iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Having done an electronic engineering degree with specialism in audio, I just thought that if things had gone differently I could have been the guy whose job it is to ensure that train announcements are completely unintelligible.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

What on earth happened in this field?

An aerial photo of a field next to the A12 which has a pattern of what looks almost like giant cross-stitch left in the crop.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Maybe this sort of thing always happens eventually when organisms start with tool use. Maybe a couple of million years is all you get before inevitably doing something stupid enough to wipe yourself out, and that's why there doesn't seem to be anyone else out there.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

That's the problem with getting Ed in positions of power, you get these sudden unexpected bursts of moral clarity.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Just found this screengrab I took of a Family Guy episode a few years back 'cos I wanted to see what the music was briefly shown on the piano... it's the top line of the Family Guy theme song. Now you know.

A screengrab of one of the first frames of the opening titles of Family Guy showing the music on the piano before the family crowd round it.

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Reposted by Richard Lane

York Community Energy @ycenergy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Next Tuesday is our AGM! We welcome Leo Murray of @ridingsunbeams.bsky.social to give the headline talk on the potential of communities to power Great British Railways. Come along 7:30 for the talks, 6:30 if you want to join in the AGM business fun yorkcommunityenergy.org.uk/event/people...

Image advertising the York Community Energy AGM. Text says:

Tuesday 8th September, 6:30pm,
Harriet Centre, York Cemetery

People Powered Railways
York Community Energy's 2026 AGM

With guest speaker Leo Murray from Riding Sunbeams"

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

@susiedentwords.bsky.social Hello! Don't suppose you'd spell out the Czech Word of the Week you gave in Unspeakable s4e1 broadcast this Monday? My Czech partner was a bit mystified.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

It sounded like it would be complicated, it is complicated.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I'm the last person to attack climate action but looking at how policy around Net Zero is being implemented - in a bureaucratic fudgestorm of dodgily awarded contracts to corporate blaggers in a desperate search for economic growth - it is only a matter of time before it becomes indefensible.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Sometimes you hear something said which you worry might break the Overton window with the force of its own stupidity.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

This is no surprise. A lot of community energy groups looked into these and they're not usually viable: you can't sell the electricity for enough to pay for the steelwork and digging up the car park. Solar carports solve a bunch of problems but only get valued as one solution: energy generation...

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Dr. Black's Medieval Remedies @winstonblack.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

My god, what an image. Dead kings in a plastic box, carried off as the world burns.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

I absolutely endorse this. York Minster spent something like £2m on a carillon that just sounds horrid. Walked part a while ago and heard someone was just noodling on it! No. No. Wrong. Ick. Get rid.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

New Esk video dropped! (or 'released' if you're over 30) yesterday: m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcU... I enjoyed filming it a lot more than it looks like.

m.youtube.com

The Chaffinch / The Blue Tit – Esk – folk viola and guitar

YouTube video by folkviola

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

people saying "huh eclipse who cares boring" ... blimey not to be rude but you guys are all dead inside, hollow shells inhabited only by the last joyless fumes of rotted humanity burped out by a dying imagination. but in the nicest possible way.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Every damn website I go on is all "ohh go on download our app for some reason" and I never do, but meanwhile Google Earth, which has worked brilliantly as an application for ~20 years is saying "oh no we're a website now". They can't even be annoying in the same direction.

Warning element appearing in the Google Earth Pro desktop app "Google Earth Pro on desktop will no longer be available for download beginning June 25, 2027"

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

It's important to only get mad about things that are real.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Hanging around a 16th century guard tower smiling at strangers in an official capacity this morning.

A red marquee surrounded by vaguely heraldic bunting up against the wall of Fishergate Postern Tower in York.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Please pray to any convenient deities or otherwise emit positive thoughts at the cosmos: our solar farm is getting the sign off test to go live at 8:30am tomorrow! 🤞🤞

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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 24/07/2026

Renewables are now the world's largest source of electricity – and the main source of new supplies

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Heard the VAT cut on electricity being talked about on the radio carefully to avoid any hint it might support electricification and help get off fossil gas.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

This is kind of what TikTok seems like to me.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Seems v plausible that the grid might be teetering in the heat & that the operator might try to keep that quiet. But what doesn't ring true is that anyone legit would take those concerns to shadow equalities minister Coutinho, who famously hallucinated a meal tax. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

theguardian.com

Lawyers to investigate claims of GB power grid cover-up over blackout risk

Operator brings in independent legal firm to look into whistleblower allegations relating to June heatwave

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Incredible to see the smoke from the Dovestone moorland wildfire creating a brown haze all the way down into Cheshire - just passing Sandbach and I can still see it stretching off into the distance

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

If you're personally kind but publicly cruel that probably means you're basically cruel but can choose who you mix with.

