iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by James T. Harding

Jenny with a Green Ribbon Around Her Neck @readingtheend.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

Gruff Veteran Uncle: Jennifer, I don't care for situation comedies. I don't like situations.

Reposted by James T. Harding

maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.

157169684168

Reposted by James T. Harding

Edinburgh Linux Cafe @edinburghlinuxcafe.mastodon.scot.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

Our next event will be at Duncan Place Community Hub on 10th October, starting at 1:30pm. This one is a special event together with Edinburgh Repair Cafe, in honour of International Repair Day. Book at events.humanitix.com/linux-install-… for the Linux Cafe.

125

Reposted by James T. Harding

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.

theintercept.com

DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.

In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam

6574017411811

Reposted by James T. Harding

JP @jpbrammer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

sometimes I get bored and cancel myself on Threads by saying whatever the fuck

1475633691

Reposted by James T. Harding

William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I’ve now lived so much longer than I would ever have expected to that I feel I’m living in the future. This is when I imagined Neuromancer happening. And now the creators of today’s AI warn us that it threatens humanity.

841958386

Reposted by James T. Harding

Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

"People are really mad and however mad you are, it’s not enough. Because there is something so profound about no longer believing in the future, about seeing no value in our shared home, in the natural world. They’re traitors to creation.” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

theguardian.com

Naomi Klein: ‘Extreme wealth has a deranging effect. It turns you into a supremacist’

She’s tackled neoliberalism and the digital world, now the writer and activist is taking on tech billionaires. She explains how the super-rich are capitalising on climate and financial chaos in pursui...

6539021326

Reposted by James T. Harding

Merrill Barr @merrillbarr.com · 11/09/2026

I am attacked…

98927

James T. Harding @empowermint.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This Labour front bencher is saying the quiet part out loud: they think speaking to voters and learning what they care about is vaguely degrading.

040

James T. Harding @empowermint.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A sad moment for culture in Scotland

051

Reposted by James T. Harding

Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Neoliberalism has ravaged the UK Workers’ share of gross value added down from 71.9% in 1975, to 59.7%. 1.23m workers are on zero-hour contracts. 4.4m jobs pay less than the real living wage. Poorest 20% pay a higher proportion of income in direct/indirect taxes than the richest 20%.

leftfootforward.org

Here’s how the chancellor can raise the billions needed to improve the quality of life of millions

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward. Mi...

16418223

Reposted by James T. Harding

Cllr Claire Miller (she/her) @cllrcmiller.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

It's me, I'm 'edinburgh cllrs'. I'll be proposing this motion at our next full council meeting. I'm deeply concerned by both investigations and whether businesses are paying their full non-domestic rates. I very much hope to get support from other councillors so that we can get clarity.

1195

Reposted by James T. Harding

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People.” Bertie Wooster

Daniel Thomas and his Black Shorts in London today.

2103239825

Reposted by James T. Harding

scott dagostino @scottdagostino.ca · 07/09/2026

Everyone’s asking why a liberal government would sit on its hands and do nothing when *masked fascists* riot in the streets?? Well, here it is 👇🏼

prospectmagazine.co.uk

What is a reactionary centrist, and does the UK have them?

A term favoured by US progressives can help us understand Britain’s drift to the right

1205

Reposted by James T. Harding

absolute horses @jcoglan.com · 06/09/2026

if you have to keep referring to your company as "Brand (formerly OtherBrand)" five years after the rebrand, you do have to conclude the name change has not been a success

2707

Reposted by James T. Harding

Damon Young @damonyoung.com.au · 04/09/2026

This Finnish guy has been teaching himself Sumerian, and sent a cuneiform tablet to the British Museum to check his progress. They just emailed him that they've sent him something in the post. I'm now thrilled and excited for a total stranger! Clay tablet mail! www.reddit.com/r/Cuneiform/...

a photo of a hand holding a cuneiform tablet

11554911487

Reposted by James T. Harding

Ballot Box Scotland @ballotbox.scot · 04/09/2026

Portobello Craigmillar (Edinburgh) by-election 1st prefs: GRN: 1781 (28%, +11.8) SNP: 1531 (24.1%, -13.3) LAB: 1413 (22.2%, -1.7) RUK: 569 (8.9%, new) CON: 522 (8.2%, -7.1) LD: 365 (5.7%, +1.4) SFP: 73 (1.1%, new) Worker: 58 (0.9%, new) ADF: 28 (0.4%, new) Commie: 22 (0.3%, new) Green win stage 10

14713

Reposted by James T. Harding

alex guenther @guentheralex.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

if this "well, actually..." reply to a line of tennyson's is any indication, charles babbage would have been right at home here

He commented: ‘Sir: In your otherwise beautiful poem “The Vision of Sin” there is a verse which reads – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born.” It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death. I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – “Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 and 1/16th is born.” The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 and 1/16th will be sufficiently accurate for poetry. I am, Sir, yours, etc., Charles Babbage.’

