iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Found this cute snail in a Zen Monastery in France after finishing a silent retreat there. There were amazing buildings and gardens but this little mate got me mesmerised. Glad I got a picture to remind me of it now that the busy days are back.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

We try to maintain routines that work for as long as they do, but need to stay alert to changing situations, partners, and priorities, and remain open to reviewing standards when they no longer reflect the landscape faithfully.

Beside the entrance to the Greenwich Royal Observatory is a set of imperial length gauges by instrument makers Troughton & Simms. Troughton & Simms was a British scientific instrument firm formed in 1826.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Someone just asked: “How often do we need to change standards?” In my view, the trickiest aspect of temporality is balancing metrics stability with dynamic changes. It’s a matter of awareness: we cannot fix standards any more than we can capture time in an hourglass.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Laughed out loud at this thread and now the others in the room want to know why. I could never explain.

Thread text

Hear me out: a dark academia murder book that opens at a department beginning-of-the-year celebration on a boat (I know a department that does this and a professor goes overboard. The intrepid department chair must figure out who did it. Everyone is a suspect, including the chair herself.
August 29, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Everybody can reply
19 reposts
10 quotes 179 likes

Tarquin 'Howling Mad' Holmes @tarquinhh... • 14h
Title: Ship of Fools (with an obligatory early Foucault scolar among the cast).
• •
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social • 14h
I was actually thinking about the "types" that we'd need for the characters. Obviously these would be humanities profs. Obviously.

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social • 14h
Having the investigating chair also suspecting herself probably means she's a Lacan scholar

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

This conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus feels oddly modern. Ever get that feeling of giving up on AI because it keeps offering the most obvious answers? - And the same may be said for #LLM’s -

Screenshot of a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus: ‘I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

I screenshotted this post to discourage clickbait journalism. As @waiterich.bsky.social puts it, these metrics are flawed but interesting when seen as language: not for accuracy, but for how they convey arguments. Numbers strengthen the claim, regardless. Trusting them is sometimes an act of faith.

A repost of a CNN news. Photo of two hot dogs.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

The chart shows not just sports results but legacy, pressure, and pride — each crew inherits the position from the previous year’s team. The bumpers (winners) get to pick green leaves from the Cam and row back with a green crown. The ‘bumpees’… well they do the bare headed ‘row of shame’ #MayBumps

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

This chart shows college rankings in the #MayBumps from 1919 to 1931. Imagine being in the @caiuscollege.bsky.social crew that climbed 12 places between 1921–25 — or in the Trinity boat that dropped 11 between 1920–22. Every rower feels the weight of inherited position… and the drive to climb.🏆

beautifully hand-drawn “Bumps Chart” from Cambridge University, depicting the results of the May Bumps rowing races from 1919 to 1931. These charts are a tradition in Cambridge rowing, visually representing how college boat crews moved up or down in rank over the years.
• Vertical columns = the years (June races, 1919–1931).
• Horizontal rows = the crew rankings in each year (1st place at the top, lower ranks at the bottom).
• Coloured lines = the journey of each college’s boat across the years — they rise when a crew gains positions (by “bumping” the boat ahead), and fall when they lose ground.
• On the far left and right: the crew names at the beginning and end of the timeline.
• The note about 1920 shows that a third division was added that year due to an increase in participating teams.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

May Bumps are a @cam.ac.uk most curious traditions: 31 college teams quite literally bumping into each other. Mind you, it’s a serious competition — all about holding your place in the rankings. Personally I go for the tea :)🍰

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Life in @cam.ac.uk can be stressful, particularly in exam times. But I love the little supportive things around to make it easier. Shoutout to the @eng.cam.ac.uk library and their 📚🛋️ pause with supplies to make motivational bracelets for yourself or for a friend who needs a boost during exam time♥️

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Ikebana watching the world at West Cambridge go by. Flowers for those researchers working on an article on a Sunday morning, scientists dashing to the lab to check samples that know no weekend, and for the postdocs preparing yet another grant proposal. May all your efforts be blessed with success.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

