iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Mike Drucker @mikedrucker.bsky.social · 7h

Just saw someone say their AI runs their fantasy football team and I can’t stop laughing. Like, I’m sure everyone’s doing it or something but it’s very funny to me that pretending to be a team manager was so hard that you needed to pretend to pretend to be a team manager

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 4h

watching an old Peep Show and googled the actress playing the undergraduate girl Mark creepily stalks to Devon and blimey she created and wrote Two Weeks in August? huh

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 6h

was on the Vienna tram network you know

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 6h

yeah it's true, that's a real problem... but also there's no universe in which you fix that and Flintshire is more connected to Glamorgan than they are to Liverpool/Bristol respectively

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 11h

"Wales didn’t need a capital city – because, in a very real sense, it never actually existed." Of Cardiff, and what it means to be a capital.

jonn.substack.com

The Audacity of Hope

This week: Andy Burnham’s bringing sunshine back. Also: of Cardiff, Welshness and what it means to be a capital; and a helpful map of accident blackspots.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 10h

oh absolutely - what's unusual with Cardiff is how, and how late, it happens

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 11h

Hey, the US edition of the new book made the Next Big Ideas Club's "must read" list for October! Admittedly, quite a lot of other books also made that list. More, some might say, than one could plausibly read. But, hey, I'll take it.

bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com

The Next Big Idea Club’s October 2026 Must-Read Books

Adam Grant, Michael Lewis, Kevin Roose and other authors have us revved up for a new month of great nonfiction.

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

'What do these experiments involve, exactly? “Basically,” @stewmh.bsky.social explains in the manner of a man who is trying not to forget he’s got an English literature grad on his hands, “throwing stuff at other stuff and seeing what flies off.”' My big day out at the particle accelerator.

jonn.substack.com

I’ve been to see a particle accelerator

They didn’t let me have a go, the spoilsports.

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"In 1930, physicist Wolfgang Pauli put forward a theory he was very obviously a bit embarrassed by..." Everything I learned on my day out at the particle accelerator

jonn.substack.com

I’ve been to see a particle accelerator

They didn’t let me have a go, the spoilsports.

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

if you have somehow missed the chance to read A History of the World in 47 Borders so far, then today's your lucky day: it's currently 99p from the ebook retailer of your choice

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 13h

One reason why I am a nut for devolution is this: central government ministers shouldn't spend their working hours thinking about the correct design of bus stops.

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 17h

Homer's Odysseus spends his entire story trying to come home to Ithaca. Thign is - nobody knows where Ithaca actually is. Fascinating guest post from Honor Cargill-Martin

allancienthistory.substack.com

Has Homer's Ithaca been found at last?

Two scholars believe they have identified Odysseus' elusive homeland – shattering a longstanding Homeric myth in the process.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 14h

I say this was unlikely but now I read it back it does actually sound like something I'd do

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 15h

Loops are a bugger to manage and timetable because there's no recovery time at the end of the route; that, plus increasing frequency on the Hammersmith line to serve Westfield, was enough.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 15h

So I checked this and it turns out I've been wrong for years. The four platforms at Edgware Road actually feed only two tracks to the west before splitting again, meaning that there's no such benefit. The *actual* reasons were different. In my shame/desire for content, I am now writing a mea culpa

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 15h

seriously though, read Gildas and then read Allister Heath and tell me you don't see it

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

Sean @gungurran.bsky.social · 15h

yeah, too soon

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 15h

I actually have a new book out, dunno if I've menti

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 15h

so in a new and previously unimaginable development, I seem to have inadvertently nudged a publishing company into reviewing its policies through the unlikely medium of a joke about a 6th century monk

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 16h

the museum/gallery on Chamberlain Square is pretty nice. New Street's got some fine architecture.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 17h

Homer's Odysseus spends his entire story trying to come home to Ithaca. Thign is - nobody knows where Ithaca actually is. Fascinating guest post from Honor Cargill-Martin

allancienthistory.substack.com

Has Homer's Ithaca been found at last?

Two scholars believe they have identified Odysseus' elusive homeland – shattering a longstanding Homeric myth in the process.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

you acrually are. I think it would help you to understand thst this is not you fighting for justice, you're not making the world better, this is just bullying someone who was gently telling you about a bereavement, you utter fucking prick

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Google my name and "grief" and then have a think about whether you're quite the good person you so clearly seem to think here. This is where i mute.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ta is she, Miu is still but it's onomatopoeic so it still counts okay.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'm sorry you've had such a shitty weekend.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Found out yesterday that one of the first pet cats whose name we know belonged to Crown Prince Thutmose of the 18th dynasty pf Egypt. She was named Ta-Miu, which translates, roughly, as "Miaow Girl".

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

bloody hell mate, antisemitism does not in fact justify islamophobia, can we not

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Reposted by Jonn Elledge

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 04/10/2026

A brutal bodying for the median bluesky user

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

yes, the perpetrators should be done for war crimes. probably doesn't justify you going around pointlessly being a cunt to people does it

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

You're a shitty person. You should work on that.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It does however explain why I was actively looking to avoid social media pile ons.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The thing i was struggling with which I allude to there, which rather ruined my appetite for social media pile ones, was the desth of my partner. Before I block you, I just wanted you to read that, and also the words "go fuck yourself". You're not a good person.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

yeah restricting it to picking the leadership has been working out great

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

i have, the spanish edition of my last book had a new intro with a mea culpa in it, not everything I have ever said is on this website. I also spent the first year of that war struggling with a severe breakdown for reasons I have written about extensively. So you are in fact just being a total cunt.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

cross platform interchange for a train every two minutes, it's fine

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

100%, but bringing it back would cost a fortune for limited benefit or cost nothing to make things worse

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Yeah James is right. Any point at which branches meet on the flat reduces service frequencies as trains have to cross the path of other trains. Taking out the junction at Edgware Road allowed more trains.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Read the rest of the thread and try being less of a cunt. x

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I was in a Jewish family for many years. I have, in fact, thought about this rather a lot.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'm sure if you think very hard you might be able to come up with other reasons why someone might choose not to talk to you.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

No, I don't owe you anything and am not required to debate you.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Not, I fear, to the actions of either the Israeli government or Hamas. But I do know what you mean, thank you.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I have at times felt my reluctance to engage with this one cowardly and regretted it. But it's a topic that almost always leads to unpleasant pile ons and me biting my own hand in frustration, and - I can't stress this enough - my posts don't make a blind bit of fucking difference.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

To be absolutely clear: Most of what I post is self promotion / domestic politics / stupid shit; the war is none of those things, and my posts won't make a blind bit of difference; criminalising pro-Palestine campaigners is disgusting; Nethanyahu belongs in the Hague. This motion is still bad.

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