iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Sometimes when people disappear you hope they'd stay disappeared. Steve Hilton is definitely in that category.

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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

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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 · 25/09/2026

Obviously its hard to see the wider context but this comes across as quite a tonedeaf "I'm alright jack" message from a very privileged scholar in an institution where staff and students have been fighting to preserve education for years in the face of outrageous mismanagement.

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

I teach this paper every time I run my apocalypse module "Anthropology of Catastrophe". I feel like it's going to have even more resonance this year. Unfortunately.

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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 · 05/09/2026

I've had the misfortune of reading Deming's work, and he really is that stupid.

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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 · 25/08/2026

Relatedly, I've worked with my friend & colleague P.Chuluunbat on an article discussing Mongol Town, looking at the role of migrant labour in Korea for Mongolian identities - how migrants expressed nomadic values & sought to prove their moral worth in ways that seem restricted within Mongolia itself

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

“Mongolians can find their feet anywhere, except in Mongolia”: Mongolian aspirations and the moral value of migrant labour in Korea

This article draws on the narratives of Mongolians who have worked in Korea to explore the experience of migrant labour and the role work abroad plays in Mongolian identities and life projects. Four ...

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The principal problem seems to be the sculpture's staging, the fact that it looks less like a horse drawn upwards to the sky and more like a horse impaled on its back. But even the structural inversion of the life force of the horse twisted upside down attracts ire. Heaps & heaps of angry comments.

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

The controversy is so fierce that I don't know where to begin... This is the piece of art and my facebook algorithm is overwhelmed by people demanding the artist not only removes it but destroys it, hands back his title of honoured artist etc. etc. culture.unccdcop17.org/artwork/255/

culture.unccdcop17.org

Татах хүч — A. Ochirbold — COP17 Art Gallery

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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 · 21/08/2026

Beyond this, my enduring memory of this year's fieldwork will be the queues stretching out along each road. Lines of cars waiting hour after hour outside the petrol stations; the fuel shortage laying bare the extent of Mongolia's exposure to Russia and the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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

..as well as the transactional nature of this (in terms of revenue & vocations) for the continued existence of the English Benedictines. 'Conventuals' shift the ground to the idea of the monastery as a 'reservoir of religion' but it was a slow 100 year retreat from the missioners' marketplace logic.

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

...I've written about this primarily from the point of view of the internal debate between Benedictine 'missioners' and 'conventuals'. But in the language used by missionary-focused monks, there's a clear sense of the competitive nature of this work, the sense of new markets up for grabs...

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

Nice essay. I'd say looking mid to end of 19th century Benedictine sources there was a clear awareness of this phenomenon in senior clergy of the Catholic orders too - a sense of getting 'market share' & (to an extent) competing with other non-conformists in 'mission territory' (e.g. mining areas)..

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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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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 · 02/08/2026

How can people forget that the self-centred and ignorant failure Boris Johnson was the one in charge at the time? It's a stain on our history that I will never forget.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

...харин хүүхдийн ордны хажууд хөшөө байдаг

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

And I thought this one was bad brill.com/display/titl...

brill.com

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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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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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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

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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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 · 18/07/2026

Hannan doesn't even know what a Wigan Kebab (aka Pie Barm) is, he thinks it's just a Kebab - which ironically illustrates everything that's wrong with a London-centred politics cut off from the rest of the country it purports to govern.

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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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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 · 11/07/2026

English men's team. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own teams. Most of the fans of those teams will support Norway tonight.

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Richard Irvine @robotforaday.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Topically, see the relevant number of people with football coaching qualifications in the UK compared other major football countries (especially Spain), & the puzzle of why England and Scotland unperform isn't much of a puzzle. Coaching simply isn't taken seriously - just have a kickabout, right?

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

The shortest night, a fiery horse for the year of the fiery horse

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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

Their incompetence was and is structurally dependent on our competence. So when they try and joke around about it, it's hard to find that funny.

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