iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Keith Alexander

Latest blog is on Burnham's promise of 'pragmatism' in the North Sea, why it's a weaselly word that is providing cover for deeply unpragmatic actions, and why the climate movement needs to talk more about the climate crisis. www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

businessgreen.com

What does true pragmatism look like in an age of climate crisis?

Andy Burnham has promised a 'pragmatic' approach to North Sea drilling, but who gets to decide what that word even means?

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 8h

Octopuses don't *see* colour, they feel it by touch! So (I think!) this colour matching through glass is impossible! (I learned this fun fact a couple weeks ago from the BBC radio show Rare Earth, presented by @helenczerski.bsky.social and @tomheap.bsky.social)

photo appears to show an octopus and child on opposite sides of an aquarium wall, with the octopus mimicking the stripes of a child's t-shirt.
A question below asks you is this photo real, or fake?

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 9h

Which could be fine if only the UK doesn't need to grow food, has become vegan, doesn't have a chemicals industry, has completely electrified road transport and heating, has a completely zero emissions electricity system, etc etc.

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Aviation Environment Federation (AEF) @theaef.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Why should aviation get a bigger share of the carbon budget? Other sectors are decarbonising, but aviation is projected to become the UK’s largest emitting sector by 2040. Is this fair?

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

'The Westminster government’s contribution to funding domestic undergraduates studying in England fell in real terms from £8.9 billion in 2012-13 to just £3.3bn in 2024-25, a drop of more than 60 per cent, an analysis has found.'

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Times - which has v much joined in the rightwing clamour to reduce immigration - now reporting that Mahmood’s “success” has cost the economy £4- to £7Bn. Would they like to now honestly confirm that fewer people = less spending power for all. There’s a high price to pay for this nasty obsession.

Patrick Maguire
Chief Political Commentator Oliver Wright Policy Editor

Falling migration numbers could cost the chancellor as much as £7bn in fiscal headroom as he writes his first budget, The Times has been told.
Government insiders believe that John Healey, who already faced an uphill battle to balance the books next month, is likely to have an even bigger challenge after immigration undershot projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated last month that the success of Shabana
Mahmood's
reforms, which have cut net migration to the low hundreds of thousands, could cost Healey some £4bn.

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Lewis Goodall thinks that the "delay" to Heathrow's third runway is a signifier of the UK "falling behind."

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Adrian Hiel @adrianhiel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Why electrification is inevitable: Heating costs as of Sept. 20th in France for a 100m2 home: Heating oil - €2300 Gas - €2100 Wood pellets - €1000 Heat Pump - €800 Only one of these technologies also let's you sleep during a heatwave.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 26/09/2026

I wonder if I maybe don't say this enough: the gas-fired data centre boom is *planned* but not *inevitable*. In fact, the plans are fragile, and this petrotech dream only works if everything lands with perfect timing and poise. stand.earth/insights/wes...

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

404 Media @404media.co · 25/09/2026

Meta announced that its new AI agent, Muse could call businesses for you to do things like make reservations. But in reality, Meta is testing having these calls being made by human beings in call centers, 404 Media @jasonkoebler.bsky.social learned. www.404media.co/meta-tests-m...

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026

over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say

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Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Important public opinion patterns described here by Steve. The fragmented elite-level consensus on climate change and aggressive anti-net zero campaign on the (far) right is starting to show in UK public polls. Once again evidence that elites matter, leadership is lacking and apathy is a tragedy.

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absolute horses @jcoglan.com · 24/09/2026

the reporting on this stuff is a form of pareidolia. all this is explicable by a set of automatons stochastically exploring a state space and host environment with whatever predictive capacity an LLM affords them. absolutely no intent is required, they do not "know" what they are doing

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The Green Runners @thegreenrunners.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Sportswashing is an oily stain on our sports. We campaign for all running events drop high-carbon sponsors. We’ve identified 41 races with high-carbon sponsors. 24 gas & oil, 14 airline & three car manufacturers. No doubt we’ve missed many more. @badvertising.bsky.social

thegreenrunners.com

Sportswashing: Drop polluting sponsors - The Green Runners CIC

The Green Runners say that taking sponsorship money from high-carbon industries to support a running event or fund local charities isn’t ethical. We’ve called

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If British politics had any decency left, party leaders would be queuing up to be photographed with lifeboat crews.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The constraint cost of turning off windfarms is only £30/MWh (most of the cost lies in turning on replacement gas power in England). So building artificial demand in Scotland to undercut that price and absorb excess power, is not a very lucrative idea afaics.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Just watched an advert for openai's gippity 6, and it's low-key dystopian vision of work/life where people are on their own in front of a giant screen in a windowless box of a room giving inane instructions to the bot. Why are we devoting such huge resources to the lonely production of mediocrity?

