iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Fines of this size are a rounding error to a company like Google. It should be 100x this for them to even take notice of it. If it takes 6 years to do this investigation there is no hope of the DPC keeping a lid on the harms the AI companies are going to inflict on us. Something needs to change.

rte.ie

Google fined €403m by data watchdog for location tracking

Tech giant Google has been fined €403m by the Data Protection Commission over the processing of location data.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Proud that our president can achieve this level of side-eye to be honest. 10/10 no notes.

President Connolly of Ireland looking askance at President Trump (out of shot).

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

All algorithmic feeds should be opt in only, and even then they should be heavily regulated. Good to see Australia taking a step towards this. I know PBP have been raising this here too, but the chances of the current government doing anything against the financial interests of X et al are zero.

bbc.com

'Good to have choice': Australians on opting out of social media algorithms

The BBC spoke to people in Sydney about Australia's plans to force social media companies to allow users to easily opt in or out of personalised algorithms.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Spent about 2 hours trying to do two simple things (and failing one) for my mum with 2 major service providers. Both offer self-service customer service systems with virtual assistants online rather than humans. Both are unfit for purpose. Problems could have been solved with 1 minute conversions.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Cracking gig by Marie Davidson in Whelan’s there now. #mariedavidson #whelans #selectivememory

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

2manydjs (re)introduced a lot of my generation to Dolly by including “9to5” on their “As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt2” mix CD. So here’s my tribute featuring “Jolene” and Soulwax’s “Perfect We Are Not”.

soundcloud.com

Jolene Is Perfect (Short Version)

Bootleg / Edit of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and Soulwax's "Perfect We Are Not".

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

This fine is meaningless to a company like Meta. All it is doing is paying to be able to decide its own minor changes to its platforms and avoiding any meaningful regulation that could have resulted from losing the court case.

rte.ie

Meta reaches $16.68bn settlement over social media harms

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay a maximum $16.68 billion and make major changes to Facebook and Instagram to resolve claims by states across the US that it designed those platforms to addict children...

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Across the rocks to Sandycove and the Forty Foot before the weather turns tomorrow. 🛳️☀️🏖️

Sandycove shot from the coastal walk from Glasthule. There is a cruise ship in the bay beyond the Forty Foot on the left of the shot. The tide is half way out and the rocks take up the lower quarter of the photo. Above that the houses, tress and people at Sandycove can be seen below a blue sky with a few wispy clouds.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Creepy invasive video cameras at supermarket checkouts, plus AI, delivers exactly the stupid results any rational person might expect. How long before they are analysing the videos to assess your weight and health, linking it to your loyalty account, and doing creepier things? Probably already are!

bbc.com

Sainsbury's branch pauses AI cameras use after shopper ejected

Matt Arnold says he was asked to leave the store after being wrongly flagged as a shoplifter.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

An alternative headline here is that roughly €1 billion of tax payer money has been gifted to developers since 2020 to artificially inflate the cost of all housing by €20k - €30k per unit.

rte.ie

Almost half of Help to Buy applicants get no support

Almost 49,000 people have received financial support from the Government's Help to Buy scheme since July 2020, new figures show

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

New Blue Peter badge unlocked. ☀️🌖👀

A homemade eclipse viewer made using a cereal box, sellotape, tinfoil and paper.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

For the Dublin sea swimmers out there, I spotted what looked like a lion’s mane between Dun Laoghaire baths and Sandycove today. 🏊🏻‍♂️ I was safely on land. 😅

A large reddish jellyfish in the sea above the rocks beside Dun Laoghaire in Dublin bay.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Sometimes I am that guy. Choose your own adventure by guessing which single word in that sentence gets the emphasis.

A man with a tightly shaved head and a bad moustache, me, wears a dark grey tank top with a pink red and white Japanese design on the right of the chest. I have a small fake gold chain around my neck. I am standing in front of some brickwork to the right, the roofs of some buildings on the left, and a blue sky with wispy clouds above.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Birthday kicks from my Mother club family. 50 never looked so fresh. 😎 #airjordan #jordan4 #jordan4popart #nikeair #j4 #sneakers #kicks

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

OpenAI admits an autonomous agent it was testing broke out of its “secure” testing environment and hacked a real company. How long before an “accident” like this kills people when it’s a hospital, a drug or food company, or an energy provider that gets hacked? But hey, invest invest invest! 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

rte.ie

OpenAI says AI models went rogue during testing

OpenAI said that an autonomous agent powered by its advanced AI models went rogue during a security test and triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face last week.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Disgusting scenes in Belfast tonight. Multiple homes set alight already by racist mobs.

