iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Stone using the penthouse unconventionally, Moon more normally. Bonus of a Chime in a bucket.

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Atrios @eschatonblog.com · 27/08/2026

i do not think "populism" is a very useful word when people use it to mean both "right wing white nationalists" and "left wingers who want higher taxes on rich people and medicare for all"

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Holly Baleen @hollybaleen.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

From Will Self of all people, an absolutely clinical deconstruction of Kathleen Stock. Nice to know that some writers can see through some of the GC crowd.

J'accuse Kathleen Stock of helping convert an allegation of academic misconduct into the story of 'Cambridge's DEI darling', thereby making Arday's institutional and racial symbolism integral to the accusation. There's no need to label Stock transphobic: she's done it herself, whatever the nonsense she spouts about 'gender criticality'; just as there's no need to demonstrate that her personal agon is that she hasn't been allowed to peddle her own prejudices in return for status and prestige: that, too, she has amply confirmed through her writings and public statements. She, and her supporters clearly feel they are winning: I wonder if they know what that will look like, or how high the body-count will have to go before they're satisfied.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Since people seemed to enjoy seeing Chime, here are Moon (lying) and Stone, the slightly older brothers. (They're ten months.) Plus all three in their tree.

Two ragdoll kittens looking into the camera.

Three ragdoll kittens in an absurdly large cat tree.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

A rare picture of Chime, the beautiful differently abled* baby, on my lap. * cerebellar hypoplasia

A ragdoll kitten staring into the camera, on the lap of a man in basketball shorts.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Good to have rediscovered an old hobby, and I've enjoyed learning the new-to-me FTO (the octahedron). I won't ever be quick, but that's ok.

A box with 2x2 up to 5x5 "Rubik's" cubes, a Skewb, and an FTO. At the side, a Megaminx (dodecahedron) and Pyraminx (tetrahedron). Nerdvana.

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Kate Watson @loreandordure.com · 30/11/2023

Once again for those at the back: ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead’ is about your great aunt Elsie, who liked a long gin with a short tonic at elevenses, and blew your inheritance money betting on the horses. Speaking ill of absolute monsters is a moral obligation, actually.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

With wife. All hail wife.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I did not have "a statement from the Church of Wales makes me weep with gratitude for a bit of common fucking humanity" on my bingo card, but there you are.

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Jessica Ritchey @jmritchey.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

The tell with all of this is your kids can be taught by sex bots dressed up like John Oliver, but the tech barons send their kids to schools where they don't allow phones and there is an art AND music teacher.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

This is so beautiful, and painful, and joyful. I really loved it, and I'm a mess.

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Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 30/06/2026

We really need to accept that our kids childhoods aren't and cannot be like ours. Like sure, I grew up with no phone and no computer but that was 30 years ago!!! Time moves on and it's unkind, yes--but you won't stop change.

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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 26/06/2026

Tesco is extending its Kids Eat Free scheme to 7 days a week over the summer, where children get a free meal with an adult purchase, but honestly, this detail about how small the adult purchase can be broke my heart.

The Café and The Coffee Shop in Tesco will be offering one free Kids Hot Meal Deal, Kids Breakfast or Kids Pick ‘n’ Mix deal with any full price adult purchase when they scan their Tesco Clubcard. **The adult purchase could be something as small as an apple costing just 65 pence.** And with no limit to the number of Kid’s meals you can redeem, families of all sizes can benefit too.

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Sooz Kempner @soozuk.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Remember, when "the billionaire owned right wing media" hounded out Starmer it was bad, upsetting, devastating for decent people. Labour polled at 18%. When "he billionaire owned right wing media" hounded out Corbyn it was good, right, a relief to ordinary people. Labour finished polling at 32%.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

TIL: John Berry Meachum was born enslaved in 1789, bought his freedom at 21 with his carpentry work. At age 32, he set up schools in St. Louis to educate enslaved children. When Missouri passed a law to make that illegal, he bought a steamboat, anchored it in the middle of the Mississippi...

theamericanblackstory.com

DAY 1 — John Berry Meachum & the Floating Freedom School

A lithograph portrait of John Berry Meachum, courtesy of the Missouri Encyclopedia. John Berry Meachum specialized in freedom. Born enslaved in 1789, it took 21 years and an agreeable owner to purc…

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I'm a "not". And he's right.

