iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Not a single perspective here from someone who didn’t write the report. This isn’t journalism, it’s an author’s abstract. Every para is just “this is what the paper says.” It’s exactly what you would get if you asked an undergrad to read it and write a summary. Or get one from a chatbot.

theguardian.com

AI godfathers warn of runaway ‘intelligence explosion’

OpenAI chief scientist also among authors of report on prospect of ‘most consequential technological development in history’

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James Arthur Cattell @jacattell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Looking to speak to anyone who's migrated their organisation from @microsoft.com to #Linux, especially end user devices, please. #opensource

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Scott Wortley @scottwortley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

a little thing by me on the importance of teaching legislation and legislative interpretation as a discrete subject (underpinned by despair that in the UK we generally don't teach enough of this in law degrees (never mind how little there is in conversion courses))

blogs.ed.ac.uk

In Support of Teaching Legislation and Legislative Interpretation as a Discrete Subject – Edinburgh Private Law Blog

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James Elder @jameselder.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

But, as an archivist, I must say that we are not just throwing our hands up and wailing about it. As a profession we are getting on with finding methods and systems so that digital records do endure. And it’s a little dispiriting when the media periodically repeats the ‘Digital Dark Age’ story.

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Andrew Sissons @acjsissons.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Honestly, trying to read about AI is exhausting. Always need to know who the author is, what their motives are (often opaque), how much they actually know, what assumptions they make (omg we so badly need some common analytical framing)… Spend more time checking out the author than actually reading

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Jack Kirby @jdk653.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

From 1880 until 1952. Wait until you hear about Putney Bridge and Hurlingham. Best single source of info on London Underground station renaming is Doug Rose's diagrammatic history (not mobile friendly, easiest to view on a desktop or laptop). www.dougrose.co.uk/tube-history...

dougrose.co.uk

The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History

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Russell Garner @rgarner.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Impact

Alt text: A six-panel comic about a small white ghost haunting a table lamp. The ghost says, “I’m the ghost of this lamp. Just this lamp.” It reflects that it could have haunted “something bigger. A room. A house,” but chooses to “focus my craft” where its impact is “small but does not go unnoticed.” The lamp suddenly clicks on by itself. In the next panel, a confused man asks, “Who turned on this lamp?” while the ghost peeks out from behind the table. The final panel shows the ghost hiding beside the table with a pleased smile as the lamp glows.

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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Walking through the little touristy area next to Tower Bridge, which is home to both a Starbucks Reserve (what the what) and a Paul where you can get an ice cream in a croissant, and sometimes real life seems indistinguishable from generative AI

An A frame advertising an ice cream croissant

what even is this? a fever dream? a starbucks reserve with some unreadable graffiti about ideas, that looks like a render because it can't possibly be a real building

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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

41 years ago, Carl Sagan gave a clear and elegant explanation of the science behind global warming.

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John Sheridan @johnlsheridan.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Listening to Schubert’s Impromptus, D.935, played by Radu Lupu. This is very beautiful music. Hard to explain, but Schubert somehow mixes events and memories: “let’s dance” -> “remember when we danced”, “let’s talk” -> “remember when we talked” and so on. Schubert had a tender soul.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

“AI will supercharge government”

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Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

If you live inland you may not have noticed that the Met Office app has tide times, wave heights and weather-appropriate sea safety advice for beach locations. Very useful in planning your day out

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Richard Pope @richardpope.org · 20/07/2026

An extended version of the preface to Platformland - on waiting, digital, and the surfaces the state presents to the world -: richardpope.org/2026/07/20/an-exten…

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Open Data Institute @odihq.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Last chance to book our exclusive webinar with Sir Nigel Shadbolt as he asks if AI is now part of daily life, but the data underpinning it is often poorly governed and inadequately protected. How do we fix this? buff.ly/yi1C5qV #Sovereign_Data #Data_Ai #AI

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Charlie Feldman @parlcharlie.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

#CALC26 begins! Excited to see so many legislative drafter colleagues from across the globe! It’s one of the few places you can make a niche statutory interpretation joke and deem the laugher to have occurred :p

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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

In summary: come and see, you will never see so many famous docs from that period all at once in the UK. If you're coming on Sunday it's Archives Fest, ticketed and with loads of extra goodies www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/whats-on/exh...

nationalarchives.gov.uk

Revolution 250: America's Independence Story 1763–1783

Marking the 250th anniversary of The US Declaration of Independence, this powerful free exhibition charts the emergence of the United States of America.

