iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Mark Brown

Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

“Huge swathes” of severely disabled people will be hit by Universal Credit cuts, contrary to government claims they will be protected. My exclusive in today’s Guardian ahead of the vote: www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

theguardian.com

Benefit cuts will hit severely disabled people despite ministers’ claims, say charities

Exclusive: Charities say planned universal credit changes fail to account for progressive or fluctuating conditions

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Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Welcome to the empire, where peace activists are called terrorists, where hospitals are called military bases, where facts are called blood libel, where people opposing genocide are called hateful Nazis, where genocidal soldiers are a protected group and chanting for their death is a hate crime.

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Alison Fincher @alisonfincher.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

PLEASE don’t buy into Amazon’s booksale this week. They are intentionally trying to eat into profits from Indie Bookstore Day this weekend, a really important annual event for our important community institutions. Check out your local fave or bookshop.org.

bookshop.org

Bookshop: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.

An online bookstore that financially supports local independent bookstores and gives back to the book community.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Jon Ostrower @jonostrower.com · 14/04/2025

The April 13 crew broadcast just before the explosion is starting now.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Current read: P. D. James’s The Lighthouse. Typical James thriller. Tight-knit closed community, bleak British coast. Illicit sexual relationships. Class differences. Just setting up the victim as a nasty person hated by everyone, giving plenty of suspects. Nicely paced page-turner.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

TV documentary on ‘Big John’ the stegosaurus fossil bought at auction by a private collector. Exploring the ethics of private fossil collection. Glaring omission - who has the rights to fossil-rich places like Badlands and Big John site? Wealthy collectors/middlemen interviewed, no Lakota/Sioux.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

At the Singapore botanic garden (UNESCO World Heritage site) having a cup of tea with colleague to recover from the overnight flight. At least tea comes in a (small) pot and they add hot water if you ask, but you do have to ask. Check in not till 3pm - time to kill.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Watched Anne of Green Gables (1985) - two "made for TV" movies. Very good (if set in the wrong period - Edwardian rather than Victorian) but to my English-raised ear, Anne just sounds sarcastic when making her apologies. Making a fool of the adults. I'll have to read the novels now...

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Tamara Diane @tdiane.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Coming across this gem of an old blog post is why I don’t leave social media. The ridiculous use by Gladwell of (Korean) culture to explain plane crashes was brilliantly exposed & added excellent insights to the “DEI as common sense” BS as the racism it is.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Looks like it'll be an exciting last few days of the sumo championship. Lead contender is Kinpozan from Kazahkstan with 2 losses, followed by two Mongolians and two Japanese each with 3 losses. I'll be rooting for Kirishima, born in a nomadic community whose granddad was a Mongolian wrestling champ.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 22/01/2025

Israeli forces block ambulances from entering Jenin and its refugee camp during "Operation Iron Wall," leaving Palestinians "bleeding out in the streets" as at least 10 are killed and dozens wounded. 🔴 LIVE updates:

aje.io

Israel kills 10 in West Bank raid as 120 bodies found in Gaza over two days

Israeli attacks on occupied West Bank intensify as Trump’s UN pick says Israel has ‘biblical right’ to the territory.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Feel an sudden urge to watch a Peter Cushing film - Hound of the Baskervilles or She.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Sacha @sachadylan.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

".. the genocide of Indigenous populations – a direct consequence of the planetary revolt against freedom, in the past 500 years – is naturalised as a perennial absence of people. @davidwengrow.bsky.social

aeon.co

An archeological revolution transforms our image of human freedoms | Aeon Essays

A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations and the scope of human freedoms

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Double Down News @doubledown.news · 25/12/2024

M̶e̶r̶r̶y̶ ̶C̶h̶r̶i̶s̶t̶m̶a̶s̶

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Bought a PD James to read over the holidays with a glass of port - Death in Holy Orders. Another wind-swept English coastal location beloved of James. Up the A12 too - familiar old ground, at least as far as Woodbridge. (Never been all the way up to Lowestoft but used to love Suffolk/Norfolk.)

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Maybe on a par with the 1928 Banana Massacre of United Fruit Company workers, with death estimates ranging widely from 45-2,000.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Aron Lund @aronlund.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

I just want to point out that this is the single best write up of Syria's current military-political landscape that exists anywhere right now. That includes everything published so far by all the fancy D. C. think tanks, policy institutes, universities, newspaper and television explainers, etc.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

On the “Mizuho” service from Hakata to Kobe this morning. Reclining seats are nice and wide, braille seat numbers on the grab handle, stowable cup holder, wooden trim. Nice touches.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

On the single-track branch between Kashii and Saitozaki, Fukuoka. Only partial electrification but they replaced the old DMU with an EMU that uses battery on the sections without power - smoother and quieter. Each station has a cute mascot. Even branch lines get some love.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Lynne Jones @lynnejonesorguk.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

“..the truth is that the idea of a British liberal democracy is unravelling before our eyes. When the guardians of the liberal order, of the rule of law and humanitarianism, are unmasked as charlatans - as is the case with both Starmer and Biden - the forces of darkness rush in to fill the void.”

