iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"out of their depth and terrified" They've been playing STALKER 2 I take it?

Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The thing is, that near-full stadium for Austria tells me I'm in a tiny minority of Irish fans, but had the FAI (and Irish football in general) consciously planned the best way to alienate me from the team, I'm not sure they could have done a better job.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I sometimes struggle to remember my own current phone number. But I can still remember the phone number for Swap Shop.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Me neither. The fact they decided to wait until I turned my back before they started to play well is grimly amusing. I flicked on the TV briefly to see how many had shown up, and the stadium looks almost full. Which saddens me deeply. Irish fans have failed the test and a precedent has been set.

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Reposted by Jim Bliss

Atomique @atomiquefetish.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

How William Gibson’s Neuromancer helped shape the visual language of cyberpunk, imagining a future of networks, artificial intelligence, corporate power and digital identities long before they became part of everyday life. www.otaviosantiago.com/post/william... #WilliamGibson #OtavioSantiago

otaviosantiago.com

William Gibson, Neuromancer and the Visual Language of Cyberpunk

Long before the internet became a place we carried in our pockets, before social media transformed identity into an interface and before artificial intelligence entered everyday conversation, William ...

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For me, it's between Edgar Davids and Mousa Dembélé. There was one iteration of Championship Manager where Stéphane Dalmat was a world-beater. We never saw that in a Spurs shirt though.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There's a ton of racist pensioners. But I'm not sure many of those blackshirts in balaclavas intimidating RNLI members are of pensionable age. We should be able to oppose racism without throwing an entire generation under the bus.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My Granny was from Wexford. That she left for Dublin when she was 19 and never returned speaks volumes if you ask me.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'm going to have to get one of those 3D-printers if they can print cannabis.

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Reposted by Jim Bliss

Cethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 02/10/2025

For National Poetry Day, a personal favourite of mine and one I think about more and more in these troubled times.

The Second Coming
By W.B. Yeats

Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that'd been away
Haven't changed, hadn't much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazy
They were askin' if you were around
How you was, where you could be found
Told them you were livin' downtown
Drivin' all the old men crazy

[Chorus]
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
(I said) The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

And look, I'm not saying the case for immigration is a purely economic one. It isn't. But when the people who are making it harder for immigrants to settle here are the same ones telling us to prepare for a pension squeeze, they really need to be confronted with their contradictions.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Meanwhile Dublin's Metrolink project hinges on immigrants because we don't have enough people with the skill set here. And we're told to prepare for later retirement because demographics mean we won't be able to afford pensions in a couple of decades. Yet our decision-makers can't join the dots.

thejournal.ie

8,000 staff needed: Metrolink has been 'going around Europe for the last year' for workers

Some 8,000 workers are needed for Metrolink alone, but the NTA has warned of a ‘brain drain’ across the public sector affecting major works.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My grandmother died in the 1980s so she never had an opinion about LLMs, but right now I can hear her ghost insisting that no machine could authentically reproduce the passion of a Barbara Cartland novel. But a fictional biography of a movie star? No doubt a machine could do a decent job with that.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It's a way of ensuring shareholders in tech companies get paid instead of artists.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ignoring for a moment the specifics of the story, I think it's safe to say we are completely cooked when politicians start knowingly manipulating the news with fake images. I know, lying liars are gonna lie. And it was ever thus. But these tools are supercharging those lies. And that's a problem.

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Reposted by Jim Bliss

Sam Weller @samwellerauthor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This is the most remarkable story Ray Bradbury ever shared with me. He told it to me late one night, sitting in his den of antiquities and mementos. Take five minutes to read this. It’s pure magic. #Writing #Living #Creativity #RayBradbury #BookSky

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I still refer to it as spicy autocomplete in conversation. Or LLMs when I need to save characters on a microblogging platform With "spicy autocomplete", it means I sometimes have to explain the phrase to non-tech folks, but it has the benefit of increased accuracy, and they get to learn something.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Actually, no I probably wouldn't. If I had a net worth of a quarter of a trillion dollars it'd almost certainly mean I'd be an evil fuck like Zuckerberg.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

My 14 year old nephew pays an €80 / year fee at his local club in Meath. Pro rata, that's more than 250 times Zuckerberg's donation. Not saying the lump sum won't help some clubs. It will. But if I had a net worth of a quarter of a trillion dollars, I'd be embarrassed with that donation.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Hardly worth reporting. I don't think anyone thought he'd intervene. If it doesn't involve refusing visas to Palestinian students, or giving €100m to fuel protesters, or demonising immigrants, Fianna Fáil isn't getting involved.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I actually worked it out. The total he's giving, pro rata, is closer to 30 cent for someone on the average Irish wage who owns their own home. In other words, I'd be embarrassed to give so little to the lad who sits outside my local Centra with a paper cup.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"The EU [...] has warned the bloc was headed for a tough winter with "very high" oil and gas prices owing to the US-Iran war, but did not forecast security of supply issues." Oh, it'll become a "supply issue" alright for those who can't afford to heat their homes.

rte.ie

EU warns of 'very high' winter energy prices

The EU's energy commissioner has warned the bloc was headed for a tough winter with "very high" oil and gas prices owing to the US-Iran war, but did not forecast security of supply issues.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Oh do fuck off, you empty suit.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Safe to say the forces of Capital have won when the big argument is about which benefits to cut and by how much, rather than which taxes to raise.