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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I had time to buzz round our Revolution250 exhibition today. Some great mixes of government and parliament records. These are the Townshend Acts, frex, and a War Office account of the Boston Tea Party

Four huge parliamentary acts, partly unrolled, looking like vast stripes on the walls

Short note with covering envelope and further note, explaining this is an eye witness soldier account of the Tea Party

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Dr. Emily Friedman @ecfriedman.com · 03/07/2026

This is what we mean by the whole “not everything is digitized” — not everything is fully *catalogued* yet! This is at the UK National Archives at Kew.

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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

This just *keeps* happening to us. (This is a great, great story, about brilliant work in the now and fascinating print diffusion in the past. Come and see the exhibition which is STUFFED with this kind of story.)

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morrismummer @morrismummer.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The utterly glorious porch roof at St John the Baptist, Burford. Anyone who uses 'medieval' as a pejorative should be made to look at this until they promise never to do it again. Photo taken lying on my back shuffling around the floor until I was happy with the framing.

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Matthew Somerville @dracos.co.uk · 25/06/2026

Waiting for the train to leave Euston back to Birmingham, finding myself in Private Eye (joining in the Radio 3 discourse), mentioning intunemixtapefanclub.dracos.co.uk and coming across as a bit of a nerd 🤣

Radio 3 debate continues...

Sir,
There does exist an oasis of wide-ranging
music, presented with elegant concise commentary. This programme is called
"Through the Night",
At which point the verbal diarrhoea of
from 12:30am to 6:30am.
"Breakfast on 3" takes over with its ten-minute (at best) snatches of music.
DES HILL, London.

...I maintain an archive of Radio 3's
Classical Mixtape track listings going back to
2017. At least there, output seems pretty varied with the number of distinct composers ranging from 481 in 2018 to 599 in 2022 to 478 last year, with around 60 percent of composers having only one track in the whole year.
Radio 3 "Breakfast" is a much nicer thing to
wake up to than the alternatives, and anecdotally I still hear a wide array of known and unknown pieces (this morning included Mozart, Lully, Smyth, Respighi).
MATTHEW SOMERVILLE.

...In all this talk of classical bangers and anodyne presenters on Radio 3, not one mention of programmes like Private Passions or Round about Midnight. Nor indeed the week given over recently to Miles Davis as Composer of the Week.
These were all outstanding and were presented by people with a passion. Anodyne my arse.
JULIAN GREATREX.

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Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing.org.uk · 20/06/2026

Anyone want to join my new group for discussing beam-type steam engines? It's on Watt'sApp

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Arthur C. Clerk's Mysterious World @fantasticlife.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Exciting news: two dumps of weeknotes in two days. Random ramblings on AI and "the commons" and some other stuff off the back of a conference @anyaso.bsky.social and I went along to last week. CONTENT WARNING: yes, AI. Sorry ukparliament.github.io/ontologies/m...

ukparliament.github.io

2026 - Week 22 - Tragedy?

Work in progress to design data models for UK Parliament

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Daniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Item descriptions for REQ 2/299-308 (Court of Requests proceedings for James I and Charles I) now searchable on Discovery. This 1624 case in particular caught my eye, about the East India Company getting too big for just one clerk. REQ 2/302/2 discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2...

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

What’s the future of the humanities at a time of pressure in higher education and wider digital change? I’ll be on R4 at 4pm discussing this as part of their Rethink series. It was recorded several weeks ago so I now have no recollection of what I specifically said! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Sounds - Rethink, Rethink... the Humanities

Should we be rethinking the humanities for a digital age?

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BIALL (British & Irish Association of Law Librarians) @biall.org.uk · 15/05/2026

The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians is powered by its members. Every event, every initiative, every resource BIALL delivers is made possible by volunteers. Quite simply — BIALL cannot function without you.