313132

Reposted by James T. Harding

The City of Edinburgh Council @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Polls are open in the Southside/Newington (Ward 15) and Portobello/Craigmillar (Ward 17) by-elections. Bringing your poll card with you to vote will help us and speed things along, but this isn't mandatory. The count will begin immediately after polls close at 10pm 🗳️

Exterior of Nelson Hall, a polling place in the Southside/Newington Ward in Edinburgh.

132

Reposted by James T. Harding

Jadzia Axelrod 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @planetx.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Anyway, Brian Eno said it best:

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature.
CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It's the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

2509163

Reposted by James T. Harding

Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

📌 ICYMI — Reform’s £645,000 ‘Ghost’ Pollster — @josiahmortimer.bsky.social Exclusive: Payments to a business with no public footprint, no VAT number and a string of missing invoices are raising fresh questions about Reform UK's campaign spending

bylinetimes.com

Reform’s £645,000 ‘Ghost’ Pollster

Exclusive: Payments to a business with no public footprint, no VAT number and a string of missing invoices are raising fresh questions about Reform UK's campaign spending

15845

Reposted by James T. Harding

Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Uneconomic growth is economic expansion where the social & environmental costs of production are greater than the economic benefits gained. "approval is likely to lead to future damages of at least £170bn – £483 bn over their lifetime, 6 – 17 times the economic value they will generate for the UK"

researchsquare.com

Projected climate loss and damages from new UK oil and gas fields unequivocally show their destruction of economic value globally

Modelled future emissions pathways compliant with limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C show the need to avoid expansion of oil and gas supply. However, several countries are examining reversals t...

03115

Reposted by James T. Harding

Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Anybody who’s still advocating putting these tools anywhere near a school is not doing so despite the cognitive collapse they cause, but because of it. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

Abstract
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative Al affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered Al adoption in a difference-in-differences design. Al adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months.
High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of Al users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. Al users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-Al users experience small learning losses.

131226461

Reposted by James T. Harding

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 23/08/2026

here is the thing. if you tell me that you believe that race is a biological category and that it is a guide to the objective superiority and inferiority of groups of people, i am not calling you a racist to *insult* you, i am calling you a racist because it best describes your beliefs.

171146223126

James T. Harding @empowermint.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Join Claudia Winkelman and Harry Windsor on an epic journey across the canalways of Belgium. At each historic town, they meet a ‘friend’ (professional comedian) to learn about local chocolate traditions. All in aid of discovering: The Best Belgian Hot Chocolate. Sundays at 3pm.

120

James T. Harding @empowermint.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

If you want to track accounts, put them in a list. It means you don’t have to see them unless you look, and it means they don’t get your +1 to make them look important.

000

Reposted by James T. Harding

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 09/02/2026

In an alarming development, it appears the UK Government covered up a massive spike in trans youth suicides after restrictions. Then covered it up again when caught. Now, after fighting for years, the data is public: trans suicide increased 5x in the country. Subscribe to support our journalism.

erininthemorning.com

Trans Youth Suicides Skyrocketed In UK After Care Drawdown; Government Covers It Up

A Freedom of Information request to the National Child Mortality Database reveals that 22 trans children under 18 died by suicide in England in 2021-22 alone.

5033151703

Reposted by James T. Harding

Annalee @flowerhorne.com · 21/08/2026

Okay I know social media is the wrong place for sensitive and nuanced discussions of difficult topics, but we have to discuss typewriter effect text animation and how bad it is English is not read one character at a time so why would we want to see it one character at a time? Who wants this? No

4576

Reposted by James T. Harding

Elizabeth Minkel @elizabethminkel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

It's a *pleasure* to publish @mldavies.bsky.social: not just a razor-sharp book critic, but very adept at bringing audiences and broader contextual framings into that criticism. Highly rec this piece on Pullman's ongoing tinkering with his world—and what it means when a children's heroine grows up.

fansplaining.com

Putting Away Childish Things

In The Book of Dust trilogy, Philip Pullman does what few authors for young readers ever attempt: he lets his protagonist grow up.

