iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

It being October means that it is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and here's my yearly reminder that the acronym for this is CAM. No S in there. Thank you.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 16h

It’s not often you see someone with an entirely correct opinion on the internet but clearly today is that day.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 20h

Has anyone told him about the IT industry yet?

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 30/09/2026

New post on Maria Makes a Mess - A basement time bomb: mariamakesamess.com/blog/covid-m... I found my reusable COVID masks and am figuring out what to make with them. This blog is new and it's where I'm chronicling things I'm crafting. Static-coded website with Hugo, oldschool style bloggery.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 30/09/2026

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Paul Voosen @voosen.me · 28/09/2026

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:

science.org

NASA’s New Horizons mission may shut down two instruments over lack of funding

Decision risks “incalculable loss” of data from the edge of the Sun’s influence, scientists say

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Nothings Monstered @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social · 04/06/2024

Louise Bourgeois on the difference between French and American aesthetics

Summarized: LB's mother sewed tapestries. Tapestries to be exported to America had to have figure's genitals cut out and replaced with flowers. LB's mother saved up the excised genitals and made a quilt to give to her daughter. And that's the difference.

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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

SpaceX just launched the 14th Starship test flight, and it's now successfully in orbit for the first time. This is an amazing achievement, and I absolutely detest how Musk has ruined this sort of thing both for me and for humanity.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

Right? It's like a skyscraper in orbit. Crazy to think how huge that thing is.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

Just in time for market open.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

I did - credit where it's due, Starship is orbital.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

Sounds like they're reconsidering it at the moment.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

I can't imagine the pressure they're feeling right now.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

Maybe I spoke too soon!

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Safe Muffins @safemuffins.vip · 28/09/2026

Aaron Swartz committed suicide after being federally indicted, and threatened with hard federal jail time for downloading too many academic journals with his JSTOR account too quickly from an unlocked closet on an open campus.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

Lost an engine on ascent and still can't go orbital. But it's okay we're retiring the Falcon 9, no problems here.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 28/09/2026

And then there's tanplay, going off in a totally different direction.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 26/09/2026

Another CD arrival today. Thrilled I could find this one and that it didn’t cost hundreds to get.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

Please do, and share the link when you’re ready. I’d love to see what you make!

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

I am a big fan of Hugo as a framework - something about it works well for my brain. I've used it for some of my other websites with great success. It had a steep learning curve for me at first but once I get into the swing of things, it REALLY works well.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

I haven't added much to the links section just yet but I'll be filling it out in time. Ends up having a website where you don't have comments or social shares really does free you from a worry about readership or metrics or whatnot. I could not care less who reads this. I'm just having fun.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

I did it! Here's my new blog: mariamakesamess.com It's a static site, and I used Hugo to build it. It is extremely lo-fi and I am glad to keep it that way.

mariamakesamess.com

Welcome to Maria Makes a Mess

Things Maria is making, in various forms, not terribly well.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

Matt captures Massachusetts so well in every story he does, the good and the bad. Truly if you want to understand why so many of us love living in Massachusetts, I would just point to Matt's work. And good on ya, Charles from Quincy.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 25/09/2026

I will always repost anything he makes. He captures the essence of our commonwealth in the best way.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 24/09/2026

(2/2) Their solution to address the PARAMOUNT cooling concern, this experimental satellite will only run for 15 mins at a time before shutting down to cool. You can see how a mesh network on orbit distributing the compute load would come into play here, coordinating uptime/downtime carefully.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 24/09/2026

(Gift article) Really fascinating story today for all of us following the attempted development of orbital data centers giving a few details on a Google/Planet Labs collab launching in the near future. (1/2) www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/t...

nytimes.com

Google Is Sending an A.I. Data Center to Outer Space (Gift Article)

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 23/09/2026

Another stunner from JWST—this time part of a *much* larger scene I'll post later. This portion is made up of stars and protostars in a cluster about 1,000 lightyears from Earth. The bright, multi-point features are nearby stars. The smaller features in the background are other galaxies.

From the source: "A star-forming nebula that contains young stars called protostars. Two of these protostars are shooting out long jets that are colliding with the nebula, creating glowing, colourful outflows. A few other protostars create orange and red areas in the nebula. Most of the image is covered by blue gas, with brighter areas, denser clouds and dark gaps; the bottom-left corner contains greenish-yellow gas."

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 23/09/2026

Wow this thread! This is air travel in a nutshell right now honestly.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 23/09/2026

holy crap what an experience, I hope everything is happily uneventful for you from this point onward!

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 23/09/2026

It's definitely a contender. That whole area is very Trumpy.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 23/09/2026

ICE are currently chasing and kidnapping immigrants in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a town that is at this point probably most famous for being the starting point for Ishmael’s journey in the great American novel Moby-Dick, which portrays a multiracial crew including many immigrants, working together

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 22/09/2026

Been thinking about it for a while but if I want to be the change I want to see in the world - and by world, I mean, the internet - I should start up a very lo-fi self-hosted blog. So, I'll be doing that tonight after work & my weekly TTRPG group.

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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

General reminder, gang: @cartoonist.coop has multiple pages of tutorials on building your own site. Do not sign your productive output over to corporations who consider you acceptable collateral damage in their pursuit of profit. cartoonist.coop/resources/

cartoonist.coop

RESOURCES – CARTOONISTS UNITED

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Lars • Iskotaa @lars.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

In light of the Tapas news, I hope this helps someone.

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 21/09/2026

The best way to fight back against the Paramount/Warner Brothers merger is to support independent artists, journalists, writers, filmmakers, musicians and everyone else who has been walking a very hard path to putting things out into the world.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 22/09/2026

I can’t imagine a better feature story to greet me when I open my print copy if @gameinformer.com - and now I’m singing “Suteki Da Ne”

Producer Yoshinori Kitase reflects on 25 years of Final Fantasy X - BY SCoTT WHITE

Featuring Yuna and Tidus - suteki da ne!

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 21/09/2026

I appreciate that - and thank you for being a listener! We were the only daily show that I know of (that may have changed), but there are a lot of weekly options out there. I heartily recommend @spacewatch.bsky.social for the excellent work they're doing covering the industry.

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SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 20/09/2026

One of the takeaways on AI in my professional role I'm tasked with is, "If AI is going to smash through failures at the fundamentals of InfoSec, we better be real freaking sure we're doing them." So I'm going in through like a newhire/implementer refreshing our eyes-on the current state.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 19/09/2026

Always so fun when the sculptures splash into the Merrimack River! #LKSR26

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 19/09/2026

The Make It Labs team from Nashua described this event as “an art project for engineers” and I can’t think of a better way to describe it

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 19/09/2026

Happy Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race day!!! A gorgeous day for the #LKSR out here in the Mill City! ❤️

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 18/09/2026

As data breach notifications go, IMO this one is well-handled. Never thrilled about getting one of these but credit to Master of Malt for how they wrote this up. www.masterofmalt.com/sorry/

masterofmalt.com

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"Ich askid ChatGPT," Well Ich askid the stones, and the forest, and the starres, and the mountaynes, and the moone daunsinge above, and what thei seyde was learninge, and dreames, and growinge thinges, and makinge art, and a flawed honest worlde wher we talke to each othir and care about each othir.

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Maria Varmazis @varmaz.is · 17/09/2026

It was so disgusting, and makes me angry that these ghouls are almost (ALMOST) making me feel bad for him.

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