iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Where once there was Magic Grandad Then there came Magic Zack And next?

Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

My own small contribution to writing on the Crick/Watson/ Franklin/Wilkins saga is a long-ago blog from 2010, when Crick's long-thought-lost 1951-2 letters to Wilkins surfaced. Amused to note (judged by Cobb's post clipped below) my conclusion was...apt. occamstypewriter.org/notranting/2...

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Long & interesting thread🧵 from Francis Crick biographer Prof @matthewcobb.bsky.social on a recent historical paper looking again at *those* DNA images, inc. who did which one w which DNA, who looked at what when etc etc. Quote disabled, but easy enough to find if you fancy a read.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Hypocrisy is for the *little* people. Like taxes. How people can be taken in by Reform is... baffling.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Trumpistas are... The Smokers. (Who remembers that movie?)

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Aren't we lucky we live in a meritocracy here in the UK. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA <Despairing manic laughter dying away> From the latest Eye: @privateeyenews.bsky.social

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is from a Reuters piece on the lawsuit. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

We do that too, though usually overnight in the kitchen. Have also used upstairs hallway (bannisters good for sheets & towels) and conservatory. Houses in England often used to have ceiling-mounted drying racks in upstairs hallway on hoist/pulley. My first house had a possibly original iron one.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This is the best thing of Dunt's that I've ever read, and likely the most important. It paints a particularly damning picture of the Times & Telegraph's current take on ' political news'.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

A v. relatable piece here from the new Eye. My venerable irony meters have certainly been struggling to cope with current global reality.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

'But all two dozen of your 20-30min one-to-one pastoral meetings w. both new & returning undergrads must be completed* in the first two teaching wks of the semester'. (For which we don't yet know the timetable). *'Oh, and reported on the new online form we haven't finished setting yet up yet.'

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

'Date yourself with a snap of your first ever computer.' First one I ever used, in a summer job in a lab in the early 80s, was one of these.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A grim history from the US, though marginally less extreme versions of this are now playing out all across UK academia too.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Think the Prof is also on the money about the Arday case here - agree with everything in his first para. Nobody comes out of it well, and all the monoview Culture War-marinaded takes on the Arday affair - some alarmingly prevalent on here - are not helping.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

A magisterial, if deeply depressing, summary of the Brexsh*t sclerosis in UK politics from Prof G. As an academic, Brit spouse of an EU national who's given 30 (thankless) yrs to the NHS, & parent of 2 dual national kids, feel all this personally. No doubt Brexit has complicated our family life.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Well, we've de facto renamed swathes of the UK for tourist or TV associations - Shakespeare's Stratford, Jack the Ripper's E End, Last of t'Summer Wine Country, Peaky Blinders' Brum etc - why not historical periods too? 'Robin Hood's Middle Ages' - catchy. We already have 'Henry the Eight's Tudors'.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

This is a good read. And definitely truer than any public statement Nasty Nige has made this year.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Hadn't realised I'd been 'on trend' - this was my travel watch & alarm for yrs in the 90s. When the resin strap went I replaced it w this one I'd found in a thrift store/desk drawer. Now using it again, as my other watch broke & I managed to replace the battery in this one, which I'm oddly proud of.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

From a post a couple of day ago called 'Who Said It". Great stuff. One to subscribe to. substack.com/@secretacade...

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

The loathing for Starmer, which I think has been key to the rise in the polls of all of 1) The Greens, 2) Kemi 'badenough' Badenoch, and 3) Reform, is indeed bizarre in many ways. The first reply here offers reasons, and also tells us a bit about why politics in soc media 2026 is so grim & toxic.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Never ceases to crack me up that the numbskulls, Jeebus loons, 'survivalists', gun nuts & militia types who have spent the last 30+ years screaming 'Federal Gestapo!' have now helped give the US... a Federal Gestapo. They never meant 'Citizens Rights'. They meant 'my white right to tread on YOU'.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

And should you wish to see what a building with complicated passive cooling looks like... here's an example - the Contact Theatre, Oxford Rd, Manchester. Note the, er, elaborate cooling 'chimneys'.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Similar in the UK with (the somewhat related) ring-necked parakeets, Psitticula krameri, now endemic in city parks and along rivers across the UK. Parrots get about.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

John Harris on good form. Farage, like Trump, is a narcissist and a fraud. But the mugs keep voting for him. Will they ever see through the Tweedy Toadführer?

