iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Click on this article: notice that Sam Altman has 2 expressions. 1. “I never did that bad thing- calm down, you’re crazy.” and - 2. “Shit! Did you just see me do the bad thing?”

bbc.co.uk

OpenAI bots meddled with US government agencies, including SEC and Census

OpenAI said its bots accessed public data from a range of institutions during test exercises.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

“Trump…the only elephant to walk around with his own china shop…” 😂🤣

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Just a thought, but maybe if the assholes at OpenAI were, I dunno, prosecuted and the company chiefs ruled unfit to run the company, maybe they’d get better at stopping their digital offspring from breaking into everyone else’s stuff?

bbc.co.uk

Why did an OpenAI system hack Australia's health system - and can it be stopped in the future?

News that an automated AI agent hacked a government IT system raises big questions about regulating the tech.

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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Nick Candy and Holly Valance. Britain’s most expensive house. A £265m sale. Usual consequence: £32m of stamp duty. But five small flats were included in the sale. By an extraordinary happy accident, that cut the tax by £18.5m. The curious sale of Nick Candy’s mansion A 🧵:

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

PASSPORT TO PIDDINGTON?… The plucky little people with the Blitz spirit makes a great headline, but also encapsulates the story not told here. We’re having to house large numbers of refugee applicants here precisely because we left the EU. Leaving means you lose rights. 🗳️ =responsibility.

Film poster of the Ealing comedy “Passport to Pimlico”

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

“The reason there are no bands now is because just like the bands before us, in the 1990s Oasis and Primal Skream and Blur and Pulp, we were the mainstream. The music industry doesn’t like the mainstream being a load of fellas on drugs, drunk half the time, on a Tuesday.” 1/

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Beyond the clickbait, here’s the important information the i Paper journalist has omitted to mention in this article: The outdated grid is in the process of being upgraded as we speak. SSEN Pathway to 2030 is a multi-billion pound initiative to strengthen the grid and get the power from…

liveapp.inews.co.uk

The wind farm being paid £300m… to stop producing any power

British energy customers are paying to switch off wind farms that are producing more energy than the network can handle

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

2 crypto billionaires who love the UK but inexplicably live abroad have given £72m to a political party full of austerity Tories and xenophobic flag shaggers because they think it’s ’ready for government’. Nothing to do with lenient crypto policy WHATSOEVER.

bbc.co.uk

Reform receives second £36m donation in two days as crypto investor matches record

Christopher Harborne says he has equalled a donation from Ben Delo - the single largest gift to a UK political party.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Turns out the whole Ice, Iran, tariff Trump dementia clusterfuck of the last season WAS ALL A DREAM! (But the GOP are still full of self-hating gay men). #Dallas

static.klipy.com

Dallas Bobby Ewing

ALT: Dallas Bobby Ewing

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I notice that all the visuals in this article highlight ‘extra’ wiring in the male brain, which unless you closely followed the female brain mapping 2 yrs ago, makes it look like the males are smarter. In fact female fruit 🪰 brains are larger with 30% more cells.

bbc.co.uk

Fly brain wiring map may hold clues for autism and schizophrenia

Comparing the brains of male and female flies may transform our understanding of how genes shape behaviour, including ours.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Giving your lunch money to Biff Tannen again, mighty Apple and Google? Did you really never learn in school how to call out the bullies & win popular mass support so that their “power” evaporates? SHAME- the acronym’s tailor made for you.

bbc.co.uk

Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as Lake America after Trump order

The iPhone maker follows rival technology giant Google in relabelling the Great Lake.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I do find the faux fatalism of the AI companies managing their offspring deeply insulting. Imagine breeding a dog so strong it keeps escaping and attacking neighbours, and saying “yeah, you should probably get a stronger fence. Or just stay inside, or you could feed him?”

bbc.co.uk

AI could cause global economic downturn, Andrew Bailey warns G20

The governor of the Bank of England warned of AI's “volatility” caused by energy shocks from the US-Iran war.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Dial-A-Take reaches perverse new heights in this corruscating Birchill broadside against… all the *other* people with disabilities. 🤪

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Not wanting to start any new media pile-ons, but anyone that can write this sort of incoherent bollox and still call himself an academic has no business at any respected university.

Cofnas article quote reads: “While race realism may be less dangerous than we think, the DEI devil may be more dangerous. Brainwashing generations of children to believe that intractable group differences are the fault of a particular race (whites) that will soon be a shrinking minority can end in a dark place. Even now, when wokism does not pose a serious physical threat to anyone, it has poisoned art, culture, scholarship, and social relationships. White children are brainwashed to despise themselves because of their skin color.
Anecdotally, white children are sometimes driven to transgenderism in an attempt to escape the shameful status of oppressor. The humanities and much of the social sciences have been slain on the altar of DEI. Meaningful art of any kind has become almost impossible. In short, wokism is ruining everything that matters except (for the time being) GDP. The fact that we can imagine a worse-case-scenario end to the hereditarian revolution shouldn't blind us to the dangers of the status quo, and the damage that it has already inflicted upon us.

