iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In an ideal world, there would be a gradual increase, with the difference subsidising alternatives, not creating obscene profits for multinational fossil fuel companies.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

An amazing 22° halo with sun dogs from West Devon currently, as the sun shines through the ice crystals of the high cirrostratus.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The OpenAI/Hugging Face hack gets more concerning with every wave of new information. A short thread 🧵 The experiment was testing near unsolvable challenges with individual agents. To succeed, agents were using cache namespace of a package repo to secretly collaborate.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Just finished reading My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. My second Strout. I love her writing! There's no narrative tricks, surprises, emotional manipulation, suspense or showiness, however there's a real depth in the simplicity of how she portrays her character #booksky 1/

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Just finished reading Flashlight by Susan Choi. A story about a missing father, Choi tells the story from multiple perspectives at different points in their lives. It's odd how through much of the book, the absent parent is an undercurrent, rather than the driving force. #booksky 1/2

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This could be a pivotal moment. I'd very much like this to be the start of a real government crack down on the behaviour of these companies & severe financial penalties. It'd be nice if that money went directly to child mental health research & services.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Just finished reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanaghihara. A story about the boundaries of friendship & impact of trauma. I was a bit intimidated by this book given some of the reviews. It's beautifully written, but I did have some difficulty fully connecting with it. #booksky 1/3

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Reposted by Duncan Porter

Phil Sturgeon 🌳🚵⚓️ @philsturgeon.com · 16/08/2026

The entire team has been out this summer checking up on all our woodlands, across England, Scotland, and Wales. Here are some quick shots from the very first woodland I ever planted five years ago, looking strong and glorious. With surveys in see how your local sites are doing. protect.earth/sites/

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

What were your tipping points? A book? A flood? A kid? A headline that finally landed? Everyone engaged with climate/ecology/sustainability has one or several moments where their perspective shifted. What were yours? Reply or quote-post - I want to hear them all. 1/5

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Just finished reading War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I loved this extraordinary book. It feels like Tolstoy was grappling with a unified theory of humans. Whether he achieved that or not is hard to say, but it's fascinating & thought provoking. For such a dense tome, it rarely... #booksky 1/

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Just finished read We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo. A recommendation from a good friend - the memoir of a Waorani from Amazonian Ecuador whose community was threatened by oil extraction. After witnessing the loss of neighbouring communities, she created the Ceibo Alliance. #booksky 1/4

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Just finished reading Klara & the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Am interesting & thought provoking read, but I never felt a connection with the characters, so the emotional aspects of the story didn't have much impact for me. I loved the writing & the idea though. #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The false widow that lives behind our post box is having a good day.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Just finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Wow, what an incredible piece of literature! The writing is beautiful & almost supernatural. The story itself is fascinating & never dull. There's allegory that went beyond my understanding. #booksky 1/

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Our river is low & stagnating. The hart's tongue ferns are shrivelling, the hazels & hawthorn are reducing their leaf count & a wild service tree has decided it's autumn. Urgent: please send rain!

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

UK peat bogs store as much carbon as all the trees in the UK, France & Germany combined. Only 22% of UK peatlands are in a near natural or rewetted condition. £47m was pledged by the gov for peatland restoration - a mere ~£15 per hectare. carboncopy.eco/takeaction/r... www.gov.uk/government/n...

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

1/ A year ago, I decided to more often pick up a book instead of my phone & read at least 30 pages every day. A habit formed pretty quickly & in the last year I've read 161* books, two thirds fiction. * including a few audiobooks Here are my absolute favourites of the year in no order. #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Just finished reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Sometimes the right book at the right time can broadside you emotionally. Some of the characters are clichéd, but that doesn't matter when the narrative & emotional foundations are so extraordinarily observed & written. #booksky 1/

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Just finished reading Lolly Willlowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. A tale of a spinster bailing on society, patriarchy & familial expectations to live a rural life & is gradually seduced by nature, witchcraft & Satan himself. A charity shop find & an interesting short read. #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I was laid on the sofa reading & this woodlouse landed on my face. It must have been trying to cross the ceiling.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

We had a very productive tree maintenance day in Somerset yesterday. Great volunteers & ideal weather meant we got loads done, clearing competing plants, removing guards from the bigger trees.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Just finished reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. In a remote Polish village, a real humanist & animal rights whodunnit. The pacing is slow, but enveloping. The characters are fascinating & the writing beautiful. Loved this book. #booksky

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Reposted by Duncan Porter

Emma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Telegraph headiline:

