iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 3h

The feeling of writing things in an attention war with a mix of slicker professionals and infinite nonsense machines gets to me at times. I've no idea if my stuff gets read, but feeling like it's piling up gathering dust makes it harder to push myself through the barrier of writing the next thing.

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Draculosity Jones: Ghost Skeleton @brainmage.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Real "one always tells the truth, the other always lies" vibes, and yet both would say "I have never once been fed". Much to consider.

Two daft black cats stand either side fo an open door

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A nonfiction reading update, I read The Medieval Persian Gulf by @brianjulrich.bsky.social. It's very good, I learned a lot though as a non-Islamicist with a tired brain I might want a second read to revise some of the religious divisions. Would thoroughly recommend! exilian.co.uk/forum/index....

exilian.co.uk

What are you reading? (Non-fiction edition!)

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I wrote up some reflection thoughts on the International Congress of Byzantine Studies 2026, and some of the challenges facing us as a field (some of which we're facing up to better than others): exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... #History #Byzantium #Byzantine #Medieval

exilian.co.uk

Reflections on the International Congress of Byzantine Studies 2026

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I wrote a thing! It's about warlock patrons, and the ways that the #D&D concept of being contractually bound for magical power could appeal to alternative beings to the patrons in the main game - or even work in other ways entirely. Link below, thoughts very welcome :) #DungeonsAndDragons #TTRPGs

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Layla Moran MP 🔶🕊️ @laylamoran.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It is disappointing that the Government have broken their pledge to seek legal advice towards recognising a genocide of Uyghur Muslims in China. I urge the Government to honour this commitment and waste no time in raising concerns over human rights abuses. www.politicshome.com/news/article...

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The thing about actual Roman damnationes memoriarum is that they didn't really obliterate all memory of a bad emperor. None of our sources are afraid to talk about these figures. It wasn't truly about forgetting the guy, but about abolishing his (positive) public commemoration.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

It is once again That Time, I need to write the @exilianofficial.bsky.social news in the next week ish, which means it's a very good time to post about your projects on the exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... webforums. #WritingCommunity #Artists #Music

exilian.co.uk

Exilian - Index

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Alisdair Calder McGregor @acmcgregor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Well fair play, Ed Davey has come out in support of the trans community over Labour's unworkable bathroom ban #ShareGoodNewsToo www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

telegraph.co.uk

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I think this is probably correct if one thinks the primary function of the party is to take a solid, low-risk approach to maximising MP numbers. The issue, for people like me, is that I think our function requires a wider theory of political change towards liberalism: I'm unsure this achieves that.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

20 year old me... eh, I've not changed much. Perhaps disappointed that I've not hit various life milestones, but would almost certainly accept "I was tired, also people are difficult and there was a global pandemic" as a valid defence for me not hitting them. And I got some of what we planned done.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I have tried writing down the "endurance hunters" route, but I think "weird empathy projection guys" may be a nice one. Not to downplay our enormous capacity for bigotry, but it's also true that lot of humans will assume *anything* that gives even *vague* signals of sentience is a potential friend.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Anyone know where I can find a seamless, free tileable texture of feathers for a project? The broken shards of what were once useable search engines are giving me only aesthetic wallpapers and AI-generated junk. #CreativeToots #Images #GameDev #Birds

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Do join my colleagues and I for this in early October! It's fully free, asynchronous and online, and there'll be a wonderful range of contributions at middleagesinmoderngames.net to get stuck into. #history #medieval #gaming #games #gamedev

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

A rare post on my politics blog, though more on AI not politics - a long-read on narratives around LLMs and why as a #DigitalHumanities specialist I'm unconvinced of the maximal claims: thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com/2026/09/09/t... Thoughts and shares welcome :) #AI #LLM #OpenAI #Anthropic

thoughtsofprogress.wordpress.com

The AI world and some fallacies about it

AI will, we keep being told, take over the world. “Jump on now or be forever left behind and made obsolete”, we get told, in every form of knowledge work. The advent of GPT-6 Astra and …

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

My 're-release' of my old online story ForgeFyre, a little episodic gothic-steampunk tale, has now got 25 pages available to read :) You can find it here: I'm currently updating it weekly. exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... #Writing #Stories #Steampunk #Gothic #Folklore

exilian.co.uk

ForgeFyre

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Jennie Kermode @jenniekermode.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Recently I've seen a number of people here talking about protest and how useless it is, and treating politicians as a separate class of people who will never listen, so I want to remind everyone that that's bollocks. Just with campaigns I've personally been involved in, there have been victories.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The BBC is having a *live ticker* for the news on migration by almost all routes dropping to the UK. The reality is that people on the right will either not believe the numbers or not care because they're not stats nerds, and everyone else will see the reality of a poorer, less desirable Britain.

