iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Had a lovely explore of Warriston Cemetery as part of e Edinburgh's #OpenDoorsDay. A lovely mix of history and wildlife on a beautiful day!

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My primary meme-sharing group is called His Dank Materials, which might be the greatest name I've ever come up with for anything. Still proud of it, years later.

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Reposted by Ben Cooper

Tom Duffin Photographer @tomduffinphotos.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The moon last night over the Bronze Age burial cairn that sits atop West Cairn Hill in the Pentlands. I don't normally shoot the moon unless it's full or a crescent but I had to stop for this one. @astroroyalscot.bsky.social can you tell me about the dent top R in the moon?

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Big VFX YouTube channel did a section on it about 3 months ago, so that's probably it: youtu.be/uxirix9rITs?...

youtu.be

VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 222

YouTube video by Corridor Crew

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I have heard that LLM based tools are genuinely revolutionary when it comes to reverse-engineering old software written in shit like assembly code. People in the video game preservation space are excited.

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Latest mad thing to be carried on my cargo bike - 35kg of plywood in ~1m long chunks. Interesting effect on the handling - *very* stable above ~10km/h but basically could only be steered like a ship. Incredibly loud over any slightly rough road surfaces... But all in all, great success!

A cargo bike with a bunch of quite heavy plywood sheets trapped to the back with a combination of ratchet straps and bungee cords

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

This is how it gets you. My fancy Japanese toilet for the new bathroom just arrived and I am extremely excited.

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Thor living up to his name during last night's thunderstorms

A cat staring out of a window, fully illuminated by a stroke of lightning

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Reposted by Ben Cooper

Sacha Coward @sachacoward.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Game: Majora's Mask (2000) Moment: You save the world, you reunite lovers, you help countless folk heal and rebuild. Then the world ends, the game resets, everything is forgotten. Learning: Doing kind things is important even when you cannot be there to see the outcome. /4

static.klipy.com

Majora's Mask: Final Day Moon Crash

ALT: Majora's Mask: Final Day Moon Crash

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

The kind of tools being used in this case do not require the involvement of problematic US tech giants or the energy/water consumption comparable to whole cities.

Text that reads "More broadly he said artificial intelligence was going to be a "game changer" for vaccine research and that AI tools had the potential to predict how the immune system would respond to a vaccine making development much faster and would "save lives"."

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Bad actors in the AI business will seize on this as an example of why we need to be wasting huge amounts of resources on their models. The studies here neither used nor mention words like AI, LLM or anything like that in their papers. "Computationally designed" is not equivalent to "designed by AI"!

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... This is shoddy reporting by the BBC, and stuff like this will massively contribute to the problematic hype around LLMs and AI. Makes it seem like they just said "Hey ChatGPT, design me a vaccine".

bbc.co.uk

'World-first' vaccine designed by artificial intelligence

Cambridge scientists say they have, for the first time, tested a vaccine designed by AI.

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Little known fact - he also moonlighted as a @bobgooday.bsky.social impersonator.

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EldritchSophie 🏳️‍⚧️ - The Hellbound Heart Failure @eldritchsophie.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

I for one will continue to use single sex spaces, and if any so called 'defender of women and girls' tries to stop me from using the toilet, I will gladly piss on their shoes 😤

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Reposted by Ben Cooper

Chris @chrsphr.uk · 22/05/2026

at least you can be as trans as you want on a hovercraft

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But Andrew Hickey Died Ten Years Ago This Very Night @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 06/05/2026

This is the problem. A pitch to voters "turning to Greens and Reform". You have to actually choose between the voters who want what they perceive as a socially liberal socialist environmentalist party and the ones who want fascism. You can't appeal to both, and now they all hate you.

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Science Magazine @science.org · 05/05/2026

Deepfakes are everywhere, but digital forensics investigators are fighting back. Learn more: scim.ag/42dMPBg

To verify images, digital forensics investigators will often check whether the geometry of the scene is realistic. In a real photo, lines that run parallel in reality—like floor tiles—should meet at a single vanishing point. In this image, however, the dotted lines do not meet in a single point, indicating it is a fake.
Image: an AI-generated image of soldiers marching down a hallway in three lines, wearing fatigues and carrying rifles. Four dotted white lines have been added over the image, running along the floor tiles visible in the foreground and extending back to where the vanishing point should be, behind the soldiers. Instead of meeting in a single point, the lines all cross at different points.

Investigators also examine reflections. The lines connecting points on an object to matching points in its mirror image run parallel in reality, so similarly should meet at a vanishing point. In this image, the lines again do not converge on one point, revealing it to be a fake.
Image: An AI-generated image of a plastic cartoon dinosaur toy with its reflection visible in a small mirror. Four dotted white lines are layered over the image, connecting points on the toy with the same points on its reflection: the top of its eye, the end of its jaw, its hand, and its foot. The lines extend out to the side of the image, where they all cross at different points rather than meeting at a single point.

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

I'd forgotten how terribly laid out Leeds station is. If you have a platform 0A, something has gone terribly wrong

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Yeah, between this and the Japanese Kei cars (with which the Honda Jazz shares a fair bit of lineage) the big East Asian countries have got it much more figured out! Jealous!