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Alisha Grauso (She/Her) @alishagrauso.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Our entire economy is being artificially propped up by astrology for men: AI, crypto, sports betting, and prediction markets. It's an economy shaped entirely by male insecurity and lack of impulse control, and we'll all pay the price.

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Mark Grimshaw @markgrimshawtism.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Just to be clear how little I’m exaggerating, in 2016, the UK Government actually advised trans people against travelling to certain US states due to the implementation of bathroom bans. @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social is now implementing those same bans across the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-u...

bbc.co.uk

UK warns gay travellers about US anti-LGBT laws

The UK government warns LGBT travellers to be careful in the US due to laws affecting LGBT people in North Carolina and Mississippi.

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

It really is quite the thing to be wackier and massively nastier than e.g. the early Brexit era Tories of 2017, but here we are.

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Nikola @greasyboiler.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

There are a lot reasons to be angry with Labour but for me this is the main one: they looked at the UK's vast resentment machine & said, yes we can make that work for us because we're the smart politics guys. They've failed miserably & in the process helped embed a punch-down ethos across the board.

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Ben Phillips @benphillips76.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Sharing, without comment, British newspapers’ depictions of the only Jewish person currently leading a UK political party . Times. Mail. Telegraph. Sun.

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Diane Duane @diane.dianeduane.com · 02/05/2026

So, friends: I promised I'd tell the story. Now I shall. Let a (former) psych nurse tell you the true (gods help us) story of a night in a big-time NYC emergency room: and the arrival of The Man With The Bloomingdales Bag. (1/n)

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Paolo Bacigalupi @paolobacigalupi.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

People often frame this as "cigarettes will kill you" which yeah. True. But first they'll attach you to an oxygen tank and leave you gasping and barely able to walk, a pale half-alive zombie for your last decade while all your friends who didn't smoke live and laugh and sing and climb mountains.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Interesting that I've seen multiple articles, as these centenary table tennis world championships begin in London, about Tin-Tin Ho (27, English, ranked about 150 in women's world) and not one about Anna Hursey (19, Welsh, ranked about 50). "National" newspapers, eh.

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Mz. April Daniels ⚧ @aprildaniels.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

When radioactivity was discovered, there was a rush to market for all sorts of radioactive consumer goods. There were water jugs made out of uranium glass, for example. I think about that a lot these days whenever I see AI products being marketed to consumers.

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Tamar but spooky @heartinamber.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Still remarkable to me that half the world is doing 'unrestricted social media usage is bad for kids' and 'we need to put chatbots that tell you to kill your family in every classroom and every toy' at the same time

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

On the topic of Rubicons crossed, that's the first time I've ever shouted "WHY are you in the TOASTER" at a cat.

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yoshimi red @yoshimired.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Japanese sci-fi: two robots in space, yearning American sci-fi: man gets the author's beliefs on polygamy confirmed by the aliens of ramalama IV french sci-fi: two horny bounty hunters visit the Galaxy of Breasts British sci-fi: nuclear war. Everyone dead. America's fault

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Edwin Roorda @eskyroo.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Read the linked article and Cory D is articulating an observation that I don't see a solution to. Our capitalistic society elevates and rewards the hustler. What are we to do with cheaters and hustlers? They have "Captured the means of production": ALL labor and productivity benefits above the mean.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Why I'm not worried about AI replacing meaningful work: look at the fucking state of it. Google search is now almost useless. Some of that's greed, but plenty is LLMs. MS has jumped on the LLM coding train. Two years ago, Word mostly worked. Now, it's so bad I've gone back to LaTeX. It's SHIT.