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Daniel Burke - 🍺Innkeep @innkeep.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

What if your fantasy inn was in a sacred valley, where once incarnated gods are buried in grand tombs? 🪦🙏 And what if law had broken down, leading to a 'gold rush' (tomb rush)? Now pilgrims are giving way to bandits and tomb robbers... 🪙⛏️👣 #indiegames store.steampowered.com/app/925500/I...

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Funny fact re Clacton is that Binface's vote share was within the range of vote shares that have *won* parliamentary seats in recent years - 26.9% puts him above the 26.7% which was the lowest winning vote share in a seat in 2024 (Labour winning South West Norfolk against a very split right wing).

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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 12/08/2026

I'm going to keep saying this until it's rote practice: If you are in official connection with let alone in charge of an archive of data, if is your professional & moral responsibility to secure that archive, as a backup or otherwise, against just such an emergency, so we're not Hoping some kid did.

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The Middle Ages in Modern Games @midagesmodgames.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

A bit late...we know...but thanks to everyone who presented at and attended our strand at @imc-leeds.bsky.social last month. So many papers, so much to reflect on. Thank you everyone, we hope to see you next year 😊 Here's a photo of the organising team looking proud.

Organising team sitting at the front of a seminar room, behind them a screen with another member joining online.

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Institute for Iranian Studies @iranianstudies.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Our Caucasus research group are organising a picnic for interested researchers and research-adjacent colleagues! Do join us if you're in Vienna on 8th August: we'll meet at Donaustadtbrucke at 15:30. Enquiries welcome, do forward to anyone you know who might be interested! #Caucasus #Wien

Poster for the Vienna Caucasiology Picnic 2026. It invites anyone interested in the study of the Caucasus region to come to a picnic on August 8th, 15:30-19:00, initially meeting at Donaustadbrucke U6 station. Contact to james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at with any enquiries.

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Finn Longman is only here occasionally @finnlongman.com · 04/08/2026

COVER REVEAL! My next novel, The Animals We Became, retells the medieval Welsh tale 'Math fab Mathonwy'. It's a book about gender, trauma, and compulsory heterosexuality expressed through non-consensual animal transformations and some deeply unreliable narration... finnlongman.com/books/the-an...

The cover of THE ANIMALS WE BECAME by Finn Longman, featuring an illustration of an owl emerging from flowers and foliage against a starry backdrop. Tree trunks on either side are carved with knotwork forming the shapes of boar, deer, and wolves.

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East Anglia Bylines @eastangliabylines.co.uk · 04/08/2026

Farmers are reporting poor yields due to lack of water & rain. Winter silage is already being used to feed animals due to dead summer grass. Agrivoltaics, where solar panels are raised so that more conventional farming can continue underneath is proving a solution with surprising benefits.

eastangliabylines.co.uk

Heatwaves, farmland and solar energy

Could mediterranean style agrivoltaic systems help farmers cope with mediterranean style heatwaves, and improve energy independence?

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Exilian @exilianofficial.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Our latest newsletter, Updates from the Forge 62, is now out! Check our our latest creative updates including wildlife photography, Godot game development tools, poetry, free music for your projects, and more: exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... #GameDev #Writing #Creatives #Arts

exilian.co.uk

Updates from the Forge 62: Summer 2026

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

New paper out! In this one, 'Light Linking: A Concept for Connecting Prosopographies', I go into some details on an alternative to authority files for connecting historical data together. journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/dc... #DigitalHumanities #DH #History #Data

