iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Richard Irvine

ah lads @popeurbanfox.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

god grant me a big stick to change the things that can be changed with a big stick

Reposted by Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Saline giant, moving" Very excited to receive the published copy of my pamphlet on Potassium today - part of the Errant Elements chapbook project edited by Marina Peterson and Gretchen Bakke

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Saline giant, moving" Very excited to receive the published copy of my pamphlet on Potassium today - part of the Errant Elements chapbook project edited by Marina Peterson and Gretchen Bakke

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Today is the feastday of St Eunan (St Adomnán of Iona) and a day to repost this poem by Eoin McNamee

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Everything about my life and career ultimately comes back to this one game. We still play it as a family every Christmas.

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Fire Brigades Union @fbunational.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#WeRemember the 343 firefighters who lost their lives in the 9/11 terror attacks, 25 years ago today. Many more firefighters have since suffered from diseases likely linked to toxic substances present at ground zero.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

¡Feliz Gibraltar National Day a todos! National Day commemorates the 1967 referendum in which Gibraltar voted to remain British. This national day is the first celebration since the UK-EU agreement that opened the Gibraltar frontier. A day for Gibraltarians to celebrate their self-determination.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Invitation from my former college who are having a reunion and want to make a yearbook of us all 25 years after matriculation: "upload a photo and let us know what you’re up to/what you’ve been up to since Cambridge. This isn’t a competition..." OF COURSE IT'S A BLOODY COMPETITION!!

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

What happened to the Pictish societies of Orkney and Shetland? To what extent did islanders have agency in a time of major social change? An interesting perspective from Andrew Jennings that draws on pirate studies& island studies to rethink the "violent conquest or integration/intermarriage" debate

vikingislands.co.uk

Before the Northern Isles were Norse, were they Viking?

Vikings, Pirates, and the Making of Orkney and Shetland

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

RIP John Jamieson, Scottish firefighter who invented the Distress Signal Unit after a fire in Kilbirnie street, Glasgow in 1972 claimed the lives of 7 firefighters. His invention, which signals for help if firefighters become trapped, injured, or unresponsive, has undoubtedly saved many lives.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Deeply upsetting to read that the American Center for Mongolian Studies are considering deep cuts to their language programme, including making the world-respected language teacher Dr T. Tsermaa redundant. Please sign this petition calling on ACMS to reconsider. www.change.org/p/save-the-m...

change.org

Sign the Petition

Save the Mongolian Language Program at ACMS

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Fascinating and important exhibition for COP17 on nomadic futures and the ethnoarchaeology of Mongolian and Italian pastoralism www.ethnoarchaeology.net/exhibition/m...

ethnoarchaeology.net

Mongolian and Italian Pastoralism - Mongolian Texts - Associazione Italiana di Etnoarcheologia

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"9 to 5, yeah they got you where they want you There's a better life, and you dream about it, don't you? It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it And you spend your life puttin' money in his wallet" RIP Dolly Parton

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

@songsforhorses.com have you been following this angry discourse about the татах хүч sculpture at COP17? I have a feeling its right up your street!

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Been out in Mongolia, speaking about the poet Natsagdorj, but mostly circling ovoos in the Tolbor valley of Khutag Undur sum, Bulgan aimag

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Scottish Universities Press @scotunipress.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

What’s on your reading list this week? 📖 If The vow of stability: An ethnography of monastic life isn’t on your list, now is your chance to add it. Read now: books.sup.ac.uk/sup/catalog/book/su…

Book cover of 'The Vow of Stability' showing a long, arched monastery corridor with light streaming through tall windows.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

@songsforhorses.com Heading back to Mongolia next week and I've bought a copy of your book for the journey, it just arrived in the post today. Looking forward to reading it!

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

"I was far too scared to hit him but I would hit him in a heartbeat now"

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Gibraltarians and Falkland Islanders have overwhelmingly declared their intention to retain British sovereignty. To refuse to accept this is not anti-imperialism - it is quite the opposite.

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

People who oppose the right to self-determination of the Falkland Islanders or the Gibraltarians are telling on themselves - they are the colonialists who disregard the democratic will of the population, they are the nationalists who believe in fictions of "territorial integrity" over human life.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is an absolute disaster of an interview. Rouse comes across as arrogant and, in places, ignorant. It's probably making people think the whole dumb "Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities" has a point.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Living in an island group that was Norse until 1472, and is the only part of the UK that celebrates Norwegian Constitution Day, I think it's a fair bet which side will be getting the most support in tonight's football match between England and Norway.

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Dublin Fire Brigade @dubfirebrigade.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Have you tested your smoke alarm lately? We recommend testing them once a week and you should have one installed per floor of your home.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

"Fire answered fire from the hill-tops, till all Orkney was a dapple of flame and shadow in the midsummer midnight. It was the great Johnsmas fire... At the fire on the hilltop the young men and women danced among the flames till morning" George Mackay Brown Fire in Egilsay at the Solstice Festival

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Call it what it is - it's terrorism, and we need to root out these far right terrorists by any means necessary.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

"'Less is more.' By knowing less, by narrowing the scope of our inquiry, we hope to understand more. This cognitive shift has been compared to the dilation and constriction of a camera lens. One might call this approach microhistory, but labels are ultimately irrelevant." RIP Carlo Ginzburg

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

I've worked out one of the reasons I get so wound up in academic gatherings. Among pre-financial crash academics, there's often a kind of performative, jolly incompetence around practical matters like IT, admin tasks, & newfangled (i.e. anything within the last, say, decade and a half) ideas...

