iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

We all know Hegseth was really a terminal O4, but between his ‘cult of the operator’, petty resentments, bigotry and casual viciousness, he really has the opinions and intellect of the worst terminal E4 you have ever met.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Absolutely epic third AFL Grand Final victory in a row by the Brisbane Lions. With four minutes to go I thought Fremantle were going to win it, the last four minutes were incredible.

An AFL social media post celebrating Brisbane Lions defeating the Fremantle Dockers (89-96) in the 2026 AFL Grand Final

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I finished Anna Funder’s “Wifedom” this week. I was very impressed by “Stasiland” and I found her account of George Orwell’s marriage to Eileen O'Shaughnessy equally compelling and (mostly) convincing. It seems Orwell had a complex private life (derogatory). #histbookchat, #photofriday #booksky.

A paperback book by Anna Funder titled “Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life”

The book is the story of Eileen O'Shaughnessy’s marriage to George Orwell, based in part on O'Shaughnessy’s letters to a friend.

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The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I know I’ve said this several dozen times, but right wing lunatics frankensteined together unrelated Bible verses to create “the antichrist” and a description of what he would look like, and then the guy fucking showed up and they love him.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

9/11 commemorations again make me wonder why so much of US military leadership has implacable hatred for the IRGC and Quds Force, but Pakistan and ISI supporting the Taliban and sheltering OBL in Abbottabad (I mean, come on now) gets ignored or at best a shrug of the shoulders.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I was re-reading The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski this week . I defy anyone to read this classic account of the court politics and detachment from reality of the twilight years of Haile Selassie’s regime in Ethiopia, and not think of current events. #histbookchat #photofriday #booksky

The cover of the book “The Emperor” by Ryszard Kapuscinski.

The cover features a black and white photograph of former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

A paragraph from the book “The Emperor” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, describing the Emperor’s court as being filled by mediocrities.

A paragraph from the book “The Emperor” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, describing the fluid and temporary hierarchies of prestige in the Emperor’s court.

A paragraph from the book “The Emperor” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, describing the insatiable greed and rapacity of the Emperor and those around him.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Just an idle thought, but the next time this happens the Home Secretary could always ask the MoD for a bit of help. There’s a battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles based about 15 minutes drive from Dover - who I expect would be fairly useful in Aid to the Civil Power tasks.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I’m sure all the people concerned about Mamdani attending 9/11 commemorations while being Muslim will have something to say about this selflessly dignified reflection any minute now.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

www.maptap.gg September 6 🇮🇹97 🇰🇷100 🇺🇸100 🇦🇷100 🇸🇿98 Final score: 991 I’ve been to the one in Italy, I should have got 100% on it… 🙄

maptap.gg

🎯MapTap Daily Geography Game

Play MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Sicario: Day of the Soldato is mostly fantasy SF operator trash, but… the scene of driving through the desert as the visibility closed in and the Mexican Police initiated the ambush took me RIGHT back to days in Afghanistan where I wondered “is this where our partners kick off the green on blue?”

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The Hegseth “vet bro / ‘Department of War!’ / toxic masculinity” faction of MAGA is really banging the “Canadians are woke and soy and we can totally take them” drum, isn’t it? (Never mind that the CAF member pictured is actually hard as nails, though)

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

“The Pike: Gabriele D’Annunzio” by Lucy Hughes-Hallett is this weeks contribution for #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky. This is an excellent book - an equally informative and engaging account of a talented (but vile) figure in Italian history, who was more consequential than I had realised.

The cover of a book by Lucy Hughes-Hallett titled:

The Pike : Gabriele D’Annunzio : Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 27/08/2026

Did I miss the big open letter signed by a hundred academics opposing this?

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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

in a world of JK Rowlings be a Dolly Parton

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Haven’t heard much from the “academic freedom for ‘race realists’” crowd on this one yet. I’m sure there will be another petition getting around shortly.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Going straight into my overflowing and jam-packed file of “completely unsurprising and predictable developments”.

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brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I mean, you can see it on the DoD side with Infantry Dort. It's pervasive intellectual collapse where the people involved are pretending that the Dunning Kruger graph is a half-pipe and that they are Tony Hawk.

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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 21/08/2026

I'm sorry but it's clearly newsworthy that the President's decisions are being unduly influenced by a mentally unstable obsessive no one voted for who has attached themselves to him in an effort to live out weird fantasies they've had for decades. Something has to be done about Stephen Miller.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, I’ve just finished “The Gunners: A history of New Zealand Artillery”. It’s a fairly typical British Commonwealth ‘regimental history’-style book, but is well-researched and covers from the 19th-century New Zealand wars to about 10 years ago.

A hardcover copy of a book titled “The Gunners: A history of New Zealand artillery” by Alan Henderson, David Green and Peter Cook.

The cover features a painting of New Zealand artillerymen firing a 25 pounder field gun during the Italian campaign in WW2.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Called this well over 18 months ago. Thinking the absolute worst of anyone involved in the Trump administration and imagining the most venal thing they could do in any given situation hasn’t let me down yet.

A BlueSky post by me from 14 Jan 25 predicting that the incoming Trump administration would rename the under-construction aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller (named for a WW2 African-American USN hero) for someone repugnant.

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Mark S @fff182.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

This is the best

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

How have I not seen this amazing thread before?

