iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Helen Macdonald

Elle @elleisanisland.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Industry regulations back then said they couldn't use rats, so the makers of Dracula (1931) used possums

Black and white footage of a possum beside a coffin

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Zamira Rahim @zamirarahim.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"All her veins go down into this paper. She takes her pen and writes on it some marks no one else will ever see, she bestows on it a kind of surplus, she tops it off with a gesture as private and accurate as her own name."

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Libby from Biscuit @thisisbiscuit.org.uk · 07/10/2026

Oh absolutely fucking not @london.gov.uk. Khan has been vocally on the side of the trans community; this is two fingers up. www.timeout.com/london/news/...

timeout.com

Oxford Street’s 2026 Christmas lights are getting a magical Harry Potter makeover

Have a Harry Christmas.

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The reason young people vibe with liminal horror is that the wealthy have spent the last half century destroying all anthropological spaces they can exist in, leaving *only* non-places en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-place

en.wikipedia.org

Non-place - Wikipedia

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Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

There are so, so many. But it'll settle for this one because it reminds me of a childhood listening to weird stuff on a short wave radio early in the morning before school. The world lost something when radio interval signals stopped being a thing. youtu.be/F6XFt4XLi60?...

youtu.be

R. France International (France) _ Interval signal [around 1978]

YouTube video by Interval Signal Library

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drilbot @drilbot.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

the solution to the Monty Hall problem is simply to offer the host a handjob and then the rest works itself out

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 05/10/2026

feels like at least part of what is happening is that a lot of people want politics to solve the "my life feels empty" problem and the populist right is directly appealing to them

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Walked past two students on Saturday, overheard this “Instead of cancelling it they should have introduced an even smaller Scrappy Doo to fuck with the first Scrappy. And kept going like that.” “And smaller Mystery Gang members?” “Yeah!! A tiny very clean shaven well dressed Shaggy.”

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Circ @tinyicecat.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This news is important because all the fucks out there actively attempting to wreck the world want you to think that the work is hopeless and just mitigating the worst case scenario. It's not. Fucking keep going.

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Sin Blaché ♣️ @sinblache.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

If you try to do this with Prophet, I hope that Adam and Rao come out of your device to bite your fingers off.

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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 30/09/2026

BREAKING NEWS: “Do geese see God” is a palindrome

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Bramfield church! The extraordinary Nicholas Stone memorial and the ledger stone to Bridgett Applethwaite. Westhall, for paintings and font and gorgeousness

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ACARS Drama @acarsdrama.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Air to Ground Message: THE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS WOULD LIKE ME TO PASS ALONG THAT THE GALLEY CART IS COVERED WITH ANTS. Area: Washington DC, USA Type: Airbus A220-300 A: #a64a1cc29e5 F: #f08f1cc5b3f

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Emmanuel Carrère, Kolkhoz.

In my baccalaureate exams, which I took in 1975, I got a 4 in philosophy. To put that into perspective, 10 is a passing mark, 14 to 16 is very good, and 4 is a straight fail. But you have to ask: philosophy isn't maths, so a 4 in it is absurd: why not a 5? Why not a 3? Why not a O, for that matter? Without telling me, my father approached the Paris School Board and after some time was able to view my exam paper. The marker had written: 'insufferable pedantry'.

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Philip Purser-Hallard @purserhallard.com · 29/09/2026

I did GCSE Russian at school and our teacher showed us a Russian map of the UK. Friend and I got mildly hysterical when we managed to transliterate one placename as "Niukasl-apon-Teyn".

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Endangering another during a journey by sea; criminal damage; carrying an offensive weapon; possession of a bladed article; conduct endangering ships or individuals; unlawfully and intentionally destroying a ship breaching section 11 of the aviation and maritime security act;

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🪬🌙🐈‍⬛Pythia Uidliua🐦‍⬛⭐️🧿GNOTHI SEAUTON ♐️⚕️🍷 @krymsynreine.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Late 2nd-century statue of Glycon. (National History and Archeology Museum, Constanţa, Romania) who is a snake god that seems to have originated in Macedonia #pagansky #witchsky #occultsky #archaeology #serpent #glycon

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Am very very much enjoying The Rouse and have just stopped reading for a second to yell about how much the word “qualiaphagic” pleases me

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It did! Ah the snows of yesteryear

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My god is that Peter Guillam moonlighting from the Circus to do the v/o for WHSMITH? Wheels within wheels.

