iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

From my good friend and colleague @stsucl.bsky.social Brian Balmer: an STS textbook on science, technology, warfare and peace. Based on years of refining teaching on the topic, it’s really rather excellent Open access and free to download

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 17h

September is probably the best time to see it, but it is still flowering into October. Can provide pins

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

… and the charismatic beauty of Borrer’s Saltmarsh Grass (Puccinellia fasciculara). Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury #wildflowerhour

khaki green water above, sandy bare grass below. One stalk over the water has a small seedhead (the old flowers)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

plus some nicely purpling Grass-leaved Orache (Atriplex littoralis), by the Thames, East Tilbury #wildflowerhour

Straggly bushy plant with red dotted ends to stalks

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Slender Hare’s-ear (Bupleurum tenuissimum) near Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury always slightly astonished this is an umbellifer, like a carrot or a hogweed tiny flowers hard to photograph for #wildflowerhour (finger for scale)

in middle of grass there is a single stalk with a tiny bunch of yellow flowers growing right off it, a bunch of seeds lower down

detail of tiny yellow flowers in bunch, about an eighth the width of my finger end, which is to the left

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

3) this butterfly represents the soul of a dying cavalier, I think (as only a hyper-realistic small tortoiseshell can)

a meticulously painted small tortoiseshell butterfly rests on a sword, which has sliced into a tree. It is a detail of a painting that shows a dying cavalier being tended by a woman while a puritan (the woman’s husband?) looks on. Everything is very detailed

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

(Here’s the full painting)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

2) (Detail of) Jan Griffier the Younger’s Thames during Great Frost of 1739 Much slipping over, on what looks like very rugged and grey Thames ice

Small figures in 18th clothes slipping and falling about on rugged grey looking Thames ice

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Things seen in the Guildhall Art Gallery 1) Stained glass window for the Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners. Looks like it needs a wipe

a narrow stained glass window, with a diamond of yellow and black, wilts a red belt across. By Stella Timmins

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Asif Siddiqi @historyasif.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It's October 4th -- the Sputnik satellite was flung into orbit 69 years ago today, beginning the age of space exploration. I dug into the Russian archives and got some documents on its creation. Check it out if you're interested.....

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

No. I’ve red his Fairyland and A Very British History, but not that one. Thanks for the rec

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Walking back on the Thames path, passed the “beach” that is nearly entirely old rubbish heap crockery. It will make a fantastic Anthropocene deposit

a view of the beach by the Thames made of shards

a close up of the beach, there is a dark green/white shard and a pale green/ white shard on the left, a dark orange round object made of brick, and an beige ceramic lid to the right, plus lots of smaller bits

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

To East Tilbury, to see the Queen of Spain. Then to the Thames, where the Longstone ro-ro cargo ship is taking containers to Zeebrugge

a Queen of Spain Fritillary. An orange butterfly with black spots and small white spots on the edges of its wings

a view of the Thames, with an expanse of mud and a winding inlet. A large sleek white container vessel is passing. Thames Gateway docks is visible on the left

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

BIG NEWS! Check out our brand new website and logo, designed by Livetech and now live at www.londonpavementgeology.co.uk

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

National Care Service (double tick). Double lock (one tick). Reheated innovation nation stuff is poor. Nothing positive on universities. Otherwise big winners are the Lib Dems (electoral reform)! And, no, it is not a different kind of speech #burnham

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Some plants in the marshy area by the River Wye, when it is just a stream at Hughenden, Bucks: Blue water-speedwell, Red goosefoot (I think!), Water forget-me-not #wildflowerhour (BSBI met here back in spring last year)

Two spikes of Veronica type flowers with a river behind

A red and yellow plant - the seeds are red and the dark almond shaped leaves are yellow with a red fringe

clusters of blue flowers with yellow centres among spear shaped thick looking leaves

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This is excellent. Nathan Ensmenger was one of the first historians to call attention to the hidden environmental consequences of computing, back when it was indeed obscure. Now (w/data centres) it is open and politically contested. But, he argues, we need to choose words and targets carefully..