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

The conversion of the MPV/people carrier into the modern SUV is a real tragedy. I have a 2007 Honda Jazz and it's more spacious and flexible inside than any SUV, despite being much smaller externally. But pretty much no-one makes them anymore :(

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She has been called “the Beyoncé of her day”, and Vogue in 2016 described how she "brilliantly manipulated the white male imagination" and “radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today” 22/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

In November 2021, her remains were reinterred at the Panthéon in Paris, one of only six women to have that honour, and the only black woman. Her home, a mixture of French chateau and 1920s art deco, was converted to a museum. 21/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died aged 68. She remains the only US-born woman to receive full French military honours at her funeral, which was attended by over 20,000 mourners. 20/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

In April 1975 she starred in a retrospective revue celebrating her 50 years in showbusiness, starring Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli. However, she was found in a coma only 4 days later. 19/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Throughout her life, she had a huge range of affairs and relationships with high profile men and women. She adopted a total of 12 children from a huge range of ethnicities, whilst continuing to tour Europe and the world. 18/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Some within the movement shunned her, feeling that her outspoken nature and racy past would hurt the cause, and that her time in French high society had made her disconnected from the issues facing black Americans. 17/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Following Dr King’s assassination, she was approached by his widow to take his place as the leader of the movement. Baker considered it for several days, but eventually declined. 16/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

In 1963, she spoke alongside Martin Luther King Jr at his March on Washington, the only official female speaker, wearing her Free French uniform and her Legion of Honour medal proudly. 15/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Even from France, she remained closely involved with the civil rights movement and the NAACP. Like many black people, her experience of more equality in wartime Europe redoubled her commitment to equal rights. 14/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She returned to the US in 1949, but her involvement in the civil rights movement and her refusal to perform for segregated audiences rubbed high profile conservative journalists the wrong way, and in 1951 she was forced to return to France. 13/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She specialised in entertaining gatherings at ministries and embassies, for obvious reasons. Post- war, she was given the Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and named to the Legion of Honour by Charles de Gaulle. 12/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She stored weapons in her cellar and had a radio transmitter covertly installed to communicate with the allies. Her career as an entertainer continued to provide her with excellent cover for moving around Europe. 11/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

When France was occupied in 1940 she converted her chateau in the south into a shelter for both resistance fighters and Jewish refugees, providing them with food, clothes and forged documents. 10/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She acquired a private pilot’s licence and flew around Europe gathering data on German troop movements, airfields and harbours. She wrote notes in invisible ink and pinned them inside her clothes to smuggle intelligence across borders. 9/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

When France declared war on Germany, Baker was recruited by French military intelligence. Using her contacts and charm, she socialised with high-ranking Germans and Italians, and passed volumes of intelligence back to the French. 8/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

In the mid-1930s, she had several unpleasant experiences in Germany, including being targeted by ammonia bombs and being told to “go back to Africa”. These led her to develop an anti-nazi sentiment that defined the next step in her life. 7/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She became acquainted with such celebrities as Ernest Hemmingway and Pablo Picasso, had a pet cheetah called “Chiquita” (who often joined her on stage), and became the first black woman to star in a major film. 6/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

But her real breakout came in 1925 when, unable to stand America any longer, she sailed to France and joined the Revie Nègre, a group of black musicians and dancers. Here, her dancing and costumes made her an instant success. 5/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

From street performance, she worked her way into a number of vaudeville acts, eventually joining a show that ran on Broadway for 96 performances. 4/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

She was married by the time she was 13, though that marriage only lasted a year. At age 15 she married again, this time to William Baker. This second marriage didn’t last long either, but she retained his surname for the rest of her life. 3/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

Born in St Louis Missouri in 1906, she grew up feeling the sharp end of the racist and segregated culture of the US south. She dropped out of school at only 12, and started working first as a waitress, and then as a street performer. 2/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

This year’s “Woman you should know about” for International Women’s Day is Josephine Baker. Dancer, singer, actress, civil rights activist, pilot and recipient of France’s highest order of merit, the Legion of Honour. 🧵 1/22

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, once asked me if I had ever seen anyone die. When I responded "No", he said "Well, it's only a matter of time" and walked away.

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Incredible. I cannot stop watching this!

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Reposted by Ben Cooper

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

these memes are fresh

lobsters fighting meme, both lobsters and the cheering people all labeled "STATISTICIAN"

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Oh my God. I had always assumed the title referred to depth, and only now reflected on how daft that assumption was!

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

I got a bit alarmed that this would affect me, but buried in there is *unless you're a British and Irish dual national in which case you can just use the Irish passport* in case anyone is also in that situation!

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Daniel Williams @daniel-williams.co.uk · 10/02/2026

A letter to Martin Rhodes, my MP, regarding the recently-announced budget cuts to astronomy and other curiosity-driven science in the UK. (Full text in on my blog, apologies that I couldn't fit it all in alt text: daniel-williams.co.uk/2026/02/10/l...)

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Ben Cooper @btcooper.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Incredible for a BBC article to just drop this nickname in there with absolutely zero context on who he is (other than "shark expert") and why he has that nickname. No notes.

Screenshot of news article: Shark expert Tom 'The Blowfish' Hird explains that bull sharks have "certainly got a fire inside them" and "are known to retaliate when they have been either chased by boats or when they've been tagged".

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