iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Washington DC scandal, 100 years ago today

Poor Girl Jilted For Rich Old Lady

GIRL BREAKS LRG IN LEAP OUT OF SENATOR'S WINDOW

--Washington Times, 22 Nov 1924

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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

There should be more stuff like this in newspapers again.

Caption: Photo diagram showing how Miss Clara Miles jumped from the office window of Senator Irvine L. Lenroot of Wisconsin when his secretary, John C. Dugan, who was her escort, urged her to escape following a knock on the door by the Senate Office Building police.

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Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

This echo chamber nonsense is predicated on the notion that bigotry is a valid perspective. It isn’t. Grow up! Think better!

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Sarah Churchwell @sarahchurchwell.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Hi @washingtonpost.com thanks for telling me I should resubscribe because you promise to hold power to account. Sadly the reason I canceled my sub was because you’ve already broken that promise. Before they even took power. Shame on you. Signed a sometime contributor as well as former subscriber.

Screenshot of a Washington Post email asking me to resubscribe on the basis they will “hold power to account,” which would be funny after Bezos killed their endorsement of Harris if the consequences weren’t the world domination of billionaires, the destruction of democracy, the loss of Ukraine and Palestine, any chance at fighting the climate crisis, and the now-all-but-inevitable rise of a chaotic mix of anarcho-fascistic, theocratic neofeudalism in a post-environmental wastescape.

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Sarah Churchwell @sarahchurchwell.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

“The problem with Fox News: It won’t broaden our horizons.” “The problem with Truth Social: It won’t broaden our horizons.” “The problem with the Manosphere : It won’t broaden our horizons.” Come back to us when you’ve fixed their echo chambers.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Look amazing Alec! I'm diving in as I type - starts not far at all from where I used to live ;)

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

The Wolves Are Running! can't wait for a rewatch all these years later.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

you gotta use your body and your brain if you wanna win the game ...

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 22/03/2024

I mean Gremlins was fine - but it didn't really have any kind of narrative arc did it? these are gremlins, gremlins are horrible & chaotic, film ends with gremlins being horrible & chaotic. less an arc more a flat line. Ghostbusters had narrative, characters, fun, scary/jeopardy (for its age range)

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 11/03/2024

Really enjoyed doing this podcast for Dan (QI / No Such Thing As A Fish) Schreiber. My two favourite topics - comedy and the strange - colliding. Got a chance to talk about life, the universe and everything, as well as the book… pod.link/1687199754/episode/026995d…

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 05/03/2024

if you write it - we will buy it 💜

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 21/02/2024

Neil Armstrong's first step on the Moon - was his second favourite step - his favourite was stepping on some steps that Jesus may have stepped on in Jerusalem.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

Once upon a morning dreary, while I slumbered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore While I nodded, clearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my window for a hotel biscuit, only this and nothing more.”

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 24/01/2024

answer 65p a litre and sit there glaring whilst they do the conversion!

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Bert’s Books @bertsbooks.bsky.social · 29/12/2023

If you have a bookshop near you, make sure to pop in regularly and check that your favourite bookseller has enough water and is being taken for regular walks (Or just buy a book on their website)

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 04/12/2023

Are they calling it “long-awaited” because they think we will forgot that 10 days ago Israel said Hamas’s HQ was in the basement of a hospital in northern Gaza? Cause we did not forget it was like last week ffs.

NYT push alert: “Breaking News
Israel has begun an invasion of southern Gaza, images show. The long-awaited ground operation could decide the fate of the war with Hamas.”

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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

This needs to be a movie.

Life was just a routine round of milk bottles for milkman Richard Atkinson until a wild moment when he yielded to an impulse to join the Foreign Legion.

Now he's facing trial for theft after a crowded 8 weeks which took him from Canterbury to Paris to Sidi-Bel-Abbes to Oran & back to Canterbury.

When the impulse struck, a court was told, Atkinson:

Parked his milk truck in the street, pocketed the day's proceeds and took off for Paris.

Lost his money in Paris & joined the Legion.

Was sent to Sibi-Bel-Abbes, Algerian HQ of the legion, where he was issued equipment & sent to Fort Mascara to fight Algerian rebels.

Made his way to Oran stowed away on a German ship bound for Marseilles & arrested on arrival as a deserter from the legion.

Escaped from his guards enroute to Paris & got to the British embassy, where he was given papers for his return to England.