So, from the Kingdom of the Yard and the Winchester Standards 🎉 Happy 150th birthday to the metre! 🎂📏 May your decimals stay stable and your politics accountable. #Metre150 #ScienceSocietyandTechnology #GlobalStandards #ISO #metrics

the Winchester Standards. A picture from the Science Museum in Londo'

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Why the metre, not the cubit? 150 years ago, the Metre Convention set the stage for global scientific standardisation. But agreeing on a metric is never just technical. To celebrate the 📏 #BIPM a brief thread on measurement, politics of economy, and trust 🧵 #Metre150 #ScienceTechnologyAndSociety

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

It was great that you could come! It feels that we barely started the conversation on collaboration(s), but now we tested the recipe for this and more things to come :)

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

🌞 A sunny springlike walking seminar to #Grantchester: Is there a benefit to co-creation’s lack of specificity? / Who gets to tell the story? / Can you co-create the pathWay with the starts, the trees, the walkers / Ultreia! / #STSCambridgeNetwork #SCaN what a luxury! @hscottfordsmand.bsky.social

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

A mesmerising duck sat perched on the edge of a two-metre-tall wall contemplating the horizon. I keep thinking it is the spirit of a scientist lingering near the Cavendish Lab @cambridgephysics.bsky.social #WestHub

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

The quote is from the newly launched: ‘The measure of progress. Counting what really matters by @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social from @bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Don’t call them dinosaurs, they are ‘Bastions of the 1980-vintage free market economics’. How British. I love it.

Picture of a text from the book ‘The measure of progress. Counting what really matters’: “Although many finance and economics ministries remain bastions of 1980s-vintage free market economics, a large number of voters could not be making it clearer that the resulting economic system is not working for them. Economic discontent is one important contributor to the rage expressed in volatile and extremist politics today.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Potholes are a performative numbers game in UK. Cambs council repaired 4,800 in Feb (needs to meet gov. targets or risk losing £16m in road funding) One ph ⚠️ at Milton was reported 250 times and patched 18 in a yr The gov. promised to fix 7M+ but streets are an unsafe mess of endless patches. Why?

Trinity Ln in Cambridge in bad shape, at least 13 potholes patches and uneven surfaces

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

When you start your morning trying to be present but realise you used the pomodoro App instead of the insight timer meditation app… I hope your morning is going more mindfully present. 🙏🏼 #Meditation #Zazen #hyperconnectedProblems

A little wooden Buddha. Behind a postcard of the Japanese garden in Ryumonji Zen Temple in Strasbourg hangs on the wall

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

The way career-targeting algorithms operate never fails to amaze me. Apparently, I’m now a potential MI6 intelligence officer candidate. Did they clock my academia survival skills, my multiple work identities… or just my ability to keep a straight face in policy meetings?

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

An electric plug sticking out of the seawall, with the ocean just beyond—dangling loose and fully exposed to the elements. What could possibly go wrong? At least someone had the foresight to wrap it in a plastic bag… because that’s definitely how electricity works. #MexicoLindo.

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The world’s largest tainted non-religious glasswork—3,000 m² of luminous splendour— lies in #Toluca, #Mexico. The Cosmovitral is a stained-glass mural that embodies creation on both a micro and macro scale: human and universe emerge at one end, expanding into a spectrum of cold and warm hues.

A tropical garden inside an art deco building. In the background, a dynamic composition of swirling red and orange interwoven with golden accents, representing the winged men and women soaring.

Botanical Garden Lightplay – Sunlight filters through intricate stained-glass patterns, casting vibrant reflections over lush tropical plants, merging art and nature in a mesmerising display.
beauty.

The Cosmovitral’s Facade – A grand Art Nouveau-style building with tall arched windows glowing in vibrant stained-glass hues. A former French - style market inaugurated in 1908. From the outside, the structure’s elegant symmetry hints at the cosmic spectacle within, blending history, artistry, and natural beauty. Warm red hues in one side and cold-blue in the other

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Valeria Ramirez, PhD @valeriaramirez.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

The Árbol de la Vida (tree of life) is a vibrant ceramic tradition. Originally used for religious storytelling, these intricate sculptures now depict history, nature, and culture. They are a symbol of Mexican identity, reflecting the blend of indigenous and Spanish artistic heritage. #Metepec

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