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I remember outrage about Just Stop Oil blocking a street, just in case an ambulance had to drive down it. Not because an ambulance was prevented from doing so, you understand. Just the abstract idea that one might have to.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026

What on earth is happening?

This had become the new normal. RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised, recognised for TV interviews he had done.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

-0.5%! 😔 8 years on from "we must cut emissions 45% by 2030".

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Tyron @tyron.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Public support for net zero is still close to two thirds of voters. The recent shift against it is almost entirely an elite thing! giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

giftarticle.ft.com

Cut ‘net zero’ from name of UK net zero department, MPs urge

Cross-party group says term has become ‘lightning rod for opposition to climate action’

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Annie Leymarie @annieleymarie.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Law professor: “The elephant in the room is that the occupation is not a bug, it’s a feature...” In the letter: The sanctions “are improperly narrow” compared to the UK's Russia sanctions & "fall far short of what...obligations require. A “full and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel” is needed.

truthout.org

130 Legal Experts Urge Burnham to Expand UK’s Sanctions on Israeli Settlements

“The elephant in the room is that the occupation is not a bug, it’s a feature,” said one lawyer.

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Yung En Chee @yungenchee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Along with the 'tidal wave' of PFAS that'll be created by the AI industry, we can also expect a 'tsunami' of e-waste "there is no plan to deal with that waste –which typically contains toxins like lead, mercury, cadmium & forever chemicals, as well as valuable metals that're challenging to reclaim"

theguardian.com

Datacenter rush will create ‘tsunami’ of discarded electronics, report says

Global push will triple toxic e-waste annually in 25 years, filling enough shipping containers to circle globe six times

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“The best women were ~12–14% faster than the best men in a 46-km open-water ultradistance race with temperatures <20°C. The maturity of ultradistance swimmers has changed during the last decades, with the fastest swimmers becoming older across the years” journals.humankinetics.com/view/journal...

journals.humankinetics.com

Women Outperform Men in Ultradistance Swimming: The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim from 1983 to 2013

Purpose: Recent studies suggested that women’s and men’s ultraswim performances may be similar for distances of ~35 km. The current study investigated both the gender difference and the age of peak ul...

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"[They] say they are able to shift the work they do from the servers in Scotland to others in Silicon Valley, or beyond, when needed [...] so grid operators will be afforded flexibility when they need it." Sounds good, but is that plausible? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

MSPs asked to pause Scotland's AI data centre boom

The growth of AI is happening at lightning pace, so what are the advantages and disadvantages of Scotland being at the forefront?

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Is it just me or does the oil industry get very eloquent whenever oil prices spike?

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Andy Brown @andybrown1951.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Give oil companies an inch and they will take the entire planet. No new drilling in the North Sea - we have better green technology and it is cheaper and more reliable. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

UK could 'unlock' 100 more oil and gas projects, say North Sea bosses

The UK could supply half of its oil and gas needs without imports if the government showed more support for the sector, an OEUK report claims.

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Angela Francis @angelaisfranc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Watch this! Tessa Khan brilliantly sets out why we need to take this opportunity to build the UK energy system and industrial policy around renewables. Despite what the oil and gas lobby say, there is no industrial or economic benefit from delay, only more costs and risks youtu.be/IUBc1fDySqg?...

youtu.be

The Next Economic Shock Is Coming. Green Energy Is The Only Way Out | Aaron Bastani Meets Tessa Khan

YouTube video by Novara Media

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Dr Matt Winning @mattywin.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I was on Channel 4 News podcast last week making this exact point. The supposed future taxpayers that politicians don't want to burden by borrowing to stop climate change are me and my children. Maybe just ask us.