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Richard Herring @herring1967.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

My goal was to sell 1500 tickets and we're currently 126 sales shy. It's doable, but not certain. Help me make my dreams of a mildly profitable Fringe come true!

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

If you want an illustration of male privilege in action, check out Nige’s police tip off about a credible threat of… embarrassment.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This is your reminder that if the investigations (police and parliamentary) into the Farage’s finances finds he has been dodgy, there can be a petition for a parliamentary recall. It requires 10% (7,595) of the constituents to sign, and Count Binface received 9,455. That’s what he fears.

bbc.co.uk

Farage's by-election victory won't stop questions about finances

Nigel Farage triggered the Clacton by-election and the result was predictable - so what did he achieve?

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The eclipse in Scotland was a wonderful community event- a chance to stand with complete strangers as the cloud gathered, look skyward and say “….Wuz that et?!”

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

If UEFA was Batman, and football was a stadium in Gotham… “This is football. The beautiful game. Consider this a red card, Infantino.” #champions#uefa#FIFA#corruption

static.klipy.com

La Champions League: Estadio Nocturno

ALT: La Champions League: Estadio Nocturno

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

“Wandering and getting lost affects 70% of dementia patients. Symptoms include the urge to "go home" (even when at home), being pursued by red-eyed super soldiers for draft-dodging, or reverting to past routines like going to work. “ Melania better watch out.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Is this lazy sub-editing, poor presentation or click bait by committee? The headline promises to specify which jobs are ‘most vulnerable to AI’, but the article actually measures the improvement of the tech, speed of take up and the overall trends in sectors vulnerable to AI…🧵

bbc.co.uk

Will your job be replaced by AI? Here are the roles most affected

Artificial Intelligence companies make vast claims about their tools replacing human labour - our charts show what's happening.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

At this point, the only way Infantino is keeping Trump awake is by using the World Cup as a kinky gold dildo while Donny tells him about plans for the ballroom for the umpteenth time. I hope there’s a lot of lube.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

“What they lack in flair, Argentina, they more than make up for in….” -making you profoundly hate them for killing any sense of joy and sportsmanship, Alan?

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I swear if Spain score from 30 yds and it clips an Argentinian player on the way in they’ll fall to the floor like they’ve been shot and then get a free kick.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Fantastic - the one decent chance that caused a goal is ruined by YET MORE ARGENTINA THEATRICS. 🙈

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

To be fair, after Messi retires he has a big future in slapstick comedy. #pratfall

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Robin Wigglesworth @robinwigglesworth.ft.com · 19/07/2026

Some notable exceptions but my impression:

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Pretty sure that’s not how to spell “Colourwashing a racist regime” but I’m sure FIFA know best. #WorldCup

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The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Imagine if a woman president spent most her time raving and crying about an election she lost 6 years ago. Emotional. Unstable. Hysterical. Unfit to lead.

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Reposted by Matthew Bates

Duncan Jones @manmademoon.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

May all your authoritarians be in their 80’s, stupid and willing to disseminate evidence against themselves, thinking it proves their point!

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

“1-0 up. Now we go AGAIN!” Takes off a striker and everyone stands back and watches Argentina pass balls around them till they take a shot.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

We have 6 defenders on and 2 very tired strikers left. What could possibly go— 2-1 Argentina.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

"May I introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher," said Dumbledore brightly, into the silence. "Following in his father’s footsteps, with the stud marks to prove it, Giuliano Simeone."

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

🧵 So Farage is preemptively attacking the Commons standards committee in what's a great example of the weaponisation of the Four Pillars of Disordered Doubt against institutional authority to avoid accountability. The sort of thing Russia did against the OPCW, or Trump does with "fake news media"

In his Daily Mail interview, Nigel Farage also claimed that the Commons standards committee, which will impose a punishment if Farage is found to have broken Commons rules, was biased against him.

He said:

There are people on that standards committee who will judge me, who have reported me for Islamophobia. It is going to be a completely subjective judgment. There’s no objectivity in this.

According to Christian Calgie, who interviewed Farage for the Mail, Reform UK sources are describing the committee as a “kangaroo court”.

Allegations about MPs breaking parliamentary rules are investigated by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. He has confirmed that he is investigating the £5m donation. On Tuesday Farage implied undeclared donations from George Cottrell were also being investigated, and Greenberg is also being urged to investigate claims Farage broke lobbying rules.

In his speech on Tuesday Farage implied the standards inquiry was evidence of the establishment using “foul means” to defeat him.

But this is his most explicit attack on the standards committee – and it implies that Farage now believes he will be found guilty of a serious breach of Commons rules.

