iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 8h

So: the money would still come in. Hampton Court Palace generated like £138m last year. Imagine being able to fully open up Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle to tourists. The financial impact wouldn’t vanish. The UK would still rake in cash from the Royals. Abolish the Monarchy.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 11h

I have definitely fallen out of love with London.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 19h

Feels like this is getting closer and closer in the UK as well. And as @animalarchaeology.com so correctly pointed out, this only happens when university leadership participates in the reframing of universities as job-factories rather than places of education and learning.

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Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 19h

ok but let’s also be very clear that we only get here with the help of university leadership who supported the idea of higher education as a jobs factory and have also been actively removing these degrees to begin with

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 19h

Except you can’t, can you, because train travel is so prohibitively expensive.

Ad for national rail that shows a picture of a woman on a train taking a photo out the window and a photo of a woman walking along a coastal path. Text overlaid reads ‘Adventrue mode. Activated’ with plus save 1/3 with railcard over the photos. At the bottom text reads ‘on the train you can’

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 28/09/2026

I actually really love living in Britain, I have made it my home, I have made my life and family here. The current Labour government, like the successive Tory governments before them, do not inspire me to become a citizen, despite having been eligible for 13 years.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 28/09/2026

The lecture I'm most looking forward to this term is the second lecture of week 7 in Greek World where we will discuss whether the Persian Wars invented 'The Greeks'. That is all.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 28/09/2026

OH GREAT ANOTHER APP FOR SCHOOL JUST WHAT I NEEDED 🫠

Screenshot of an email that reads: Welcome to Tassomai! You are receiving this email because your child is using Tassomai at their school and, with the school’s permission, we have set you up with a Tassomai parent account.

There is an illustration of a blue hand holding a phone, which reads: Tassomai, pronounced Tass-Oh-My, means "knowledge organiser" in which language? Below this are four buttons which read Latin, Ancient Greek, Old English, and Sanskrit.

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Sooz Kempner @soozuk.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's a fairly local issue. We do, after all, live in Britain, the country that is aiding and abetting the genocide.

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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

There is a genuine incomprehension amongst many journalists and politicians that anyone might care sincerely about Palestinians or seriously object to their indiscriminate slaughter. The natural human response to this genocide is something they simply cannot understand.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 27/09/2026

Can someone explain to me like I’m five why Cornell, and not the police, are dealing with the punishment of seven students for drugging and gang-raping a female student?

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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Cannot tell you how much I hate this & how ashamed & angry I am that @ukri.org have taken this step. We KNOW this sort of gAI is socially biased, we KNOW it favours slopAI output over human-written. Our research landscape is falling apart due to underfunding, & they do this? it's *appalling*

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 24/09/2026

If you want to know what it’s like being an ultra runner, I’m standing here on a Thursday night weighing portions of raspberry jam into little baggies.

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Émilie Oléron Evans @bringyourownsun.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

'[Students] generally do not want history departments to normalise or require high levels of AI use.'

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Maia Kotrosits @maiakotro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Forget “the university will never love me back.” It won’t even honor your contract. Act, work, socialize accordingly.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 23/09/2026

I can’t emphasise enough the deep vitriol you should imagine when you read this out: fuck Jacob Rees Mogg and fuck Suella Braverman. They’re both British but neither embody the British values of openness and grace that I have come to know and love of my adoptive home.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 22/09/2026

I genuinely do mean to brag now, but my @leedsclassics.bsky.social Greek World first years are in for a TREAT, let me tell you. I have completely redesigned my Greek history survey course and it's actually really, really cool. AND will teach them how to be ancient historians from the ground up.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 22/09/2026

I don't mean to brag, but I just spelled bureaucracy correctly on the first try.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 21/09/2026

PSA: Jacob Rees Mogg is an awful person and the Classics does not need him to defend us.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 21/09/2026

So I’m doing a Really Hard Race this weekend (Lake District, 58km, 2300m elevation). If you’d like to support me, please make a donation of your choice to your favourite youth suicide prevention or LGBTQIA+ charity and let me know about it.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 19/09/2026

Tonight the role of Oliver Twist will be played by Persephone Anne Roberts

A brown tabby with green eyes stares up at the camera.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 18/09/2026

More protagonists should die. Movies almost always would be 10-20% better simply by having the protagonist die.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 18/09/2026

The greatest thing about running ultramarathons is being in a constant state of carb loading. If you love carbs you should seriously consider running long distances. Seriously. I’m planning food for my race in 8 days (60km, 2300m elevation) and it’s like jam sandwiches and fairy bread.