A BBC news report showing masked men in a street in Belfast. The report says they are attacking homes to get “the foreigners out”.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

This was a pretty illuminating chat in which SF’s workshopped positioning is revealed. SF wants first and foremost to be the party of the working class. They are happy to call the other left parties too liberal. They seem to think they can win the left and the right of the working class. 🤷‍♂️

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

The narrative clarity this chart provides is excellent. The clever part is the averaging which creates the solid colour blocks. We have over 3,000 Electoral Divisions in Ireland, so with the data we could do similar analysis here. I wonder if that data is publicly available? @gavreilly.com

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

If you are for some reason Sinn Féin curious, this is a really good thread from Mike reminding you of the many many rakes they have been stepping on in recent years.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Sinn Féin abstaining from the Reproductive Rights vote is just another sign that they are rudderless, and afraid to say what they actually stand for. How can they be included in any vote left pact if this is what we're going to get from them?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I quote the first line from a recent Irish Times article: "Fianna Fáil “made a difference” when it took over the housing portfolio, the Taoiseach has said." That difference being more evictions, more homelessness, more cash to developers to inflate house prices, and abolishing housing targets.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

For those not paying attention, the very right leaning Independent Ireland and Aontú, plus let’s say roughly half of the independents, means the very right are already polling at 21% in total. And that doesn’t take into account the inevitable defections from FF and FG which will boost this further.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

The film about the pop star made $217m globally since last Wednesday. That is huge money, especially with *terrible* reviews. It also implies that the vast majority of people don't think he was ever guilty of any of the allegations made against him, which comes as a surprise to me at least.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Did someone just watch that Take That concert from 15 odd years ago and go 💡? And they think they could charge €25 to go stand beside it??? Gas. Stupid. Get in the sea.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

An absolute treat on the @underworldlive.bsky.social mailing list today where they are giving away three legendary mini albums from 2005/2006 in CD quality. You can read about them here.

en.wikipedia.org

Riverrun (Underworld project) - Wikipedia

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Today’s Dáil drama is really just a fig leaf covering up Sinn Féin’s indecision during the protests. The vote of no confidence was only called a couple of hours after an external opinion poll told them that 46% of the public blamed the government and 96% of SF voters supported the protesters.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Honestly, fair play to the headline writer from the Indo on this video of a government press event. In case they decide to change it before you see the thumbnail, it reads “Coalition caves with €505m bid to buy off fuel blockade protesters”.

youtu.be

Coalition caves with €505m bid to buy off fuel blockade protesters

YouTube video by Irish Independent

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The animation in the new Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord show is just astonishing at times. There is a lightsaber battle in the latest episode that is breathtaking. It’s pitched at a teenage audience I’d say but worth checking out none the less.

youtu.be

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord | He is a Shadow | Streaming April 6 on Disney+

YouTube video by Star Wars

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

An instruction I don’t think I’ve ever read before and certainly never followed in my 49 years on the planet.

A close up of the instructions on a clothes detergent box indicating that you should put the detergent pod in the washing machine *before* putting the clothes in. Who knew?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

I think civil disobedience as a form of protest is a good thing. But if you engage in it, you have to expect to be arrested or even jailed for your cause. Five days in to this particular protest there hasn’t been one arrest or blockade cleared. Is the government afraid of its coalition collapsing?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

So the lesson I’m taking from the fuel protests is that the government will cave if there is sufficient civil disobedience. Have I got that right?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

You know what would be nice? If our government invested so much into wind, solar and wave power technology that we became immune to fossil fuel price shocks. 🤷‍♂️ We have the natural resources, the space and the (Apple 😅) money. And ban the no-jobs, energy and water sapping data centres too. 🙂

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

RTÉ reported earlier that the fuel price protestors chased PBP people away (who were there to support them them), shouting anti-immigrant stuff at them, which tells you a lot about who’s really organising it all. Meanwhile government sit on their hands because they can’t afford to upset “farmers”.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Or, how about we don’t treat housing as a for-profit business that extracts more than people can afford, leaving them with no quality of life and no savings, trapping them in rent-induced poverty forever?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Re: AI hallucinations. Has anyone actually looked inside one of these vast data centres? Maybe they are just full of vaguely well-read people who have all taken acid and are typing out the results by hand. ChatLSD! I’ll take my €1,000,000 seed capital now please. 💶

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The irony being that we’d all probably end up in court if we said publicly what we think about the actions of the people involved in this story. Still, the findings of the tribunal stand even if the DPP won’t act on them. 🤷‍♂️

rte.ie

O'Brien welcomes decision on no Moriarty Tribunal charges

Businessman Denis O'Brien has welcomed a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions not to go ahead with criminal proceedings following the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal which were published ...

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Vapes: a get out jail free card for the tobacco industry, creating a new generation of nicotine addicts with a new kind of long term lung damage, and now seemingly a major fire hazard on every high street and in every shopping centre. What’s not to like?

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

The new Harry Styles track reminds me of David Kitt and recent Tame Impala. Take of that what you will.

youtu.be

Harry Styles - American Girls (Official Video)

YouTube video by HarryStylesVEVO

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

As good and as thematically relevant today as it ever was. youtu.be/bVZBao3L9kI?...

The Anti Nazi Mix by The Chemical Brother being played on my iPad.

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Bit of a lucky win in the end there for Ireland. Didn’t take some good early chances and let Italy come within one play of a draw. #irevita #6nations

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Italy deserved that try. Ireland seeming a little lost over the last 10 minutes. #irevita #6nations

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j philip boyle @jphilipboyle.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Glad to see that first Irish try finally after squandering a couple of good chances earlier. #irevita #6nations

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