iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 20h

The bollywood corollary is that if the film has an action star you introduce them by showing close up of the shoes walking towards injustice for like 3 full min

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 2h

The ability to pour hundreds of millions of pounds into a loss-making TV channel, bent on wrenching British politics sharply to the right, is yet another of the ways in which extreme wealth is trying to remake UK democracy. It needs to be part of any serious conversation about political funding.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 3h

Englishness & Britishness have never been fixed concepts. They have been redefined & debated for centuries. Shakespeare did it loads. John of Gaunt’s lament for an imagined glorious past England vs the present crap one from Richard II is like a really well written version of a Tory conference speech

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 7h

Omg Kate Garraway gagged her with that question

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 4h

It’s sort of astonishing how wrong Braverman is on every level about what Englishness is and how it’s been constantly redefined and debated historically and culturally. And now I see she is also amazingly wrong about all other national identities too

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The Bunker podcast – News without the nonsense @bunkerpod.bsky.social · 6h

🎁 WRAP-UP 🎁 Burnham delivers Labour’s “best conference speech since Tony Blair”, Trump gathers the tech bros at the White House and all the latest in the RAF Fairford investigation. @alexvont.bsky.social and @jacobjarvis.bsky.social recap the big stories of the week: linktr.ee/bunker_pod

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The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 19h

Gork I started a war with Iran and it’s not going well. Do a breakthrough

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Kevin Moorebidity @kevinwmoore.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

From this day on 2012: probably the most popular thing I’ve ever drawn.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

When I first read about the death penalty as a child, I thought it was barbaric. Still do. A state that gives itself the judicial power to kill debases itself and everyone it involves in that repulsive business.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For those in England & Wales who don’t get them on the NHS: private flu & covid jabs are available from today. I’ve just had both at my local pharmacy. £115 for the pair. Yes, that’s expensive, but if you’re a freelancer & don’t get sick pay it’s probably a lot cheaper than taking time off.

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Andrew Mueller @andrewmueller.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @allisonksommer.bsky.social on the FlyDubai hijacking, @feap.bsky.social continues his coverage of Brazil's election, and @alexvont.bsky.social and Yossi Mekelberg on the IRGC's endorsement for the US mid-terms, and the day's other stuff. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

monocle.com

Flydubai flight emergency: what happens now? Plus: Iran tells the US to vote out Trump

After a pilot was stabbed and a plane emergency landed, we get the view from Tel Aviv. Then: has the...

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I had the same thought this weekend when browsing in the gorgeous Leakey’s bookshop in Inverness. Two whole shelves of Dornford Yates bestsellers which I suspect no one has opened for 50 years. Nice editions, mind you, if anyone wants to give him a whirl

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The Bunker podcast – News without the nonsense @bunkerpod.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

🇬🇧 🇩🇪 Once, Britain and Germany were the closest of friends. But by the 20th century, relations spectacularly unravelled. How did best pals become bitter enemies (and find their way back)? Professor of History at Birkbeck University Jan Rüger and @alexvont.bsky.social discuss ➡️ linktr.ee/bunker_pod

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Me and my grunge friends would’ve killed A.I. with hammers I can tell you that much

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 30/09/2026

GOAT OR BIRD????

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Nigella Lawson @nigella.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Thank YOU. I believe profoundly that the only correct response to pleasure is gratitude rather than guilt

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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.com · 29/09/2026

What's fun about this whole contretemps and why it's worth watching again is how smirky Schmitt starts out - this is going to be his big moment – and how honest a puzzled Smith comes off, and how sharp Klobuchar was to quickly figure out the basic mistake. And then how pissy Schmitt gets at her.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

There are really good reasons *not* to do it, but both this Labour government and the last are hamstrung by the inability to just clearly state 'Donald Trump is bad and has bad consequences'.

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Dr Seth Thévoz @seththevoz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Right on cue… bsky.app/profile/atru...

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Having real #MeToo flashbacks today, what with various news stories going around, and thinking a lot about how women were encouraged to rip themselves open and show off our trauma, in all its Technicolor glory, so that men might begin to believe us

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Luca Tiratelli @lucatiratelli.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I await the first time a politician proposing some nuts new immigration restriction is asked what is otherwise the media’s favourite question: how are you going to pay for it??

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In practice, AI literacy doesn’t start with building the tool for your personal use. It starts with understanding yourself as a collection of tasks who should subcontract those out to a machine. Almost no regular person’s life currently exists as such.