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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 18/09/2026

if you EVER get called for a meeting and they say “don’t bring a union rep” bring a union rep

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 17/09/2026

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the existence of straight women is proof that sexuality is not a choice.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 17/09/2026

I have done something to my Outlook and now every time I open it bloody Co-Pilot launches in a window and I don't know how to turn that off! I don't want you to read and respond to my emails!

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marybeard @wmarybeard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

On Instant Classics this time, we look at what Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, William Shakespeare, Madeline Miller and more did with (and to) the Odyssey. Special guest appearance from our producer Jonty Claypole! www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0wT...

youtube.com

How Homer’s Odyssey Conquered the English-speaking World

YouTube video by Instant Classics

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 17/09/2026

How am I meant to work in these conditions?

Photo of a black tabby on a person’s lap. In the background a laptop and keyboard; a messy bookcase.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 16/09/2026

When you're kind of smart but too awkward to be put in front of undergraduates...

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Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026

Trans rights is inherently a bodily autonomy issue. Just like abortion rights is. We can't have gender equity or reproductive freedom without trans rights. Full stop. You can yell at me and make up shit that you claim I've said if it makes you feel better. I don't care. I'm right. And you know it.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 16/09/2026

I have logins for three universities, which obviously means at this time of year I have SO MANY EMAILS about doing the blasted online data security and fire safety courses.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

Can anyone recommend me some good fantasy/sci-fi with NO romance? For my kiddo (aged 14, no romance is their request).

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

Silence IS picking a side, Ed, it IS political. Oh, and by the by: Free Palestine.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

I’m not saying everyone should read Žižek. There are many MANY good reasons to not read Žižek. I do think everyone should read the chapter ‘Can Artificial Intelligence Really Think?’ In ‘Quantum History’.

uk.bookshop.org

Quantum History: A New Materialist Philosophy

A panoramic view of the cosmos must begin with the tension of a single political moment. In Quantum History, Slavoj Žižek brings together Hegelian dialectics, Lacan psychoanalysis and quantum mechani...

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

If I were to count up how much of my own time I have spent as a precariously employed academic writing grant applications and paid myself minimum wage I could fund my research for a fair while. And all of that is time I didn’t spent doing actual research too. It’s so depressing being precarious.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

See the horrible conditions I have to work in!

Photo of a white woman wearing glasses and a pink shirt with a brown tabby cat laying on her.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

I will never not see the word hippocampus without thinking 'ah, the horse school'.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 15/09/2026

So I’m not Andy Burnham’s number one fan but bro, you can’t run 21.1kms in 2 hours as a gimmick, come on. This is the stupidest thing to critique, when we could be looking at things like the quiet shelving of the Thames Water nationalisation, or u-turns on support for electoral reform…

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 12/09/2026

ALSO PLEASE DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS MAN ON HEALTHCARE FOR TRANS YOUTH THE CASS REVIEW IS DEEPLY FLAWED.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 12/09/2026

The Republican candidate for governor in California was an aide to David Cameron in the coalition government and that should be enough to not vote for him.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 11/09/2026

So today I added a ‘do not record my lectures without permission especially not with an AI note taker if I find out you’ve done this I will report you for academic misconduct’ slide to my intro PPT because I have seen a CONCERNING number of ads for these horrific devices on Instagram. 🫠

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 11/09/2026

Thanks to Big Brother for raising the chocolate allowance to 20g per week.

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Dr Kate Cook @katexe.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Well that was very intense. But excellent. Lots of interesting choices.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 10/09/2026

Okay so I’ve seen a lot of Oresteias. I wrote my MA thesis on The Oresteia and the Eumenides is my single favourite Greek tragedy. The Oresteia that’s currently on at The Bridge is one of the - if not the - best Oresteia I’ve ever seen.

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Carolyn Rasmussen @carolynplants.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Love this but would also add plants. anyway here’s a plant 😅

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 10/09/2026

Also petition that ALL threads (on any platform) should end with a post 'Anyway, here is my cat' (you may substitute dog, pig, sheep, fish, etc. for cat - I am not fussy - if you don't have a pet, you may substitute the whole praise for 'here is a baby [animal]'.

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