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Early for the meeting near Azabu-Juban so a slower, civilised start to the day. Cup of tea and an apple pie at a local (non-chain) cafe while finishing a chapter of my current read.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Interesting gain from reading more modern histories incorporating recent scholarship is the realisation that many received historical tropes are largely myths created for propaganda and retroactive justifications for e.g. imperialism: “Western Civilisation”, “The Dark Ages”, “The Renaissance”.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Speaking of commercial determinants of poor health, Nestle should win the top prize 🏆 Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, but not in western countries www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

theguardian.com

Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds

Swiss food firm’s infant formula and cereal sold in global south ignore WHO anti-obesity guidelines for Europe, says Public Eye

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Dr. Cecília Tomori @drtomori.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

It's a sad competition out there. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what they, and other commercial milk formula companies, do. Check out the Lancet Breastfeeding Series for an overview. www.thelancet.com/series/Breas...

thelancet.com

Breastfeeding 2023

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

"Facebook, Google and Amazon have destroyed the actual bulwark against autocratic leaders – local journalism – while cozying up to actual autocracy. " www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Will the Democrats finally realize that Big Tech is not an ally? | Zephyr Teachout

Tech titans, and big business in general, are not reliable partners against Trumpism. Progressives need to accept this

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Started the revised edition of Robert Tombs’s ‘The English and their History’. Over 900 pages not including notes, but has to be limited in depth if not breadth. Up-to-date with findings from recent scholarship. Enjoyable so far. Wonder how it compares with Peter Ackroyd’s work?

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

A comparison of train driver seats - Osaka Monorail and on the JR Fukuchiyama line. Monorail uses a single T-handle controller and applicable speed limit on each track section lights up and annunciated by a bell. JR train uses power and brake handles, and has ATS (automatic train stop).

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Tactile/braille panel on lavatory door of Shinkansen showing the layout of the room and explanation of facilities, including sink, toilet/washlet, washlet controls/paper/seat cleaner/dustbin and folding baby seat. #accessibility

Metal tactile/braille panel on lavatory door of Shinkansen showing the layout of the room and explanation of facilities, including sink, toilet/washlet, washlet controls/paper/seat cleaner/dustbin and folding baby seat.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Good morning from Tokyo station. Domestic trip for a change - getting the Nozomi Shinkansen down to Osaka.

Noses of two Japanese bullet trains waiting for departure at Tokyo station.

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Reposted by Mark Brown

Grace Livingstone @graceliv.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Multinationals are taking billions of litres of bottled water from UK aquifers. My story: www.theguardian.com/environment/... To see my FOI data on water abstraction for bottled water in England: wordpress.com/post/grace-l... @rachelsalvidge.bsky.social @leanahosea.bsky.social

theguardian.com

Foreign firms taking billions of litres from UK aquifers to make bottled water

Coca-Cola extracts largest amount of freshwater of any drinks company in England, FoI request finds

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

NHK Great Nature - tectonics and volcanism in Anatolia and their associated landforms. Hadn’t realised association with the Afar plume, linking volcanism in Ethiopia via Arabia lava fields with Anatolia. Based on lead isotope ratio analysis. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Morning virtual flight Seoul Gimpo to Shanghai Pudong as KAL1893, an A300-600 (JAS paint job though). VATSIM ATC from Shanghai Center. Have to be aware of available levels on the old Akara Corridor, and China uses metric altitudes. FIR boundary dispute between Korea and China has settled down.

Sunrise shot of an A300-600 in Japan Air System livery in flight, X-Plane 12 simulator.

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

So Japan’s Seto Inland Sea is a horst and graben landscape caused by crustal *compression* due to lateral strike-slip movement along the Median Tectonic Line. The major islands (Awaji-Jima etc.) are on the horsts. (NHK’s GeoJapan programme. Can’t find any English references.)

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Mark Brown @mark-707.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Finished the last of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. A sort of anti-C. S. Lewis. While both have children coming of age battling dark forces in parallel universes, Narnia is a Christian allegory while Pullman’s work is anti-religion. Both deserve to be considered as classics.

Cover of the novel The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.

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