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Asher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

A number of Jewish organizations are shrilly insisting that any criticism of Israeli genocide and warmongering is an illegitimate attack on Jews. At the same time, an increasing number of non-Jewish people are insisting that any attack on Jews is a legitimate attack on Israel. This sucks, man

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Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 02/03/2026

It is SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE, you bastards

Every speech on the subject given by any involved party begins by deploring even the idea of war. A war here would not be legal or useful. It is not necessary or appropriate. It must be avoided. Immediately following this proud declamation comes a series of circumlocutions, circumventions and rhetorico-circumambulations which make it clear that we will go to war, but not really, because we don’t want to and aren’t allowed to, so what we’re doing is in fact some kind of hyper-violent peace in which people will die. We are going to un-war.

The difficulty is what happens next, which is that various nations and groups of nations who are notionally friendly to one another and here for identical, similar or compatible purposes get into disagreements. The good kind of disagreement comes to an end with harsh words and apologies, but disagreements between men and women trained to kill and armed with the best weapons available, who know that they are disagreeing with people who are similarly trained and equipped, are generally the other sort. Giving someone a jolly good talking-to becomes an exchange of warning shots and suddenly there’s a minor battle going on. Minor battles become international incidents; international incidents foster distrust; distrust fosters conflict.

It’s almost as if, now that this place exists as a war zone, everyone feels it would be rude not to use it.

Cover of the UK paperback of The Gone-Away World: black with red spatters or cracks stretching horizontally across the middle. What text with the title abd my name.

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Jordan aka Jirdan @slclunk.com · 28/02/2026

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

If Reform had won, Labour's statement would be that this result is a stark reminder we need to listen and learn from voters who rightly feel betrayed by modern politics. But the Greens won by a comfortable margin, so it's: these voters are stupid and also sinister and, ugh, Muslims

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Jay Hulme @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

"in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war." - Ilya Kaminsky

We Lived Happily during the War

And when they bombed other people's houses, we

protested but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house-

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

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Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.

A 2 panel sketch disgram of a 1 meter tall pod. in the second panel, an oval section pops off and a demonic little face with short tentacles flies out, crudely drawn.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

This really brings home to me just how wildly different American universities are to British ones. I went to university to read mathematics, and ALL my courses were in mathematics. We're much more specialised at 18 then they are at 22. (I have no particular view on whether this is good or not.)

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Seemingly I am now determined as both warm and safe.

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Dr Rick @rfbooth.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

These gentlemen moved in with us on Friday. So far we all seem to be happy about it. They were nearly Miles and Ivan, but we decided on Moon and Stone x @marthawells.com

Four pictures of two ragdoll kittens snuggled up together in various places. They're much too cute.

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Stephen @tgk.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Everybody shut the fuck up and pay attention to the most important thing happening at this moment.

An instagram post by Sarah Michelle Gellar, where she shares a screenshot of a tweet by user @godimsuchadyke.

The tweet is a photo of Buffy and Faith standing close together lesbianly from Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with the caption "this was my heated rivalry".

Sarah thanks user @godimsuchadyke in the caption of her post.

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Andy Fleming @slackbastard.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

2/ ~old jk is best jk~

Grosdoriane tweets:

'This is NOT what America is about. America is about *opens history book*

uh oh

*Frantically starts flipping though pages*

uh oh. oh no. no no no. uh oh'

4:51 AM · May 25, 2019

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Nanoraptor @nanoraptor.danamania.com · 06/11/2025

Can confirm. I was just past my 53rd birthday. And then going from knowing the biology of sex determination being a bit fuzzy (bimodal distribution, shared traits, no one single definition etc) to *living* with the fallout from it and forced to be conscious of it every day IS A COMPLETE HEADFUCK.

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

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Nicholas Whyte 白怀珂 @nwhyte.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

“When I first learned about Tonga’s internet outage, I thought its citizens must have been hurled back to the 1990s. But in fact ...Tonga was plunged into the kind of isolation it hadn’t seen in more than a century.” www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

theguardian.com

Extremely offline: what happened when a Pacific island was cut off from the internet | Samanth Subramanian

A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world – and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life

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