iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Francois Soyer

The local town council's parking meter enforcement Cockatoo is not impressed and he will mess up your car if you don’t pay for your parking.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 7h

The local town council's parking meter enforcement Cockatoo is not impressed and he will mess up your car if you don’t pay for your parking.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

First proofs of the forthcoming book have arrived in my email inbox from Bloomsbury. In classic fashion: in the middle of frantic marking and at the start of the school holidays. 🤦🏻‍♂️

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

First proofs of the forthcoming book have arrived in my email inbox from Bloomsbury. In classic fashion: in the middle of frantic marking and at the start of the school holidays. 🤦🏻‍♂️

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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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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Apparently pancake printers are a thing...

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Apparently pancake printers are a thing...

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Stephanie Porras @periodeye.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Extremely excited to announce an article co-authored by myself and Aaron Hyman on the visual and material cultures of Dutch piracy in the early modern Caribbean is now out in Renaissance quarterly @rsaorg.bsky.social , and open access! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

journals.uchicago.edu

Recasting the Silver Fleet, or The Propaganda of Piracy in the Dutch Caribbean | Renaissance Quarterly: Vol 79, No 3

In 1628, the Dutch West India Company captured a Spanish silver fleet off the shore of Cuba. A broadside by Claes Jansz Visscher (1587–1652) celebrated the event, illustrating the battle and providing...

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Forget spiders🕷️, snakes 🐍 and crocodiles 🐊… meet the new Australian killers. 🦆 🦆 🦆

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The stuff you read in the margins of inquisitorial denunciations: "About the duck that went to the house of the Englishmen."

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 25/08/2026

This is a 12th-century list of property that a fabulously wealthy Egyptian Jewish woman is bringing into her marriage (and what she's owed in case of divorce). Items include a gold tiara (80 dinars), a crystal rooster (4 dinars), a Chinese pen set (13 dinars), and 250(!) dinars' worth of books.

A single dark brown paper manuscript leaf that's been folded into quadrants. Approximately 30 lines of Judaeo-Arabic text in black ink is spread between 2 columns. The leaf sits on a blue background next to a yellow label reading T-S J1.29 (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-J-00001-00029/1)

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I will be on research leave next year. I am planning to visit archives and libraries France, Spain and Portugal, finish a couple of articles on the Portuguese Inquisition and work toward the completion of a book project on the Blood Libel and Ritual Murder accusation in medieval and modern Spain.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The perils of being an early modern military reenactor:

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The perils of being an early modern military reenactor:

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

A new breakfast-time friend.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Lisbon 1575: man has a theological argument during a meal in a tavern. He anxiously returns the next day to explain some dubious statement he made about Christ and also to have another bite to eat. Is told he can "go eat dinner at the Inquisition" (a qual lhe disse que viesse gentar à Inquisição)!

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

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Jesse Locker @jessemlocker.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Peer review [“Le Manuel des Péchés” (Handbook of Sins), late thirteenth century, University of Nottingham fol. 48r.]

Two grumpy-looking demons show a list of sins to a miserable-looking guy on his deathbed

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Winter morning scenes in Australia: early walk, catching the first rays of sun on the gum trees, smelling the wattle and hand feeding the rainbow lorikeet.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

A reminder that AI, even the supposedly more advanced and dependable AI systems that your institution/university pushes you and your students to use will make stuff up (aka lie to you). Don't depend on it.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Australian winter: frosty mornings and hungry parrots

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

When asked by an inquisitor in sixteenth-century Lisbon why he never married, a Christian from India responded "because he wanted to see the world" (disse que elle numqua casou porque tinha tenção de ver o mundo).

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

"don't cite what you haven't read" remains the basic entry level academic responsibility; & if your discpline "doesn't have that as a norm" then sorry, your discipline needs reforming for this new world. Citations are structural parts of trust and knowledge building, not trinkets or optional extras

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Amid the 2026 World Cup excitement, let's remember Monty Python's Germany vs Greece International Philosophy World Cup Final www.youtube.com/watch?v=i21O...

youtube.com

Germany vs Greece International Philosophy FINAL

YouTube video by Radu O

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Napoleon's secret weapon... 🦖 🦖🦖

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

September 1550: the Augustinian Sebastião Toscano is denounced to the Lisbon Inquisition by scandalized churchmen for claiming in a sermon preached in the presence of the king that “after Christ no soul was more perfect in grace and virtue than that of Saint Augustin.”

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

January 1537: an enslaved African named Francisco Fernandes came to the Lisbon Inquisition and accused a 15-year-old boy named Braz Caldeira of having said that he did not know whether God was present in the consecrated host. Interestingly, Francisco signed his name in his own hand.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 23/06/2026

I am once again begging universities to realise that staff - academic, professional services, estates, all of them - are the product they are trying to sell. Without staff there is nothing to sell. No amount of flashy buildings will replace staff in universities. UKHE is in freefall.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Patiently waiting for his sunflower seeds.

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Mickaël Wilmart @mickaelwilmart.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Carlo Ginzburg est mort, annonce la presse italienne. Immense historien, il a su construire une oeuvre originale entre micro-histoire et anthropologie historique qui a considérablement renouvelé la discipline. www.repubblica.it/cultura/2026...

repubblica.it

Carlo Ginzburg è morto, addio al grande storico italiano

Aveva 87 anni. Era famoso in tutto il mondo per le sue ricerche sulla stregoneria e le credenze popolari

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

12 May 1543: a husband-and-wife couple denounce Marcos Gil to the Inquisition in Lisbon for having supposedly said “by our stork” (por nossa cegonha) instead “by our lady” (por nossa senhora) when swearing a legally binding oath.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Some snark from 1542: asked her age by the inquisitor, Ana de Leão responded that "she did not know because she did not see herself being born" (nam sabia porque nam se vyu nacer) but admitted she was probably 19, "more or less."

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

That moment when someone started to talk much faster and the inquisitorial notary transcribing the oral testimony in 1542 had to shift into turbo mode.

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Levi Roach @proflroach.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Absolutely stunned to hear of the passing of Rosamond McKitterick, who did me (like many others) a number of good turns at crucial points in my career. My thoughts are with her family and her many devoted students. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. #MedievalSky #Skystorians

A screenshot of an X-post announcing the passing of Rosamond McKitterick.

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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

A long interview with the early medieval historian Rosamond McKitterick, reflecting on her life and work, ably conducted by Richard Pollard youtu.be/pvBdJyUAwyY?...

youtu.be

Interview with Rosamond McKitterick (Dec. 2025)

YouTube video by rmp422

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Another woman, this time from 1542, with strong feelings about the Inquisition. Denounced in Lisbon for having said: "f*ck the Inquisition, f*ck those in charge of it and f*ck those who brought it [to Portugal] " (respondeu: merda pera a inquisicao e pera quem a manda e pera quem a tras).

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

In June 1541, a woman loses her temper during an argument over dinner. According to the different witnesses present she exclaimed alternatively “the Inquisition can drink shit!” or screw the inquisitors!" Three dinner guests denounced her to the Inquisition in Lisbon.

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

January 1538. A family is denounced to the Inquisition in Lisbon for remaining Jewish & keeping kosher. Evidence? The matriarch of the family refused to eat lamprey eels "because they disgust her and look like snakes." (nam comia lamprea por que tenia nojo della por lhe parecer cobra).

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Francois Soyer @fsoyer.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

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