A still from the Lord of The Rings movie. A large Uruk-Hai (Orc) cast in shades of blue looks towards the camera. The caption reads "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys" but "Meat's" crossed out and replaced by "Austerity's"

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think it's safe to say that any nation that subsidises fuel protesters while increasing public transport costs isn't going to treat climate adaptation planning with the required urgency.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Oh, I like to think I'm a decent judge of character in person. But I've discovered over the past 25 years that my taste in music or film isn't always so discerning.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Of course, the moment I say this he's going to reveal he's actually Milkshake Duck in disguise, but I stumbled across an interview with him recently and he seems like a thoroughly decent guy. Sadly it appears that my personal taste in music is not always a great judge of character.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I've already told them they can have $10 billion back from me. So I doubt they'll be calling you.

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Reposted by Jim Bliss

Spirit of the Spooptober Revolution @stoatie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yer dad sparks major international incidents when he's out nicking diesel.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"Adult content". Fucking infantilising social media bollocks. Thanks for posting this, I wasn't aware of it, but it shares a name with one of my favourite paintings (by Oskar Kokoschka).

'The Tempest / Bride of the Wind', oil on canvas painting by Oskar Kokoschka 1913. It is an Expressionist oil painting, primarily in shades of blue, white and off-white, with flashes of other colours (reds, purples, and greens). It portrays Kokoschka himself lying beside his lover Alma Mahler. She appears peacefully asleep, while Kokoschka remains awake, staring outward. Around them is a chaotic swirl of colours, turbulent and kinetic.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Can't speak for anyone else, but my issue wasn't with the song being popular, it was with the smug article that suggested people who claimed not to have heard it were lying for some kind of "cultural cachet", rather than just not being tuned into the charts any more.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The first time I heard the name Langley (outside the context of Langley, Virginia where the CIA lives) or the song title "Choosin' Texas" was just now in a screen shot from a Rolling Stone article informing me that I'm only saying this for cultural cachet.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

By this time next week I won't remember much about it. And in a year's time when I surf into it I'll get a puzzled look on my face and say "this feels familiar..." But it was lots of fun at the time. Which is precisely what a mid-budget science fiction actioner should be. So bravo to Spectral.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"We demand to pay less tax!" Tomorrow they'll be phoning in to drive-time complaining about their local hospital being underfunded. Or how their pension should be increased. Or how the class sizes in their kids school are out of control. Feckin eejits. Every last one of them.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Also, it's apparently a race against time now, because "there's no limit to how far these things can spread". Goddamn! Also, did I mention, they rescued a child from the rubble who looks the spitting image of Newt from Aliens. This film has everything.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Ha! Looks like we're going to get a *second* "build superweapons out of whatever's lying around" montage. The main scientist dude just gave a very silly speech full of technobabble ending with "I can build an arsenal that'll take out whatever the hell these goddamn things are!"

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Even though it's got a gritty aesthetic (i.e. not "shiny") it very much falls under the BGSM* umbrella. Halfway through and there's an A-Team-stylee montage with the special forces dudes turning a bunch of broken industrial equipment into weapons. And that always makes a film at least 63% better.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's a *very* silly mid-budget science fiction actioner of the type I used to love but which don't seem to get made too often these days. Would have been straight-to-video in the 80s. Which is not a criticism btw. It's fun, silly, and action-packed.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

You gotta laugh (grimly and with no humour). The first time in a long time the Irish team appear to be winning well and it's the first game in a long time I'm not watching. Maybe I should stop watching Spurs? So I'm watching 'Spectral' instead.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Irish players will line up in Hungary to play an away match against Israel, and in Serbia to play a "home" match. One of the games will have roughly 150 Israeli fans in a 20k stadium. The other will be empty of fans completely. Don't they realise something is *deeply* wrong here? #StopTheGame

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"What’s behind Trump’s rejection of Iran’s truce offer?" He's seeking to actively impoverish the USA. He believes that the poorer and more desperate Americans become, the more likely they are to vote right wing. Now, I don't know for certain, but there's a strong possibility he's right about that.

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

It's really not, is it? But then, sadly that's really just a subset of "it's not been a great decade to be a human being".

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

(Don't know why I'm framing that as a "gotcha", the modern British Labour Party is probably eager to condemn and disavow any past progressive tendencies).

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Jim Bliss @jimbliss.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

So is it the official position of the Labour Party that its support of the Women's Suffrage movement (up to and including the participation of future Labour leader George Lansbury in suffragette demonstrations) was wrong? Does the Labour Party condemn and disavow that participation?

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