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Dr Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

What’s really peculiar about the “rapture” theology is that it’s based on a really convoluted and selective reading of scripture, dates back no further than the 19th C, is rejected by the Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed, and is basically contradicted by the Apostle’s Creed. But…

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Christopher Burlinson @cmburlinson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

There are building works on my staircase, and this ghostly list of previous inhabitants emerges. Trevor Jones was a German lexicographer and Bletchley code-breaker; Thurston Dart a musicologist; Harry Creswick was university librarian; Cameron Wilson taught French; Freddy Britain was a classicist.

An old list of inhabitants of C Staircaae in Jesus College Cambridge.

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Instagram’s trying to sell me Mr Rogers outfits so hard this year

An apparently AFAB model wearing slim oatmeal trousers, a stripy tie, white shirt and an unbuttoned long bright red cardigan. I’m pretty sure they’re wearing comfy slippers too but they’re not visible

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

10:48 am, Basel. Me and my migraine are well, thank you. We are currently researching experimental investigations into vigilance. The blinds are down. Distant electronic music and a black redstart outside. An internal voice whispering, ruefully, "chocolate and bright sunlight are your enemies."

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Tom De Ville @devilligan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This is on our extremely right wing media and every single MP in a position to speak out against it who has backed away from doing so.

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Andrew Male @andrewmale.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Help! Stop! Trapped in loop watching this. Stop. Cannot stop. Stop.

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Lane Stellmaker @hipcrimevocab.net · 16/09/2026

Which is to say: you as a human are frightfully and wonderfully made, your consciousness is sui generis and cannot be artificially replicated, and science fiction's preoccupation with a Titanomachia between biological life and machine life is just retelling our early myths in new forms.

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Well this has utterly broken my brain, not least in terms of experimental design www.cell.com/the-innovati...

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 15/09/2026

The U.S. AI industry is being run by a batshit rationalist sex cult, and no, I am not being hyperbolic - they’re genuinely Like That:

Erin Redwing
@realizingerin
I went to an rationalist/EA Al doomer event last night with the goal of meeting someone who could calmly explain to me the argument for how they get to the conclusion that Al will kill everyone.
Because these are rationalists, I expected to find people who could lay out a serious extinction pathway, walk through the assumptions and intermediate steps, identify choke points where negative pathways could potentially be regulated, and entertain disagreement about where their assumptions might break down.
My experience was the exact opposite.
The people I spoke to seemed psychologically unable to entertain the possibility that their conclusion (that Al literally kills everyone, which was a point that many would not even budge on) might be wrong.
Their most extreme conclusion was treated as an axiom.
I had multiple people walk out of conversations with me when I questioned their inevitable extinction premise.
At one point during a panel, the moderator asked everyone in the audience who was still skeptical of Al doom to raise their hands. About half the room did. He then told all of the skeptics to leave the panel and go with one of the speakers, who would answer their questions separately. They filtered out all the skeptics, and continued the panel only with the subset who accepted their extreme position.
I genuinely felt like a heretic just for questioning whether superintelligent Al inevitably leads to the extinction of humanity, or entertaining the possibility that the future might actually turn out well.
That does not mean Al safety is fake. Obviously there are serious questions about rapidly advancing Al systems and what happens as they become much more capable. Those are exactly the conversations I went there hoping to have.
But what I encountered was an apocalyptic death cult. These people are not rational. They are deeply afraid, they reinforce that fear in one another, and they have become so emotionally committed to apocalypse

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Dammit this is awful. I'm so sorry

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

If a generative AI CEO is telling you something, take it with a grain of salt the size of an iceberg. So if they want regulation now, it is more likely something to do with finances than an immediate existential threat. These dipshits do not care about existential threats other than going bankrupt.

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Helen Macdonald @hjm.bsky.social · 14/09/2026