iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Number three - six thousand words underway. #writing

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Deborah @deborahzafer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

If anyone knows what it means, it is Czeslaw Milosz 🖤

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Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

There is little better than reading O'Brian in the sunshine of a new city. His control of character and action is complete. Aubrey facing Linois, Maturin playing cello somewhere deep below. Words I barely understand and yet it's still boyishly thrilling, in the best way. Total, total mastery.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Katherine Rundell, as ever, on the nose. This framing only accentuates the key point, underneath all the noise of AI: that it is an accelerant of far older trends; a new lever on an ancient machine. That is, the concentration of power, the narrowing of horizons. It's not just jobs. Never was.

theguardian.com

‘I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young’: Katherine Rundell on the view from the classroom

Education is at a crossroads, argues the author and academic. Should we embrace new technology in the name of efficiency, or is it time to fight back?

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Linos Piano Trio at St Michael and All Angels. Wonderful. The Elgar encore had me blubbing in my pew. More I say.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Thinking on threats to, particularly, Modern Languages. Languages often seen as 'problems' to solve. Achieve translation a la Star Trek and we're done. Babel predicated on the idea of this radical diversity as being bad, damaging. Yet anyone who engages with languages sincerely will know that (1/2)

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

A day at Ashley Court, Tiverton, writing and meeting other writers. Lovely food, excellent company, a novel commenced. Everything very cool, calm, collected. Splendid. Incredibly fortunate to have such opportunities. www.ashleycourtdevon.co.uk

ashleycourtdevon.co.uk

Home - Ashley Court

An enchanting Regency house set in 19 acres of woodland, gardens and pasture overlooking the Exe Valley Welcome Welcome to Ashley Court This enchanting Regency house invites you to escape from modern ...

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 15/07/2026

"Humanities are being extinguished by university bosses across the country. We desperately need an emergency rescue package to stop the death-rattle of Britain's great universities." @drjogrady.bsky.social in the Guardian 👇 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

theguardian.com

Humanities among degrees being ‘extinguished’ by hard-up universities

Exclusive: Experts fear rise in education ‘cold spots’ and social immobility as 4,000 academic posts lost in one year

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I recently finished the first draft of a novel. On Wednesday I am commencing the framing of the next. I don't know where the energy comes from. It will go. Hoping to enjoy it as much as possible whilst it's here. #writing

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Catching up on my PPF, this is a greatl episode that succinctly articulates what for me is a core concern - not only in historiography, but in how we live generally. Story as explainer, reducer, evocation: brill. Story that allows us to say we have answered something definitively: not brill. 1/2

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Max Rushden @maxrushden.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

❤️❤️❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Job cuts here. A handful of ultra-competitive interviews there. Academia really is splendid.

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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Great letter in the LRB on the managerial university and its consequences.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

What are Universities for?

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Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Considering the narrowing of everything - as Musk's trillionaire-hood is live-texted on the BBC - to the whims and logics of a few fountainheads of mammon, I am increasingly convinced of the need to just... turn it all off. Just turn it all off. I didn't say I had a complex solution.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

I feel the verb choice is slightly off.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

What's the word for sci-fi that predicts a far-future, but is made sufficiently long ago that elements are bizarrely anachronistic? E.g Minority Report: the newspapers have moving pictures, but they're still newspaper size and shape? Anachronism, sure, but...? Yes, I am watching Minority Report.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Sure am glad there's no women president in the USA, would be awful undignified to see a bitchy drama unfold.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Reading George Saunders on writing is rather lovely, not least for the mastery with which he delivers his own moral thinking about writing. The lesson is a lesson in itself, as it were. There are rules and you can learn rules and these are good rules but also you need that ???? and off you go boy

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Christos Hadjiyiannis @christoshad.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Happening on Monday 🤗

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MꙬse Allain @mooseallain.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

When I find myself in times of trouble All out for 53 Speaking words of Wisden Let it be

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

'Damning with faint praise' feels like somewhat understating it.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Bring le Bruit. In some ways a message that threatens to eat itself - Godspeed came in 1997, after all - but these guys sound like nothing else: a blow to the head and a tonic and an invigoration, all at once. bruitofficial.bandcamp.com/album/the-ag...

bruitofficial.bandcamp.com

The Age Of Ephemerality, by BRUIT ≤

5 track album

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Glenn Moore @thenewsatglenn.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Wrote some riddles to really annoy your family this Easter

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 20/03/2025

☑ Disagreeing with other letter-writers ☑ ‘Well actually’-ing on a tangential point ❌ Celebrity namedropping yes – but not from personal acquaintance ☑ Bathetic ending to puncture the self-seriousness So competent, certainly, but not flawless adherence to the form. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Made a website. 'putting myself out there'. there is a strange place. nicholasshall.com

nicholasshall.com

Nicholas S Hall - Writer

Visit the post for more.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Terrific thread, that will fire your brain up (in a way an LLM could never understand.)

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Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

One of the most common arguments you hear from fans of generative ‘AI’ is that it’s not plagiarizing people’s work, it’s just learning like a human learns. So I’m going to break down why that’s just not true, and why it can never be true, with the existing systems. 1/

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Too many meetings. It is utterly bleak outside. Beckett is waiting on the sitting room table. This is on loud. (this is genuinely a happy place) www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTA...

youtube.com

This Will Destroy You - Black Dunes (HD - Official Video)

YouTube video by hobbledehoyrecords

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

This is a wonderful, eloquent article that I think stands as a clear and compelling case (quite why it needs to be made is another matter...) for writing in general, not only for children.

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

brijean.bandcamp.com/album/macro P.s. shamefully overlooked

brijean.bandcamp.com

Macro, by Brijean

12 track album

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com/album/war-ba... And and and ('like if Sauron dropped the One Ring into his Oreo McFlurry, and then accidentally ate it')

guanteandbigcats.bandcamp.com

War Balloons, by Guante and Big Cats

8 track album

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

davidcrowell.bandcamp.com/album/point-... Albums I have thoroughly enjoyed this year. A small selection, in the spirit of hoping at least one person likes one of them. That's how I find music myself, and I never further the chain. Hence.

davidcrowell.bandcamp.com

Point / Cloud, by David Crowell

6 track album

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Nick Hall @penwys.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

A small collection of the portentous everyday.

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