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

One of the great pleasures of summer is listening to Test Match Special as you write.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

A thread about Magnifica Humanitas. I'll stop banging on about it for now

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I finished reading Pope Leo's first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas last night. With its call to 'disarm' AI, it's pretty bold. "With the heart of a shepherd and a father, I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good"

vatican.va

Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026)

ENCYCLICAL LETTER MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [ Multimedia ] ___________________________

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

As part of my teaching on contemporary catastrophe & anthropology of apocalypse, I've been researching emerging Catholic social teaching around AI. Last year I wrote a thread commenting on Antiqua et nova, & today I'll be reading Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo's first encyclical on this very topic.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Some happy fieldwork memories from the Cambridgeshire chalk hills... At Pentecost we would go to Whaddon where dancers would sing the Whitsun Song while carrying their "royal branch of oak" through the street and into the church. And then on to the golf club for a beer/cider festival.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Ah, the vacation, finally time to work on my very nearly completed draft paper on AI apocalypse and Catholic social teaching. Shouldn't take long, a day's work maybe and I can hit submit on it. Oh wait, what's this... www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...

vaticannews.va

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25 - Vatican News

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence, will be released on May ...

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Today's game between Celtic & Hearts is an existential moment for Scottish football. Celtic (& Rangers) massively dwarf their rivals in terms of spending. For years the league has been uncompetitive and characterised by poor quality football. A dominant yet mediocre Celtic have suffocated the game.

swissramble.substack.com

Hearts Finances 2024/25

Shapeshifter

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Bad teachers make bad scholars. That is a hill that I am more than happy to die on. It reveals something fundamental about the way they approach research. And the class of academics who spend their entire lives hunting out ways to buy themselves out of teaching are worthy only of contempt.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Whenever Russell Brand is in the news there are a lot of absolute weirdos whose first response is to trash Mark Fisher. What a ridiculous world we live in.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

"Do you want me, a helpful robot, to summarise the key points of the text?" "No, I want to read it and to be annoyed by it, thank you very much."

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

More than ever, I'm convinced that LEARNING WHAT YOU DON'T LIKE is a key aspect of academic reading. Students expressing frustration with a text because they disagree/ it winds them up/ bores them/ they think the point is laboured - that's part of the learning process that can't be outsourced to AI!

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

handle.invalid @handle.invalid · 30/03/2026

I obtained an internal Party document from Inner Mongolia University, stamped "strictly prohibited from external distribution," that details 19 directives for eliminating the Mongolian language. The original Chinese PDF is also available for download. open.substack.com/pub/soyonbo/...

open.substack.com

'Must Be Corrected': A Leaked University Document Reveals China's Plan to Erase the Mongolian Language

An internal Party directive from Inner Mongolia University

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Reposted by Richard Irvine

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 09/03/2026

I didna speak whan it bleetert doon. Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had the bastes in an’ the fowl settled… —Eunice Buchanan, “Wife to Noah” published in MARKINGS 30 (2010) #poem #poetry www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/wife-no...

Wife to Noah
Eunice Buchanan

I didna speak
whan it bleetert doon.
Ma man wis gey taen up wi’ getting us
sortit, an’ it wis fell lang afore we had
the bastes in an’ the fowl settled.

I didna speak
whan the watters spewed
ower ma rigs o’ corn an’ doon the street
intae ma hoose amangst ma rugs
an’ the bonny things I had fae ma mither.

I didna speak
whan I heard ma frien
Becca battrin at the howe o’ wir boat,
her bairn in her airms, yowlin like een
o’ the damned o’Hell. We had linkit
doon the years fae bairnie tae wife.
Ma bonny hinnie, weel-hertit Becca.
I clappit ma haunds tae ma lugs
an’ flung ma airms aboot ma laddies,
but still I didna speak

I didna speak
whan the lift grew black an’ blacker
an’ there wis naither muin nor sun an’ the cries
that had been aa aboot us wir smoored.
Nae soond on that black sea but the doonfa, the dreep,
the plowt, the pish-oot o’ grey watter on grey watter.

I canna speak
o’ the things on the watter
as the days drave on – swollen an’ blae,
wi the sea-maws skirlin an’ pickin, skirlin an’ pickin.
Syne whan the well-heid dried an’ the watters sank,
the laund, oor bonny laund, slaich an’ slairy
wi’ black glaur,
an’ oorsels alane.

But whan I gang the low road on the hinmaist day
an’ I climb the steps for my tryst wi’ God
I will look the Almichty in the face –
an’ I will hae ma say.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

The gross ignorance about Tourettes syndrome that's been demonstrated in the last 24 hours is truly sad. There's a eugenic logic about it: implying that neurodivergence is a moral failing to be apologised for, suggesting they shouldn't be in public if they can't control themselves, etc. etc.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Not the nature writing we need, but the nature writing we deserve etc.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Hard to know how to frame the fact that 4 of the scholars whose perspectives I taught today appear in the Epstein papers. The big question is: what was it about the "cognitive revolution" & evolutionary psychology that meant Epstein was so focussed on cultivating this circle of academics?

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Today Rousay* lost 11-7 after taking clawing back to 7-7 against Firth in the semi final. Heartbroken. * (Technically Rousay, Egilsay, and Wyre; and probably our best performer today was from Wyre)

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