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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Every child in the UK should be taught the story of the Solomon Browne. They should memorise those men's names and faces. They should understand what heroism is. And learn to spit in the eye of anyone who would dishonour it.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

“It’s quite punchy of Airbnb to say they’re so well-known that they can monopolise a term that they only incorporated into their name in the first place because it was a descriptive one that everyone immediately understood” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

‘We’re not going to back down’: tiny Portland B&B stands up to Airbnb’s legal bid to ‘monopolise’ letters ‘bnb’

Three little letters - bnb-side’s name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brand

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.

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Reposted by Keith Alexander

Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Chinese propaganda, tech-haters, and leftists are why there's a PR image problem for an industry that 1) says they might kill us all 2) promises to ruin every job in every industry 3) has, for four years, grossly misrepresented the capabilities and limitations of the actual products on the market.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Treat it like the Y2K bug and spend the next 6 months diligently deleting generative AI products and integrations from servers worldwide. It’s not worth the risk. 🤖☠️ www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

AI could kill all humans in next decade, warn experts: but how seriously should we take them?

Alarming warnings from industry insiders increase pressure for curbs on artificial superintelligence

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This week's column is about the Starmer-like self-destruction of the impending decision to approve new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. It might appease certain lobby groups, but it sabotages Burnham's own project and drives voters away. Utter madness. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Is Burnham trying to appease Trump? Or Reform? What other reason is there for these North Sea oil plans? | George Monbiot

Climate catastrophe is on our doorstep – yet Labour’s impending approval of further drilling will bring more pain for negligible gains, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

pretty sure he meant the other thing, grok, but very cool that those are your two things

Tweet exchange in which a photo of Anne Hathaway is posted by @TheRoyalSerf, to which user @VvSchweetz24 replies "@grok...do your thing.

@Grok replies: Anne Hathaway isn't Jewish; she was raised Catholic but left the church. She married Adam Shulman (who is Jewish) in 2012 and celebrates Jewish holidays with their kids. SHe's played Jewish roles, like in "Armageddon Time."

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srrrse @without.boats · 09/09/2026

The way the discourse is all about Navier-Stokes but the actual result is not discussed at all reminds me of Fran Lebowitz’s bit about how at Christie’s people don’t clap when the Picasso comes out but do clap when someone pays 50 million dollars for it.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

What is it that makes politicians go: "OK guys, lets smash the ceiling of our fastest growing source of unabatable emissions!"?

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

🧵CO₂ removal (CDR) is back in the news, but just because the UNEP report says we need CDR, it doesn't mean we'll have CDR. Many challenges will take decades of research and negotiation to solve. Here are some examples: Technological: We currently don't have any durable CDR method that scales.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I think the way to read the UNEP report isn't "we'll miss the 1.5°C target so we need CDR to reach it", but "we'll miss the 1.5°C target, and we need to decarbonize ASAP because wherever we end up is where we will stay for a long time." www.unep.org/resources/li...

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I want the Prime Minister to look into a TV camera and say the RNLI are heroes, that we do not change policy by street violence in this country, and that he expects any criminal action to face the full force of the law. That's it. That's all he has to do.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

80 year-olds with pro-Palestine signs: arrested as terrorists. Greens planning to block a road, to highlight an existential crisis: sent down for years. Masked far-right thugs blocking roads and ports, using intimidation, obstruction & threatening behaviour: no arrests. The real two-tier policing.

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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 06/09/2026

Presidents are hired & evaluated by their boards, who predominantly prioritize fundraising & avoiding challenging the powerful—not teaching, research or service. To change the presidents’ behaviors, you need to change the boards. Which among other things means you need strong faculty unions.

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Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

This makes sense. We accept wind farms and pylons to the extent that we accept their necessity to our lives. If we see vast amounts of electricity consumed by data-centres without making our lives better, we may well resent the extra turbines and pylons too.

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profpolisci.bsky.social @profpolisci.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

For forty years right wingers were like: If only we had a businessman as President. Can we put that to rest at long last?

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Drilled @drilledmedia.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

In this week's newsletter @rishpardikar.bsky.social interviews Raju Pandit Chhetri, a climate negotiator from Nepal, about the country’s demands for loss and damage financing and climate justice. drilled.ghost.io/nepal-floods...

drilled.ghost.io

Nepal Floods Put Climate Loss and Damage Fund to the Test

An interview with Raju Pandit Chhetri, a climate negotiator from Nepal, about the country’s demands for loss and damage financing and climate justice. On the morning of 26 August, a series of flash ...

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