iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your CV? Algebraist: That gap is actually the computational algebra software system GAP, which I have used extensively in my work. www.gap-system.org

gap-system.org

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your CV? Topologist: My CV is path-connected but not simply-connected. The gap determines a generator of the fundamental group π₁(CV,*), which by Hurewicz's Theorem yields a nontrivial element of the first homology group H₁(CV). In this paper we show that...

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

It's an academic DoS attack. Also it feels like OpenAI have burst in through the door and said "hey, I finished all those jigsaw puzzles you were doing - you're welcome!"

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Also: Two-hour episodes consisting of 90+ minutes of tiresome banter that should really have been a conversation in the pub, interspersed with occasional minutes of moderately informative (albeit superficial, fragmentary and under-researched) discussion.

The festival itself (Electromagnetic Field) was brilliant, and the camping went much better than all my previous experiences - which had variously included howling gales, torrential rain, and on one occasion a disappointing solar eclipse.

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I actually did buy a tent a few months ago, despite my lifelong dislike of camping, to go to a festival. It cost £30. She should just buy another damn tent and stop wasting everybody's time.

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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

My immediate response to the question "who owns this tent?" is "dear god, I hope it's not me".

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Reposted by Nicholas Jackson

"I have to tell you know that no such declaration has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with hedgehogs"

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I'm pretty sure Barnitts sell everything. I've long suspected it's a pocket universe that exists outside normal space.

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I absolutely loved reading bedtime stories to my daughter, and I really miss it now that she's apparently a bit too old for it (12). I just can't comprehend the bleak emptiness that must exist in the heart of someone who would willingly outsource that precious shared time to a computer.

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

GCU Significant Diggity Shortfall

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The Arthur C. Clarke Award @clarkeaward.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hey Team Wolves 🐺 Listen to Clarke Award winner E.J. Swift in conversation on BBC Sounds, approx 45 mins in... Listen: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Cover of When There Are Wolves Again by E.J.Swift: a wolf in stylised trees on a pale yellow background

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yes, I think there's a reference to "honey for tea" and "stands at ten to three" in there as well. He really was brilliant.

Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

One of my favourite crossword clues, by the great Araucaria: Poetical scene has surprisingly chaste Lord Archer vegetating (3,3,8,12)

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Doctor Who: The Robots of Death, February 1977, aged 4. My parents said "well, perhaps we shouldn't let you watch this again" but fortunately I guess I managed to persuade them otherwise.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Found out yesterday that one of the first pet cats whose name we know belonged to Crown Prince Thutmose of the 18th dynasty pf Egypt. She was named Ta-Miu, which translates, roughly, as "Miaow Girl".

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Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

An iPlayer glitch watching an old episode of Dr Who gave me this oddly encouraging message:

An entirely black frame with the words "Things must stabilise soon" in small white letters.

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Shannon McSheffrey @medievalmcsheff.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Waits at the window Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for? [Eleanor's ancestor, Elena Rigby, widow, appears in London record 1520, Letter Book N fol. 173r]

Manuscript handwriting, with words "Elena Rigby, vidua," which means Ellen Rigby, widow.

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When I was a (maths) graduate student, my PhD supervisor discouraged me from using the word "clearly". If it's actually clear, then add a short sentence to justify/explain it. And if you can't do that, then it's not clear.

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Also, if you're a museum curator you should definitely hire him.

Tom is a splendid chap, a brilliant teacher, maths communicator and museum learning consultant. His book is fascinating and lovely - a wonderfully illustrated account of 40000 years of mathematical books and history, from the Lebombo bone via Euclid and Newton to the latest popular science books.

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"But this one goes up to eleven..."

Dr Hannah M. Rowland @hannahmrowland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Reposted by Nicholas Jackson

Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody &everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I misread "woke up" as a rallying call, as in "hey guys, woke up, we're going to do some EDI" rather than "I woke up" and now I'm going to be thinking about that all morning.

Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

One of the advantages of having a teaching-focused post is that I'm not under constant pressure to keep applying for research grants, and I don't have to directly worry about the REF. As long as my teaching is good (which I'm regularly assured it is), I can do research (or not) at my own pace.

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The one that starts as an episode of Juliet Bravo (complete with Anna Carteret) and then gets progressively sillier until she turns to camera and says "I suppose it's not too late to get Alexei Sayle back?" is truly brilliant.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Just noticed that Bod and Bond have the same title sequence.

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He was generally a nice enough chap, I think it was just a misguided joke.

It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Reposted by Nicholas Jackson

*blackadder theme* His head is bigger than a fence He breathes, and everything gets warmer His urge to trample represents A nation's nuclear war trauma Godzilla! Godzilla! The scourge of beast and man! Godzilla! Godzilla! He's flattening Japan!

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Case study: the mean exam mark for one of my modules this year was 41.3% - roughly 15-20% lower than usual. Same syllabus, same teaching, very similar exam. I suspect that some students used LLMs to "explain" the subject to them rather than thinking hard with their own brains.

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Whereas offloading their thinking to a probabilistic text generator is going to cause their brains and critical thinking abilities (such as they are) to atrophy further. Unfortunately I'm starting to see this with some of my students, so I'm trying to figure out what to do about that.

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Every single one of the tech billionaires driving this "AI" bubble is demonstrably an awful and completely dysfunctional weirdo, and none of them are anywhere near as clever as they think they are. This is not a remotely healthy situation.

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At the end of my BA, I got a notebook and asked lots of my friends and classmates to write something and sign it (and optionally leave a contact address). At some point, while I wasn't looking, someone I slightly knew went through and added "and Pete" to lots of the pages. I'd rather he hadn't.

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

When they used to be called Hermes, I always thought it was tremendously courageous (unwise) of them to regularly bring into disrepute the name of a powerful trickster god.

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Gosh, I'm so very sorry to hear this. Sympathies and best wishes.

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Gruntleigh T Ogron @gruntleigh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

RED ALERT!! The MOVELLANS have turned up MOB HANDED to DUFF us UP!😱 Luckily DALEK HIGH COMMAND send us an ELITE RESCUE SQUAD of 10,000 DALEKS on the next Shuttle. Unfortunately, all the Daleks have been delivered FLAT PACKED! It going to take me WEEKS to put them all together!🔧

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Nicholas Jackson @njj4.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Some years ago a friend remarked "sometimes the universe keeps giving us the same lesson until we learn it" and I often think about that.