iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

*lazily scrolls Bluesky* *sees several writers announcing they have been shortlisted for ECO25* *lazily scrolls shortlist* *finds own story there* Wait, what? *double checks. Yes, it's true!* I am so honored to have my piece in the shortlist for ECO25: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction!

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Kristen Hanley Cardozo @khandozo.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Translation is a form of creation. The translator has to make decisions about preserving style over direct content, about cultural equivalence, about how to preserve a sense of pun or sentence structure from one language to the next. People who assume an LLM can do it are not understanding the task.

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Jess Nevins @jessnevins.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Translators work hard to make sure that the translated words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, etc, not only convey the author's meaning, but also the author's *style.* Translators are alchemists. They are artists, and poets, and researchers, and editors. They are magicians and wizards.

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

First snow of the year ❄️❄️❄️

A copse of fir trees under a generous sprinkle of snow. A house peeks from behind them. On the bottom of the picture, a car ruins the magical atmosphere a bit.

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

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Emma Wilson @emmawilson.eurosky.social · 07/11/2025

This! The emphasis on respect is so important. So often AI is hyped up to “solve problems quickly” but these “solutions” always lack respect for the people that will be impacted by AI outputs.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

A halloween cartoon for @newscientist.com

Image: three figures in protective suits watch from behind a screen as a child approaches a door-like mechanical structure in which stands a man. Between them is an amorphous glowing shape.

Caption: Scientists at the institute of halloween studies have succeeded in creating "The treak": a quantum state that is simultaneously trick and treat. It is stable for a millionth of a second before decaying into a half-hearted prank and a mediocre candy bar.

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Read in public. Read in private. Read e-books, genre books, comics, fanfiction. Read literature. Read nonfiction. Read books you’ve already read. Listen to audiobooks. Read what you want. There’s no such thing as “doing reading the wrong way.”

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

A skeet review of my story. @cypayseur.bsky.social called it "a moving experience"! *happy dance* Go read it if you haven't yet!

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Yay, my little story is now available to read on @diabolicalplots.com !!!

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 13: If you are lucky enough to be translated into other languages, always know this: you are NOTHING without your translator. Your translator has skills far beyond just putting words into another language. A good translator is a stylist, an interpreter, a composer.

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Happy publication day to meeeee... My new story is now available for subscribers on the Diabolical Plots Patreon. Go subscribe, maybe? www.patreon.com/diabolicalpl...

A screenshot, reading:
Diabolical Plots #127: Lisa Brideau, F.T. Berner
5 hours ago
"The Glorious Pursuit of Nominal" by Lisa Brideau
"The Effects and Efficiency of Birdsong: A Meta-Analysis" by F.T. Berner

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

"The chatbot gives the impression of an intelligence that is specifically engaging with you and your work, but that impression is nothing more than a statistical trick."

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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Happy birthday to our Italian Republic! #Italy

The Frecce Tricolori, the acrobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, flying over Rome today. Picture by ANSA. More here: https://www.ansa.it/sito/photogallery/primopiano/2025/06/02/lo-spettacolo-delle-frecce-tricolori-in-volo-su-roma_f2b4915e-85cb-4e83-9378-f4d44bf1f0da.html

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 24/05/2025

We're living through the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore, while the government stomps its uncaring boot on our necks. But there's an easy way to fight back: Care. I wrote about it: dansinker.com/posts/2025-0...

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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

We tend to assume boredom is something to be avoided, but in centuries past you would go wandering through the woods or stare at the walls of a cave for an hour and accidentally invent beer or a new religion or write Alice in Wonderland.

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History of Venice Podcast @historyofvenicepod.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

On this day in 1797, the sun finally set on the Venetian Republic. On 12 May, the Maggior Consiglio voted itself out of existence in the face of the overwhelming threat from Revolutionary France's Army of Italy. Napoleon claimed to bring liberty and democracy. He brought neither.

Venice. San Marco and the Doge's Palace in the sunset, seen from Santa Maria della Salute.

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Writers: before you sign a contract with a publisher, make sure AI isn't replacing your illustrator, your translator, your editor, your jacket designer. Readers: if you're thinking of buying a book, do the same. Refuse. Resist. If AI garbage doesn't sell, people will stop making it.

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

If this all feels too much to fight, start small. Take "aspiring writer" out of your bio and replace it with "writer." Stop saying things like "I don't have a proper job." Support creators; translators; illustrators. Boycott AI generated junk. We are many. They are few. And we have the words.

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Y&G @yandg.bsky.social · 31/01/2024

Christ the Redeemer statue. [📷 Leonardo Sens] Source: www.instagram.com/leosens?igsh...

