iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 30m

COMEDY in the group chat as everyone who plays Krillion.io reveals they answered yesterday's clue 'name a symbol on a flag' (looking for an obscure answer as possible) with 'AK-47'

krillion.io

Krillion · the daily dive

Seven prompts a day. Rare answers sink you deeper. How far down can you go?

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tweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 29/09/2026

kinda funny that all these massive industry-shaping companies in the greater Thieliverse are drifting in the direction of "democratic decision-making of any sort is simply too much of a risk in the age of AI", probably just a coincidence

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Thomas I-G @thomasig.bsky.social · 17h

"No explosive devices were found in three vans searched near RAF Fairford as part of a terrorism investigation but a quantity of petrol was recovered, police have said" Can't believe Donald Trump and Marco Rubio might have been wrong. Shocked.

theguardian.com

No explosives found in three vans searched near RAF Fairford, say police

Head of counter-terrorism policing defends decision to bail five British men arrested in connection with the incident

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Ceona @ceona.bsky.social · 20h

Ah, look at us.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23h

Huh, 19 years today. One of us is aging rather better than the other

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think I could argue this (given the original XBox was a bit of a flop)

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One of the buildings on here, I found out last week, was demolished because of intra-Buddhist doctrinal/political disputes between the main sect and the New Religion offshoot that got, and still are, very heated

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The charm and self-aware roguishness of Flashman is a pretty funny double bluff as to how strongly he protests his villainy, while nobody, not even the reader after a while, spots how destructive his mere presence is to anyone nearby

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Neal Hudson @resi-analyst.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Good piece on prices but doesn’t really mention the other side: transactions. Turnover has collapsed in London, especially central areas. That means the price evidence is based on thin volumes and most people are sitting it out (thanks high rents!). That’s prevented further price falls.

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川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 @nkfinity.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It is a great point tho even uber-patriarchal ideologies like Confucianism also requires the Patriarch to take care of the “lessers”. Even if it doesn’t happen in reality, in society there’s still societal pressure to maintain an illusion of it at least. Which, as we’re finding out, is good.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Almost precisely the exact opposite, but it’s quite funnily revealing how many romcom manga written by women have the male lead as a quiet decent boy who’s remarkably good at a traditionally female activity (housekeeping and cooking, making clothes, supporting your career quietly in the background)

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Just had the front window egged. Bizarre

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Banjon @beardybanjo.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Tax is best raised via a broad tax base. Gutting taxes for low and middle earners, but making up some of the shortfall from higher earners was a key plank of austerity, precisely because it eroded the legitimacy of state finances by starkly dividing between those who pay and those who receive

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I feel a strange new interest building (Ming dynasty dead enders popping up to interfere with European colonies)

Between 1597 and 1599, a Spanish fort was erected in Zamboanga, but it was abandoned after only three years when Spanish Cebu was under threat of English attack, and Madrid decided to move the garrison from the former to the later port in defense. In 1635 the Spanish returned to Zamboanga, and this time a fort made out of stone was erected. Captain Juan de Chavez was the instigator of this expedition, and he brought three hundred Spanish and one thousand Visayan (Central Philippine) troops with him to erect the fortifications.
Yet in 1663 history repeated itself; a new incursion, this time against Manila itself, was threatened, only this time it was the Ming loyalist forces of Coxinga (Chen Chen-kong) who comprised the threat via Taiwan, rather than an invading European navy.
Eric Tagliacozzo
In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds from Yemen to Yokohama
#kindlequotes

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Ey, now we’re getting to the good stuff

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Banjon @beardybanjo.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"what if we continued the work of George Osborne to hollow out the broad tax base, but with lefist vibes?"

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Huh, even Catholics can be WASPs these days judging by the school name

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I come to bury Caesar, not to fuck him

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Ultra-local commentary: huh, the new footbridge at Hither Green station is opening early next month even if the new entrances and lifts won’t until March next year. The rare under budget and ahead of schedule infra project

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Bleddyn Bowen @bleddb.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Everyone I know who has been diagnosed has said they are happier in general and much more content/productive with work since being diagnosed and getting various forms of help based on the diagnosis.

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Sir Almaviva @ilcontealmaviva.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If some citizens are 'less' citizens than others, then citizenship means nothing. I have no plans to commit any crimes at any point in my life, but if I ever did, I should not lose my British citizenship. Nor should anyone else.

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British Voter @britishvoter.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I'm an Asian Muslim woman from North West Cambridgeshire, in my thirties. In 2024 I didn't vote. Today I wouldn't either, but I'm a Reform supporter.

Voter card. A map of England with a dot on North West Cambridgeshire. About them, in their words: My landlord is the council. I've had to borrow money for essentials this year. I'm not doing paid work right now. My secondary school was a private one. My family could lend me less than £5,000 towards a house if I needed it. I count myself as middle class. News habits: I keep half an eye on politics. Her views, from her survey answers, in four speech bubbles: Zack Polanski is the leader I've most time for, Ed Davey the one I've least time for. Immigration is getting a little lower. Too many of our public services are being run by private companies. Robots and AI doing more of the work would be good for me personally. Where they sit on the BES 0 to 10 value scales: economic, left to right, 4 out of 10, within the middle half of voters; social, liberal to authoritarian, 7 out of 10, within the middle half of voters.

