iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"You have to show us your passport so that we can prove that you didn't need to show us your passport" is almost perfect as an example of a particular kind of bureaucratic immigration logic.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... Hacking is a crime in most countries if a human does it. This will stop pretty quickly if AI execs know that they risk jail if they facilitate hacking in this way.

theguardian.com

Australia launches investigation after OpenAI agent hacked healthcare database

Prime minister says he told Sam Altman he was disappointed it had taken OpenAI ‘way too long’ to disclose breach

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Wasn’t getting rid of family liability for crimes regarded as an important reform about, I don’t know, a millennium ago?

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Telegraph has its fingers on the pulses.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

We're nearly full circle to a Bill Clintonesque "the plane sucked, but didn't inhale" line here.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Sony apparently attempting a variant Groucho Marx defence here: I refuse to sell to any customer that would be dumb enough to buy from me

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

The best thing you can say about this is that it’s going to be impossible to implement with the education system and economy the UK currently has. There are of course lots of less kind things that could be said about it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Burnham to tell schools in England to adapt teaching to local business needs

PM wants curriculums for students aged 14 and above to be more responsive to local jobs market

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

In years to come, AI and search is going to offer a fascinating case study of just how and why Google et al built a product that worked really well and made them a shedload of money, and then proceeded to demolish the functionality of that original product because they got bored or something.

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Reposted by Dr Patrick O’Brien

Ben Yong @bymyong.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

What is fascinating about the debate over whether the Chancellor can refuse Farage’s resignation is the marginalisation of Parliament on a decision affecting one of its own members. 1/4

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Jana Zikmundova @jzk55.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

#OTD #RedDevils #Belgium🇧🇪

Dessin dans le style du peintre belge René Magritte

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

OSCOLA wants us to reject the Latin cites. Join me, fellow schismatics, in rejecting this rejection of the authority of Rome.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Have been radicalised by OSCOLA 5 and now contemplating a future as an ibid truther.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

You could annoy the entire internet at once by renaming air conditioning “a/cky bits”

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Reposted by Dr Patrick O’Brien

Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The World Cup is a time for learning

Search interest in "Doctor Congo" is waning

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Recently diverted some old All ER reports from the bin. This Lexis thing sounds interesting, hope it works out for them.

Old printed advert: “Lexis connect time reduced to £10 per hour”

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Call me crazy, but what if we run universities out of former mines? Will they care then?

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

“By ignoring the chickens who had NO CHOICE but to cross the road, your so-called joke contributes to the exclusion of poultry narratives from our shared consciousness“, I explain to my young son, in one of our classic social interactions.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I don't know what this means to anyone, but my kids have come home from school delighted about the social media ban, and are only disappointed that it doesn't include WhatsApp.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

What if the enforceability of a ban on social media is not actually the point? Kids and tech is a massive social coordination problem that has been left unresolved. A ban is a social signal and if nothing else gives parents, schools and kids themselves a starting point.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Bluesky probably not the audience for this, but if you are still on X and wavering, just have a think about who will have sole control of your legacy account, content, and personal data if and when access to the website is finally blocked from the UK/Europe.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The UK needs a formal written constitution. Ok, ok, but hear me out: the last decade has shown with absolute clarity and consistency that the unwritten constitution is dead. No more good chaps, no more quiet dignity, and fewer civil servants quietly smoothing things out in the background.

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Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

We can't look away from the images of families fleeing burning houses without calling this out as a pogrom, whipped up by influential actors who care nothing for the people of Belfast: www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

All policy advice on the internet now takes the form ”you can solve X with this one weird AI trick, says guy selling AI”. And honestly I preferred it when the one weird trick was about doctors hating it when people eat bananas.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Hailstones the size of marbles in 30 degree heat is quite the meteorological curveball

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

If we’re honest, who amongst us *hasn‘t* urged our successor to repeat the same profound strategic errors that we made, that shaped the multifactorial geopolitical crises we face, that have gradually become the only thing we’re remembered for, that mean we can’t look at ourselves in the mirror…

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

About time. Looking forward to philosophy students being sent down into the philosophy mines, with strict instructions to reconcile the dialectic.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Love that the high concept placeholder name for the Aldi Brewdog clone clearly made it through a marketing meeting completely unscathed, and someone just ran with it

330ml can reads “Anti-Establishment”, I presume for people who have heard of nuance, but though “nah, nuance is a form of control exerted by THE MAN”

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Look, ok, on the one hand successive govts have deliberately collapsed international student numbers for no apparent reason, but, on the other hand, they’re also doing everything they can to discourage domestic students from going to university too.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

There is the parallel disease of performative policy (observed often in universities): initiatives designed primarily to advance the career of the proponent, who will typically have advanced to the next level of management/another university before their name becomes a curse word for colleagues.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Given the amount of emails I now get containing the phrase "I kindly request", I have to conclude that either AI is not what it's cracked up to be, or ChatGPT hangs out with some really passive aggressive lawyers.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

But what if I need to wear my glasses to be able to see the tiny screws that need to be tightened on my glasses? What then?

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Reposted by Dr Patrick O’Brien

Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Hot of the electronic press by me in Verfassungblog: a personal take on the symbolism of the Irish fuel protests in April.

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Verfassungsblog @verfassungsblog.de · 20/05/2026

A rejoinder to Suryapratim Roy’s take on the Irish fuel protests as a marriage of fossil and racial capital. PATRICK O’BRIEN argues that the far-right hijacked a real national archetype – the Men with Tractors. verfassungsblog.de/on-men-and-t...

The Men with Tractors are set against plate glass corporate buildings and a franchised Starbucks on O’Connell Bridge.
Rural is set against urban.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Hot of the electronic press by me in Verfassungblog: a personal take on the symbolism of the Irish fuel protests in April.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

The UK is stuck in a cycle of electoral "we can't talk about the EU because we have to get elected" followed by governmental "we have to rejoin because of the economy, but we just promised voters we wouldn't" followed by "we can't talk about the EU..." ad infinitum, until FPTP is abolished

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

I’ll spare you the trouble of reading: it’s “Tribal Dance” by early 90s Euro-dance outfit 2Unlimited. I know you were all expecting it to be their more popular “No Limits”, but we have to accept that America is just different.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

It weird that we’ve all just accepted that stuff we own will push advertising at us all the time.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Sorry folks, it’s still too soon. Maybe in 2116.

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Ben Yong @bymyong.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

My paper “Bureaucracy and Distrust: the Civil Service in the Constitution” has been published in Current Legal Problems. It looks at the UK civil service’s constitutional foundations, and how it might respond to a populist govt. It's open access. currentlegalproblems.org/article/bure...

currentlegalproblems.org

Bureaucracy and Distrust: The Civil Service in the Constitution - Ben Yong

Faith in democracy and established institutions seems to be at a low ebb. Democratic backsliding – the weakening or evisceration of institutions designed…

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

"Play 'my dad was a toolmaker', play 'my dad was a toolmaker'!" I scream at the stage in futility, after an hour of dud second album material.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

“Let universities be weird” is a campaign that needs to happen. They don’t work as regulated, rationalised, education providers. Attempting to run them as businesses just results in failed businesses. Let universities be universities.

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Dr Patrick O’Brien @patrickcobrien.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

"Happy birthday! We saw this tiny, parasitic, wasp and thought of you..."

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Reposted by Dr Patrick O’Brien

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 07/05/2026

[in tears in hospital as my beautiful French son bellows OI OIIII] doctor please help, he caught the Bantavirus

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