It is also a move that could see him facing a harsher penalty. The committee regularly imposes harsher punishments on MPs who have not cooperated with or respected the disciplinary process.

In a case with some parallels, Boris Johnson condemned the privileges committee as a “kangaroo court” before it published its final report into him. The committee (comprised of MPs who also serve on the standards committee) said Johnson’s criticism amounted to “a further significant contempt” and this contributed to it proposing a 90-day suspension – which it was not able to enforce because Johnson resigned as an MP first.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

A forgotten copy of the US Declaration of Independence has been found in the UK Archives, dated 1776 and seized from an American ship off the coast of Portugal on Christmas Eve. It was filed as ‘another paper’ when taken and you may be able to guess which day Christmas Day 1776 was….

bbc.co.uk

Rare copy of US Declaration of Independence found by volunteer in UK archives

The newly discovered copy is one of only 11 of its kind in the world.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Man on!- too late. Lucky with the second one. Scotland’s defence need to remember it’s not a Sunday kick about, or this could get embarrassing. ⚽️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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Stansaid Airport @stansaidairport.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

That's the 900 year old Bayeux Tapestry just arrived in the Freight Warehouse, ready for transporting to the British Museum for display. I had a sneak preview and it's absolutely magnificent.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

A decade of us “Taking Back Control” since Brexit was announced, and 6 PMs have resigned after demonstrably failing to exert any control over their own political party let alone the national economy. Politicians haven’t dared call Brexit an act of self-harm, and Farage’s demagoguery is ignored.

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Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Once I had the idea that Chris Mason is doing Starmer's daily horoscope, I could not unhave it. Have a listen with that thought in your head. In terms of pacing, writing, and tone, it could not be more perfect.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

A man demonising non-white unidentified strangers being on Scottish streets while dressed head to toe in black, wearing a balaclava to conceal his identity and being aggressive to police. Oh, the stratospheric irony.

bbc.co.uk

Anti-racism rally disrupted by masked group in Glasgow

Thousands of campaigners marching through the city centre were met by several dozen far-right demonstrators.

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Three- count em, 3! audiobook titles I narrated in the Audible History Hot 100*🔥 * this is clearly not a thing, they call them bestsellers, but I’m trying to sex it up because only middle aged/old white guys tend to read this stuff.

BLITZ by John Nicol, narrated by Matt Bates at 16

SAS The Great Train Raid
By: Damien Lewis narrated by Matt Bates at 28

SAS Great Escapes Five by Damien Lewis
Narrated by: Matt Bates- at 62

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

If a political figure seeking power wanted to disable our rational brains, reduce our capacity for empathy and control media reactions to the world to suit their narcissistic, kleptocratic agenda, what would they do..?

Authoritarianism Hijacks Our Survival Responses
Authoritarian leaders know fear is a powerful political weapon.

They flood the environment with cues of danger - terrorism, "invaders," moral panic - that our neuroception reads as threats. Even if we aren't consciously aware, our bodies react: muscles tensing, hearts racing, or a numb pit in the stomach. Porges notes that when we perceive someone as dangerous (whether true or not), our nervous system automatically launches into defensive behaviors like fight, flight or freeze.

Trauma Responses: Wisdom, Not Weakness (A Decolonial Perspective
It's vital to remember: these trauma responses, fight, flight, freeze, fawn - are not personal failures. They are our bodies' wise attempts to protect us.
If that story is shaped by constant danger, our responses reflect that. In fact, what outsiders might label
"overreactions" or even cultural stereotypes can be the result of historical trauma.

From Survival to Solidarity:
Healing and Action
Understanding all this isn't just an intellectual exercise - it's a call to action.
If fascism works by keeping us in survival mode, then one radical act is to reclaim our ventral vagal safe and social) state.
In practical terms, this means
deliberately fostering safety, connection, and community. Trauma specialist Deb Dana (2018) suggests that we can "stand up for what we believe in... from a place of regulation rather than from a state of protection." In other words, when we feel grounded and safe in our bodies, we can respond to injustice with courage and creativity instead of just reacting out of fear

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Some parties are funded by the subs millions of ordinary workers, and one is funded by a few crypto billionaires ensuring they get low-tax, no regulation and keep all their money. Nige just wants what’s right. Or extreme right.

bbc.co.uk

Crypto billionaires help Reform cement fundraising lead

The party received £7m from two overseas British crypto billionaires earlier this year, figures show

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Matthew Bates @thatmattbates.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

A note to sports enthusiasts who are not UK residents: this is the prime sporting fixture being covered live by the netionsl broadcaster. Cheese rolling on the BBC. Stand by for Sky and TNT to swoop in for the rights.

Shows a group of 10 year old children scrambling up a hill to claim a round of cheese.

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CaptKarnstein @captkarnstein.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Wes Streeting, Angela Raynor, and Andy Burham prepare for Labour leadership fight.

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