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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

this is wrong for several reasons, chief among them the fact that at least one person is on record saying L. Ron Hubbard was good at sex

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Minor irritations: a two-part episode on Richard Sorge in a certain Japanese history themed podcast where his name is pronounced with the natural English pronunciation the entire time and not in the obvious German way

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Doug Winter @doug.winter.cx · 26/09/2026

"The English would really get their tits in a twist if the Faroe Islands were owned by Denmark"

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This would make sense if the Falklands were 2 miles off the Argentinian coast and not 300

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John C @badsocialism.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This has reminded me of the Incredible Spy Comedy Au Service De La France, which pulls no punches about how shittily Paris treated the rest of the Empire

youtu.be

Au service de la France L'indépendance

YouTube video by Silvalining123

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

despite 27 years of disappointment this is still a remarkably effective and amazingly taut bit of film scoring, even once you discount nostalgia; as Ian Skelly's just noted, the way it adapts Wagnerian style and hints of atonality into its general sweep is much cleverer than it sonds.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

“The last mec who didn’t want to cooperate… let’s just say he’s pushing up the daisies.” “Yes, Jean-Luc’s really cornered the market in asters, hasn’t he?”

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Now that’s a first para in a book

Dedication and
Acknowledgements
Mishima Yukio once suggested to me that my admiration for the beauty of Japanese Court culture and the tranquil world of Genji might have obscured the harsher, more tragic side of his country. By concentrating my studies in recent years on men of action, whose brief lives were marked by struggle and turmoil, I have perhaps redressed the balance, and it is to Mishima's memory that I dedicate this book. He and I disagreed about many matters, especially politics, but this never affected my admiration or friendship.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Regular nerdery - first time on the table tonight for some of these guys

No you’re the nerd painting Grand Cathay

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John C @badsocialism.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Okay having just realised in a flash that Rees-Mogg was deliberately quoted Daniel Defoes' explict attack on anti-immigrant politics from 1701 I feel like people should shut up now.

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Thomas I-G @thomasig.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Fucking FINALLY.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Ah, ok, Nathan Fielder is different to Nathan Fillion; this makes a lot more sense now. (Even if I’d never absorbed a single detail about the former until all this kerfuffle)

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

My dad worked at Harwell when I were a lad; in the bits where you spent quite a lot of effort making sure that the pipes in nuclear reactors got all the heat to the right places without melting in the process

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Dean Hochlaf @dhochlaf.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Good on Badenoch to get you so perplexed by the first statement you don't even engage with her intention to fight a winter election in the middle of a potentially major international energy crisis on a platform of slashing financial support from the state

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Abstractly noting, that Japan simultaneously had columns read downwards from the right, rows read right to left (as below) and also rows read left to right in common use all simulateously for a period is one of the many reasons pre-war Japanese is a pain to read

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Ah, BBC Radio 3 news is getting to the “oh fuck off” stage

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Simon H @simonh77.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Saw that the Home Secretary had spoken about the migrant boats and thought we'd finally got her condemnation of the terrorist thugs attacking the RNLI. How wrong I was. What an abomination she is. And what the fuck is wrong with the government.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

As a meta point about where text-focused social media these days is in the importance businesses attach to it; a journalist with nearly 160k followers is having a complete nightmare with BA's AI-enabled customer service and there is nobody from their PR team that I can see trying to tamp it down.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

www.instagram.com/reel/DdoJ1t0... i do love this account from a JApanese student in Manchester for little differences like this where one of the paradoxes of Britishness (a very class-stratified society where daily interactions are remarkably egalitarian to avoid drawing attention to this) comes out

instagram.com

Instagram

Create an account or log in to Instagram - Share what you're into with the people who get you.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Fascinating how the Golden Straightjacket (to riff deliberately off Tom Friedman) is now just a straightjacket in the hands of a property developer, whose sectoral quirks are much underrated in his influences and inability to realise that power is best exercised by not doing so.

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Jonathan Gibbs @jonathangibbs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

A reminder for book designers. The job of a spine is to be noticable, interesting and legible in a bookshop. The job of a cover is to be identifiable when someone cool is reading the book further down the carriage from you the tube.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I’m sorry but “get orf moi land” immediately popped into my head on reading this letter

... In the Agri Brigade article in the August issue you discuss the arguments for and against sheep farming in the upland areas. I noted that when fighting the wildfires, as shown on television, firefighters were assisted by farmers, landowners, gamekeepers and farm workers in controlling the flames and making firebreaks. There was no sign of academics, environmentalists or
conservationists. Perhaps it is time to listen to those who live and work on the land rather than theoreticians sitting safely in offices.
studies or at home.

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Richard J @preachypreach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

One of my primary schools even in the late 80s took a very loose attitude to “a daily act of Christian worship” even back then which led to the ex-hippy music teacher raging at the big kids singing “we all live in a tub of margarine” to Yellow Submarine at the back of the hall.

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