iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I didn't find your movie, but I found this and ... May god have mercy on our souls.

A photograph of a quasi-realistic baby doll made of rubber that's deflated and shrunken, like some horrible human cicada.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Actual doll from my grandmother’s doll collection:

An antique Native American doll. It has tiny glinting teeth, a rictus grin and eyes like obsidian coins. When I took the picture, the house had no power so I had to illuminate it with a flashlight, so you can imagine it sitting up in the pitch black room the moment I left.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

That means… USB powered airbrush pump! These are amazing little gizmos and I highly recommend them! For me, the phone app just wouldn’t recognize the Vflex (you use an app to configure voltage output), but worked fine on my desktop PC.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The author of the book was a decorated naval officer in WWII, wrote for the show Victory At Sea and also wrote under multiple pen names, including as two different female authors, that included writing multiple Nancy Drew books. And then there this.

The interior cover of Zotz! by Walter Karig. It shows a drawing of a hand pointing to the lower left with the title above and his name bellow. He also did the drawings, and the design of the cover, which implies he coined the term Karigiana himself (it’s used on the inner flap).

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I'm terrified I'm going to end up with a Fenix model, which is more like switching to the Joseph Rodgers Year knife, made in 1822, it has blade for every year of the Christian calendar which is now over 2,000 blades/tools.

A multi-tool taken to the absurd extreme. It does not look remotely like a tool, more like Regency Borg made a Christmas tree. It's a vaguely star shaped post festooned in blades like needles on a pine tree, mounted on an ornately decorated brass base. It probably weighs 200 pounds.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My god, switching from an Apple watch to a mid-tier Garmin watch is like switching from a Swiss Army Knife to the Joseph Rodgers Norfolk Knife.

A Victorinox multitool with 8 or ten tools.

The Joseph Rodgers Norfolk Knife made during Queen Victoria's reign with about 300 tools. The analogy breaks down here though because the Garmin watches are not beautifully decorated, they're really pretty minimalist.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Sadly, I don‘t really have anything appropriate to photograph with my fragment of a 1610 German edition of the collected works of Paracelsus.

A page of tightly spaced blackletter text in German with a subheading that reads PROPRIETAS.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Gathering up props for the photo I’m going to use for the splash page on the site selling the skulls I make and sell.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Breaking radio silence to share pictures of the tattoo I got a week ago. It’s only taken me 20 years, but I finally got my @viableparadise.bsky.social X tattoo. I commissioned my friend Michael Manning to design it *13* years ago. Sometimes I am not fast.

A picture of my arm with a tattoo of many sinuous strands wrapping around from the other side.

The top of my arm has the rest and it’s revealed to be a purple & blue jellyfish with both the ribbon-like oral arms in purple and the much smaller blue tentacles. The bell of the jellyfish is right at my elbow and the appendages dangle all the way down to the middle of the back of my hand. The bell has a series of yellow and orange spots in a vague X shape and four larger blue spots. It is not quite any single real jellyfish.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I am so sad this wasn't available when I got there, but I have all the needed equipment to make my own.

A sign from Tippett's workshop that reads:

There's
ALWAYS
time
for
LubricanT" with little Victorian printer's ornaments of pointing hands aimed at the TIME/FOR part". There are partial fleurons on the top and bottom which suggest a little SPURT.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

They were even selling the servers and server racks.

A half-full server rack, including 20 Dell storage servers each with 8 drives in them, plus four more in the less populated upper half of the rack.

A picture of the featureless SpectraLogic Spectra T950 tape backup rack.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

This is the painting room. Even though things were very picked over, it was clear that this was a working studio that spanned a *lot* of disciplines. That said, one of the main ones was painting. Just look at the size of that spray painting cabinet!

It would take days to describe all the things in this image. It’s a cluttered workspace with metal shelves, workbenches and a large shop-made table. In the back is a huge, blackened painting booth with air extractors for spray paints and airbrushing. There were cabinets full of rattle cans and paint bottles of every size and description. There are hoses and mixing tubs and boxes of brushes and vacuum chambers scattered everywhere. If you saw Mad God, I imagine most things you saw passed through this room.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Cat says, not so fast. There’s something you forgot!

A theatrically put out white man with mustache and goatee holds a gray short hair cat. The cat looks smug.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

One of the many, many weird things from Mad God. Never finished for whatever reason.

A foam model of a creature like a bipedal tumor. Covered in gray primer, mounted to a board and kind of beaten up. It looks like it may have been a mold test?

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Breaking radio silence to post pictures from the sale at Phil Tippett’s studio. (Will post them shortly, it’ll require a lot of alt-text.) There was only about 1/2 hour left when I got there, and I’m so glad I did. I bought a crate of c-clamps and a mysterious custom motor control unit.

A green plastic milk crate filled with c-clamps, some labeled TIPPETT. On top is a metal box with knobs and switches and a piece of paper that reads MYSTERY BOX, $10.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I've got to say, this list has saved me a LOT of blocks.

A screenshot from Bluesky showing that this user was already blocked for my by the "A Very British Bigotry" list.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Oh shit. Oh fuck. <looks at the dedication page on his novel>

It reads:

For John Richard Desborous Huggins.

The next two lines are in Coptic.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Man, I loved finding those as a kid. Only came across a few that’s been parasitized though. I just happen to have in my camera roll a picture of what that looks like further along on the process.

A photo of a tomato horn worm that has been completely hollowed out by parasitic wasp larvae. One segment of its body hangs loose, the rest of the body is gone, and the inside is a crawling mass of blind grubs.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

There was also this little number.

