iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

So, what you're saying is: plenty of material for the PhD?

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Presumably our disrupted sleep weighed very little on their metrics

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

(Some of the younger guys were also regularly playing basketball/football against our back fences and walls around midnight, which also hardly endeared them to everyone around them)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Fundamentally, my views on EA will always be coloured by the fact I was literally nextdoor neighbour to their Oxford office for several years, and they eventually sent letters of apologies to everyone for hosting very loud and late parties regularly (the office was entirely surrounded by houses)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Yep, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubis_... had to explain what was going on with this to an older colleague a few months ago

en.wikipedia.org

Anubis (software) - Wikipedia

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

You wouldn't get a word in edgeways over him being over the moon about still being read 2000 years later

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

As an ancient historian and epigrapher, I am available for any egomaniacs to hire as a consultant if they actually want to be remembered forever* *forever meaning at least 2000 years

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Cheery [but with a reminder that all the glories of Men are temporary, and that every fact of their history will fade to oblivion]

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

If they sat more centrally in thr Channel, for example, I'm sure their history would be a lot more contested

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Not my period or region by a, uh, substantial margin, but presumably any English/British government looks at the islands and says "not worth the men or ships to fight for, if they want them, they can have them, and we'll get them back when we win/in the peace"

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Sure, the company *tells* you that you've seen Antarctica, but those penguins are all actors

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Love to go diving back into the twitter archives and find gems such as these

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

(Mine is the London Colosseum and the lost 40 thousand square foot panorama of London contained within)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

There comes a time in every man's life where he discovers an unbuilt or lost building which he will dedicate the rest of his years to yearning for.

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The West Midlands Connotation would make a decent memoir title

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I bring you the coolest sheep from today's agricultural show

Prize-winning sheep wearing red sunglasses

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I know soundtracks presumably don't make *that* much money compared to the rest, but, since you've paid for someone who is not unknown to compose, is there no commercial benefit to "encourage them to write distinctive themes for all our characters". Where are the endlessly touring Avengers concerts?

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Wonder what this guy's blusky handle is

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Only has to do one season this time around, and I presume the *Krusty the Clown voice* dump truck full of money was very persuasive

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Further proof, of course, that the 4th century is most important and interesting century in the history of the world

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I'm not a historian of ancient science by any means, but iirc, the key proof in Greek philosophy is astronomical (the shape of the earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse, as noted by Aristotle c. 350 BC), and the 4th century is when the spherical earth becomes accepted

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Was at a seminar a few months ago where an Anatolian invocation was recited out loud for the first time in 3 millennia, so possibly at least one long-forgotten deity was awoken

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

It's the summer, teaching hasn't restarted yet, and there are so many books and articles that need to be written, and therefore posting and fighting is the perfect procrastination

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Idyllic sky in Dorset this evening

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

If I ever have kids, Reeve and Nix will be the two authors I will leave in prominent places (both have also suffered, slightly, from the additions to the core books - I don't really need to know what Lirael and co. did after they saved the world)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

1) The wince I did on reading the date written that way round 2) lots of fun work has been done on how ancient tomb inscriptions have suspiciously round numbers for ages (and the consequences of that for calculating ancient life expectancies)

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Reposted by Oliver Clarke

Journeyman Torturer Reaction Video @tabloidsores.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Listening to someone describe Hermes Trismegistus as "emerging out of the whole Hellenistic situation" and I cannot help but imagine a YT thumbnail titled The Hellenistic Situation Is Crazy

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Insisting on calling it soccer, but in the most affected 1920s Oxford accent possible

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Citizens who say "I miss seeing the stars" or similar will be directed to their nearest Imperial Navy press gang, so that they may see the stars more closely in service of the Emperor [porthole viewing access will be granted after minimum 15 years service]

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Look, when there's a 1 in a million chance that looking at the demon portal in the sky will drive someone to open a demon portal down here in the next year, and there's 10 billion people on the planet, do you have a more efficient way of preventing 10,000 demon portals a year?

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

(She is translating the whole poem, again, so I imagine there will be a new wave of discourse when that comes out)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

(Though immensely jealous that you are heading to Umbria - to drop a recommendation, Montefalco has, apart from its own particular and excellent wine, stunning views, a charming little gallery and a delightful main piazza.)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

The joy also is, even in the most tourist-overrun parts of Venice, Rome, or Florence, you are still, at most, one alleyway from something delicious and reasonably priced

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Not enough commitment to 1) the gods as characters, when you've decided on magic and monsters as fundamental 2) The Cleverness of husband and wife and 3) Homeric diction, but I enjoyed the influence of Dante/Tennyson's Ulysses on the character

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Understood that the suitors are out and out villains and cowards, and played it very well

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

You have one of the greats works of literature, one of the finest poems ever created Nolan: "I am going to quote none of it"

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The conceit of Odysseys as the Sea Peoples is quite a fun idea! The execution is so painful I couldn't stop giggling

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The Odyssey: what a strange, interesting, affecting film with ace visuals and sound design, and the worst script I've suffered through for a long time

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Nah, film based around young Nixon playing poker as a logistics officer in the Pacific

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Teenagers* don't want narrative, they want bare chronicles, uncertain sources, and entire languages *teenagers who will be spending Sundays in their early 30s wrangling early Hellenistic chronological cruces

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

No one's* reading any more, scriptwriters are generally of a certain age, so their wellspring of inspiration is comprised of "the shows and films they enjoyed between the ages of 11-25" *This is exaggeration for effect, bluesky users who take every word literally and want to argue.

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

(The best Odyssey sequel is Herodotus, I will be taking no questions)

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

For Sunak, he's becoming my go-to for "it's a deep problem that political failure as a PM has become terminal for your career, and that we grant no space for failure and learning"

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Oliver Clarke @astroclassicist.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The steelman case for Johnson is surely that foreign policy decisions have greater importance in long-term judgments, so "despite numerous domestic screw-ups, he held the line on Ukraine at the right moment"

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