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Spotted on Fb today. After all Trump's bullshit, hard not to feel a sense of poetic justice at Les Belges so unceremoniously dumping the USA out of the World Cup. An expression En Français that springs to mind for the US team's departure is: 'Tant pis'

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

'Dawn of the Dumb' (Found on Fb) Though fervently hoping that we're into the MAGAdämmerung phase.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Hunter Thompaon had it nailed in 1973, a half century ago. PS It's 347 million used car salesmen now.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Yup. I've lived through multiple ERVS schemes in my long (if undistinguished) academic career. Glen's article gives a good summary of how it feels. I'm relieved that I'm now at an age to be past caring on a personal level. But seeing the sector, friends & colleagues on the block is grim/depressing.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Posted on Fb by one of by Northern Irish friends.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

My favourite Donnie Trumpo movie Stand-In is Alex Cullen, the creepy wife-murdering billionaire Noo Yawk property developer with an incestuous interest in his preteen daughter in 'The Devil's Advocate' (1997). They even filmed in Donnie's Trump Tower Goldendreck Palace penthouse. No, really.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Oh dear. The darker recesses of crank left Corbynismo, born anew in Zacky P's revamped Green Party.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Well. What a surprise. An online promoter of racially inflammatory far-right conspiracy theories. Who'd've guessed a Reform Councillor/candidate would do such a thing? Err...

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

This is among the reasons why the kind of position Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com set out earlier today OUGHT to be perfectly viable politically. E.g. no way we're at the point where older Brits would accept the Euro. But 100% clear we must align/ally w the EU to boost trade & the economy.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

John Crace here summing up rather well why even Labour MPs seem to have decided enough is enough.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

I'm tempted to set up one of these and given myself a medal and award. Though I'm too lazy, really. Not for promotion - long since given up on that. Mostly because it would be a hoot and an epic bit of trolling.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Ain't that the truth. Remember the screams of 'Socialism!' 'far-left death panels!' etc when Obama tried to give America a clone of the decidedly *not* socialist German healthcare insurance system?

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Regarding the 'special relationship'... also relevant in the context of Trump's UK fans (Nigel Farage & co) who want to make the UK more like the US. Take home for US readers: the UK does far more for its citizens... with far less. So where IS all the money going to in the US?

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Spotted on Facebook. Satire speaks truth.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

The article is a sobering read. Here's the entire paragraph the quote comes from.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Final bit from Anne Applebaum's latest piece in 'The Atlantic', whose tone might be described as 'scathing' or 'excoriating'. Trump might hopefully be neutered after the mid-terms in November, & (please!🙏) be gone by 2029, But some of the damage to the USA's standing in the world will be permanent.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

It would be a major win for Europe, and a major loss for Putin, were Orban (and by extension his family & cronies) to be voted out. One imagines Russia's hackers, bot armies & dirty tricks specialists will be doing all they can to keep Viktor in power.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

The more irate & petulant Hegseth gets, the more his hair begins to remind me of 'Paulie Walnuts' from 'The Sopranos'.

Picture of the character 'Paulie Walnuts' (Paulie Gualtieri) from the series 'The Sopranos', as portrayed by the late Tony Sirico.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Ouch. John Crace withering as ever on the hapless Badenoch. 'Schrõdinger's War' is the new dead (or possibly not dead*) cat bounce... *It's a quantum thing. Might be alive too. Til you open the dispatch box.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Crikey. JoMo and bros have done something useful.

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Dr_Aust_PhD @draustphd.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

'Country Joe, thou shouldst (still) be living at this hour' etc etc.

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