First page of "Light Linking: A Concept for Connecting Prosopographies" in the Digital Classics Online journal.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Reading update! I read Veo Corva's Space Dragons books and I enjoyed them a lot and would recommend them. Further thoughts at the link: exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... #Reading #Books #AmReading #SFF

exilian.co.uk

What are you reading? - Page 21

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morrismummer @morrismummer.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I've just donated. Please do so if you can. Dunwich is a very rare coastal heathland and means a lot to me personally. www.nationaltrust.org.uk/services/med...

nationaltrust.org.uk

Press Release | Media

The National Trust is asking people to give to an emergency appeal to restore Dunwich Heath, in Suffolk, which has been destroyed by a major fire this week.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Whilst lately I'm running at one step forward, two back most of the time - today's step forward is that I have my Daueraufenthaltsrecht card (rights of permanent residency, card functional for the next ten years). Small wins with no time to rest, but may as well count them when they happen.

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Daniel Burke - 🍺Innkeep @innkeep.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

We're making around 100 unique guests for Innkeep. Each has their own sprite, portrait, background, secrets... and things to steal while they sleep. 😊 #indiegames

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Well, for the second time this year, my gas has been shut off and I have no hot water available in my flat. I not only didn't get any warning of this, I was explicitly told otherwise regarding what would be happening. #Vienna - usually a famously liveable city until sometimes it just really isn't.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Not a bird one sees often, but a wonderfully strange creature of the the night-times: this is a nightjar, seen in the peak district on Sunday night just before I travelled back to Vienna on Monday. #Wildlife #Birds #WildlifePhotography

A silhouetted bird sits perched on top of a bare trunk, with some equally silhouetted foliage to the left. The sky behind it is pinky-purple with the last afterglow of a sunset. The bird itself has a sleek body shape with heavy shoulders tapering down to a fine tail, but with quite a large, rounded head for its body size.

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Mariana J López @marianajlopez.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

We have reached the end of #IMC2026. What a joy as always to get to work with colleagues in the @midagesmodgames.bsky.social strand (Blair Apgar, @robehoughton.bsky.social @jubalbarca.bsky.social @vinicius-marino.bsky.social and Tess Watterson). Thanks also to everyone who attended my presentation 😊

Selfie of Mariana holding a badge with her name. She is wearing a Sailor Moon inspired dress

Booklet of the Leeds International Medieval Congress.

Slide that says 'Swords, Sighs and Silences: The Sounds of Conflict in Medievalist Games' Professor Mariana J López, School of Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York. There are images from Age of Empires.

Book 'Sonic Pasts: acoustical heritage and historical soundscapes'

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Mariana J López @marianajlopez.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Day 2 is starting now. @jubalbarca.bsky.social is introducing the next panel of @midagesmodgames.bsky.social with a session on Performing the Past - Authenticity and Temporalities in Medievalist Games at #IMC2026 @imc-leeds.bsky.social

James Baillie standing at the front of a seminar room

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Reading update, I read A Court of Thorns and Roses! It is... not my favourite book. I am definitely not the target audience and I'm holding it to a bar it's really not trying to clear, but here's my little rant about it anyway. exilian.co.uk/forum/index.... #books #reading #sff

exilian.co.uk

What are you reading? - Page 21

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The Middle Ages in Modern Games @midagesmodgames.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

The CfP for the upcoming #MAMG26 is now live! The event will take place on 5-7 Oct, assynchronously and online. Come join us from anywhere in the world to discuss medievalisms in games and alternative approaches to the ludic past.

In a time of growing political and environmental anxieties, the Middle Ages are often sought as a source of inspiration for alternative futures. Ecologically-minded games like Of Life and Land look to the medieval past to explore alternative, non-exploitative engagements with nature. Medievalist RPGs have long served as possibility spaces for players to interrogate and experiment with notions of sexuality, gender, and identity more broadly. Games like Scriptorium and Traveller’s Rest imagine medieval pasts divorced from the logics of violence often associated with the period. Medievalist fantasy games like Metaphor: ReFantazio openly engage with utopian thinking and our capacities to imagine possible worlds.

We invite analytical ‘papers’ (comprising 400-500 words of text or 5-minute videos) and sessions of 3 to 5 papers which address any aspects of the medieval period or medievalism in any and all forms of modern games. We particularly welcome papers addressing the central conference themes of ‘Possible Worlds’ and ‘Possible Pasts’. The conference will be conducted remotely and there will be no registration fee. To promote accessibility and inclusivity, the event runs asynchronously across time zones.