"Heatwave hysterics wouldn't have lasted a day in 1976", overlaid with a bold “MONK DEBUNKED” stamp.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Was spending my book voucher in Sodbury Book Garden today & another customer bought me the second book I wanted 🥲 She wouldn't take no for an answer. I gave her a massive hug. People really can be amazing sometimes. Still slightly shellshocked. The good kind.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I've dropped in on a Somerset reforestation project with 5000 trees we planted over two years. This site is my favourite -the trees absolutely love it here! Every tube I checked had a live tree - almost unheard of! Kudos to the legendary @philsturgeon.com & his tenacity with @protect.earth 1/4

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Just finished reading Gliff by Ali Smith. I love her books. There's always a serious undercurrent to the playful ambiguity. This feels like it should have a plot, but it's more thematic than structured. Some good characters. If you like closure for your characters this isn't for you! #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Sometimes terrible Twitter posts can be so bad, they're almost art.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

It turns out I still have the capacity to be shocked.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Just finished reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. A series of short stories about or connected to Olive in Maine. This book is excellent. Olive isn't instantly likeable, but her complexities, family & environment slowly make you sympathetic & understand her. 1/2

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Just finished reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Or as it should have been called: "Men are terrible". My first Hardy. I kind of enjoyed it, but the prose is so verbose. I'd love to know more about why he wrote this. It's relentless for poor Tess to the very end.😭 #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Why do the animals in this shot from the new Spielberg trailer look worse than Red Dead Redemption 2 from eight years ago?

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Just finished reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Effectively a series of short stories, but generationally linked by two sisters separated in Ghana in the late 1700s. One sister marries a wealthy slave trader & the other is sent to America as a slave. Each story is a new generation... #booksky 1/3

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion, Alien Earth) writing about Vonnegut's best novel: Cat's Cradle. Well worth reading to the end. archive.ph/fNfIb

archive.ph

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

CMAT is one of the very best people & I love her.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Plot twist: Farage is Polanski's landlord!

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Just finished reading Suder by Percival Everett. His first novel & a lucky charity shop find! All the hallmarks of his later work are here & it's a surreal thought provoking story. Everett's books have a Vonnegut feel: telling difficult tales with dry humour, never cheapening. #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

20 years ago pet insurance was a couple of phone calls with some fairly simple comparisons. Today: so many options, excesses, co-payments, triage clauses, different existing condition clauses. Harder to directly compare & much more work. Time taken: much longer. Effort needed: much more. 1/2

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Just finished reading Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. Initially, the core of this is the importance of marriage for social standing of women in the early 1800s, with a family of modest standing & five unmarried daughters. I was at first bored by the style & the subject. By the second... 1/3

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Just finished reading Normally Weird & Weirdly Normal, by the always excellent @robinince.bsky.social Part ND memoir, part giving a voice to others & part celebration of neurodivergent life & the messy ups & downs of living in a world that often doesn't understand you. 1/2 #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

There's a very punctual cockchafer beetle (may bug) repeatedly headbutting my window. Possibly the worst aviators of the natural world!

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Just finished reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. A very real & honest account of Orwell's involvement in the Spanish Civil war. The emotions, the practical realities, the politics & the humanity. The further reflections on the perversion of historical documentation... #booksky 1/2

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Just finished reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. A great story of two families with real profound depth. Amongst the race, politics, class, academia, there's a tale of how beauty is more than a social construct, illustrated at the end. Chapeau @zadiesmith.bsky.social ! #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Apparently Kid Rock did actually address US service members at the Pentagon yesterday. This isn't AI. Is this deliberate distraction or does the administration believe this is somehow of value?

Faded singer Kid rock addresses US servicemen at the Pentagon, for some reason.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

My brain summed up in one photo.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

This is excellent - kudos to Katie. Key bit at the end of the article. Local authorities & parents in a painful battle, burning time & money to try to wedge their round children through the square hole of the education system. That's the tragedy - it could be better with little extra cost.

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Just finished reading High Rise by JG Ballard. Ballard is such a tricky author. Lots of great ideas & a complete ride, but the narrative choices are frustratingly odd. The character focus, pace & tone shifts without warning. Is it deliberate? I just can't tell. 1/2 #booksky

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Bloody hell! Having been inside Dinorwig power station in Llanberis, which has 9.1GWh storage, this Chinese pumped storage of 12.6TWh is hard to wrap my head around. This photo is from Dinorwig's construction, which is comparatively a baby. Photo from c20society.org.uk/building-of-...

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Just finished reading Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. Pretty much the prequel to The Big Short, laying out the ridiculous operation of Salomon Brothers investment bank in the 80s. As expected 300 pages of insecure men-children playing games with billions of other people's dollars. #booksky 1/2

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Duncan Porter @misterduncan.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

It's depressing to see people rise to such a position of seniority, yet be so profoundly wrong. The (current) system rewards dishonesty & manipulation, with little value on integrity. Grim.

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