iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 19h

3/4 of these are also my latest listens despite not *quite* being middle-aged yet. Though in my defence, I do make one of them.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Might listen to a bit of the cricket as well, really make myself suffer.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Today all of my obligations are taken care of and I'm off to visit a small independent bookshop in the countryside with no time limit.

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Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Quite stupendous degree of nominative determinism at work here www.economist.com/science-and-... From The Economist

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Cassia Rowland @cassiarowland.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

The new prime minister is about to run out of prison spaces. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. But once again, there are no easy answers and just cancelling early releases is not a solution. The focus must be on public protection - including better protection in the community. 🧵

instituteforgovernment.org.uk

The government must focus on public protection when it comes to prison releases | Institute for Government

There are no easy answers to meeting the prison capacity challenge.

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Eduin Latimer @eduinlatimer.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Really enjoyed talking to the More or Less team about work incentives within the benefit system. You can hear the episode here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

More or Less - Benefits v minimum wage: Which pays more? - BBC Sounds

Tim Harford examines benefits v work, dangerous temperatures and the World Cup draw.

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Fascinating episode - includes bit at the top of the show where it totally debunks Jeremy Hunt banging on about people being better off on benefits than working.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Really interesting to interview Dr Brimicombe on this. Part of a cracking episode this week.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Read this post approximately 0.5 seconds after the BBC 'UK unemployment rate in surprise fall' push notification. Perhaps the quickest optimism-dashing I've ever experienced.

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Andy Bruce (Reuters) @bruceandy.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

ONS says the surprise fall in the unemployment rate reflects rising inactivity - particularly people becoming students - rather than rising employment.

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🎃 Mr Too Damn Boo-no 👻 @bergoesbueno.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

One of the very best from Clickhole

From Clickhole's "Incredible! We Asked These Astronauts What It’s Like To Be In Space," Barry Wilmore: You never know true beauty until you see Earth from space, or true terror until you hear someone knocking on the space station door from outside. You look through the porthole and see an astronaut, but all your crew is inside and accounted for. You use the comm to ask who it is and he says he’s Ramirez returning from a repair mission, but Ramirez is sitting right next to you in the command module and he’s just as confused as you are. When you tell the guy this over the radio he starts banging on the door louder and harder, begging you to let him in, saying he’s the real Ramirez. Meanwhile, the Ramirez inside with you is pleading to keep the airlock shut. It really puts life on Earth into perspective.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Genuinely losing track of the various nightmare energy infrastructure strikes / escalations in this war. Not a great sign.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

I remember doing a piece on this a few years ago where the really worrying thing was that you can build up significant pockets of low vaccination without the spark needed to start an outbreak. But once that spark appears, an outbreak can spread frighteningly quickly.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Everyone staying up for the big event?

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

What a sensational piece that I'd never heard before. Feel like it's transformed my day already.

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Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

"Your AI engineers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should."

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⤵️ @bryce.lol · 25/01/2026

All real scientists agree that correlation is causation, piss off

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Robert Armstrong @robarmstrong.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

IF ONLY THERE WAS A SNAPPY ACRONYM

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

'We are totally in line on Christmas We can do great things on the patio I do not understand what you are doing on your pension'

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Big revelation of the morning for me is that Macron texts like your dad.

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Mutable Joe @mutablejoe.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

the greatest documentary ever broadcast www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTkF...

youtube.com

Neanderthal voice

YouTube video by Ragna Þórsdóttir

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Since when did the terminology shift from 'recruit' (HR approved) to 'seduce' (very weird)?

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

First saw this on @benansell.bsky.social and @jim.londoncentric.media's feeds. Also of interest to @paulmainwood.bsky.social, I think.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Fwiw, Ofcom’s figures say 8 and a half million individuals use X to access news.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

tl;dl version: We can't access gov's data. Ofcom say 3% of population (roughly 1.8m individuals) say X is their most important news source. Gov has corrected Hansard and now says '10.8 million families use X as a news and information source'. But it's unclear how many individuals this equates to.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Almost right, Tom. Ofcom figures say 1.8m individuals (not families) say X is their most important news source. The gov now says 10.8m families use X as a news and info source (not main source), but it's unclear what that means in terms of individuals. Ofcom say 8.5m individuals use X for news.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Did you see the claim from the Government in the House of Lords that "10.8 million families use X as their main news source"? Well, the government has admitted it was wrong. I investigated for Radio 4's More or Less - you can hear it here, starting at 14:55. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

More or Less - Have more than 100 private schools been forced to close because of VAT? - BBC Sounds

Tim Harford investigates closing schools, X users, Covid deaths and churchgoers

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Hi Tom, Nathan from More or Less here. We have actually looked into a similar statistic, cited by Baroness Anderson in the Lords last Monday. You can hear the results tomorrow at 9am in Radio 4.

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General Boles @generalboles.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

*Rachel Reeves banging table* safe haven, safe haven *Andrew Bailey joining in* safe haven, safe haven *entire DMO chanting as one* SAFE HAVEN, SAFE HAVEN

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

@adamjkucharski.bsky.social did a great analysis of the series two years ago. We did it for More or Less and he also wrote it up for the Times, I believe. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

If only this had happened during Radio 3's Christmas broadcast from Peak Wildlife Park three weeks earlier. Would have made for possibly the best Outside Broadcast ever.

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Greggo 🏳️‍🌈 @greggo.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

My response to anything over the next two weeks

A grey and red transit bus on the road in a city. The bus’ destination sign reads “NO? ?? ???????”

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

And for the same week last year it was about 39 minutes. So ambulance handovers (which tells you a bit about how hospitals are coping) are doing substantially better than they were this time last year, despite the flu wave coming early.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Good news on ambulance handovers (and it was already quite good)! Looks like average time taken to hand patients over to hospitals in England is at about 31 minutes, down from about 38 minutes last week.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

[Narrator: it was not a happy little book.]

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Well, the end of the cricket was pretty dispiriting. Time to cheer myself up with this happy little book.

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Nathan Gower @nathanjgower.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

I'm on your radios / podcast feeds from 9am talking about how this year's flu might be bad, but it ain't 'superflu', and the NHS isn't under record winter pressures. More or Less, Radio 4 at 9am.

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