iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 7h

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekMForMachinery Overexposed square (originally my IG post?) image of a yellow combine harvester, probably gathering barley. The big crop around here, for the distillery industry. The sky is burnt out white. Working on a slope, it looks like it might tip over at any moment.

040

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

8 seconds of explosive goldfinch joy.

030

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht.

A dark photo that looks black and white, because it is an interior shot illuminated by the moon (just past being full).
There’s a small spot of light off to the left. The window frame is visible due to the moon light coming through. Reflected light shows where the cutting board and guillotine (used by my photographer OH) lay on a desk. Outside the moonshine lights up a wedge of clear sky bordered by a dark frame of trees.

010

Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

Edward Philips Art @edwardphilips.co.uk · 26/09/2026

It’s world maritime day. BBC Radio 3 are celebrating by broadcasting from various lighthouses. So, here are some lighthouses just for you. xx

0216

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It’s Gaulling! Asterix the Gaul…no?

000

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A local photography collective have an exhibition on, part of an arts festival in Moray, at Logie Steadings near Forres. I mention as it includes 8 photographs by my better half. Her website www.mairimacaulayphotography.co.uk

A pair of Mairi’s photographs. The pictures are partially obscured by window reflections on the glass in the frames of the mounted prints.
Each is of rock weathered and worn by the waters of the river at a location called ‘Randolph’s Leap’ close to Logie. The sharpness of detail in the rocks are set against the (long exposure) smoothed flow of the river.

This shows the eight prints as they are hung on the wall. They are configured in an approximate diamond shape thus:
a landscape oriented set on the horizontal middle line to the left, mirroring a similar image on the right;
inset on both sides there are above and below the mid-line a pair of landscape oriented prints, and
in the vertical mid-line there are two prints, a portrait oriented image above and a landscape oriented below.
They are all of rocks and river water.
My powers of description fail the beauty of Mairi’s photography.

211

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thanks to last week’s #FireHydrantFriday I now know where to find the nearest hydrant to my home. I really appreciate being brought to notice this by you lot.

Landscape orientation photograph of a cast iron fire hydrant cover plate. It sits in a tarmac pavement. The cover was once painted yellow, although only fragments of colour remain. It is otherwise rust coloured, with a yellowing birch (probably) leaf laying just off centre, across the left leg of the capital H.
Cast into the design it says ‘BRICKHOUSE’ at the top, ‘FH’ centred in the middle. Below that a British Standards Kitemark and ‘8050 R’, with ‘DUCTILE’ on the foot of the plate.
The pattern is (mostly) 4 or 5 offset rows of the letter ‘G’ in (to my mind) a very rigid font. Also, there are deformed ‘S’ in a font similar to the typical two-headed Allen Key shape. And I have just realised that the G’s and S’s are in diagonal lines, rising left to right.
Anyway, if there’s a fire nearby I can now direct the Fire Service to the nearest hydrant. Bluesky saves the day!

130

Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Is it time to post that paragraph from The Road To Wigan Pier? The one about how the desperate, pleasureless poor will always refuse to just spend their pennies on cabbage no matter how much you try and insist. This isn’t a thing you can make people do. It’s not how humans work.

1213544

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Quote post this with a picture of the aircraft you’ll accept as a bribe.

A painting of a sky blue RAF jet fighter zooming against an orange backdrop. Done in such a way as to give the impression of hugely high speed, ya bam!
It was painted by my brother, Campbell, over 25 years ago. I think it is supposed to be a Harrier VTOL jet, but he was the expert and I am not.

000

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday Shortly after feeding my apple to a pony (with the owner’s consent) I spotted this. It’s on the single track hill road between Beauly and Muir of Ord.

A black large H printed on a yellow oblong sign. The sign is screwed on to a cement frame (for want of a better word). The frame is damaged around the upper left corner, and the reinforcing metal bars are exposed and rusting.
This sign is planted in the grass covered banking at the side of the road. It overlooks whin bushes in the foreground, and views towards the Black Isle and the Beauly Firth.

160

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday A pressed metal plate attached to a cement frame, somewhat obscured by vegetation. This is my third and final post on this # today. Have I flooded the market?

I spotted this hydrant marker by the side of the road. It is located in a scrubby, woodland setting, with trees and bushes behind, weeds growing around it, dried up leaves and twigs. There’s two strands of fence wire running across the base and grey, corrugated paper sitting in the bottom left corner.
There cement frame has been painted yellow, although it is weathered and fairly patchy. Moss covers the top right corner of the frame.
Screwed or bolted in place is the sign itself, dominated by a large black H. Within the top half of the H is the number 4, and in the bottom half again the number 4 but this is on a (presumably) replaceable metal insert.

1141

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday Another rusty cast iron cover marked FH (crudely spray painted in light blue paint), set in a tarmac pavement.

A rusty hydrant lid, sits in the similarly rusty edge of the box it covers. This is oblong, with cut-off corners at the bottom (perhaps these hide hinged elements?). The large letters FH are top and centred. Towards the middle of the cover is a keyhole shaped space, probably for a tool for opening the thing. Top and bottom there are two slits for crowbars access, I’m guessing.
On the left side of the keyhole the cast design includes the letters PAM, with what looks like a British Standards kite mark below and an arched bridge (as if looking side on at a simplified representation of the Rialto Bridge in Venice). Right of the keyhole the design reads HCB-40. Below the keyhole it reads WARRIOR.

