iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Pete West-Oram

Athena Kugblenu @athenakugblenu.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The only way they would shut down AI is if it became self-aware but started to say things like 'net zero now' and 'stop destroying orangutan habitat'. Do you know how quickly they pull the plug if AI came out as woke 😂

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Sian Berry MP @sianberry.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Hearing from constituents working at the University of Brighton who are desperately worried. In touch with unions and the University seeking clarity and assurances, because it is vital workers have a voice, especially when higher education is in such crisis. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

University of Brighton considers closing Falmer campus by 2030

The campus houses the university's library, sports and health complex, and two halls of residence.

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 14/09/2026

UCU members at Brighton University face the threat of derecognition. We have called an emergency rally tomorrow at 1:15pm. It would be amazing to see as many #TUC26 delegates as possible in attendance. 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 0JY

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Mrs. Detective PikaBOO, Esq. @clapifyoulikeme.favrd.social · 25/08/2026

Dems should introduce the Dolly Parton Memorial Act, making the right to do drag a federal law

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

On holiday last week, and my dog realised she could climb into my camping chair. Sorry, *her* camping chair.

My dog sitting very comfortably in my folding camping chair

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Today is three months since we brought this wonderful dog home. She's the best.

Dog in front of a large pond, at sunset.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I don’t know how to explain to my American family and friends that this is now the man entrusted with the UK’s political salvation from fascism. For clarity, I am referring to the man on the left with a bin for a face, not the incoming prime minister on the right.

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Sussex UCU @sussexucu.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The strength of this result will shape everything that happens next. Higher turnout = signals strength Strong mandate = leverage Don’t wait - vote as soon as your ballot arrives. #DefendSussex We've been sold the story across Britain that this is inevitable. It isn't. Stand-up. Vote.

UCU lecturer casts their vote in upcoming ballot.

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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I mean credit where credit is due: "If he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won't stop him" is top tier posting

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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I know everyone's having fun, but take it from someone who grew up in Hartlepool: there's just no way a novelty candidate in a silly costume running in a Brexity seaside town could capture the public mood and win a low turnout election.

Hartlepool United mascot, and former mayor, H'Angus the Monkey (a monkey mascot in a blue and white strip) next to a "VOTE FOR H'ANGUS."

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Sussex UCU @sussexucu.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Are you like Danny? Have you voted yet? Have your colleagues? Turnout is everything. ✅ Vote ✅ Remind colleagues ✅ Support your department reps This is collective - every vote counts - every job matters! #DefendSussex

UCU member posting their vote in the live ballot for strike action!

A members' vote being posted in the Sussex UCU ballot for strike!

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Sussex UCU @sussexucu.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Our ballot is now open. If you want to protect jobs at Sussex, the most important thing you can do right now is to vote! A strong turnout puts us in the strongest possible position. Check your post and vote today. Let’s meet the threshold strong and early. #EveryJobMatters #DefendSussex

Every Job Matters graphic. Black and white text on red background.

Every Job Matters graphic. Red and white text on a black background.

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

I’m very pleased that the trade press is giving space to the Exeter horror. Next challenge is for them to look a little further down the league tables - Northumbria perhaps, or my own place. We have feelings too.

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abby (sports) @stabbyabby.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Everyone shut up I finally got a video of Jyn doing her cartoon snoring thing

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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Every staff update in every university right now: 1. We are excited to announce a strategic investment of eleventeen squillion pounds in ACRONYM, a new AI-powered centre for the development of strategic acronyms. 2. Staff have until Friday to apply for enhanced Voluntary Death.

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QM_UCU @qmucu.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Relieved to see more coverage of the grip Nous is getting on #UKHE. Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social! A million pound @cardiffucu.bsky.social alone. That’s a lot of money for the very same PowerPoint…

Scrap merchants. Australian management consultancy Nous, which promises to help universities define the pathway forward for budget model change, has been picking up plenty of lucrative work in the struggling UK higher education sector this year. Having been involved in controversial restructurings at Australian and Canadian universities, Eye 1659 notes last year that the company was one of several being paid thousands of pounds for management advice by de Montfort University (which has its own business school chock full of people who teach postgraduate-level management). Since thenNous is known to have advised the university of Edinburgh on academic efficiency opportunities, carried out a portfolio review at QMUL and been involved in the hunt for savings atpartsmoith, Plymouth, and Derby universities. Information released by Cardiff university, in response to a freedom of information request from UCU revealed the university has paid more than £1 million to Nous in the last couple of years much of it for transformationsupport

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Olivia Waite @oliviawaite.com · 24/05/2026

Sometimes as an NYT books columnist you find yourself quoted in the Atlantic by Helen Lewis, who believes two odd things: 1. That nobody is reading Pratchett anymore (instead of all the time, as they should), and 2. That Pratchett’s politics are hard to pin down, and Reg Shoe is not a fucking hero.

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Dinah Roe @preraphsrule.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Want to stop some vandals? Sign this petition. c.org/qpWLqNByRB

c.org

Sign the Petition

Save the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire

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Daniel Star @danstar.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

mcsweeneys.net

We’re Diversifying the University by Hiring More Crackpots

“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underreprese...

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

When the worst person in the world puts the second worst person in the world in charge of budgets, cheered on by others of near equal worth.

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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

The High Court has just confirmed what many of us knew. The Office for Students fine of the University of Sussex for supposed ‘free speech’ infringements was a biased piece of right wing culture war politics and had nothing whatsoever to do with free speech. Sussex vindicated and the OfS exposed.

