iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Good point, well made, of course he wants the adulation without the critique

New Maxwell book for Christmas! Yay! (everyone should buy all of Everina's books because they're great and if she sells enough she might be able to go part time and write more which would mean I get to read more of them)

000

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 1h

And it was watching Ahsoka series one that made me decide to maybe try getting back into that silly setting I loved as a kid after it was ruined for me in the 90s No regrets, Clone Wars has too much angst, but Rebels is great and I love Mando

000

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 2h

That and sometimes we get a mental block in our definitions of what is a 'musical' that somehow persuades us our favourites don't count

static.klipy.com

Tim Curry in Rocky Horror: Not Easy

Alt: Tim Curry in Rocky Horror: Not Easy

030

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 2h

It's good to know the current generation of Dartmouth booksellers remains as weird as their predecessors

000

Reposted by Mat Bowles (He/Þei)

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 5h

One of the reasons I hate being forced into these discourses is that we spend a lot of time talking about how people are behaving on social media, rather than just using social media to talk to one another about the issues at hand. And some of that is microcosm of society. But it’s boring.

21356

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 3h

I know more about Rudolph than his astronomers, but I'd definitely be up for hearing that

010

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 3h

"How weird they were" Brahe and Kepler's great joint work, the Rudolphine Tables, was compiled under the patronage of the guy who circulated copies of his official portrait to the other (lesser) crowned heads of Europe This official portrait: (good excuse to post my favourite-more in the alt)

Emperor Rudolph the Second of Prague, Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans, of the Bohemians, of the Germans and the Italians. King of Hungary, Duke of Austria and, well, frankly far too many different titles at various points in his slightly bonkers life

Official portrait by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, depicts a middle aged Rudolph but every feature is actual a painting of a fruit, vegetable or flower-his ears are maize, his eyebrows peapods, his chest a gourd his neck spring onions. It's a stunningly beautiful, incredibly funny work that was thought lost for centuries until it turned up in a Swedish castle, stolen during their sack of Prague in 1648

020

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 4h

I am now in the habit of saying "the year I turned" when talking about past stuff because, just, I can't be arsed Like, I know my grandparents sold the farm the year I turned 12, and it was summer so I was 11, but I have to properly think about that even tho it's kinda a life defining event?

020

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 4h

But.. He's in charge of T&S, like, knowing how to use the mod tools is day one lesson one I am truly baffled at how incompetent Bsky leadership is outside their tiny little boxes of experience

1161

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 4h

??? Does he not know you can just disable quote posts by default? Like, that's a moderation/safety feature

4280

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 4h

Marketing genius David Cameron you mean, creator of the oh so successful On Digital marketing campaign?

001

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 22h

Initially Stella Parks' Brave Tart which is good overall and piqued my interest, then a lot of reading around, I'm more interested in the biscuit usage side TBH so that's where I concentrated

010

Reposted by Mat Bowles (He/Þei)

🎃 Killy Witches 👻 @tillybridges.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

she had to hide and be stealth, it’s never mentioned the character is trans but there’s something truly magic in knowing that the next time i rewatch TNG, i will see her there and i will know that someone like me helped make the show that ignited my lifelong love of Star Trek 😭

111172276

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

Honestly, it's something I'm still learning/reading about, cookies and biscuits was in use, biscuits appears to have been the marketing term but then the marketing split, etc Food history is weirdly fascinating and really difficult because the same word can mean so many things and vice versa

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

We planted a Hazel and a Filbert a few years back and Hazel has finally nutted this year (our nursery sells filberts as bushes/dwarf varieties to act as pollinators for people like us that can't have two full trees)

070

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

Oh, and the modern biscuit (that's similar to but not the same as a British scone) comes from Pullman and is kinda racist, we don't even know the name of the guy that created the recipe that was stolen :-( It is weird we both have 'biscuits' but neither are 'twice baked', all wrong in English :-D

000

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

Some food historians say otherwise, it's one of those Disputed Topics and has some regional differences, but they were definitely synonyms for ages, the switch to cookie as the default was after the National Biscuit Company formed and competitors (Hydrox mainly) started using cookie exclusively

200

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

Yeah, The Rutles weren't actually from there despite actually selling a bunch of records I'd forgotten Rutland had been unabolished TBH, it's a very strange little place

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

She's been someone I've been very happy to watch since before she started doing TV cooking, she started as a book reviewer and late teen me was very very taken with the hot goth book reviewer, then she switched and, well, her book "How To Be A Domestic Goddess" wasn't lying :-D

030

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

It's definitely a translation problem, over here we use the term almost exclusively to describe a subtype, the 'mall cookies' thing, because a lot of the other types are just biscuits to us (as they used to be for you guys but, y'know, marketing) bsky.app/profile/matg...