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Baroness Floella Benjamin @floellabenjamin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Today it’s 50 years since I first presented Playschool wearing my blue beads and silver heart. I adore bringing joy into the lives of my Playschool Babies during the 12 years I was on the programme. ❤️

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I realise this isn’t exactly the biggest issue here, but, wow, I bet Russell Brand is a terrible moderator. Incoherent, pretentious, conceited, abjectly underinformed, constitutionally incapable of shutting up.

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Finn @thegoblinpoet.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

ngl "2 doggers, a lad out on the rob for diesel, a fly tipper and an actual terrorist get swept up into an international incident" would be a really funny premise for a slice of life British comedy

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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 28/09/2026

January 2025: I’m a trad wife who thinks women who work should be burned at the stake, please ignore the $50,000 I make on insta posting butter I had my servant churn Today: did you know women are people? I promise never to sell you gals out again unless its convenient

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James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Very funny how Wes Streeting’s statement that the local farmer only had a “partial picture” read like “the intelligence services were all over this plot already” and could now be anything from that to “oh wow you’ll never guess what they found in the vans and I really wish I could tell you”.

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Sleestak @sleestak.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

and behold a pale horse. and the name that sat on him was death. and hell followed with him

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Aidan O’Brien @aidanobrien.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yuge day for American Bluesky, as many are getting their first experience of the quaint and traditional British rural pursuits, "dogging" and "flytipping"

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Can't help admiring Brits' persistent attachment to the idea that supply and demand doesn't operate in the housing market and their concomitant refusal to admit that a place is only ever worth as much as anyone is prepared to pay for it.

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elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

they're wasting money for the sole purpose of being cruel and that in itself will cost us even more money, while they talk about more cuts because we're apparently struggling with money

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Jamie McKelvie @mckelvie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

bsky.app/profile/mcke...

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I have started enjoying early 19th century tombstones so much since I realised they read like Google reviews of people

Tombstone of Mrs Eleanor Fairley, Bridgetown, Barbados. A long account of her virtues. Apparently nice to her friends and husband. It also says she was “humane and indulgent” to her servants, though I bet nobody asked them. Died 1823.

Tombstone of Mrs Jannet Grant, Inverness, Scotland. Very hard to read but again it is a list of her virtues and conduct. Top lady. Died 1845.

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

cuth pube

A sign that attempts to spell out "the Cube pub" by shifting the B in Cube down with the PU right before it and TH before the E.

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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

An 87-year-old woman lived in the same Madrid apartment for 70 years. Then a real estate firm bought it and forced her out. The housing crisis is global because the underlying logic is the same: your home is someone else's investment vehicle.

nytimes.com

87-Year-Old Evicted From Her Home Tells Spaniards to ‘Fight’ to Avoid Same Fate

María del Carmen Abascal, whose case has become a symbol of Spain’s housing crisis, appeared in a video from her hospital bed after police officers removed her from her apartment.

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Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

AI #slopaganda is not so much about fakes or disinformation. It's about aligning the world with your preformulated descriptions of it, making reality disappear behind its formulaic image, rendering visible all your fears at once in order to enjoy them more. It's a technology of fascist daydreaming

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Some unintended consequences I suspect the rise of AI agents will create: 1. Restaurants that only take reservations by hand written letter, or more likely, don't take them at all. 2. Gigs where you can only buy tickets in person. 3. Businesses that operate without websites.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Sing if you’re glad to be an exquisite intellectual who revels in delusions of personal superiority

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Since this project first came up a few years ago I have been thrilled at the projects of Tom Holland as Fred Astaire. Now we also get Sabrina as Ginger?! YESSS I wonder if there are any videos out there that show how good at dancing Tom Holland is? 🤔

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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

guy who fell into a coma after the last episode of fawlty towers wakes up and looks at the internet

5 panel comic

Panel 1: Purple Guy looks at a laptop and says “boy o boy! I wonder what my comedy hero’s up to”

Panel 2: A tweet from John Cleese that reads “This is where the Arabs were ahead of us

By castrating all their slaves, they made sure that there were no descendants who could claim reparations”

Panels 3-5: Purple Guy slowly closes laptop with a mystified look of revulsion

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Relatedly: More could be done under existing legislation against platforms that host videos of criminal activity and individuals or organisations who profit from posting videos of crimes they & their members commit. This is also relevant to curbing stuff like dangerous driving video content.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This guy has all the worst ideas for weirdos. I guess he got lucky once with one bad idea for weirdos that normies took to, once they completely eliminated its original horrible weirdo purpose

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026

Every line of this article is just completely stunning

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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

England is a made up thing. It has no basis in the ineluctable laws of nature. Its extent is defined by Edward II getting his arse handed to him. Athelstan conquering York. The Welsh of Cumbria were incorporated, the Welsh of Gwynedd were not. It is a political idea, an aspiration - not taxonomy.

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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.

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