iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Feeling some sympathy for the Czech mens’ football team and their fans. Not only have they lost their best player to a red card, but they’re having to listen to the England band‘s horrific noise. Nobody deserves that.

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Whenever a football player gets a red card the commentators claim it makes things more difficult for the other team. Fine, if that’s true then I propose that a red card allows the team receiving it to field an extra player. I wouldn’t mind football cliches so much if they weren’t quite so stupid.

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

When Watson writes to bemoan criticism of ‘people building Britain’s technological future’ he neglects to mention that his company’s vision of that future is as a vassal state under control of an authoritarian techno-theocracy run by a madman. Utterly disingenuous stuff, Watson is so disappointing.

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You could literally replace ‘Palantir’ with ‘Acme Child-Liquidising Ltd.’ without distorting Watson’s argument that the nature of the work doesn’t matter when calculating the benefit. There wouldn’t be an NHS without the NI contributions of those junior kiddie-macerators you know!

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Is it: “I’m an AI consultant.”?

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Alan Richardson @alanrichardson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Wow, Burnham has really riled up right wing pensioners. It is interesting watch how they respond to the idea that poorer people shouldn’t have money taken off them to benefit richer people - not well. Same deal their anger at being told Brexit was bad, something that’s just true.

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This is why all university classrooms are just silent writing exercises

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Johannes Franzen @johannesfranzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Incredible stuff.

Commentary|Essay

AI and the crisis of the author

By Anchit Sathi

September 4, 2026
Read this issue

Editor’s note (September 21, 2026): We have removed this essay. AI was used in its preparation. The TLS editorial guidelines prohibit the use of AI in the writing and editing process. The author states that he was unaware of the policy.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Shelagh Fogarty on LBC claiming that no matter what you think of Restore, they’ve a right to campaign unimpeded. No. If it’s campaigning for authoritarianism & against the equal political status of citizens, a party shouldn’t even have the right to stand in a democracy. Away with that nonsense.

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'A Department for Education spokesperson said' a tiny word salad of vapid things that did not address the higher education crisis are frankly not worth quoting.

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Meanwhile, the government insists that any financial problems are purely the fault of individual universities & that those problems can be solved with so-called efficiencies (code for cuts, worse services, job losses, poor working conditions).

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Environmental Justice: Key Issues

I'm checking proofs of 2 book chapters today. Looking forward to both collections: 2nd ed of Environmental Justice: Key Issues (edited by @bcoolsaet.bsky.social) & Zoopolitical Thought (edited by @serrinrp.bsky.social & André Krebber). First one can be pre-ordered: www.routledge.com/Environmenta...

routledge.com

Revised and fully updated, Environmental Justice: Key Issues offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of environmental justice, one of the most dynamic fields in environmental politics scholarsh...

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I'm largely convinced an editor's comments on a piece of popular writing I'm working on have been written using AI. It's giving me the ick and making me super grumpy while I write.

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No, the model did not ‘know’ anything. It drives me nuts that it’s almost impossible to attribute a mental state to a nonhuman animal without someone raising a worry about anthropomorphisation or demanding an absurd evidential barrier be overcome, but with LLMs it’s fine. They are not conscious ffs.

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Trump says men arrested at UK air base used by US were looking to do 'big damage'

Fascinated by the guys arrested over the RAF Fairford panic being released on bail. I don’t imagine you do that if you think they‘re terrorist bombers. That’d make Donald Trump’s claims about them total bullshit, which entirely tracks with everything we know abut him: www.reuters.com/world/uk/sec...

reuters.com

An Iranian-linked motive is considered the most likely, a source familiar with the investigation said, while a Russian sabotage operation or an Islamist plot were also being looked at.

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Dr Emily Emmott @ehemmott.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Other perfectly reasonable questions are: “Is Isabel Oakeshott a horrible racist?” and “For how long as she been one?”

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Maternity Cover role in Environmental Anthropology at UCL, within our Biological Anthropology section. We are a nice bunch - Apply by 7th October! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

ucl.ac.uk

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

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cmrn knzlmn @ckunzelman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

If you are a graduate student in the humanities (construed as broadly as possible), what is the MOST EXCITING book published in the last five years to you? Please repost if you’re not a graduate student!

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Five men in balaclavas acting suspiciously, three vans - it’s going to be fly-tipping or nicking diesel from the base. Others have already suggested dogging (horror), but maybe they were just innocent paintballers!

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Robin Potter @robinpotter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It feels less like that higher education isn’t high on government's priority list & more like it is not even on the list, often that the government is actively hostile to HE.

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Have thought for a while the UK needs to better recognise the public interest in political policy development Also linked to the need to limit impact of excessive private donations, think we should look to German model of government funded political foundations (stiftungs)

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I'm increasingly disillusioned with the (policy) ideas ecosystem in the UK - it seems like underlying (social) scientific research is less and less influential and there's increasing dominance of PR and pseudo-research.

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Martin Greenaway @mgreenaw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

There are a bunch of people in the political apparatus who are confused as to why Russia doesn't take us seriously.

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Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Every French presidential poll LADY HITLER - 35% JEAN D'AUSTÉRITÉ - 18% CHUD COMMUNISTE - 17%

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One of my students is writing her dissertation on Palantir, techno-feudalism, & the NHS. A super exciting bit of work. Sadly, I’ve introduced her to some of the underlying repugnant influences: Thiel, Yarvin, Srinivasan, Andressen, the Freedom Cities people, etc. I feel bad, many content warnings.

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Teachers at Euan Blair firm report ‘horrendous stress’ after AI used to rate their work

It appears that Tony Blair’s toxic love affair with AI appears to run in the family. Interesting to see that applying this stuff in practice simply results in sick workers, injustice, & hellish dystopia - no surprises, it’s just as predicted. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

Exclusive: Instructors at tech training company Multiverse hit out at ‘remorseless’ and ‘unnerving’ monitoring system

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Start of teaching this week, so I'm trying to get all of my ducks in a row: accessibility, VLE, class registers, etc. We've just had a massive re-organisation of professional services (which we can all see is going to worsen service) & so naturally nothing is working & sorting it out is a nightmare.

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I've just been looking through my paperwork for some teaching materials and found this from 2023. I can't remember whether I printed it because it was useful or because of how implausible it sounded. Anyway, insert bitter laughter here.

2 Mar 2023
Next REF could 'liberate creativity'.
Research Professional News
By Sophie Inge

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I dunno, is the cute little guy also an abuser?

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"In order to deliver the PM's promise to save social care we need a permanent class of indentured migrant workers without labour rights".

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It’s all about chasing billionaire grants baby.

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Do those unrealistically high-standards include not wanting to be impregnated by selfish misogynists who bang on about wokeness, immigrants, & hating Meghan Markle all the time? I don’t understand why women don’t find those things romantic.

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One could almost believe that the AfD are sympathetic towards the Nazis.

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