iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Goths are like sea urchins: spiky exteriors, with a gooey, defenseless interior which predators find delicious. This analogy became more disturbing the more I wrote of it.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

The people who want you to believe that everything is going to be okay are as equally wrong as the people who want you to believe that nothing is okay.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Day one on BlueSky: Hi everyone! I hope this platform is less toxic than the rest! Also day one on BlueSky: *posts something toxic*

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Now that I’ve used LinkedIn Easy Apply, I finally understand why I see people talking about applying for thousands of jobs. I didn’t realize it was now easier to apply for a job than to order stuff on Amazon

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I can dig it, and it’s a needed change. As a recovered goth, I can attest to how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking that cynicism is a superior way of seeing the world. It’s not; it’s entirely defined by its own biased thinking and intellectually indefensible. There is no future to it.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

How about a nice beach, eh? Ireland’s western coast is quite rightly known as the Wild Atlantic Way, but is dotted with coves and beaches just like this one, where you’d never know the Atlantic is thundering away just beyond. Brackaharagh Beach, County Kerry #ireland #photography

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Why, why does this raise questions? The DEI push failed because it was put in the hands of newly-minted C-suite flunkies and HR managers. Corprations are required by law to put shareholders first. They do not love you. They love money. Either become money or stop trusting them. #target

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Another photo of lovely Ireland for you today. This nice little ruin sits right next to Castle Clontarf in Dublin and is often mistaken for the one Bram Stoker was baptized in. It was full of fireweed and someone’s litter, but no vampires. #photography #ireland #dublin #ruins

Ruins of an old chapel in Dublin Ireland

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

One of the most uniquely annoying things about the Druids is that they refused to write down anything they were doing. Celts were literate, despite rumors otherwise: on the continent, they used Greek or Latin scripts for transactions and inscriptions, while Ogham eventually developed in Ireland.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

We’re featuring one of my favorite fragrance blends this month! With notes of heather, rose, narcissus, and vetiver, Cross of Brigid is inspired by the first flowers of Spring and the thawing of the earth. I loved seeing heather in full bloom all over Ireland wherever I went!

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

If you’re equivocating on quitting FB, Twitter, IG, etc., if it helps, recognizing that every time I interacted with someone on any of those platforms I was encouraging their ongoing social media addiction did add a bit of clarity. Even pictures of cute animals carry a heavy moral burden.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Someone needs a picture of Ireland, and I guess that someone is you. The beautiful Torc waterfall in County Kerry cascades from the Torc Mountains before spilling into Muckross Lake. On an island that often looks like a Tolkienesque fever dream, Kerry stands out as particularly magical.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I feel bad that the fire extinguisher servicing place near us closed. That’s an industry that can’t possibly be doing well, but it felt good to know I could go somewhere and get my fire extinguishers serviced, whatever that means.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

I feel like this is a good place to put some of the odder pictures on my phone. This was found in a facility related to the military, so that was encouraging.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

re: Duolingo, it was liberating to stop using a platform I paid money to so that it wouldn’t shame me, so that I could not learn a language on a platform I only used once a day so that it wouldn’t shame me more because I had grown to resent it so completely. Now seeking actual Irish people, I guess?

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Of course then the entire story is about Cu Chulainn, the ancient Irish Superman, killing everybody in sight, but the legal framework is there.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Without at least an equal amount of wealth, Medb would have had to acquiesce to Ailill by law, something even Ailill didn’t seem thrilled by. Speculation is that he had been her champion in combat before their marriage, so he was already enjoying a luxurious retirement. And so, they went to war.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Up until recently, property was power. In marriage, a sovereign’s primacy was defined by ownership of land. In Queen Medb’s case, Ailill had always been her subordinate, but they’d challenged each other to a contest of to see who was richer. When it turned out to be Ailill, there was a problem.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

The entire basis of The Tain bo Culaigne is this legal right, as well as a complication in Celtic law: Queen Medb initiates a war with Ulster over their lovely brown cow because her husband Ailill has a nicer cow than she does. Seems silly, right? Her entire right to rule depended on it.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

It’s a novel and effective way for women to maintain individual power in their relationships. Since women could divorce a husband and walk away with their own wealth intact, and because either could divorce the other for fairly paltry reasons, being a lousy husband was actually quite risky.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Anyway, in a matrilocal marriage structure, you get a lot of related women in one place, with men coming from outside of the family. Under this system, as reflected in ancient Brehon law, women retained their own property during and after marriage, sometimes quite a more than their husbands.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

I’ve got a lot to say about these “pyramidal patriarchies,” too; much like you see in modern cults and religious organizations, a small group of men will control the entire group, which presents them with a challenge: how do you deal with non-elite males? Usually by getting them killed somehow.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Recently there was a great article about matrilocal families in pre-Roman Britain. It jives with what we know of Celtic law around property and marriage; in a Neolithic world being gobbled up by pyramidal patriarchies, the Celts were the rare people who protected the rights of women to own property.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I can’t advise staying in your lane. Be the errant cyclist veering off the bike path and riding into the lake. Be alive.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

While I’m on the subject, can you imagine something that would play into the conservative stereotype of the out-of-touch wingnut liberal more than making fun of people for being broke?

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

It’s difficult to feel like people who keep using “price of eggs” as a shorthand for moral degeneracy are taking things seriously. Humans don’t use their higher functions if they’ve been forced into survival mode. Feeling like you can’t provide for your family can’t be ignored as a factor in voting.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Presenting the baby capybara which may or may not rescue my appearance on this platform.

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Matthew O'Carroll @matthewocarroll.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I've been on exodus from social since 2017. I never got into Twitter. My nerves are already on edge about this new platform, as its algorithm immediately presented me with a wall of Democrats emotionally abusing each other. However, there is also a baby capybara, so things are starting to improve.

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