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Leo Murray @crisortunity.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

SO happy to share the news that @ridingsunbeams.bsky.social is working with our friends @ycenergy.bsky.social on a feasibility study that could see the first MW scale solar farm to connect to a mainline AC electrified railway in the UK be led & majority owned by the local community! 😎🤩🚀

yorkcommunityenergy.org.uk

On track for a community-owned future: new project explores how community energy could power our railways – York Community Energy

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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 02/07/2026

RENEWABLES: They're still wildly popular with the British public, not that you'd realise from news coverage * Only 4% are opposed Even for wind/solar farms in your local area, opposition is very low * 74/68% would either be happy to have a local solar/wind farm, or don't care

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

In the category of "things that I wouldn't have expected ten years ago," the solar farm I'm project managing for @bigsolarcoop.bsky.social has been featured in a supportive CPRE article www.cpre.org.uk/stories/grou... - complete with a selfie of me & the gaffer.

cpre.org.uk

Ground-mounted solar done right

This award winning non-profit solar cooperative exists to develop community-owned solar projects. The Big Solar Co-op's approach is simple: rooftops first, then ground-mounted solar done right.

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Stop Funding Hate @stopfundinghate.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Make hate cost more. Support our new Crowdfunder: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/fight-the-... Show that there is a real cost to pushing hateful rhetoric.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Friends, presenting National Cycle Route Number 1, part of the international North Sea Cycle Route! Who says the UK can't do cycling infrastructure?

A standard wooden field gate bearing a small blue National Cycle Network sign with the number 1 in red. Behind it a partly grassed over gravel track disappears into the distance, rapidly petering out into a narrow silt track through the grassy coastal flat.

The same silt track, replete with stones and sandy dips shown going off into the distance amid tall grasses.

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Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The reality is that successive governments have done bugger all in terms of preparing the UK for today's much hotter climate. let alone what's coming Nothing less than a war-footing is going to cut it, and even then future decades are going to be grim www.theguardian.com/education/20...

theguardian.com

Failure to plan for rising temperatures has left UK’s schools sweltering

Many buildings are in use past their predicted lifespans, but even newer designs lack measures to beat heat

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

This week is a great time to learn the habit of not boiling more water than you need, if you haven't learnt it already. Don't bring in more heat than you need! Or have a pint of water at 90 degrees heating up your kitchen! (This post is mainly aimed at the people who share our office kitchen.)

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 23/06/2026

The burning of fossil fuels in the past should have been prevented The burning of fossil fuels in the future is still preventable We can stop making the same mistake Help us do that

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Put up an external blind ahead of the heat arriving today. Window on the right has been painted with yogurt (not my idea, apparently a suggestion from the University of Loughborough, though could be the agricultural marketing studies dept).

Photo shows a brick semidetacted house focussing on two south facing first floor windows, the left one covered with a sheet pulled tight on poles and the right one looking frosted. The house has solar panels and there's a canopy shading the immediate outside area.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

So yeah we got those panels up. You wouldn't believe how long the last little bit is taking.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

I have been bitten by an insect right on the nipple, the little pervert.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Cory Doctorow: “The most important thing about the gadget isn’t what it does, it’s who it does it for and who it does it to.” - I wish someone had expressed things that pithily when we are all arguing about GM foods in the 00s.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

From a train window I just saw a horsebox with "British Caving Association Artificial Cave" written on it parked in the middle of a field, and all sorts of imaginings are taking place in my mind now. Lots of empty plastic chairs there too, presumably everyone has now gone down the cave.

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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Cars should be a treat that you hire to explore on holiday.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

It's my birthday today. Had a big birthday breakfast, might hike up a Slovenian mountain later but first I asked my MP to reject the horrifying shitshow guidance on trans people and single sex spaces. Wish me a happy birthday by doing that too.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

*This* is why I'm in a union, even though they're all pro-nuclear (WMD as well as civil) and I work in a tiny co-operative.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

EU: work from home, drive less, fly less IEA: try to avoid using oil and especially diesel, increase car sharing UK: hey that Putin, he's not so bad really.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

23 years since the council asked what size new swimming pool we'd like; 22 yrs since the baths were closed; 19 yrs since they were demolished & 5 yrs since a group trying to reclaim the resulting wasteground for community use was violently evicted; ..work is underway on flats at the Barbican site.

And excavator and a dumper on a building site.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

If you're pump-curious here's the space for you. And Ivana will be on BBC Radio York talking about heat pumps around 11:10am on Tuesday.

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Anyone know: is there a petrichor kind of effect that you get from your body when you shower after spending a lot of time outdoors? Or am I just filthier than I thought?

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Richard Lane @richplane.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

The sea of wild garlic in this woodland was intense - can you smell it coming off this photo?

A footpath in a woodland leading away up to some steps with a wooden handrail. On either side of the path the ground is covered with a sea of white wild garlic flowers.

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