iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 14/10/2026

I mean.... sounds familiar, right?

a section of a text document highlighted. The highlighted area reads: But today industrial designers ruefully look back on that period as one of boyish exuberance. Radical innovation in design is now the exception rather than the rule. What the industrial designer is becoming is a master of packaging, leaning more heavily on graphic art than on the re-shaping of machine-made products: some ID. firms are further softening focus to include a range of services including marketing counseling, motivational testing, consumer research, and interior designing.

Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 06/10/2026

I leaned into a little more graphic approach to this one (comfort zone) and maybe am starting to get a better feel for these digital painting apps? Day 5: Ghost N’ Fiddle #drawlloween

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 05/10/2026

only had time for a quick 15 minute sketch today, but I got another one done #drawlloween

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 03/10/2026

Still learning Krita, and I'm not sure I used the very cool ziptone brushes exactly right, but it was fun. #drawlloween2026

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 02/10/2026

I don't know why anyone thinks all the textbook companies going digital was such a bad thing. We're saving so much time by not having humans grade quizes...

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 04/09/2026

oh yeah, this one confused the hell out of me too:

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 04/09/2026

I only lived in CA for six years, but it is still my favorite part of this country so I guess it’s not a surprise? (I was born and raised in the Midwest)

A map of the US with heatmap colors overlaid. This is the result from the viral my dialect quiz, this map shows “hot” in California specifically but the whole west coast is nearly the same color. The South Eastern states and Texas are all the coldest with the north east being in the middle of the heat scale.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 04/09/2026

America you are a weird group of people.

A screen shot of a viral dialect quiz question. The question is “ what do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?” The answer options are: sunshower, the wolf is giving birth, the devil is beating his wife, monkey’s wedding, fox’s wedding, pineapple rain, liquid sun, I have no term or expression for this, and other.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 25/08/2026

As I, coincidentally, said on LinkedIn not 30 minutes ago:

A screen shot of a LinkedIn post the author made that says: Fellow designers, don’t you think it’s a bit odd at how many companies on here are now crowing about how much “production code” their design teams are shipping? It’s almost like a lot of companies really just wanted more developers or something 🤔 Anyway, just remember, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 15/08/2026

“Just start selling merch, how hard could it be”🤣 thankful for my first year of art school where I was still a media studies major taking photo and film classes right about now (buy real light stands, kids, they’re worth every penny)

A photo studio setup on a kitchen counter with a tripod and lights in the shot

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 31/07/2026

I grudgingly went back to login to my long abandoned Instagram account this morning as a new self-employed creative type, and ran into this. I literally no longer own any device I used to log into the account before, so I guess it's at least safe from hijackers too? *sigh*

a screen shot of an error screen that says "Log in on another device to continue. When we can't be sure someone trying to log into an account really owns it, we'll add an extra security step at login. You'll need to sign in on a device you've signed in from before and approve this login." followed by an illustration of a laptop and a hand holding a smartphone, connected by a dotted line with a shield in the middle. The error message continues, "I don't have another device. If you don't have access to an alternative device that you've used to log into this account before, it's not safe for us to let you log in."

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 30/07/2026

unless you're this guy, that is the only non sus use of the term in 2026

A portrait photo of the character Weyoun from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 29/07/2026

I can not think of a more dangerous (both to the business and its customers) feature to add to Docusign than this

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 02/07/2026

If you are one of the many people who need to bind books while hanging out at the abandoned press, the “twinsies mandatory” office, the haunted Kinkos, or the running track at your local school, it turns out they have just the stapler for you!

A screen capture from an Amazon listing showing places the stapler being sold can be used. The photos are labeled “Printing Press”, “Office”, “Graphic Design”, and “School”. Each image shows a totally empty , probably AI generated, space as described in the post.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 01/07/2026

Look, I know if used to be hard to pin stuff to the bottom of a webpage, but that was like 20 years ago my dudes. Ate you vibe coding your CSS that shouldn’t change after you write it once? Wtf?

A screen capture of the Bluesky timeline with the bottom bar floating over top of
the content in the middle of the screen.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 16/06/2026

This is a great summary from @edzitron.com about the current state of the tech industry. It feels 100% true & a very big part of why I decided to try to start my own thing after getting laid off by the business idiots who thought they didn’t need a design team anymore because they had Claude Code.

AI feels, on some level, like the final stage of the modern era of technology. It’s flattened effectively every startup and tech company into some sort of aberration of Large Language Models, turned every semiconductor firm into an AI firm, made every venture capitalist an AI investor, made every tech journalist an AI journalist, and crowded out effectively every other subject in favor of a larger argument about whether one specific technology is the future.

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 04/05/2026

I must have missed when we all decided that React was no longer “third party JS”. Did y’all forget to invite me to the meeting again?!?

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Tony Santos @tony.webeasties.com · 05/03/2026

this is a really good point in @davekarpf.bsky.social ’s latest blog post, and I think it’s broadly applicable, or at least it applies to software design and development too (where I have spent decades of my life working.) These genAI tools are coming on the heels of years of declining worker power.

Imagine adding these new tools to the research community at a time when resources were plentiful. (Universities hiring more tenure track lines, research budgets expanding, etc.) Those are circumstances where we, collectively, have the time and space to treat Claude Code as an exciting tool that can (a) save time on some existing projects, (b) open up new avenues for research in other projects, and (c) is a complete dead-end in still others. Cool. Fascinating. What an actually-fun time to be working in the field. Let’s all try things out, see how it goes, and then meet at a series of conferences to talk it through.

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