iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

See also Terry Gilliam’s treatment of la Duchessa Sforza for the Umbria Film Festival.

Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Piero rediscovered regular solid polyhedra originally described by Archimedes, including the truncated icosahedron, which has the same symmetry as buckminsterfullerene and some soccer balls

Truncated icosahedron drawing from Piero della Francesca’s De quinque corporibus regularibus

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Nice too! Haven’t seen that one. We were in the museum in Sansepolcro during a massive thunderstorm and power cut and could probably have walked out with a smaller one.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The painter and geometer of three-dimensional forms Piero della Francesca died on this day in 1492. Here is his magnificent Madonna della Misericordia from the Museo Civico in Sansepolcro.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Surprised at how delightful these spaces are (as a bit of an old modernist). Can I add a personal favourite: Michael Graves’s library at San Juan Capistrano, CA.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

#otd in 1686, Christiaan replies to his brother. Is he bothered about seeing the chameleon? Nah, ‘because I saw one in Paris both live and anatomized’

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

#otd in 1686, Constantijn Huygens writes to his brother Christiaan: ‘Monsieur Bentinck [the future Earl of Portland] told me he has a Chameleon which has not eaten for 10 or twelve months and does not produce ordure.’ Would Christiaan like to see it . . .? 🦎

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Here’s a piece I wrote about circatidal adaptation some years ago for Nautilus. nautil.us/the-evolutio...

nautil.us

The Evolutionary Pull of Ocean Tides - Nautilus

How animals’ biological clocks turn with the tides.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My bit for @societyofauthors.bsky.social on how best, as a writer, to go about picking the brains of experts.

1500-word article with advice for writers on how to pick the brains of experts. In short, be mindful of their busyness, and do your homework first!

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Ah, Keiron. You beat me to it. Thanks, and thanks for your help!

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Or it might be an overzealous but ignorant editor. I was reading an American edition of Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories where ‘naturists’ had been "corrected" to ‘naturalists’ throughout.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This sounds good. Three very different Dutch ‘free-thinkers’ of the 17th century – Johan de Witt, Christiaan Huygens and Spinoza – and the continuing relevance of their ideas today.

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Kate Devlin @drkatedevlin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

A lot of news coverage on AI doom based off one tweet on a shitposting platform by a prodigal techbro. Do I fear superintelligence wiping us out? No, I fear incompetence and probably climate disaster, both of which could be somewhat mitigated by making tech companies more responsible & accountable.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Rereading Nabokov’s Bend Sinister. It’s about pushing back against excessively autocratic regimes, the pressures on academia to bend, and the mechanical imitation of human creativity. 1947!

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Audra Wolfe @audrajwolfe.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Look, if authors seem a little punchy it's because everything about this process has been confusing, exploitative, and seemingly designed to demoralize anyone who values the written word. Just a total shitshow, from start to finish.

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Carla Denyer @carladenyer.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

We need a government that will be upfront with the public, not parrot fossil fuel talking points. A Prime Minister who will protect our national security and long-term prosperity. He must say NO to more drilling in the North Sea.

politicshome.com

North Sea oil and gas is a test of leadership for Labour and they’re already failing

This summer we reached an inflection point. From now on, people living in the UK will only become more familiar with the real-world consequences of...

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Reposted by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Sarah Hopewell @sarahhopewell.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

When I turned on Radio 4 today, the first story I heard was about rescue efforts in Nepal following the devastating glacial collapse. Next was a story that Jackdaw gas field is likely to be approved. Then a story that UK residents will be told to stock up in preparation for future climate disasters.

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

This summer Britain burnt. 3000 people died from the heat. Yet this Government is drilling for more gas, despite scientist warnings & it won't make a difference to bills in the UK. We need to double down on renewables, not bend to the wishes of fossil fuel bosses. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Jackdaw gas field set to be approved as soon as mid-September, sources say

The government is set to give the go-ahead for the gas field off the coast of Aberdeen, the BBC understands.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

But fine to give the go ahead to the Jackdaw gas field apparently

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Alan Richardson @alanrichardson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Second time as farce is going well

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Fascinating new evidence that David’s famous portrait of the Lavoisiers was made over to erase his career as a hated collector of taxes and to emphasize in its place his scientific posterity. (Also, Mme L. was once wearing a hat like the Cat in the Hat.)

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Problem: The First Cut is the Deepest Solution: Iodine

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Nice. We tried to visit his abbey in France a couple of weeks ago, but were only offered a guided tour of the prison that now occupies most of its grounds!

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Hah! By Ottolenghi’s standards, yes. Anyway, it worked very well for ours at around that age – and still.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This is so fucked. If an author feels they must use AI, then the onus is on them to check that the facts *the author appears to be writing* are actually true. Publishers need to get a grip and see the wood for the trees.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

It’s in a hard-to-find English translation titled The Abyss, I gather. But the French is manageable.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Maybe not the right language for now, but have you read L’Oeuvre au noir, by Marguerite Yourcenar, a good (and realistic, I feel) depiction of the life of an alchemist in 16c Flanders.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Great piece here by Rebecca Solnit on the erasure and resistance of Indigenous peoples: ‘cultural survival is . . . achieved by steady practice of that culture’. Diary www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4.... Especially appreciated as I have just finished reading Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

lrb.co.uk

Rebecca Solnit · Diary: Before 1776

In 1848, the US seized the northern half of Mexico, from California to New Mexico, and imposed American law and the...

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

You are the Barbara Hepworth of the banana

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Best banana-based art I’ve seen. Forget Warhol and Maurizio Cattelan.

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Caroline Goldsmith @goldcaro.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Great news everyone. Our Reform-led county council has solved the problem.

Clip from local news confirming that Reform’s policy to ‘undeclare’ a climate emergency has passed in Suffolk, a county in the east of England

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

It’s wild that publishers are asking authors to opt in to AI licensing, not because they’ve reached an agreement with AI companies but *in the hope* that a regulatory framework *might* one day exist that remunerates authors for the use of their work by LLMs

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Important thread on the UK government’s continuing abnegation of its environmental responsibilities.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

This is surely a thing. I once worked on a publication in America that was to be called Technology Update for Executives Only. Really. Not just a working title. Never made it to launch.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

You arty types may think you know what a private view is. But here in Norfolk, it seems it’s something a bit different.

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Yes, but what about Heel Holland Bakt?

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Ah yes, Escher, whom my last agent hadn’t heard of, and completely blanked me when I suggested a biography. (There is none in English – only one in Dutch.)

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams @hoooaw.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

So happy birthday ‘In our country you're free And so you're born And so they say you're free So happy birthday And even if you're born to lose Even if you're a complete wreck when you were born You might still grow up to be president Because you're free’ (that lyric’s sure gained an extra frisson)

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Patrick Barkham @patrickbarkham.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

The gov's absurd rhetoric about nature "blocking" development continues when of course wild species are (sometimes illegally) destroyed every day by building work. This latest case is tragic. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

Noted swift nesting site destroyed by contractors in peak season

Campaigners say builders’ demolition of nest site highlights weak protection of wildlife from development

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Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

“Content” also insidiously shifts significance and validity to the platform, not the substance — content is contained, what defines content is the existence and form of the container

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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Anna Maria van Schurman’s The Learned Maid (1659), a treatise on women’s right to education, written by an exceptional polyglot: publicdomainreview.org/collection/t…

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