iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

I can't say I've done proper due diligence on this claim but I think I might be the first Finnish/Finland-based author on the Journal of Global History? There's been like two hundred Swedes, though.

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 16h

Very excited to share the pilot article from my forestry project, now out in the Journal of Global History! In it, I try to interrogate the mechanisms of transimperial knowledge transfer through a look at the hiring and (brief) work of an international group of foresters in 1930s Dutch East Indies.

doi.org

Knowledge uprooted: Transimperial forestry and the hiring of foreign experts in the Dutch East Indies, 1920s–1930s | Journal of Global History | Cambridge Core

Knowledge uprooted: Transimperial forestry and the hiring of foreign experts in the Dutch East Indies, 1920s–1930s

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 12h

Haha yeah Kaarle was in *World* History...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 12h

I can't say I've done proper due diligence on this claim but I think I might be the first Finnish/Finland-based author on the Journal of Global History? There's been like two hundred Swedes, though.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 16h

doi.org

Knowledge uprooted: Transimperial forestry and the hiring of foreign experts in the Dutch East Indies, 1920s–1930s | Journal of Global History | Cambridge Core

Knowledge uprooted: Transimperial forestry and the hiring of foreign experts in the Dutch East Indies, 1920s–1930s

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Meri Kytö @merikyto.eurosky.social · 11/10/2026

Kävin kuulostelemassa Wikmanin taloa Porvoossa, Mai Joutselainen opasti. Ei meinanmut tulla meillä jutusta loppua! Onneksi Miika Kainulainen sai tallenteet pakettiin. Kivikuulan pyörittelyine kaikkineen. open.spotify.com/episode/3nf5...

open.spotify.com

Vieraana äänentutkija

Kuulokuvia Wikmanin talosta - Ljudbilder från Wikmanska huset · Episode

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

fair but, as I remember it, people also complained about the forums constantly...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Vibes are off in general but it's about on a par with Bluesky for promoting new projects and publications. Plus a major advantage that it has for me is its significant reach both where I work (Finland) and where I work on (SE Asia), neither of which Bluesky is very useful at all.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

My book came out about a year ago but it took until last winter/spring before these started coming through in bulk, so yeah quite a recent thing. Also they seem to have gone away now, mostly, not sure if just because I changed affiliations so they can't find me anymore.

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

daniela russ @ueberdruss.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

i'm over the moon working nature made it on this list!

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

perfectly fine, I think just regular human

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

help I'm being silenced by the mainstream media

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Haha just seen an article of mine summarised (in a paragraph as part of a bigger piece) in the magazine of the Swiss-Finnish friendship association, but they didn't cite me :(

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Funded by the Ford Foundation, of course, but also technically named after Henry Ford II. Not sure if that was just a creative excuse.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

sometimes I take out the glass recycling on a sunday just to feel alive

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

At first I was a bit jealous that some people get to live in big fancy villas like this but I've now realised that there's a major downside, namely that everything is far away and it's really annoying to realise you forgot something downstairs when you've just settled down upstairs (or vice versa).

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

such a cool (and weird) film

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

every single time I write it with an 'e' and only check afterwards if there's actually an 'e'

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The 1933 National Plan for American Forestry has a distinctly hallucinatory quality, halfway between Thomas Pyncheon and religious tract.

screenshot of the report with WORLD WILL CONTINUE TO NEED WOOD in capital letters across an empty space between paragraphs

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I don't know why they've got a statue of Swedish king Gustav II Adolf here in Tartu but, fun fact, this is a copy of a statue in Göteborg that the Dutch also used as a template when they put up a statue of genocidal general-governor Jan Pietersz. Coen in Batavia/Jakarta in the 1870s.

statue of 17th-century king with cape and fancy hat

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Day 2, first morning of work at the fancy functionalist Villa Tammekann, designed by Alvar Aalto and completed in 1932. Manuscript is... eh, ask me again at the end of the week.

interior of a 1930s modernist villa with white walls and ceilings, wooden floors and furniture. two laptops on a table at one end of a large living room.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

was it a synthetic voice assuming it was about the sausage

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

actually honestly I never read a foreword, if it's not your book I'm not interested