273

Reposted by James T. Harding

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett @modacitylife.com · 19/08/2026

In Montréal, what started as an emergency pandemic response has evolved into the continent’s most ambitious car-free scheme. Across 9.3 kilometres of 11 commercial arteries in seven boroughs, entire corridors have been handed back to pedestrians, helping some 2,100 businesses thrive in the process.🧵

People of all ages and abilities walk, sit, and dine along a pedestrianised street in Montreal. It is lined with trees, planter boxes, terraces, and benches.

7371120

Reposted by James T. Harding

iucounu @iucounu.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

In Star Trek people often complain that replicated food is not as good as naturally produced food, which is weird when replicators are presumably using the same technology as transporters, which can perfectly replicate Spock every time. But is Spock getting less flavoursome over time? In this essay,

218104152359

James T. Harding @empowermint.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Genuine question: At what point does sharing bad opinions in order to dunk on them start to be counterproductive?

130

Reposted by James T. Harding

IWGB @iwgbunion.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Don’t boycott GTA VI. Fight for justice for the people who made it: youtube.com/shorts/hhIES... T-shirt preorders open now! All proceeds from the t-shirts, which are ethically made and designed by us, will go towards the fired Rockstar workers’ legal funds. bit.ly/4xLc4IP

youtube.com

Don't Boycott GTA VI. Fight for justice for the people who made it.

YouTube video by IWGB Union

26634397

Reposted by James T. Harding

Ballot Box Scotland @ballotbox.scot · 18/08/2026

I know I keep going on about this but it is deeply, deeply abnormal for a western European centre-left party to be so institutionally transphobic as to be presiding over the attempted elimination of trans people from public life, and thank goodness at least one of their MSPs is aware of that.

08918

Reposted by James T. Harding

T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 @tryangregory.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Headlines: Such-and-such technology may someday be as smart as human brains! Reminder: *We already have human brains.* Billions of them. Most of them living in poverty and being exploited for the obscene benefit of a tiny number of the worst people in the world.

13872892045

Reposted by James T. Harding

Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Ok, some thoughts, as an olde tyme academic, on the Arday tragedy. First, allegations about causes. We don't know what was in his mind, but many people are keen to blame him, or woke lefties/academia, or the media. Some people are absolutely certain that the media are faultless. 1/

19708253

Reposted by James T. Harding

Richard Sambrook @sambrook.eurosky.social · 16/08/2026

BBC’s coverage of Reform’s welfare plans is frankly bizarre. Headlines in Ten, leading on some radio networks. Reform are not even the official opposition and the plans have less credibility than Count Binface. Will BBC News do the same for Lib Dem and Greens policy two years out from an election?

20343091200

Reposted by James T. Harding

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/

5763152017

Reposted by James T. Harding

Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 15/08/2026

lmao at Iddin-Sin, an ungrateful little shit of yore

Screenshot of a translation of this 4,000 letter, linked within the quote-skeeted article and reading as follows:

"Tell the Lady Zinu: Iddin-Sin sends the following message:
May the gods Samas, Marduk, and Ilabrat keep you forever in
good health for my sake.
From year to year, the clothes of the (young) gentlemen here
become better, but you let my clothes get worse from year to
year. Indeed, you persisted(?) in making my clothes poorer and
more scanty. At a time when in our house wool is used up like
bread, you have made me poor clothes. The son of Adad-iddinam,
whose father is only an assistant of my father, (has) two new sets
of clothes [break] while you fuss even about a single set of clothes
for me. In spite of the fact that you bore me and his mother only
adopted him, his mother loves him, while you, you do not love
me!"

Available at: https://lustria-online.com/threads/letters-from-mesopotamia.21099/

341713413

Reposted by James T. Harding

Phil Hawksworth @philhawksworth.dev · 14/08/2026

The curiosity, tenacity, and persistence of @threepointone.bsky.social is energising, ngl. sunilpai.dev/posts/the-ta...

sunilpai.dev

the task isn't the job

a new role, and some questions I want to build my way through

091

Reposted by James T. Harding

Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

More rummaging through party accounts. Onto the fun ones. The Communist Party of Britain budgeted £7,000 for Zoom subscriptions last year, but paid £14,455. Triple what the party spent on election campaigning. That's a lot of video calls, comrades!

712118

Reposted by James T. Harding

Lisa @bugtype.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

got this fortune again and Patrick suggested that my life must have a canon event locked behind this bake sale arc and there's a really annoyed deity out there like "listen i can't make this any more obvious"

a fortune cookie fortune that reads "you will have a successful bake sale"

21609101