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Duille @duille.com · 12/05/2026

Design legend Margaret Calvert is 90 today. Look at that cake! If you've ever admired a road, rail or metro sign in Britain it's likely she had something to do with it. One of Britain's design heroes - happy birthday to her. Photo by: @oshgallerylondon (IG) Cake by: mybaker.co

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Tom Loosemore @tomski.com · 10/05/2026

Is there any point writing about how 'governments should adapt to AI' when they currently find any serious change impossible? Hence this piece by @ukcivilservant.bsky.social on why reform of the Civil Service is so hard is fully on point: ukcivilservant.substack.com/p/why-civil-...

ukcivilservant.substack.com

Why Civil Service Reforms Fail

There has been increased interest, in recent years, in civil service (or Whitehall) reform.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Both shocking and unsurprising. What’s truly troubling is how many people have likely already produced, published and relied upon ‘insights’ they assumed came from analysis of their data but were in fact just the usual stereotyped LLM guesses

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Richard Elwes @richardelwes.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Thanks to Gayoung Lee at @gizmodo.com for this great write-up of a fun conversation!

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

The Chinese translation of The AI Mirror just arrived and I am over the moon. This is the first translation I’ve held in my hands! (Japanese, Indonesian, and Malayalam are coming out later this year)

A reflective, prismatic book cover for The AI Mirror, in simplified Chinese.

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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I used to be good at Computer. Now Computer thinks it is good at me. But it actually isn’t??????

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

There is a major exhibition ‘The Story of Us: Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census’ and I’m delighted that we are hosting this in London at @britishacademy.bsky.social from 24 April - 15 May. Free entry and no booking required. Pop in if you are around! nationalarchives.ie/engage-and-l...

nationalarchives.ie

The Census 1926 Exhibition Tour - National Archives

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

The exhibition on the 1926 Irish census is open in our central London building until 15 May (other than today due to the marathon). No booking required so do check the timings and then pop in!

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Mile End Institute @mileendinstitute.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Wonderful news that our patron Lord Hennessy has been made a Knight of the Order of the Garter. Over 50 years in public life, Peter has made a unique contribution to journalism, academia and government and we're very lucky to have him at @qmulsse.bsky.social Congratulations from @qmul.bsky.social!

Peter Hennessy at a Mile End Institute event in 2017. He is sitting down, sideways on to the camera, with his hand on his face smiling.

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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Always interesting looking at evaluation data. It's worth saying: if you're a UK archive working on digital preservation and need support on getting started, creating digital asset registers, offering digital access or advocating for preservation, here you go: www.dpconline.org/digipres/pro...

dpconline.org

Novice to Know-How: Online Digital Preservation Training - Digital Preservation Coalition

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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

A delight as always to work with @dpc-chat.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy. This is a really great course, I hope it gives you inspiration and consolation in your digital preservation advocacy, as well as really actionable tips and strategies for getting your message heard.

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Digital Preservation Coalition @dpc-chat.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy · 22/04/2026

📢 New course launch! We’ve added #N2KH: Advocacy to our learning pathway - supporting digital preservation practitioners to advocate for #DigitalPreservation, communicate its value, and build support within their organizations. Learn how to make your case […] [Original post on digipres.club]

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John Sheridan @johnlsheridan.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Just been listening to a recording of Debussy’s Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune. I can’t remember when I last sat down and gave this piece my full focus and attention. My goodness it’s beautiful. If you’re at a loss as to what to do this evening, you won’t regret making time for this work.

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Tom Loosemore @tomski.com · 16/04/2026

For the past couple of weeks I've been messing around with open weight locally-hosted LLMs. They're better than ever. I'd recommend having a play... loosemore.com/2026/04/16/p...

loosemore.com

Playing with open weight LLMs.

Checking back in on the state of open weight LLMs after a couple of months away and the best are much better than in Jan – notably gemma4 and qwen3.5. Unlike AI agents like OpenClaw, it&#8217…

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

it’s a coordinated assault on the skills and virtues of independent critical thought, which enable one to resist illegitimate power.

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