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I haven't seen this but caught a screening of My Brother's Wedding last year and it was such an unexpected wonder of a film. Need to check out more of his filmography.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

...and continues with a ferry trip to Estonia! Heading to Villa Tammekann in Tartu for a writing residence with @juhahaavisto.bsky.social, hoping to hammer the manuscript into shape before the end of the week.

a clear blue sea view from the open-air deck of a ferry, Estonian flag waving on one side

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Book week! The day starts with a visit to an actual professional photographer to get author photos for the upcoming Finnish forestry book.

author in a selfie in front of a mirror at a studio, wearing a dark orange jacket

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

If I ever get into politics I will run on a platform of banning all motion smoothing technologies and I will get three votes, from myself and two sickos with crt tvs.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I turned on the tv at the hotel and once again I'm asking how can anyone stand the motion smoothing algorithms all tvs have switched on by default these days.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'll take any fresh ideas on the left at this point

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I find US salaries impossible to parse, is everyone rich there? Or poor? Who knows.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I think in this case more a legitimate "new audiences" thing (it's in a different language)

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

What do you do if you're asked to peer review a piece that is blatantly just a repackaging of the author's previous work? Like, not in a bad way, there are reasons to do this sort of thing, but the work's already been extensively reviewed by this point so what do I need to do here.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yeah I'm afraid the phenomenon is neither geographically nor temporally limited.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Driving around in the SW of England last summer, everything utterly scorched, no green anywhere, tattered faded flags hanging from the lamp posts here and there, it wasn't like Mad Max exactly but it wasn't not like it either.

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Alex Cheung @klalexcheung.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

My new article tells the story of peri-urban Chinese villagers in early 20th century Hong Kong when the colonial government settle land ownership, implement ‘improvement schemes’ and remove their village homes. If you are interested in #ColonialCities, or #HongKongHistory in general, check it out!

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

My employer wants to give me a Copilot+ laptop with "enhanced AI features", except their ad copy for the machine does not mention said features and also, when asked, they themselves appear to be unaware of them. In case you were wondering how this stuff gets mainstreamed.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

what if kansallisarkisto but without arkisto?

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

jos ei tarjoa arkistoja, ei voida vaatia arkistorakennuksia *mies-koputtaa-ohimoaan.gif*

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yeah the policy tends to be "remember to use it responsibly!" for employees and "sorry we don't make the rules Microsoft does" for organisations.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

answers and solutions. Instead, all I'm getting is, "huh, what are you talking about and why do you care anyway?" And I only know this stuff because I try to stay on top of things and also have done a lot of googling, on my work time, which I'm not spending on my work laptop, which I don't have yet.

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

for enterprise customers; 3) even if not, it can probably be disabled by anyone with admin rights, so it's a solvable issue. BUT the whole point of letting your employer take care of all this is that they're supposed to have the expertise to avoid such problems or, when necessary, provide quick...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I find this saga incredibly frustrating because I basically now the answers to my questions: 1) yes, they want to push an NPU laptop on me (because the outsourced supplier has pushed them on them); 2) yes it probably ships with the highly problematic Windows Recall feature disabled by default...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

We've all been given 13 pages of instructions re: responsible AI use but when you ask IT if the laptop they want me to work on has an NPU they're like "what's that".

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Okay latest here, at 3+ weeks and counting, is an unsigned helpdesk reply that basically amounts to "lol we don't really know about all that stuff..."

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh @gianamar97.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Our entire roundtable on "Cross-Contextualization as Method", co-edited with @mikahyman.bsky.social, is out now in FirstView in @historicaljnl.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1017/S001...

doi.org

Cross-Contextualization as Method | The Historical Journal | Cambridge Core

Cross-Contextualization as Method

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Elsa Devienne fits otherwise but I think she's French...

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Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Looks like the entire IT department is ghosting me for asking about the AI laptops

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Reposted by Mikko Toivanen

Mikko Toivanen @mtoiv.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Maybe just a coincidence but seeing a lot of conference cfp's at the moment that ask to precirculate what are basically full papers, with the expectation these will lead to special issues, but no commitment all participants will be included. Is that... fair?

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