iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

My cousin is torturing me with pictures of all the porcinis he is picking back home.

Too many porcinis for one cousin. A dozen lie on muddy ground

Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Because of disruption at kings x, I had to cycle to Liverpool Street for my train and I need to ask... do they literally move the hoardings surrounding Liverpool Street Station every two weeks? Or are the gods trolling me and moving the actual station?

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've celebrated the first meal of the cod I caught and hauled back to the UK with a cod and chorizo stew. The Iberians really know how to treat a codfish, let me tell you.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Today's wordle goes out to all the Anastasia Krumpnik fans out there. Ifkyk...

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We're redecorating Kid the Younger's room, and i suggested we go online to get some ideas of what he might like. 'Nah', he said. 'All the pictures will just be AI'. I love how much this generation is Not. Having. It.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

'Doesn't New York have its own President?' - Kid the Younger

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Beechnut shells under bike tyres must be in the running for one of the best sounds ever.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Old ladies immediately arrested and imprisoned for holding up signs to protest the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Far right thug uses what looks like an illegal knife to slash a boat, endangering a life. And here I am many hours later waiting for any kind of police action.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You guys I know I shouldn't talk about my students in public but I have just read so many great dissertations this week that I am compelled to crow about it.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The tomato crop has been so good this year that my allotment neighbour's wife told him if he brings anymore home she'll put him in stocks and pelt him with them.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

So, turns out this chilli referenced below was in fact a Naga 'Pit Viper' chilli, which at one point a few years ago was crowned 'hottest chilli in the world.' Kid the Elder's friend ate part of one. We came home to a patio covered in milk.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

When presented with the woods, a bear shat.

In a recent study, pupils using AI saw their average homework score rise by 18% across all subjects after six months. But come exam time, the same students scored 20% below their classmates who had not called on AI’s help. We analyse the data: bit.ly/4xax1gs

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Doing this to a teenage child is bad parenting for them and for the parent on so many levels, as the original op-ed itself demonstrates ('spin out? 'panic'? 'can breathe again'??) But when your son is nineteen--an adult by all legal definitions--doing this is not parenting at all. It is stalking.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Are you over forty? Is it September? It's time to play Floater or Fruit Fly! Is that speck in your vision a sign of your slowly degrading eyeball? Or is it Drosophila melanogaster, breeding in the apples you've picked? The only way to tell is by squinting, which makes you look even older.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

At least with all the artists dropping Ed Sheeran's tour, I've got myself a solid few weeks of gym music playlists. If you've not read Myles Smith's statement, it's especially excellent.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

We always ask what's your favourite season but I mostly just enjoy living in a world where I don't have to choose. I like to let the seasons slide together to make a year and also split apart into hundreds of small seasons. Right now it's Noisy Grackles/Goldening Leaves/Crunching Beechnut

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I was just scrolling through the comments on a social media post from a local RNLI group, and one woman commented: 'I cannot imagine being on this island without you'. I think that's a mighty fine sentiment, so I'm posting it here to remember it, and to agree with her.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"My train service has gotten so much worse. Trains only run on time half the time. They've taken out the tray tables. The toilets & the internet are often broken.' 'But at least it's gotten cheaper relative to your income right?' 'No, on the contrary.' 'But at least it's faster?' 'Also no.'

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

25 years ago, almost every plane that was over the North Atlantic when the second tower was hit was forced to land in Newfoundland. A call was on the radio: they needed folks who spoke various languages to come to the stadium to help organize the sea of humanity that just showed up at our door.

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Reposted by Julia Laite

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I’ve reconciled myself to being to the left of any Labour government in my adult lifetime, but I didn’t anticipate that I’d also wildly diverge from them on whether masked gangs of fascist thugs should be allowed to break the law with impunity in the service of inciting racial hatred

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The link at the bottom of the page is to another article that claims that AI will cure cancer. Whelp, I guess 'killing all humans' is technically a way to 'cure cancer'. In humans at least. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Anthropic researcher believes more than 10% chance AI 'could kill all humans'

It is the latest in a series of increasing warnings about the safety threat posed by artificial intelligence.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Autumn is blowing in fast this year. I heard it from a Long-Tailed tit, who heard it from an Egret.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Anyone working in the sector already knows, but still good to see it in black & white. Professional services *people*--not just interchangeable hubs of administration--are essential to a good university. Their institutional knowledge has been consistently undervalued & their loss is catastrophic.

