iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/10/2026

Well actually it turns out that this month's $0 is actually 5% more than the $0 forecasted so maybe I should watch out

A screenshot of a billing dashboard that says:
Total forecasted cost for current month = $0.00
5% increase compared to last month's total costs

Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/10/2026

I love the concept that I'm halfway between zero and zero dollars in my October bill, which makes sense because it's about halfway through the month

A bar chart where the y axis starts on zero, and the maximum value on top of the graph is also zero; past months show a full height bar, current month show a 50% height bar; all saying that the total cost is zero.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

10 lanes… I thought this was The Beaverton! So the plan is to merge 5 incoming into the 3 that exist at the end of that corridor? Go build a 10 lane bridge across your own damn city, which happens to be 500km away from here so of course this demon is […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A bridge? A tunnel? A bridge?

The plan to replace the George Massey Tunnel, built in the 1950s, has changed under
successive governments.

And now, B.C. Conservative Leader Lorne Doerkson said he will build a 10-lane bridge
to replace the tunnel if his party forms government after the Oct. 24 election.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/06/2026

A world scale game of the prisoner’s dilemma, where the biggest and most powerful prisoner is a power tripping rich senile rapist… so I’m activist in the streets and hedging my defeat in the sheets.

Meme: “you buy stocks because you think capitalism is succeeding and society is progressing. I buy stocks because I think we’re accelerating wealth inequality and going backwards in social welfare. We are not the same”

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

If that's waterfront, why is this 45 km beach route not counting? I'd have to ask Vancouver city council for the exact segments that would disqualify the route

Screen capture of a bike route in Rio de Janeiro, from Leme to Pontal, approximately 45 km long

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/05/2026

Is this a waterfront greenway? Well, these sure are waterfront properties, and they have lots of green landscaping going on... so maybe? But riding it, it sure does feel as if I'm in between the seawall and the beaches, and I'm just riding through a rich and […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A residential street lined with houses with pretty landscaping, a few cars parked on the street, no bike lanes in sight

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/05/2026

These #bcparks #camping reservations are becoming harder to get than concert tickets, it's wild. But here we go, Black Tusk trip in the works and its main logistics hurdle has been taken care of!

You have successfully made a reservation for Area Garibaldi Lake
at Garibaldi on Sun August 9 - Mon August 10, 2026.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/04/2026

The downtown BIA has lots of interesting material and they are generally onboard if self serving urbanism like bike lanes and better transit but… BIAs will BIA and openly advocate for vibes based policy making, whatever it takes to bring in that suburban shopper who’s afraid of visible social issues

BUILD FOR WHAT PEOPLE FEEL
Consider Fear of Violence, slightly elevated across
some resident segments in the Downtown Van district.
People with this trait don’t respond to crime statistics or
reassuring press releases. They respond to environments
that feel safe and legible: well-lit streets, clear sightlines,
intuitive navigation, and clarity.
You can tell Alex that downtown is statistically safer
than three years ago, but it won’t matter. What matters
is whether the street feels orderly and predictable the
moment Alex steps off the bus. That’s a design problem
with a design solution if you know what you are looking
to solve.

The values-based approach asks: what single investment
serves multiple value orientations simultaneously?

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/08/2025

Trying out a new bike mirror contraption that mounts to my glasses, which I can already say aren’t quite a great choice of glasses model to use with the thingy but will try to make do #bikeyvr #bikecommute

RayBans Wayfarer with a rear mirror attached to one of the glasses legs

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/06/2025

#Meta is so addicted to inflicting addiction that they inaugurated a UI that I’ve never seen before: scroll between tabs. They might not have invented it, but they sure executed it well. So now even a benign landing page morphs into infinite scrolling […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/05/2025

re @TechConnectify latest video on CC & Subtitles; Speaking of YouTube captions not having positioning as good as closed captions used to have... How about those captions being layered on top of the video in a way not compatible with Picture-In-Picture? 🙃 […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Screenshot showing that captions are not layered over the Picture-in-Picture playing the video.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/04/2025

The response that comes with "think before responding" turned off is a wall of text but it turns out to be better, because at least it recognizes that the toggle has a design issue. Go figure.

Question asked with Reason turned on.

Hey ChatGPT, | noticed that you have a feature toggle in the prompt
box labeled "Reason". The tooltip says "Think before responding".
What does it mean? If | leave this turned on, you think before
responding, but if | turn it off you will respond without thinking?
What do you think of this design?

Two paragraphs of response:

Reasoned about feature toggle design for 13 seconds >
The “Reason” toggle is a user interface element that indicates whether the assistant'’s internal reasoning
process is taking place before crafting an answer. In all cases, however, | use a sophisticated internal
process to analyze and generate responses. The toggle is essentially an interface cue rather than a switch
that turns off my ability to “think,” since all responses are the result of an internal reasoning process.
To put it simply, whether the toggle appears to be turned on or off, | still evaluate and integrate all relevant
information to provide a well-considered reply. The design is intended to reassure users that the
underlying process involves careful consideration and that even if you don’t see those “thoughts”
explicitly, they are still occurring beneath the surface. This design helps in maintaining transparency about
the process (without exposing internal details) while ensuring quality and consistency in the answers.

Question asked with "Reason" turned off. Wall of text response, ending with:

What do | think of the design?

It's a neat design idea for power users like you — but probably needs good affordances and guidance for the average user. Would you like me to demo a quick side-by-side of how | might respond to a question with and without reasoning?

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/04/2025

This #ChatGPT tooltip: "Think before responding". This is: - not descriptive what the feature really does; - misleading because why would I ever want a thoughtless response; - not accurate because "think" is a vague and amorphous concept here; Was the goal […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

ChatGPT prompt with the "Reason" toggle selected. A tooltip explains what the "Reason" toggle means: think before responding.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2025

Just saw @jsnell quoted from @upgrade reading @ingrid 's Perfect Sentences. It's so funny when these random cross-overs happen. Makes the web feel like a small place from time to time. Well, the group of cool people saying cool stuff might be in fact a small corner.

Screenshot of a quote: I can understand it from the beep-boop computer side, but we don't see the beep-boop computer, we see the Kool-Aid Man - Jason Snell on Upgrade podcast episode 547

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/12/2024

@paige Lamma3.2 is not powerful enough, output was mostly gibberish. ChatGPT doesn't play well with the big amount of text. Claude was the only one that gave sensible results, though it's still kind of a mixed bag. Attaching images for the prompt and the result.

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/11/2024

Shareholder letter demanding that Amazon directs Whole Foods to capitalize on the paranoia and conspiracy theories surrounding processed and "cheap" food to sell more a expensive supposedly healthy lifestyle. I've read enough shareholder letters to get […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Victor Villas @villasbc.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/10/2024

Oh no, a big fire in #Vancouver #WestEnd (1500 Alberni St, near Nicola St). Lots of smoke in the area, #VFRS asking everyone to stay away. Started around 1h ago, firefighters on the scene and fire seem to be contained.

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