iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

And the Tax-Free Lump Sum that applies to 25℅ of a private pension is also completely untaxed.

Reposted by John Barrett

Nicolai von Ondarza @nvondarza.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"We could go all the way" - Burnham's Europe part in his Conference speech yesterday sounded more cautious than this, where he clearly puts single market, customs union and even rejoin on the table:

bbc.com

Move to rejoin EU among options for UK, says Andy Burnham

The prime minister tells the BBC the current Brexit settlement has caused "more harm than good".

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Labour is not proposing to change ILTR. The discussion is about proposals for people that do not have ILTR.

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Keith Stewart @climatekeith.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Now I need to write something that will let me cite a Nature article citing @doctorow.pluralistic.net Maybe Unauthorized Bread, but with solar panels www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Smart energy must address enshittification risks - Nature Energy

Nature Energy - Smart energy must address enshittification risks

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The ICT 1500. Picture from www.couperus.org/OldComputers...

ICT 1500 computer. Pictured: 6 tall cabinets with a desk and push-button console.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

There are some good vegan recipes in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Three Good Things. With only three ingredients, they are very easy to make.

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Stefan Pöhlmann @snpoehlm.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

🧪Where is SARS-CoV-2 circulating? Below is a collection of useful surveillance sites from around the world - wastewater, genomic and respiratory-virus data - that may help you assess virus circulation in your area and make informed decisions about protection.

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Met Office - weather and climate @metoffice.gov.uk · 22/09/2026

The current El Niño event has now broken previous records. It started in June and is due to last until next year, changing global weather patterns. Read our latest blog ⤵️ www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2026/re...

metoffice.gov.uk

Record-Breaking El Niño Surpasses Previous Benchmarks

The developing El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, which scientists have been monitoring closely for many months, has now exceeded previous records, making it the strongest event in the observational record...

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Alastair Harper @alastairharper.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Thomas Edison in 1910. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on this net zero business, lads

Someday some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing sunshine to use instead of this old, absurd Prometheus scheme of fire.
I'll do the trick myself if someone doesn't get at it....
This scheme of combustion in order to get power makes me sick to think of—it is so wasteful.... We should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy. Do we use them? Oh no; we burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel.
We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property. There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it cannot be destroyed.
Now, I am not sure but that my new storage battery is the thing. 167

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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The upshot is that the party that most hates the first past the post electoral system is using it most effectively. The LDs have experience in 2019 of racking up votes with a divisive message and getting very few seats. Some LDs think the Greens and Reform are making the same mistake.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Security maybe. Spell checkers store text for analysis in a possibly insecure way.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Step 1 is to introduce PR, to enable a stable majority for rejoining.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

First priority is insulation, then replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump. A solar system is a cost effective way of running the heat pump, but you can just use the grid.

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James O'Malley @jamesomalley.co.uk · 28/08/2026

Now FREE TO READ – why we need more data centres. I feel like an epidemiologist in February 2020 – the dangerous threat in the near future is so clear, and we need to prepare for it. Please consider sharing it with the data centre-sceptics in your life. takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/the-case-f...

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

The case for Nightingale Datacentres

Britain isn’t prepared for the looming AI national security crisis

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Reform UK policy is to ban all Hong Kong BNO visa holders from perm settlement, removing it for those who have qualified (40k so far, but 150k+ before the election). It will find this harder if they become citizens before then Labour Gvt prob won't ask BNO visa holders to wait 10 years (but TBC)

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 26/08/2026

They disinvented the VCR. You might think that the reason we don't have VCRs anymore is because VCRs were supplanted by DVDs, PVRs and streaming, but that's not the case. They had it in for the VCR from the very start, and they never stopped trying to kill it. Eventually, they succeeded. 1/

A 1960s family living room in which a mom, dad and two kids are mesmerized by a cabinet-style TV. The image has been altered. The TV has an early 1990s VCR atop it. The TV screen is displaying a cross-sectioned human head with brains and spine on display. A huge fist has materialized in the room, with bloody spiked knuckle-dusters, smashing into the VCR. The oil painting over the sofa has been replaced with a pulp image of a male head, its cranium removed and replaced by a dome. Inside the dome is a red eight-segment VCR clock, displaying 12:00. The background in the painting is a tangle of cassette tape. The whole image's colors have been boosted, giving it an overexposed look.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I pull them up as we use them, leaving the rest in the ground, where they keep better than in the fridge.

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Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 20/08/2026

Leen Valley (Nottingham) Council By-Election Result: 🌹 LAB: 30.5% (-33.8) 🏘️ NPA: 23.2% (New) ➡️ RFM: 18.2% (New) 🌍 GRN: 16.7% (New) 🌳 CON: 8.4% (-13.3) 🔶 LDM: 3.0% (-11.0) Labour HOLD. Changes w/ 2023.

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

404media.co

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

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NeoEonOne @neoeonone.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

An American interviewer asked Count Binface where he stands on the political spectrum.