A photo of a Xerox 6085 Daybreak, the $10,000 workstation that ‘inspired’ MacOS.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Late 80’s, early 90’s Japanese PC designs are unbeaten for pure cyberpunk swagger.

A photograph of the exquisitely futuristic Panasonic FS-A1GT MSX turbo R. It’s dark gray, covered in labels and logos like a sports car.

We have lost our way.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Ultra Ultra's game Echo. The game mechanics may be a little simplistic, but the setting and writing are amazing.

The name of the game is shown over the back of the protagonist. She has short-cropped bone-white hair, is dressed in black leather and has a strange, glowing cube attached to her back. The letter forms are designed so that the top is mirrored to the bottom.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Instead of arguing with people on here, I went out into the woods and climbed a big hill. Highly recommended.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

If you’re going to be there and for some reason want to me meet, you shall know me thusly. Except I won’t be looking down at you on a BART train. Probably.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Eyyy! The professional goats are on the job here at San Pedro Valley Park!

A hillside covered in goats eating the underbrush. All colors and sizes of goat, munching the dry brown grass and weeds.

Another view of the hillside showing the steepness, as trees jut up out of frame. All over the hillside, goats. So many goats.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

It’s giving me flashbacks to the fires we had in 2020. This picture was taken around noon.

Down the hill from my house, near the Post Office in Pacifica. The sky is the color of a desiccated orange. Cars have their headlights on because of how dark it is. The more white-balanced lights on storefronts seem to be other-worldly blue.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Sorry! Forgot the alt text!

A picture of my thumb and finger holding a small cardboard cachet of shaving gel. It is labeled “Black Pepper & Lime.
Post-Shave Gel.

By St. James of London, established 1953.
Most of the package is white, but the top-most part is black with white text.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Tried this one, there’s both a shaving soap and aftershave gel Very good shaving cream and aftershave balm. There’s a different balance between the two scents in the soap vs. the aftershave. It’s not at all overpowering. What lingers is a pleasant and interesting scent. I like it. But not on me.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I ordered a bunch of samplers of different shaving soaps and I haven‘t tried a single one yet. Time to put an edge on this and try a new shaving soap!

An unusually curved 1850’s razor sold by James Johnson of Sheffield. It is in ivory scales (with a glued crack at one end) and with a similarly wavy escutcheon plate on the side. I’ve seen very, very few razors in this form factor out of Sheffield and I’m excited to shave with it.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Gopher snek! Please come live in our yard. We have ample food!

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Woke up with the story beating its fists against the inside of my skull to get out. Time to lay down some words. Here’s the end result of last nights research jag.

The contents of my research folder for this story. It reads:

Uçisar
Vitiligo
Kaymakli underground city
Derinkuyu underground city
Phrygians
Cimmerians
Marion Iconography: Images of Mary
Burney Relief
Ereshkigal
Hecate
Nut (goddess)
Pschent
Crown of justification
Cowroid
Imiut fetish

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

share an image that captures your essence

A high res scan of one of the fold-out illustrations from the Voynich manuscript. I can't tell you what it says because no one can tell you what it says. There are three circles made of indecipherable words. Each has different inscrutable diagrams in it. The third has what may be a dark blue flower with a poorly drawn woman's face in it. The text is all written in an unknown alphabet, obscuring an unknown language. It was made in the 15th century, and critical consensus seems to be coalescing around the idea that it was a fake grimoire made to scam a king out of money.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

This appears to have been an actual consumer 'good'.

A picture of the troublesome pants. They're very light tan and have multiple embroidered patches on them. One near the knee and one directly on an ass cheek of both legs. But then, positioned as though it were a stain, is a DARK BROWN FAKE PATCH IN A DIFFERENT, SPOTTED FABRIC. These are pants which proclaim to the world that you shit from your ass and the wearer of these pants may have already done so.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This beautiful monster is an early hybrid between straight and safety razor and manages to be considerably worse than both.

A 1920’s Rolls Razor, which features a thick chunk of Sheffield razor steel on the end of a stick which lives in a box which can mechanically sharpen and strop it.

It’s beautiful, ingenious, and terrible at its job.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I wanna shave with one of my new (old) razors. HONING TIME!

A picture of my honing gear: 1k, 4k,
And 8k Shapton ceramic hones, lapping film from 8k to 32k, a cup of water, electrical tape, a magnifier, and an adjustable non-slip holder for the hones.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Closest thing I’ve got is an eye wash bottle with a dead wasp in it.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

FINAL VIDEO! Some day I will learn what Cylindrical and Pump razors are, but I do not think it shall be today.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The common style for Sheffield versions of this sort of thing didn't have nearly as secure a means of holding the blades. I really, really like the notched blade design on this.

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It is incredibly awkward trying to put these interchangeable blades together one-handed. I wonder if George Webb Derenzy had anything to say about them in his Enchiridon: or, A hand for the one-handed?

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

THE END IS NEAR! Well, the end of these videos. Three more to go! The 1814 London Post Office Directory lists Joseph Tiercelin of Piccadilly street as a cutler. These may actually be that old, since the stamp for King George III was the same as IV!

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Zak Jarvis @zakjarvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Almost done with the big box! You might notice from this video that I despise padded strops. In the video with the Holland razor, did you notice how the blade had a curve in the edge? That was the result of using a padded strop with abrasive strop paste. Hating padded strops: Me 🤝 Ebenezer Rhodes

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