iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I don't think people will take batteries seriously while they're just a load of containers sitting quietly and unobtrusively in a field. They need to add odd chimneys, way more pipes, loads of funny shaped metal structures and far more tarmac before they can be Proper Serious Grid Infrastructure.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Put the collars on the parents surely.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Anyone seen with a pint glass will be thrown in jail.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It costs £4.90 for a 6 minute, 0.8 mile train journey?!?!?!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I regretted a scone once. I should have had two

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We used to joke about how driving lessons in London were a total rip off because you could be stationary in traffic for most of a lesson. That was /decades/ ago...

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

So if I understand it right... you need to cross two lanes of traffic, then notice a weird extra give way line, then go head to head with vehicles that will be trying to go round bikes going the other way while everyone squeezes through a fairly narrow gap? That sounds... insane. And terrifying.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I can't even do wheelies but if you could pass a test and get a licence to say you were officially able to do wheelies as recognised by the state I would totally learn how and get one.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I presume if you're on a bike your choices are either (a) use the road and die instantly, or (b) use what looks like a bike path right around the outside, and reach the other side in about three weeks?

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Curry Mallet in Somerset is about 20 miles from Queen Camel.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'm glad it's not just me that has a whole range of sensors, switches and the like just fastened to the wall with blutack 🤪

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

It's amazing how much busier even places that haven't seen much building are now. I recently went back to where I used to bike ten miles through the countryside to work ~10 years ago, it was so busy I'm not sure I'd want to do it now. Are we just driving more even if there aren't any more people?

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is correct. I'm not paying for any more hot water than I absolutely have to, but sitting on the loo is free.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This always amazes me. You find all sorts of strict controls on vehicle movement and separation on job sites and factories, but once out of the gate with untrained people everywhere it all goes away... if anything it should be the other way round!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Not all road vehicles require tax or an MOT, my shed is no different

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Surely that just makes it more secure as nobody can move it!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Might do that. Or at least put some wheels on the shed?

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Or we should be able to claim similar sized areas of road to keep other kinds of personal property in as well. My garden would be way bigger if I could put the shed in the road, for example. How is that any different from some random campervan?

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

You know what they say, take only photographs, leave only highly complex hydrological engineering works.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The first thing I noticed was the lack of cars. I didn't realise they were so keen. While we're busy giving fascists everything else they ask for we'd better get busy building 20mph limits, modal filters and cycle lanes everywhere as well!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

On my old bike ride to work I used to see so many deer and stags hiding in the trees, it was great to see them and I sometimes stopped to watch. The only interaction drivers seemed to get with the deer was when they crashed into them, killing the deer and wrecking their car.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I just tried to buy some kitchen scissors but a pair was £500 and won't arrive until January.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Have you ever seen a starling murmuration? They're incredibly impressive, as the birds turn and swoop as one, flying right overhead... but then a few seconds later the noise of all the droppings hitting the ground gets closer, and louder, and more frequent...

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

There's just too much corruption to fit in a normal working week!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Surely you must agree though that unless we can have nice things everywhere we cannot have any nice things absolutely anywhere ever?

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I have a bell on my bike but I have sometimes wondered whether carrying a bell while walking might be helpful at times like this. Ding ding!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

So what is the alternative? There's only so much you can do just using existing lines. The railway will still be full. Then what? We need to be better at building and running railways, and the way to get better is to do it more.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

A lot of stations can only hold four coaches, which is still not enough, and it won't make trains any more frequent! We need to transport far more people and much more freight by train if we intend to decarbonise transport and reduce our reliance on cars. Tinkering round the edges is not enough.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Being crap at building anything does not change the fact that we need to do it. Everywhere else manages it!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Only because they gutted the original plan to a pointless, hugely expensive stub that doesn't fix any of the problems it was meant to solve. The full HS2 network would free up huge amounts of capacity on the existing network all over the country, and that would benefit everywhere.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

You don't have to go to Birmingham to be affected by capacity issues there. Most trains from Shrewsbury go to or from Manchester or Birmingham; both are full. Everything being broken from lack of investment is a separate problem; we need to fix both.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Birmingham New Street is so full the only way it works is to split platforms in two, meaning all our trains are now too short. We can tinker round the edges but it won't do anything if we don't add mucj more capacity; new lines, and separating fast from slow trains, are the only ways to do this.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

HS2 is far more about capacity than it is about speed.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I live in Shropshire, miles away from any part of HS2, but the trains here and in half of Wales are rubbish because they stop at Birmingham New Street, which is full. The only way it will not be full is if long distance trains go elsewhere, and the only other place they can go is HS2.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Then we will never achieve mass modal shift from car to train, and will forever be stuck with all the financial, environmental and societal harms caused by car overdependency.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

That surely just delays the desperately needed extra capacity even longer, we need to do both!

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

You're right, we need the whole network as originally planned, and we needed to build it in a competent, timely manner rather than the huge wasteful mess we've ended up with...

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Even if we electrified and upgraded all the existing lines we would still be far short of the capacity we need to run faster long distance trains as well as frequent shorter ones. We need more lines, and if you're building new lines you might as well build them for higher speeds.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Oh wow it really is. The bike lane is almost wider on the sign than it is on the ground 🤪

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Is it actually a bike lane or is it just a weird edge-of-carriageway line? I can't see any signs or markings... There's something similar round here which loads of people assume is a bike lane but it's not which causes no end of conflict, so it's thoroughly unhelpful either way...

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Same here... they did say once it looked like a stack of banknotes.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I remember when you used to mow the lawn over summer when it grew, and then leave it over winter when it didn't. Now though it's the other way round, it doesn't get cold enough to stop growing over winter, but it gets too hot to grow in summer... Climate change is not real though, nooooo

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I've spent the last few nights staring at WAY bigger suns than our normal one so if anything I'm over prepared to stare at our puny one for a bit.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

In hindsight we should have just invented indicators first instead of relying on the family to help out.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Fish and chips by the sea, in the rain with the wipers on is the only acceptable food to eat in a car.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I assume in winter we'll be using lots of concrete to make obstructions to slow the water down to prevent flooding...

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I redirected the condensate drain from the aircon into a bucket for plant watering this year, that has produced far more water than the water butt has collected from the roof! July's rainfall is the tiny little 1.8mm blob at the far right:

A bar chart of monthly rainfall over the last few years; most months are somewhere between 30 and 120mm, but July 2026 is 1.8mm.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Oh wow. It's normally on the way down by July but that is crazy.

A bar chart of solar PV generation every month between October 2022 and July 2026. The bar for July 2026 is quite a bit higher than any other bar, and significantly higher than any other bar in July.

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Phil Himsworth @philhimsworth.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

It is mad. I think I could describe how each step works fairly well but it still feels like magic that after a sunny day those black rectangles have somehow refuelled the car with no moving parts and no action on my part.

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