iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 11h

Not forgetting the limekiln and quarry!

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Twonks @twonks.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Compaints

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A candidate for running in its own separate VM

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Memories of a physics lecture where the prof strode in and just started writing stuff on the blackboard. Comments: "What's on the LHS?" "Oh, it's Coriolis" went a murmur "You've got the sign wrong" shouted from the back

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Bonny day at the Black Watch monument, Aberfeldy

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Steve Carter @shieldaig.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The Cuillin Hills on Skye, as seen from the Applecross coast road.

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Kat Alderson 🙃 @klaybourne.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

But what if we had MORE dark sarcasm in the classroom?

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Dave Dustin @dustin.nz · 07/10/2026

"YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK"

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Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels @scotsquirrels.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

We collect sightings of red and grey squirrels all year round, but the #GreatScottishSquirrelSurvey is our busiest time of year! Last year, nearly 11% of our total sightings were recorded during the survey week.

A green tile with a map of Scotland covered in red and grey dots. Text reads "Great Scottish Squirrel Survey 2025 results. 1,107 people took part, 1563 sightings, 407 confirmed grey sightings, 1,020 confirmed red sightings. Did you know... you can report red and grey squirrel sightings all year round. Add yours to the map and scottishsquirrels.org.uk"

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I do remember being stalked by an A10 on the back roads in the Fens.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There used to be a house in Aberfeldy named for him. Alas, the new owner decided otherwise twenty years ago.

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U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission @cpsc.gov · 05/10/2026

We had to say spare rocks in this post because we know many Bluesky users have primary rocks.

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This ancient Greek figure from the 2,500 year-old Douris Cup looks uncannily like someone working on a laptop! 😲 💻 He’s actually writing with a stylus on a hinged wax writing tablet! The technology has changed, the posture has not! 😂 Altes Museum, Berlin 📷 by me

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I too was 7 on first seeing it back then; for me the really freaky bit was the monolith buried on the moon with Ligeti's Lux Aeterna. We got the soundtrack LP from my Canadian uncle for Christmas and she'd sometimes put that track on when I was reading on my own down the corridor. (I do miss her!)

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Friends from down south visited other set of friends on west coast of Lewis. They were delighted to hear the nesting corncrakes so close by! But rather less so at 3am. Every night.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Didn't bother paying the extra for 5G-capable phone (2.5 years ago).

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Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels @scotsquirrels.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The #GreatScottishSquirrelSurvey starts today! Keep an eye out for red and grey squirrels wherever you are this week, and record them on our website here: buff.ly/v9EBiHp

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

If Typhoo put the T in Britain, who put the cosine in cosiness? Misread an email header...

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Nick Pettigrew @nick-pettigrew.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I do hope that next weekend comes out of beta testing soon.

Image from Met Office. Sunday is labelled as 'BETA'

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Oliver Strimpel @geologybites.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

🧪⚒️Tiny grains of coesite — quartz that forms only at pressures found about 100 km down — turned up in rocks of western Norway. On the new Geology Bites, Torgeir Andersen explains how buoyant continental crust got that deep, and how it came back. geologybites.com/torgeir-andersen #geology

Eclogite in Vårdalsneset, in the Western Gneiss Region of Norway. In the Western Gneiss Region of Norway, eclogite occurs in pods within the prevailing grey granitic gneiss. The pale green matrix is omphacite, a sodium-rich pyroxene, studded with dark red garnets. The rock began as a gabbro or dolerite intruded into Baltican continental crust long before the Caledonian orogeny, and was converted to eclogite when that crust was dragged to great depth. As Andersen explains in the podcast, eclogite is denser than the mantle; its "life belt" is the lighter granitic gneiss that encloses it.

Ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic rocks around the world. All were formed by subduction zones, and most lie in mountain belts built by continental collision, such as the Caledonides, the Alps and the Himalaya. Most formed within the last 540 million years or so. The oldest, in Brazil and Mali, are about 650–620 million years old; the youngest, in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua New Guinea, described in the podcast, are less than 10 million years old.