Pleaded guilty to taking $19.60 -- the proceeds from the milk sales on that first day.
--Beaver Valley Times, 1 Jan 1957

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Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 05/12/2023

From Nigel Kneale’s introduction to the 1973 Folio Society edition of ‘Ghost Stories of M.R. James’, illustrated by Charles Keeping. 📚

“These are personal and secret terrors made appallingly substantial, hallucination but tangible. The skeletal shapes retain the strength to catch and kill. It is not the soul they threaten but the body – or the brain, with madness... Often they possess the most basic threat of all-they can change their shape and nature. This stirs a dread that must go back to our primitive past, that if we cannot identify our enemy we are lost. He will kill us before we know him. It gives rise to the myths of the werewolf, sometimes man sometimes beast, and of the unidentifiable vampire.”

A grimacing, gruesome skull creature emerging from grey slime.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 15/11/2023

[whatever]-as-a-service ... Software TV Film Books Theatre Music AND even paying for these things doesn't guarantee you no f*cking adverts as they say ... Games gone.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 15/11/2023

nor has it even remotely worked I'd add.

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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 14/11/2023

My heart obviously breaks for the newborns and children killed but this kind of thing, the killing of an old man in cold blood, is no less horrific to me. x.com/muhammadsheh...

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 09/11/2023

Many thanks to #WedLikeAWord (#stevyncolgan #PaulWaters) and guest #ajaychow for their competition in which I won an #MadeByGoogle Pixel Fold - a wonderful podcast, a great guest and a stunning prize!

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 07/11/2023

Everyone who was on USENET, IRC or had a blog looking at Millennials being labeled "First Gen Social Media Users": The fuck did you just say, my dude www.wired.com/story/first-...

wired.com

First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go

The collective erosion of X, Instagram, and Facebook marks a turning point for millennials, who are outgrowing a constant need to be plugged in.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

absolutely made for reading aloud - get right into your characterisations!

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Marie Phillips @mariephillips.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

While everyone is thinking about favourite books, I have a question: if you were to choose a book to read out loud to a loved one (adult), which would it be?

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

Moby Dick or A Christmas Carol

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

Spotify is a data hosting and handling service. They don’t write any songs. Deciding they can’t be arsed to do the fiddly accounting that comes with their business’ USP (access to all recorded music) is them failing to do their only duty: to handle data and account. Of *course* it’s easier not to.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

Remember when I worked in bookselling, knowing that most of a shop’s stock never makes a penny, but it being there at all is what makes a bookshop feel well stocked and attracts customers. We never considered just stealing those books from authors to fill the shelves.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 07/11/2023

It’s the business model perfected by supermarkets and described in the book Tescopoly. Make suppliers give you their stuff for nothing, then still put it on the shelves. How the ingredients in value added meals are sourced: by rejecting them, not paying for them from farmers, but still using them.

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Ed Morrish @edmorrish.com · 03/11/2023

If you say "an established good or service, but you can charge less for it because you don't pay people" into a mirror three times $13bn of seed capital will magically appear.

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Bert’s Books @bertsbooks.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

Michael forgot the picture 😂

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Backlisted Podcast @backlisted.bsky.social · 31/10/2023

May we urge you to line up our new Hallowe’en episode on M.R. James’s Ghost Stories of an Antiquary for your flight from the spectral figure endlessly pursuing you? www.backlisted.fm/episodes/199

backlisted.fm

199. M. R. James - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary — Backlisted

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

I loved this - I was given Ghost Stories of an Antiquary when I was 13 (~87) - I think The Mezzotint is my most favourite (just ahead of The Stalls of Barchester), and the unpacking of the story was fascinating and had me strongly nodding along. Wonderful ep of a wonderful podcast!

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

I've been doing this for years and I'm perfectly normal* and mentally healthy** * OP is not normal ** nor in the least mentally healthy

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

hopefully the DNA has worked in their favour and they won't get marked down for their fathers 'soggy bottom'.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 27/10/2023

Great news! The Ghost Camera by @bobbyllew.bsky.social has just been funded at Unbound. Pre-order your copy: unbound.com/books/the-gh...

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

Highly recommended - deep research well presented

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

either the dust-jacket flap or an actual bookmark - how very boring of me ;)

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Bert’s Books @bertsbooks.bsky.social · 19/10/2023

GIVEAWAY! I'm going to give TWO lucky people five paperbacks of their choice - worth up to £50! There'll be one winner on here and one on twitter. Simply retweet and follow by 8pm on Sunday 22nd October for your chance to win! Here's what 5 paperbacks looks like, just in case.

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Mark Vent @markvent.bsky.social · 19/10/2023

So ... it' appears I'm also here, very much wanting to drop there as soon as all those there are here - in the meantime I vacillate, between two stools as it were ... which is a fine trick if you can pull it off, as the actress said to the bishop ...

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