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Jacky @jacky3344.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

For me the key sentence from that Lauren Leek article is here: "A monoculture is efficient right up until the weather changes." As someone in retail food where the local supply chains are collapsing - that's the important bit. At the moment. laurenleek.substack.com/p/temperatur...

laurenleek.substack.com

Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same

What 640 London shopping streets, 4,000 Billboard hits, a million films and synthetic AI personas tell us about why everything is flattening into sameness and how to regulate the algorithms behind it.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 30/07/2026

With "surveillance pricing," businesses have finally found something AI can do way, way, *way* better than people: price gouging. 1/

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

They are privatising the web. Previously, mathematicians would post on blogs like substack open to all. Now their thoughts are going to AI companies that will charge a subscription to anyone who wants to get the benefit of it.

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Sam Learner @samlearner.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

wrote for the magazine about the open source software that underpins our digital lives, how it is being upended by AI code tools, and about maintainers as.ft.com/r/b7f62212-9...

ft.com

Who cleans up after the vibe-coding party?

Our obsession with AI code-writing tools is overwhelming the web’s unsung human caretakers

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

It depends how well you know the subject area. If very well, you can read it and write the report in a day. If not, it will take several days.

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Stella Creasy MP @stellacreasy.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

In ten days time with your help we can cap how much money anyone can personally give to a political cause and any chance millionaires can buy our politics. If you agree share this and ask your MP to co sign the amendment. It’s time we made sure it’s democracy not donations that define our future.

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Noema Magazine @noemamag.com · 30/06/2026

The growing number of AI agents roaming the internet will eventually force us to verify what the old web mostly presumed: that there is a morally & legally accountable person somewhere in the chain, @noupside.bsky.social writes. #aiagents #identitytheft

noemamag.com

We Need A Way To Prove Personhood Online | NOEMA

The growing number of AI agents roaming the internet will eventually force us to verify what the old web mostly presumed: that there is a morally and legally accountable person somewhere in the chain.

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Crisis @crisis-uk.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

🚨 Breaking news: from today, it's no longer a crime to sleep rough in England and Wales. The Vagrancy Act has finally been repealed. For more than 200 years, this archaic law criminalised people for sleeping rough or begging. But no more.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Galileo's house at Arcetri is an ordinary but substantial house with a courtyard and a modest garden. There's no ornamentation, and it can't be described as a palace.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Posting this to explain why I stopped flying. Heat pump installation next week. Not going to solve the problem all by myself, but taking a stand makes it easier for politicians to act.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Annual temperature anomaly 1850-2025 for Nottingham, UK. showyourstripes.info/c/europe/uni...

Bar chart showing annual temperature anomaly 1850-2025 for Nottingham, UK. Last four years are the highest on record.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

You could try the French eprint server HAL. I haven't used it myself so not sure how it works. hal.science/index/index/...

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

There's a good summary of the 2019 election and its relation to brexit here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Un...

en.wikipedia.org

2019 United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

The decision to leave the EU was made at the 2019 general election.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Re 16.17 BST: the standard qualifying period for care workers will be 15 years, not 10 years "For people ... the baseline starting point for the calculation would be 15 rather than ten years. This would include social care workers." commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Changes to UK visa and settlement rules after the 2025 immigration white paper

Frequently asked questions about the UK government's immigration white paper proposals in 2025, including longer qualifying periods for indefinite leave to remain.

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Molly White @molly.wiki · 08/06/2026

But when voters do find out, the spending can backfire. In Illinois, candidates who called out the crypto money against them won their primaries despite being vastly outspent. Transparency is the only counter to this.

Money involved in this election
Raja Krishnamoorthi (D): Raised $31.4M ($57.8k from industry donors), $412k in outside spending to support ($30.2k from crypto PACs), $3.34M in outside spending to oppose
Juliana Stratton (D): Raised $4.79M ($1k from industry donors), $9.07M in outside spending to support, $10.4M in outside spending to oppose ($9.99M from crypto PACs)
Robin Kelly (D): Raised $3.47M ($2k from industry donors), $1.28M in outside spending to support ($285k from crypto PACs)
Dick Durbin (D): Raised $2.38M
Don Tracy (R): Raised $2.33M
Jeannie Evans (R): Raised $1.28M
Casey Chlebek (R): Raised $202k

Spending by crypto- and AI-focused committees
FairShake (crypto)
Total spending $9,866,091
to oppose Juliana Stratton in the primary
$9,866,091
Protect Progress (crypto)
Total spending $434,834
to oppose Juliana Stratton in the primary
$119,643
to support Raja Krishnamoorthi in the primary
$30,183
to support Robin Kelly in the primary
$285,008

Money involved in this election
La Shawn Ford (D): Raised $653k, $2.48M in outside spending to oppose ($2.48M from crypto PACs)
Anthony Driver Jr. (D): Raised $249k, $564k in outside spending to support
Danny Davis (D): Raised $101k
Kina Collins (D): Raised $54.9k
Chad Koppie (R):
Patricia Easley (R):

Spending by crypto- and AI-focused committees
FairShake (crypto)
Total spending $2,475,780
to oppose La Shawn Ford in the primary
$2,475,780

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David Whitley @mrdavidwhitley.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Treating any communication platform that algorithmically selects which content to put in front of a user as a publisher, and legally responsible for that content, is the screamingly obvious solution that will deeply upset maybe seven companies and make life considerably better.

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Maybe get rid of the offending apps?

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John Barrett @johnwbarrett.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

The book starts at minute 7 for me. Pope at min 35.

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