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

American Bake Off fans discovering Nigella is so far my happy place this autumn Well, that and watching Nigella, obviously, especially when she's so very right, food is food and Paul's an arse

171

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 23h

I said to Jennie while we were watching that she was either going to wash out REALLY early or get to the final by learning so much so quickly

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Main reason is, until very recently, many Americans just Don't Know what they haven't got YouTube has worked out I like the occasional reaction video, and while I like "someone watches classic film/song for first time" sometimes "American watches vid about life in UK" can be eye opening

060

Reposted by Mat Bowles (He/Þei)

Taffy Osborne @poppingbubbles.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Also, isn't one of the key reasons to invest in somewhere like Britain that it isn't subject to arbitrary authoritarian decisions and the rule of law is important - as in signalling this is important to us is worth more investment than this one thing.

0121

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Well, unless you objected to being hacked XP was a critical vulnerability with multicolour HUI ;-)

230

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Best bit? Manchester City, the city name being a corruption of Mamcunonium Castrum, the romans built a fort (castrum) on a breast shaped hill It's 'Man' by accent but should really be 'Mam' :-D

050

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Yeah, given how close you are to China it's so dirt cheap to just get it going I did like reading an Aussie car review which was basically "this things cheap enough you can buy it as a backup battery for your solar and sometimes run to the shops in it" :-D We're behind but getting there

010

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Yup, I can write, I have written stuff that within its field was successful, I did it be being way better than average Plus I like idiom, dialect, silliness. I can even be persuaded to like the occasional pun I have zero interest in a 1984 style novel writing machine, how dreadfully dull

120

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Basketball teams The Hawkeyes are a womens team whose star player is famous enough I've heard of her, the Hawks are a blokes team An idiot senator did a stupid and forgot womens pro basketball exists while trying to gotcha a witness, he was being set as Vance's VP pick but isn't now

010

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 03/10/2026

Yeah, for us in Britain and Ireland, water consumption is one of those "huh?" points because except when there's a record breaking drought we virtually always have too much water But power use? Our power costs lots And that's before you get into societal benefits vs drawbacks

250

Reposted by Mat Bowles (He/Þei)

DC @tanngrisnir.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Absolutely!

071

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Devon and Cornwall, it's quicker than Westcountry and more acceptable than Dumnonia

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Recent archaeology this, like genuinely within last decade frontier science They've dated and traced the tin isotopes There were places where bronze had been made, but it wasn't organised and likely just accidental mixing Consistently made technique stuff was D&C outwards

100

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Yeah, but cerberus wasn't a name, it was a description 'spotted dog' ;-) (disputed: there are wrong people who prefer a different translation, some of these people have studied it properly)

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Yeah, sorta, the collapse was ~1200BC and the tin from D&C was vital for the bronze age from 2400BC onwards, ~75% of the known world supply Tin bronze was invented in D&C and spread across the continent thru trade relatively quickly (bronzification is the search word) So the Celts messed up trade

110

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

I mean, I can also happily argue that the invasion of the Celts into SW Britain was a main cause of the Bronze Age Collapse in the Med but I'm definitely being silly when I do that Well, slightly silly, it's not a terrible hypothesis

100

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Forcing it onto us more like, we were quite happy speaking Dumnonian Brittonic Bloody prayer book, what a stupid idea that was

100

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

When I first started playing RPGs I fell in love with the Warhammer setting and bounced horribly off the D&D settings I encountered. WH put some thought into actual history and tech that made sense Dwarves and The Empire had firearms. They might blow up and kill you, but they had them

static.klipy.com

Bruce Campbell's Boom Stick in Army Of Darkness

Alt: Bruce Campbell's Boom Stick in Army Of Darkness

010

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

That's who he keeps reminding me of, thank you, it's been bugging me

000

Reposted by Mat Bowles (He/Þei)

Imaginary Thomas and the No Such Things @imaginarythomas.com · 02/10/2026

My man looks like his dog is named Scooby Don't

935125

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

I was thinking it was an Elementary plot, yeah Apparently from comments above also a Silent Witness and CSI:NY plot I mean, it's a good plot

030

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

I absolutely love that she's always so deadpan you never know when she's sending herself up, or being deliberately silly, or is actually just weirdly over the top posh with strange habits (she started as a book reviewer and loves SF stuff)

140

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

It was the absolute weirdest challenge yet (translation problem: UK English uses the word cookie to describe the specific type of biscuit I think is best described as a 'mall cookie' but some of the younger contestants used US English definitions!)

120

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Yup, different experiences Watching Aliens on a rental VHS? wow, what a great fun movie Watching it on TV broadcast? that's nice looked cleaner but didn't they cut bits? Special edition DVD? That was awesome Fully restored 70mm print at the Bradford Media Museum? I am in love with this

010

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Ah, but he blocked ~half the site power users so, y'know, no one could notice to tell us

000

Mat Bowles (He/Þei) @matgb.uk · 02/10/2026

Just saw this in Maggie's comments, it is a nice pic

110