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Reposted by Julia Laite

Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 07/09/2026

The courage of those who set out to save those at risk of drowning can never be overestimated. Each rescue is a challenge. I used to watch the Orkney lifeboat head out into rough seas with my heart in my mouth. Remarkable bravery. Donate to the #RNLI here: shop.rnli.org/products/don...

shop.rnli.org

Donation to RNLI

It costs us around £483,000 a day to run our lifesaving service. Your kind donation will help deliver our lifesaving work.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Unless this is like Percy Jackson's sword pen that returns to his pocket nomatter what, the people recommending that parents buy a 27 POUND PEN (that's over 50 Canadian, folks) for their teenager must live on different goddam planet than me.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Sick of this polarization in our society. First, women's trousers were ridiculously skinny-legged. Now they are stupidly wide and flouncy. Bring back the normal legged trouser I am begging you.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

In further news, you can do boxing.... but not kickboxing. And you can do dance, that famously standardized sport... but not karate, which is rigourously organized into belts. Someone please riddle this for me.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

If you want to see salty them you should see my son who has just been told that he can't do his beloved jujitsu, an olympic sport, as his practical sport for GCSE PE. A classmate is on the national karate team and can't do it for GCSE.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

All my parent friends, whose kids I've seen grow up from birth, are sending pictures of their youngest ones headed to high school and I'm a total puddle. Time is a construct, raising kids alongside friends is a wonderful thing, and I am so not ready for my youngest to start high school next year.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I am begging capitalism to please make an internet/streaming-enabled MP3 Player, on behalf of all parents trying to get their kids off their effing phones. We live in a world where they've just launched a toothbrush with a goddam mouth camera and yet my far more needed thing does not exist.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I wonder how hot this chilli I grew is, she wondered, touching her tongue tentatively to the pith. [Fifteen minutes and two bowls of yoghurt later] So, apparently it's hot.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

My haul. Five kilos of fresh- frozen cod caught by me & wild blueberry & raspberry jam. There'd be moose & chanterelles too if it was allowed. So blessed to have access to so much wild food! (And Newfoundlanders may be the only people on earth who use ship's biscuit in their present-day cuisine).

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

When you come back after 6 weeks away to grapes, tomatoes, and candy roaster squash that has gone into beast mode.

Me, dwarfed by a wheelbarrow full of long orange squash. I am buildinga basket of tomatoes and grapes.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

There have been many exciting achievements in my life. Getting my PhD, making Professor, etc. But today my mother conceded that I have officially become a faster and cleaner berry picker than her. That maybe I'm even on par with my grandmother. Thank you in advance for your congratulations.

A gallon bucket of blueberries on deck overlooking forest and sea.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I'm spending my last days home in the berry grounds, listening to the sounds of the community below me & keeping company with the spiders & the birds. I marvel at the fact that planet earth has gifted us fields upon fields of perfect blueberries. The least I can do is honour her by picking them.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Sitting in the spot my great grandfather sat, watching the moonrise over the harbour. The water the colour of mermaid shimmer in the setting sun.

Warves and a small island, the moon in a pink sky

Sunset over the ocean. Distant hills in purple.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

They might not look like much, but I assure you that this very old recipe for Blueberry Grunt (sweet dumplings steamed in a giant pot of blueberry sauce) is the single best way* to celebrate wild blueberry season *other than sticking your head in a bucket of freshly picked berries, feed-bag style

white dumplings in a deep purple blueberry sauce

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Wild blueberries, picked by my sister and I in an hour. Pencil for scale.

A giant steel pot filled to the brim with blueberries.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

We spent an epic night at a shed party in Tilting, the oldest Irish community outside of Ireland. Singing and dancing and unexpected salsa! You never know what you'll find on beautiful Fogo Island.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Yes! I insist on calling it soccer in England, just so I have a chance to lecture people about it.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

There's an institution in Newfoundland called the Bay Bus, taxi vans that take people from all the communities around the island into town. To give you a taste of them: I just called to book but buddy was driving so he asked me to sing some hold music, which he played outloud to the rest of the bus.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

"In the middle of the week In the middle of the day In the middle of the summer In the middle of the bay..."

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

A grey falling house on a grey foggy day.

A house falls down in a meadow, distant hills in background.

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Where there's hardly any difference between sea and sky; and when the gannets dive they cut through the water with the sound of a sharp stone.

Slate grey water world. In the distance, a headland. In the sky, a gannet.

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