030

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#FireHydrantFriday A cast iron cover marked FH, set into a tarmac pavement.

The rusty cover (and box it sits inside) are surrounded by speckled grey tarmac. Besides the dominant identification letters FH, the cast includes “EN124-D400” immediately below the FH. Below that, the other side of a keyhole space (for a lifting device) is “ISD 1083”. Towards the bottom right corner is “G1-100”. Included in the cast design are two keyholes (the other sitting above the FH), two openings placed at either end (probably for crowbar access) and lines of solid arrowhead shapes (alternating upwards and downwards across each line) in eight lines. The number of arrowhead shapes in each line varies according to the other features in that part of the hydrant lid.

041

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

@iainsarjeant.bsky.social Just in case this has escaped your eye for the ordinary.

120

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

We sailed from Plockton to Mallaig, today. Saw minke whales, dolphins, sea eagle skimming across the waves and plenty of other wildlife. Went through the Glenelg Narrows at 12.1 knots. Fabulous stuff. Topped by a nice wee chat with superlative northern (England) actor Lorraine Ashbourne.

A portrait image of the Isle of Eigg. An Sgurr to the left. Sitting in a band of clear light, low in a fairly calm sea. Covered by layers of cloud in the sky above.

130

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Listening to the 23 August edition of Radcliffe & Maconie. Plenty of bin talk. Our brown bins (garden waste - hedge trimmings, weeds & grass cuttings) are out for emptying. Here it is a fortnightly cycle for brown bins, between March & October.

010

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

#SundayPixStretch A series of framed photographs stretched along an exhibition space wall. My better half’s images of wind turbines in the Highland landscape. These are part of a show by several photographers on a broad theme of what is landscape. It is at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness.

110

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Porridge always stokes me up like a boiler. Steamin’!

000

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Noun, that’s what I’m talking about!

000

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

#SundayPix #SundayPixHappy A small copper butterfly sitting on a blue globe thistle, with a blurry hover fly. The butterfly is pretty much centre of the colour image. It’s mainly orange wings with black outer edges and spots on the wings, plus reverse mainly black tail with spotted orange edges.

091

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Post a picture that could be an album cover… My 📸

A slice of toast, cut into two halves. The bottom half has two bites out of the left hand side. The bread is white, sliced. Toasted to a golden brown. The left third of the image is in shade, and the other 2/3rds in sunlight. There is a line of crumbs (from the cutting in half) below the top half.
The toast is buttered. And it is on a circular, ceramic plate, which is near white with light blue flecks and edged in black.
The LP is a collection of A and B sides, by a band that is now toast.

010

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

#SundayPixSunset 30 seconds video of sunset, taken from a train. It’s probably shot travelling north towards Inverness. The bottom half of the landscape frame is in darkness. The middle line is a fuzzy orange glow. The top half is ombre, with orange fading to blue. Trees & pylons flash by.

040

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

A common carder bee gets busy with its tongue, lapping up nectar on a multiple blossom flower ball atop a leek’s scape. It is a 13 seconds video of the small bee wearing its amber coloured fur coat.

100

Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

There now follows a party election broadcast by the Count Binface Party, And if I do say so myself, it's a banger. #VoteBinface #Clacton

22772292814

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I borrowed this book from the library. This morning a thought has crossed my mind. I have not noticed any references to Pat Barker’s trilogy during the recent responses to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. That seems like an omission of an important, contemporary take on these stories.

A colour photo of the cover of The Voyage Home by Pat Barker. It is a Penguin paperback edition.
The cover artwork, by Sarah Young, shows two female figures in the foreground. They are Cassandra “war-wife of Agamemnon” and “her watchful maid” Rita’s. Ahead of them is what looks like the shadow of Medusa with her hair rising in all directions. The two women are on a ship, bringing Agamemnon back from Troy to Greece, named Medusa with that figurehead.
The ship looks forward through a sea channel edged by hills, columns of rain, great beacons aflame, glowering purple clouds - classical Greek architecture of the city at the head of the view, their destination.
This is the third book in the trilogy. I read the first, The Silence of the Girls, earlier this summer.
Unfortunately, book two (The Women of Troy) in the library’s collection remains stuck on a beach, or somewhere, like Odysseus’s ships.
Anyway, read these books, and go see the film.

000

Reposted by @calumsmac.bsky.social

pal2tech @pal2tech.com · 17/07/2026

Your Fujifilm battery is not draining from shooting. It is Bluetooth, the eye sensor, and a boost setting most people never touch. I ranked the 6 biggest drains and the fix for each one: youtu.be/4xjMLNtEaXI

1202

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I wonder if Roddy Mann knows about this?

000

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Get the Move on Call the fire brigade I’m stuck!

A tall, large, yellow blossom, of the sunflower family, poking through upright fence panels. The fence panels are covered by lichen. There are more flowers above the fence’s height and mostly blue sky beyond them.

020

calumsmac.bsky.social @calumsmac.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

They mean locomotive, don’t they?

Screenshot of an email from ScotRail, promoting their new official app, that launches this week.
The colour scheme is white & blue, reflecting the Scottish saltire flag.
It says “Hello Calum, From Thursday, 30 July we’ll be launching our new app and website booking engine”.

000