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Fodder vetch (V. villosa), I think, fields north of Romford, for #wildflowerhour #favouritefind was probably the St Dabeoc’s Heath from Galway last week, or the Yellow Vetch from Shoreham-by-Sea back in June

a line of dark purple pea flowers, with some grey, hairy leaves made up of seven+ leaflets, all in a scrubby field with lots of other slightly dry plants

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This goes straight into my course this term, Thinking about Technology

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I am writing about UK environmental politics and science in the 1990s Not sure what to make of this passage in a speech by the Environment minister John Gummer in 1995, in which he remembers fantasising as a small boy about killing the man who killed the last Great Auk, and how it haunted him still

"When I was a small boy I remember learning that some species had disappeared from the earth. I learnt that one of those was the Great Auk. It is a very boring bird the Great Auk. It disappeared largely because it couldn't fly, and if you saw a picture of it you wouldn't find it particularly enticing. But I remember feeling that I had lost something because I would never see a Great Auk. And that thought has lived with me all my adult life. I remember reading of the man who killed the last Great Auk, and I remember as a small boy wanting to kill him because he had removed from me something which was an extension of my experience, my understanding. My world was narrower and less exciting and thrilling"

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This evening’s entertainment…

An empty stage with an orange sun with a face

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

It's (almost) that time of year again: Inaugural Lectures season is nearly upon us. What better way to tip ones toes back in the water that Prof Simon Werrett's 'At Length did Cross an Albatross: Science and Seabirds in the Eighteenth Century'. Free and open to the public, 21 October. #Skystorians

ucl.ac.uk

STS Inaugural Lecture Series: Professor Simon Werrett

“At Length did Cross an Albatross”: Science and Seabirds in the Eighteenth Century

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I missed that it was #SeedHeads for #wildflowerhour on Sunday. But here’s a botanical challenge for you. Anglesey. What is it? @bsbibotany.bsky.social @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

Seedhead. 3-symmetry with 6 capsules. A bunch of six of them, brown and white

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Another one? Why not. Here’s Rathlacken court tomb, Co. Mayo from the weekend #TombTuesday

Series of paired dark grey squarish stones about a metre high, with a developing sphagnum bog in the middle and heather around, with trees behind

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Trefignath chambered tomb. Just found out there’s a thing called #TombTuesday and I passing this one near Holyhead, Anglesey

Two standing rocks on right are entrance to one of three tombs, mostly jumbled stones

The entrance to the 3rd, east facing tomb

One of the big entrance stones, with swirly metamorphic patterns and lichen

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Good museum too, on the generations of Parsons (including turbine Charles), Rosses, Mary Ward etc I liked this drawing made using the big telescope of the Orion Nebula, c.1870s

charcoal and chalk drawing of Orion Nebula c1870s. Complicated white and black pattern with black radiating lines and rounder shapes

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Behold the Leviathan of Parsonstown! At Birr Castle, home of the restored largest telescope of the mid 19th century

lord Rosse’s restored telescope. A grey castle like structure with a black tube, and wooden ladders

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

where am I now? #histsci location revealed shortly…

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Yes, there’s gorse and bramble there. A real tangled bank

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

and a Silverweed, amongst the seaweed, Mayo coast

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

extraordinarily purple Spear-leaved Orache, Mayo coast #wildflowerhour

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Some more superb flowers seen in West Ireland, starting with Grass of Parnassus, below the Carrowkeel Neolithic hill, Mayo #wildflowerhour

A big white five petalled flower with green nectar guides

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

St Dabeoc’s Heath (Daboecia cantabrica), somewhere a little west of Galway, for #wildflowerhour. Took a little searching

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Dispossesed, by quite a distance

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Fossiliferous basalt? Confirmation at last for Neptunism! (at Portrush, NI, site of one of the most momentous geological arguments)

a wet slab of stone from a shore, with an ammonite

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The runes say ‘deer antler’ It’s like an 11th century museum label. Or imagine the 11th century Dubliner who felt the intense need to label deer antlers as ‘deer antlers’, and why

Museum label that provides the translation from the runes. “hurn:hiartR” = ‘deer antler’

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

… there’s a runic inscription what does it say…?