Compiled from:
Liou, J.G. et al. (2004), International Geology Review, 46, 1
Liou, J.G. et al. (2009), Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, 35, 199
Warren, C.J. (2013), Solid Earth, 4, 75, and subsequent reports

A) During the Scandian collision — the final phase of the Caledonian orogeny, when Baltica itself collided with Laurentia — about 435–405 million years ago, the leading edge of Baltica — the Western Gneiss Complex (WGC), shown in pink on the map above, together with the rock sheets already stacked on it — was dragged westward beneath Laurentia by the sinking plate it was attached to. Higher rock sheets were thrust eastward over Baltica, building the wedge labelled at the top. The dashed line marks the surface along which the buried rocks, in its footwall, would later return, sliding up past the hanging wall above.

Brueckner, H.K. et al. (2013), Lithosphere, doi: 10.1130/L256.1

(B) By about 405 million years ago, the descending slab had broken off. As Andersen explains in the podcast, once released from its heavy anchor the buoyant continental crust rose back along the former subduction zone, while the whole mountain belt stretched and collapsed, bringing the ultrahigh-pressure rocks up to shallow depths. Note that green here is the mantle, not the rock sheets shown in green on the map above.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A reminder that we already have an epoch for the duration of human interference with the Earth’s climate. It is called the Holocene.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

We'd better not risk another frontal assault; that pika's dynamite!

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

New element SuperscriptH formed in nuclear weapon tests.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Observed whilst idly wandering rough Perth today, a shop with a system running XP desktop. Large windowed application to select terminal emulation type, looking for all the world as if it were designed for Windows 3.1

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Our Welsh salvation story involved losing a wheel from the racecar trailer on the M25, having the trailer flatbed-ed and car towed to Pembrey for 1am. Post scrutineering in the morning, dash into town to find a suitable man and compatible hub and wheel. Scrappy Cavalier to hand did the job just fine

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

As once again I wonder "why haven't I got a bus pass?" on getting the bus back from Perth to somewhere nearer home.

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Take car down to Perth from Aberfeldy for some minor diagnostic work. As you drive in to the garage parking area, the front left coil breaks. This is: a) very inconvenient, as the car is now undriveable b) very convenient, as it is already at the gararge c) minor miracle it hadn't gone sooner

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Went to Portmeirion last week 👍

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Postcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Fritz has an ENORMOUS collection of fossils in his cellar.

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John Tweedie @johntweedie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Next Wednesday 7 October, Nick Lane will be talking at the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow on The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death. #KrebsCycle www.royalphil.org/lecture/chem...

royalphil.org

The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death - The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow

Summary

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

⚒️ #geology and why aren't you following GSG?

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It will outgrow it soon enough!

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Heard Island Government @heardislandgov.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We’ve known about these cousins for a long time, they branched off during a family dispute eons ago after a volatile debate on pebble collecting

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Andy Wightman @andywightman.scot · 28/09/2026

My latest blog discusses the future of this important site. The relevant legal documents are published and I would be interested in the views of others as to whether in fact Castle Tioram is ownerless 4/4 andywightman.scot/2026/09/who-...

andywightman.scot

Who Owns Castle Tioram? - Land Matters

Castle Tioram is located on the tidal island of Eilean Tioram located near the mouth of the River Shiel in Loch Moidart (see map below). The castle was granted to Clan Macdonald of Clanranald by Rober...

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OUGS Social Media @ougeolsoc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Only 24 votes in it! If you haven't voted yet, let it be for slippery, shiny, single graphene sheets of #graphite Dad took me up the very high "mix tower" at the dry battery factory once. Vertiginous... I held on tight to the handrail... my hands were covered in shiny dark grey graphene (pre 2004!)

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Once had a respiratory consultant refer to it as 'Brain Frog'. Accidentally, in front of a few med students.

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World Bollard Association™️ @worldbollardassoc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Probably the greatest parallel parking you’ll ever see. #WorldBollardAssociation

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Please remember to register for Anjana's talk - as it's on Teams there won't be a direct link for you to simply follow tomorrow evening ;-)

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Charnwood Forest Geopark @charnwoodforest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

🎉 We are very excited to announce the opening of a new geosite: Mountsorrel Quarry View! 👉 Developed in partnership with Tarmac, the site features two interpretation points covering geology, quarry operations, restoration work, and biodiversity. 🌐 Read more: www.charnwoodforest.org/new-geosite-...

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