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Nate O @nateo.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

It's great to know that the thing we all said at the time was the case (they were using this as a test case to bully universities into removing any stated internal policies defending trans students and faculty from bigoted comments by anti-trans academics in the classroom) was in fact the case

Copy link to this paragraph
First, there is the overarching approach of the OfS and its strategy from the opening of the investigation into the University. Ms Lapworth is very clear that right from the start of the investigation in October 2021, and indeed before, the OfS was looking for a test case that would send “a strong signal about the importance of freedom of speech…” (first witness statement, paragraph 62), set out above at paragraph 366. She then goes on to say that if the OfS took enforcement action (i.e. found a breach and imposed a sanction), that would “create clear compliance incentives and expectations” for other HE providers.

Paragraph 429.Copy link to this paragraph
Although the principle of using a test case is not in itself wrong, Ms Lapworth’s mindset from the outset appears to have been that she wished to use the University as a tool to incentivise the rest of the sector. I note at this point that although Ms Lapworth was the chief executive, she was not the decision-maker. However, her involvement in the investigation was both intense and overarching, and the entire process was shaped by her.

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James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Judgment now available online. The OfS does not come out of it well at all. Final line: “The Final Decision was vitiated by bias because the OfS approached the decision with a closed mind and had therefore unlawfully predetermined the decision.” www.judiciary.uk/judgments/th...

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Micah @rincewind.run · 28/04/2026

Discworld QOTD, from The Shepherd’s Crown

I HAVE WATCHED YOUR PROGRESS WITH INTEREST, ESMERELDA WEATHERWAX, said the voice in the dark. He was firm, but oh so polite. But now there was a question in his voice. PRAY TELL ME, WHY WERE YOU CONTENT TO LIVE IN THIS TINY LITTLE COUNTRY WHEN, AS YOU KNOW, YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ANYTHING AND ANYBODY IN THE WORLD?

“I don’t know about the world, not much; but in my part of the world I could make little miracles for ordinary people,” Granny replied sharply. “And I never wanted the world—just a part of it, a small part that I could keep safe, that I could keep away from storms. Not the ones of the sky, you understand: there are other kinds.”

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

There is a very real possibility that this turns into my dog's PR account.

Labrador/Spaniel cross, sitting on grass, wearing a green harness.

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David Veevers @davidveevers.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Absolute dereliction of duty by an MP: a major employer and driving force of local and national economy is not their ‘industrial focus’. Apparently the educating and training of doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, scientists, engineers, researchers…IS. NOT. THEIR. INUDSTRIAL. FOCUS.

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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

"And would you say, Mr McSweeney, that you had any experience of working with something that gives the impression of independent thought but in reality is only capable of agreeing with your inputs and reinforcing your prejudices?"

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Fiona Tribe @fionatribe.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Notable that the salaries of senior management in universities, vice chancellors and the various cronies, are absolutely astronomical. The people who actually do the work (especially professional services!) meanwhile get less and less every year.

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Chris Kendall @ottocr.at · 23/04/2026

Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, I repeat Pope Leo has lost the Protestants, this is unpreced— <wait my producer is just whispering something in my ear> Apparently this is precedented

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I feel very silly for having forgotten the lengthy history of Joyous and peaceful Catholic-Protestant friendship. Characterised of course, by understanding, agreement, and the complete absence of conflict of any kind.

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Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Reposting without the embarrassing mathematical error. Applicants bear most of the cost of funding applications. Probably best to go to the original source: f1000research.com/articles/15-...

Figures on who bears the cost of applying for research grants in the UK.

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Laurence Totelin @ltotelin.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

All my solidarity to colleagues. Another university 'management team' with zero sense of accountability. All too easy to blame the government. And enough with the rhetoric of 'improved curricula'. Impoverished curricula and skills that will not longer be transmitted - that's the reality.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dial "Have you been reading Derek Parfit again?"

smbc-comics.com

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Dial

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Just watched higher ed in the US turn into a sad farce, as the right destroys academic freedom for all save bigotry, moving to bankrupt any uni that still allows their staff and students to demand racial justice, protest war crimes or defend the trans community. Now Labour is on the same ugly track.

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Yet more evidence of the truism that, where the far right are concerned, free speech is when fascists tell us to shut up, and cancel culture is where we tell fascists to shut up. The left must always listen obediently, and the right must always have an (compelled if necessary) audience.

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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Revisiting Amia Srinivasan on Arif Ahmed's appointment as ‘Free Speech Tsar’ at the Office for Students:

“When Peterson was disinvited by Cambridge, Ahmed led the charge to reinvite him. This wasn’t a case of Ahmed disapproving of what Peterson says but defending his right to say it. Ahmed is clearly a fan. After Peterson’s lecture at Lady Mitchell Hall in 2021 – during which he quipped that ‘educated women’ were ‘very annoying’ – Ahmed described it as ‘a brilliant talk from which we’ve all learned so much’, and presented Peterson with a first edition of Darwin’s Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. (I wrote to Ahmed to ask who paid for the book, a similar copy of which was recently auctioned at Sotheby’s for £5670; he said he didn’t know, but that he believed it was the event’s hosts. I then wrote to Orr, who had extended the formal invitation to Peterson, but didn’t receive a reply.) In a piece for Spiked called ‘How we uncancelled Jordan Peterson’, Ahmed says that Peterson – who has linked feminism to school shootings, approvingly cited ‘The Bell Curve’ and been denounced by scientists for giving succour to climate deniers – espouses a ‘moderate conservativism’ and is ‘no right-wing firebrand’. Writing in 2021 on the proposed higher education bill, with its provision for a newly empowered Office for Students, Ahmed commented: ‘Of course in practice everything will depend on whether the regulator will use these powers impartially and with vigour.’ He is now the person on whom this ‘everything’ depends.”

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Pete West-Oram @peterwest-oram.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

In some exciting news, I just received the author copies of my book, Justice, Solidarity, and Global Health. Which is pretty cool. Published by Rutledge, and available here: www.routledge.com/Justice-Soli...

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