Close up of antler. Runes, which look like lines and arrow shapes in a row

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The National Museum of Ireland (the Kildare Street, archeological one) is full of wondrous objects, but this one amused me. It’s a 11th century deer antler. Look closer…

a single deer antler. looks a bit like a knobby brown bone

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

… and Yeats always revised! We know this because WB Yeats filled in a Cambridge University psychology department questionnaire in the 1930s (also in the NLI exhibit) on the secrets of creativity, and says so (on page four of the form)

Form. Psychological Laboratory. Cambridge university… Questionnaire on creative effort…

Multiple choice form, reveals things such as Yeats daydreamed during work..:

More
Multiple choice questions answered by Yeats

More questions including Do you revise your work? Always

More dream questions

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Also on display at the National Library of Ireland: Yeats’ 1920 manuscript of ‘The second coming’ … in which he crosses out ‘makes’ and puts in ‘slouches’ greatness is in the final edit!

Manuscript of William Butler Yeats’ poem ‘The second coming’. The one that starts ‘turning and turning in the widening gyre. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…’

Ends: ‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, makes towards Bethlehem , to be born’

Yeats has crossed out makes and added slouches

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Page of Joyce’s Ulysses, on display at the National Library of Ireland. It’s the Scylla and Charybdis scene. Any Joyce scholars know that what the proto-highlighting meant?

Page from a notebook, Joyce’s handwriting, lines struck through with red, green, blue crayon

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Could we restart this season, please

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What does the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, say? No comments, but two ticks. Blair signaled willingness to support the amendment. Fluoridation for all!

final page of the policy note: two ticks in Blair's handwriting signal agreement

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Here is Andy Burnham from when he was first elected as an MP in 2001. He looks very young. We cannot see his teeth (he grew up in the non-fluoridated North West).

Head and shoulders portrait of Andy Burnham from his 2001 election as an MP. A young looking man with short neat dark hair. Hint of lipstick.

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Step forward a young backbencher, only just elected to the House of Commons in 2001. He is willing to table the amendment to make fluoridation universal in Britain. It is the first sighting of Andy Burnham in the Number 10 files!

excerpt from policy note, reads: 'Andy Burnham, one of the Labour backbenchers on the Health Select Committee, is likely to table amendments in the Commons which would allow for the necessary legislative changes'

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

But there are arguments against. Is it 'dangerous', does it amount to 'mass medication'? Fluoridation of course is fertile ground for conspiracy theories and anti-state suspicions... Water companies won't do it unless they are told to (legally covering their backs) Who might help?

third page of policy note: notes water companies reluctance, counter arguments, and the chance of an amendment to the new Water Bill making the change

Page 4 of policy note: notes that amendment would have support, probably

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Ah, here's stronger evidence: major research studies showing no health problems, plus support from US studies, and recommendations from expert reports...

excerpt of text, reads 'the Government has commissioned two major research studies since 1999 which have found no evidence of any adverse effects on general health'

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What sort of evidence might persuade the prime minister? Probably not enough to point out that one Number 10 staffer grew up in the North West with no fluoridation and has three fillings and another who grew up in Birmingham, and did, has none!

Text excerpt, reads: 'a phenomenon exemplified in your Policy Directorate by the fact that Dominic raised in the the North West has three fillings, and I who was brought up in fluoridated Birmingham have none!'

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Interesting episode of science/environment/health policy from 2003, with a surprise entrance... The topic is fluoridation of water. The policy note is to Tony Blair. All the big beasts of Number 10 are copied in Fluoridation cuts dental decay, its a health inequalities issue. Make it universal?

A policy note to the prime minister, Tony Blair. Others including Jonathan Powell, Pat McFadden, Sally Morgan, and Alastair Campbell are copied in. Fluoridation cuts dental decay, but it is not universal. There's a chance by amending new legislation to make it so.

Fluoridation is a health inequalities issue because dental disease correlates to social deprivation. Further text described in next post

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