We encourage submissions from medievalists, games scholars and developers at any point in their career— especially those from Postgraduate Students, Early Career Researchers and members of any groups under-represented within the academy and industry. We welcome pieces addressing any region globally, and within a broad definition of ‘medieval’ and ‘medievalism’.

We are able to accept papers in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words, brief biographies, and indications of time zone and availability as attachments in Word to midagesmodgames@gmail.com by Sunday 3 August.

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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

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Steven Teasdale @steventeasdale.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

This is a very good online introduction to prosopography for beginners by @jubalbarca.bsky.social. It identifies some central concerns, such as disambiguation and data collection issues around identity, and the importance of scoping projects. #dh #digitalhumanities campus.dariah.eu/resources/ho...

campus.dariah.eu

An Introduction to Prosopography

This resource helps students tackle key prosopography challenges, such as disambiguating individuals with the same name, handling anonymous entries, and recognizing fictional people, known as the Rusu...

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Historians/academic friends, have any of you worked with having volunteers/interns much? I got approached by an undergraduate looking for things to do this summer as a volunteer to gain experience.

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Esther Wright @enwright.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

It's publication day for Writing Game Histories!! 🥳🎉 Please do recommend it for your library, but it's also out in paperback so not as hideously expensive as academic books can be: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g... @doktornick.bsky.social @doni.bsky.social @historygamesnet.bsky.social

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Important reading for anyone who edits or indeed uses (so, all of you) Wikipedia. It looks like the Foundation may be going down a pretty bad route re shedding key staff and making anti-unionisation moves: medium.com/@jakeorlowit... #Wikipedia #History #Information

medium.com

Big Tech’s Anti-Labor Playbook Has Come for Wikipedia

TLDR: In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire…

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Exilian @exilianofficial.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

New article in our articles section! Indiekid gives us part one of a new travelogue with his backpacking explorations of Chiang Mai and Pai: exilian.co.uk/article.php?... #Travel #Travelogue #World #Thailand

A Thai Buddhist chedi (stupa). It is an orange, square construction with stepped walls and staircases leading up the centre of each side, with elephant statues decorating it and rainclouds visible overhead.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

An enjoyable exchange with the MP for Cheltenham gently but effectively puncturing Jenrick's inflated-to-put-it-mildly sense of self...

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Isa 🌟 Komiket Oct @isatwothree.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

little being formed from the earth's magic🍀~ #ocart #art #illustration

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

If you know someone who has time to volunteer with me and other good humans - please send them our way. Exilian has a lot to offer, we really need creative, independent, human spaces in the age of slop and media silos, but we need more support to get the message out & support indie creators better.

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James Baillie @jubalbarca.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Aaaagh, I have had yet another stupid case of someone deciding to screw around with Wikipedia edits I've done for no good reason whatsoever. Literally it's about fifty percent of edits on that place that someone will mess with, and then people will whine that nobody wants to support/edit it and ???

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

I do think it sums up “the weird way the Internet shapes politics unnoticed” that “some chants that people should knock off but are mostly an ignorable part of an in-person march” are given more explanatory power than “the website that is full of antisemitism of every stripe that MPs hang out on”.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 30/04/2026

Fun fact: data centres don't just add a lot of new load to the power grid, they also suddenly remove it without warning, leading to serious fluctuations and grid instability www.utilitydive.com/news/data-ce...

Dive Brief
Sudden data center load losses prompt NERC alert, recommendations
The reliability watchdog is concerned about a series of “widespread and unexpected” customer-initiated load reductions in 2024 and 2025 during which 1,000 MW or more dropped off the bulk power system.

Published April 21, 2026

The North American Electric Reliability Corp. is in the “final stages of preparing to issue a Level 3 essential actions alert” related to large computational loads unexpectedly disconnecting from the grid, a NERC official confirmed to Utility Dive in an email Monday.
The alert is expected to be published May 4 and is the result of load loss events in both the Eastern and Texas interconnections that have occurred since 2022, according to a NERC board of trustees meeting agenda last week.
The alert will include a set of essential actions for transmission owners and operators, reliability coordinators and balancing authorities to take, including changes to the modeling, study, monitoring and commissioning of large loads, including data centers for artificial intelligence.

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