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

It’s Vietnam Veterans Day and the anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in 1966, a big day for a couple of units I served wth over the years: 1. 1 Regt RAA, where I served twice (including as BC of 105 Bty) 2. 6 RAR, who I deployed to Timor Leste with 3. Long Tan Coy, RMC, where I was a cadet

A colour photo from the Vietnam War of the main Australian base at Nui Dat in 1966. On the right of the photo is an L5 105mm pack howitzer from 105 Fd Bty, RAA, in a sandbagged gun pit. A M113 APC is at the left of the photo.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, Brian E Walter’s “The Thin Khaki Line” is a broad narrative overview of the British Commonwealth armies at war in WW2, focused on what formations did. There’s little detail on how these armies evolved or the impact of key personalities, though

The cover of the book “The Thin Khaki Line: An operational history of the British and Commonwealth armies during World War II” by Brian E Walter.

There are two black and white photographs on the cover. Above the title is a photo of British WW2 infantry (in combat uniforms and equipment) marching along a road, a below is a photo of a late-war Comet tank.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Sailor may also have been a big man, tears in his eyes, begging “sir, please keep the steam catapults”

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Israelis make up a threat to get Trump frightened and angry at the Iranians? Say it isn’t so.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Two widely acclaimed absolute all-time bangers, and two niche artisanal tweets.

Screenshot of the famous Gerry Adams Christmas lights / surely you know someone who can fit a timer tweet.

Screenshot of the @dril “someone who is good at the economy please help me” tweet

Screenshot of a tweet by @djolder saying “We need a redistribution program to give imposter syndrome to people who actually deserve it”

Screenshot shot of a tweet (in response to a tweet asking ‘what’s your job on the leftist commune’ and then offering a fantasy example of doing no real work while feeling self-important) saying:

“Political officer that beats the shit out of all the people who think reading tarot cards is Labor”

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

www.maptap.gg August 9 🇺🇸100 🇬🇷100 🇸🇬100 🇹🇭100 🇧🇼100 Final score: 1000 The first four were really easy, to be honest, and I got lucky with the last one

maptap.gg

🎯MapTap Daily Geography Game

Play MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

www.maptap.gg August 6 🇺🇸100 🇯🇵100 🇬🇧100 🇮🇶100 🇲🇾100 Final score: 1000 I’m tempted to declare my immediate MapTap retirement now.

maptap.gg

🎯MapTap Daily Geography Game

Play MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

One of the little pleasures of BlueSky is that I am still rediscovering people I used to follow and interact with back at the old place. It feels a bit like survivors of some cataclysmic disaster reuniting by chance with a “hey, great to see you made it out too!”

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, I’m about halfway through Jeremy Armstrong’s “Early Roman Warfare”, which so far has covered very early Roman history (which I’m not very familiar with at all). It manages to be informative while still open about the unreliability of sources.

A hardcover copy of the book “Early Roman Warfare: From the regal period to the First Punic War”, by Jeremy Armstrong.

The cover features an image of a battle on a Roman urn from the second or third century BC.

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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

My Afghanistan war book THE HARDEST PLACE is approaching its four-year anniversary. Since I’ve mostly migrated from Twitter to Bluesky, over the next few months I’m going to recreate here a long thread of photos that many readers have enjoyed scrolling through as an accompaniment to the book.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Mildly curious as to which particular category got me on this list.

A screenshot of a BlueSky List named ‘The “Pay No Mind” List’, which seems to include categories drawn from across most of the political spectrum.

It appears to come from a far left viewpoint, but I’m honestly not sure.

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James Poniewozik @poniewozik.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

If it’s 0-0 at the end of regular time they should bring England and France back

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Gingerspiced @gingerspiced.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Italian-American entrepreneurs in 1960s-1970s New York develop new business opportunities and markets, but disputed profit-sharing arrangements cause tensions. Starting Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Another two entries for #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky tonight. Early in the week I finished “The Black Jacobins” by CLR James (an outstanding work of literature), and I am about to make a start on Paul Kennedy’s “The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery”

A paperback copy of “The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution”.
The cover features a painting of Haitian resistance leader Toussaint L’Ouverture wearing an elegant red uniform and hat of the Napoleonic era.

A paperback copy of “The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery” by Paul Kennedy. The cover features an oil painting of sailing ships engaged in the Battle of Trafalgar.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Heading home to Brisbane today after a couple of days visiting 24YO daughter up in Mount Isa

A sunset over the North Queensland outback

Three young children riding horses at an outback showgrounds in far North Queensland

A road train (a semi-trailer truck with three trailers) on a outback Queensland highway

The abandoned Mary Kathleen uranium mine, a large open-cut mine filled with bright blue water

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Two entries for #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky tonight. “Inside the Regiment” looks at the recruitment and personnel of a British Army regiment during the Napoleonic wars (fun fact - my grandfather served with the 30th Foot’s successor unit, the East Lancashire Regiment, in WW1) 1/2

A hardcover book, “Inside the Regiment: The Officers and Men of the 30th Regiment during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars” by Carole Divall.

The cover features a reproduction of a contemporary print of British Army recruiting party appealing to a group of drinkers outside a pub.

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Pete Monks @petemonks.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Up in Mount Isa visiting the 24YO daughter.

A view of the Isa Hotel with Mount Isa Mines in the background.

A group of camels in a Notrh Queensland paddock

A close up of a camel’s face looking inquisitively into the camera

A vivid orange sunset over North Queensland

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