iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 3h

Yeah, I found the first episode solid but unspectacular, but episode 2 is notable step up, and it's absolutely flying from 3 onwards, you've got a lot of great stuff to look forward to!

010

Reposted by Tim Leach

Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 9h

My favourite Annie Dillard quote, from THE WRITING LIFE

Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.

The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that page will teach you to write.

423378

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 15h

26. Lanterns Great fun, and builds towards something surprisingly thoughtful and a little bit melancholic by the end. Brilliant performances by the central trio.

000

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 20h

Another plus point for Jonathan Bailey's Slutty Little Glasses...

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 20h

Such wondrous, joyous memories of my parents reading to me and telling me stories as a child. Absolute treasures that will warm my soul till the day I die.

000

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 20h

What is particularly tedious is that such folks usually consider themselves to be daring, bold, original thinkers. Wanting to murder your political opponents is the least interesting, original, and sophisticated position imaginable. It is the political philosophy of a child having a tantrum.

0200

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"So do you mean that as a good thing or a bad thing?" "Yes."

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Yeah, that's very much been my sense of things over there, just seems to be much more naturally integrated, glad I'm not completely projecting that feeling!

000

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Yeah, imagine being a billionaire and having to abase yourself before stupidity in this way! I thought the whole point of having fuck you money was being able to say fuck you.

000

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I'm trying not to be too much of a rose tinted loved up Francophile at the moment, but it's something notice when I'm there, how nice it is to be in a country that actually likes and celebrates its own culture.

110

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Aye, and I think it's a reflection of broader trends in attitudes to culture in the UK, there's something self-deprecating and apologetic in the way we talk about hefty cultural stuff.

110

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Similarly, when someone talks about finding money through efficiency savings in public services you absolutely know they are talking shit.

040

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Aye. I'm not Jewish, but the social media responses that day were incredibly disturbing to me, because they came from 'inside the house', so to speak. Lots of left-wing folks I would have thought to be decent, thoughtful people, who were clearly exhilirated by mass murder. Changed me forever.

020

Reposted by Tim Leach

Dr Dean Burnett @drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"By using AI, tasks like essays that used to take hours can be completed in minutes!" Sure, like how if I arrive at the gym and immediately go for a shower, my workout is done in record time. And if I throw my sandwiches straight in the bin, I can finish my lunch in under 10 seconds.

7069831909

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Boris Johnson was staggeringly lazy, but he KNEW he was lazy, and found ways (for a time) to compensate or cover for this.

000

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's that particularly lethal mix of being lazy and not very bright whilst simultaneously believing yourself to be the smartest, hardest working person in the room. (We've probably all had bosses like this at one time or another.)

110

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It's like getting back together with your ex - you can see it's obviously a disaster when someone else does it, but when your bad ex comes calling, you convince yourself that you can make it work this time...

010

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

48. Brigands and Breadknives, Travis Baldtree Very cosy and charming, though I don't think it's as good as the previous books in the series (Fern is a less enjoyable protagonist than Viv).

000

Reposted by Tim Leach

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”

119115962877

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The second paragraph reads like a particularly punchy TripAdvisor review...

062

Reposted by Tim Leach

Failbetter Games | Wishlist Mandrake on Steam! @failbettergames.com · 30/09/2026

We're hiring! We're looking for a Writer and Narrative Designer to join the Fallen London team at a senior or mid level. This position is permanent, remote, and full time, which for us means 35 hours a week. #GamesJobs

Night. The House of Chimes - a tower which you might immediately think of as Big Ben - is adrift in the River Thames. It still seems to be keeping time. In the background, a large, alien building looms over the city of London.

3816991091

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I want a bot that notifies me every time you use that Call My Agent meme, it makes me so happy every time.

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"I hear she slipped out of a marshal's handcuffs just outside of Tombstone, just like she slipped out of that noose in Dodge City."

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

That's the fun* thing about prejudice, you get to be be so many contradictory things at once, and contain multitudes! *Bad, terrible, horrible, evil.

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

25. Strange New Worlds (Season 4) Delightful. Some folks have found the season too jokey and gimmicky, but it is such a great cast, I love seeing them play and have a fun time. Captures some of that Next Generation joy, where you're watching repertory theatre but in space, different every week.

100

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yeah, French rural property seems brain breakingly cheap to the English mind, but they're actually just reasonably priced old houses that haven't gone through decades of insane increases.

150

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

My memories of teenage socialising are reasonably positive, but definitely were fuelled by "we will do basically anything to get out of the house and kill the boredom".

010

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yeah, teenagers tend to get a hostile reception if they hang out in public spaces, and they all have an Infinite Scrollable Dopamine machine in their pockets, so it's not hard to see why they're not hanging out at bus stops with a bottle of Frosty Jacks so much any more.

110

Reposted by Tim Leach

Bex Luther @superbreeze.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

When Smeagol is your Evri courier

08219

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's sort of mad that it feels safer to get a hundred year old terrace (usually drafty and damp but solid) than a new build.

120

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yeah, I'm from there and my parents still live there. The flags are proper grim and make me sad when I go back, though I can't say I'm too surprised overall.

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

47. The End of Everything, M John Harrison Strange and dreamy, highly readable but resists comprehension. Perhaps best approached as a kind of dreamscape more than anything else (the vibes are impeccable, a kind of English version of Roadside Picnic).

211

Reposted by Tim Leach

Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.

10381692845

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Seems highly likely, especially if the police and home office don't don't respond.

110

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's also (though much more morally grey) the point of anti-fascist organisations that come willing to fight. Being beaten up (or the threat of being beaten up) isn't fun.

170

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

That's the point of peaceful counterprotests - being massively outnumbered by students and hippies who chant and make fun of you isn't fun. Getting nicked by the police isn't fun.

1100

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Aye. Fundamentally, you've got to make it Not Fun to do this kind of thing. The Far Right take to the street and do thuggery for ideology to a certain extent, but also because (to a certain mindset) it's fun and it makes you feel powerful.

1121

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Yeah, and you can see the fairly clear line of progression already from what happens when you leave them alone. Left to block a ferry port in balaclavas, so they moved on to blocking a lifeboat station, then on to slashing a dingy at sea.

020

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

24. Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Season 2) More classic 80s/90s space opera - thoughtful political drama, set to a soaring classical soundtrack. A delight.

101

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"Chvrches good at music" is going to join "Pope is Catholic" and "bear shits in woods" as statements of the obvious if they keep this up.

010

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Ooh, the trailer did look good! I'm currently obsessed with all things French, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for when it comes out...

110

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

21. Resident Evil Tremendous fun, a proper rollercoaster of a film that moves smoothly from one great set piece to the next. The opening section is the best part, and the ending gets a little silly, but a great time at the cinema overall.

100

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'd love a 'Bush League' tier of subscription, which just gave access to Stephen Bush's writing.

010

Reposted by Tim Leach

George Pearkes @peark.es · 22/09/2026

Remarkable thread, very good explanation by @yeomans.bsky.social I'm left with the question: what on earth are the legal authorities in the UK up to?

513221

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yeah, I find the whole debate quite bizarre for this reason. They're fooling people with a combination of impressive statistical modelling and our innate tendency towards anthropomorphism.

052

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yeah, he was great. Could have watched a full 90 minutes of him interrogating Tweety Bird.

010

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

20. Coyote vs Acme Very charming and a solid good time, though I think most of the human actors didn't quite pitch the performances right (apart from John Cena, who fully understood the assignment). The central idea (persistence in the face of failure) feels timely, and surprisingly moving!

210

Tim Leach @timleachwriter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

That's a good one! No spoilers, but keep your wits about you right at the very end...

130