I've seen what you've done for others...

a screenshot from the Wall Street Journal reading, "Watch: Iranians Celebrate News of Khamenei's Death"

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

*through gritted teeth* yes.... why not.......

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Not sure why this person deleted but I want to respond to the substance: I'm not calling for blind trust in anyone, let alone a politician. He absolutely should be held to account. I do think we can, and should, afford some grace to the shape of a person's life before they decided to enter politics.

skeet that reads: "he's a vet of the most evil military contractor of the previous republican admin, and either racist or oblivious enough to get a nazi tattoo and think it was nbd, posting history on reddit of being homophobic and sexist. yes it's great that he's acting lefty *now* but hard to trust that background." The skeet has been anonymized

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Lmao really? This person blocking me after the lightest possible pushback kinda highlights the point I am making about Bluesky Hysteria don't ya think?

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

This headline from Barron's is so funny because it makes it sound like Tesla's stock price dropping IS the silver lining in slumping EV sales (correct)

Barron's headline: "Tesla Stock Drops. The Silver Lining in Slumping EV Sales."

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

This is not a drill! You know what to do!

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

We're going to run Venezuela

headline from the guardian: "US urges its citizens to flee Venezuela amid reports of paramilitaries"

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

can confirm, the steppe hordes vassalized tf out of me two generations out from my Tamar the Great play-through, completely bogus, I threw my PC out the window, and—wait, uhhhh...?

Screenshot of Wikipedia reading: "Tamar was proclaimed heir and co-ruler by her reigning father George III in 1178, but she faced significant opposition from the aristocracy upon her ascension to full ruling powers after George's death. Tamar was successful in neutralizing this opposition and embarked on an energetic foreign policy aided by the decline of the hostile Seljuk Turks. Relying on a powerful military elite, Tamar was able to build on the successes of her predecessors to consolidate an empire which dominated the Caucasus until its collapse under the Mongol attacks within two decades after Tamar's death."

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

how is it even possible to be a $3T company and ship software that does this??

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Thomas Most @thomasmost.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

🤔 one of these things is not like the other...

The Washington Post at ~5pm Eastern—headline story is: "Large crowds gather across the country for ‘No Kings’ protests of Trump"

The Guardian at ~5pm Eastern—headline story is: "Millions march against Trump in nationwide day of protest"

The Wall Street Journal at ~5pm Eastern—headline story is: "Scenes from across the U.S. as 'No Kings' protesters rally to oppose Trump"

The New York Times at ~5pm Eastern—headline story is: "U.S. is repatriating survivors of its strike on suspected drug vessel"

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