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Jocelyne Allen @brainvsbook.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I've been thinking about this since the rise of machine translation, and even more since I started teaching TL. When I came up as a translator, I did a lot of brute force translation work—reams of emails about shipping delays, HR presentations, customer surveys, just the drudgiest of drudge work.

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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Was at a conference dinner a while back and one guy said "The future is AI. It doesn't replace senior developers, but no more need for juniors." To which i replied: "Where do you think senior developers come from. Straight from the womb?" He went quiet, then wandered off to a different huddle.

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Jenn Odd @jentranslations.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Language is human and the best way to learn a language is from other people who have similar experiences learning languages. My best Japanese teachers have all been people who have studied English to an advance level because they understood what a language learner needs.

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F. T. Berner @ftberner.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Happy birthday, Rome! 2778 years, and as beautiful as ever! #Rome #Italy

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Xero now with 100% more 🎃 @artificer-ind.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

A lot of creative folks are demoralized right now. Hell, I'm one of them. Maybe some of them are helping you through this rough time. If so, do me a solid: Share their stuff. Drop them a kind word. Tip their Ko-fis, or join their Patreons. It seems like nothing, but it's everything right now. 🤘

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Eve Castle @evecastle.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

“I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.” —Rabindranath Tagore #quote

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Niki @nikim.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Children’s books should be scarier, and sadder. Original fairy tales were terrifying because they give children the opportunity to explore difficult emotions before they have to deal with them in real life

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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 18/03/2025

You HAVE to celebrate good things. Even if they’re tiny and fragile and may blow away. In fact, you have to celebrate the fragile ones EVEN HARDER because who knows how many chances you get? If you constantly think how it will all go wrong, if every triumph is met with “but…” you will burn out.

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Chris Sugden @chrissugden.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

⚡️HIGH VAULTAGE⚡️by @jensugden.bsky.social and me is out TODAY in paperback in the UK! Check out the affordable luxury via geni.us/5zk3n. Thank you Adam Roberts, @schneiderjamz.bsky.social, @morepeoplehappy.bsky.social, @misterabk.bsky.social and the BSFA for the kind words!

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Nilah "Nine Jobs" Magruder @nilahmagruder.com · 27/02/2025

When it comes to boycotting, just a thought. It’s okay if you can’t quit a company cold turkey. In Master Gardeners, when we encourage people to switch to native plants, the goal is 70% native, not 100%. If you were shopping at a store 80% of the time and cut it back to 60%, that 20% still hurts.

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Abby @arobertswrites.com · 15/02/2025

Like, the abundance of murder mystery novels doesn’t mean murder is the typical way of solving disputes in our society.

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John Lechner @johnlechner.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

A few years ago I wrote a comic about miscommunication and missed connections. It's called The Beetle and the Butterfly, and you can read it at my website: johnlechner.com/the-beetle-a... 🪲🦋

Ink and watercolor illustration of a yellow and orange butterfly, who is sitting on a flower and thinking, "It sure is lonely being a butterfly."

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Chris Haughton @chrishaughton.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

This is very urgent. The UK government is planning to change copyright law. If you are an artist, author, musician or work in the creative industry please read this. www.chrishaughton.com/blog/ai-and-...

chrishaughton.com

AI and copyright - blog - Chris Haughton - AI and copyright

The blog of designer and author Chris Haughton. Chris was listed in Time magazine's DESIGN 100 for his fair trade design work for PEOPLE TREE.

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Jo Walton @bluejo.eurosky.social · 07/02/2025

#SomethingBeautiful looking at the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio at sunset

The sky is still holding light, but the earth has turned such that the sun itself is below the horizon and it's all afterglow, orange below and twilight blue above. This is reflected in the river, and also reflected in the river are the lights from the right bank, while the left is dark bulk with a single tower visible against the sky. There's one boat in the river. Downstream, there's a bridge.

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Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

And what’s happening today is that millions are eager to relinquish having to read, having to create, because it means the discomfort of being alone with your own thoughts. You have to wrestle with yourself in order to create something, and we are scared of that process.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.bsky.social

Panel 1.

A quote in a starry sky:

“We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde”

Below, people are lying in the gutter. One is looking through a telescope.

Panel 2.

“Guys, astronomy is amazing.” Says the figure with a telescope ”You should all give it a try.” To which others reply “Sure. Why not?”.

Panel 3.

Now the quote reads:

“We are all in the gutter but we are looking at the stars.”

All the people are looking through telescopes.

Panel 4.

“This is great! Apart from being in the gutter.” Says one of the people. Another replies ”Let’s go to the observatory!” and leads the way.

Panel 5.

The quote now reads:

“We are all looking at the stars but some of us are in the gutter.”

Everyone is in the observatory except two figures who lie in the gutter looking up through their telescopes.

Panel 6.

The original telescope bearer leans out of the window and asks “Why are you guys still in the gutter?” and they reply “We don’t like too much change”.

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