@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

drmikepj

@drmikepj@mastodon.social

Glaciologist and electronic engineer at Cardiff University.
Current designer of #cryoegg. UKRI Future Leaders Fellow.

🏳️‍🌈(he,him)

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drmikepj, to worldwithoutus
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

After a couple of days of bad weather, last night we were treated to this incredible sun halo and sun dogs!

ianRobinson, to random
@ianRobinson@mastodon.social avatar

It’s fab hearing people from Toronto say the city name. They say Toroono. 😊

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ianRobinson teronner!

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

Miserable weather today: overcast, snowing, -15C and 22kts of wind. Glad to not be working outdoors, to be honest!

Grey-white scene. It is hard to tell the difference between the ground and the sky

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

I spoke too soon: had to go out in the wind and snow to rescue some of my equipment as a tent had nearly blown away.

Rescued my Toughbook, which was still running despite being covered in snow.

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

That little green square, btw, is an Extreme Post-it Note, which I can highly recommend. Sticks to wet surfaces, withstands high winds.

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

Another busy day at EastGRIP’s skiway: a Hercules has arrived with cargo for the American GreenDrill project. They have a Twin Otter aircraft here too, which is shuttling their cargo and staff to their field site

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

Lovely sunny morning today! I’ve been moving some of my equipment around - here’s my ride for this morning!

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

It’s quite cold outside. -19C with a brisk 11kt wind, so it feels like -29C.

Selfie with tents and a snowfield behind

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ianRobinson certainly a bit chilly.

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar
drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@SamLR @jonty one more!

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@SamLR @jonty I am intrigued!

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@SamLR @jonty this is a good dome tbf

ianRobinson, to random
@ianRobinson@mastodon.social avatar

The OpenAI ChatGPT-4o voice assistant servers are overloaded this morning.

They need to throw some more of those Azure credits on the fire…

I don’t understand how they can make ChatGPT-4o free for everyone (even in a restricted way) and make enough money from other sources. API access, corporate payments, ChatGPT Plus subscriptions etc.

They are probably more interested in building market share and mind share right now. History suggests that there will be advertisements at some point.

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ianRobinson classic nontrepreneurial strategy beloved of the tech sector: give away a product below the market rate, generate lots of PR, then sell up to a stale corporate that wants to look relevant

whitequark, to random
@whitequark@mastodon.social avatar

please tell me the most obscure joke you know

(feel free to explain or not explain it, depending on what you find more amusing to think of me reading it)

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@whitequark in Germany there are two cities called Frankfurt. The main one and the other one. (Requires knowledge of German geography and a bit of German vocabulary)

stevenjgibbons, to random
@stevenjgibbons@oslo.town avatar

The obligatory train window view of the #JodrellBank radio telescope. When I was a child I always assumed I would end up working somewhere like that. I guess I wasn’t far off :)

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenjgibbons my grandparents lived nearby, and it was one of my all-time favourite days out as a kid.

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

As a 15-year-old schoolboy, I was given the option to do community service instead of sport. I went to help in an infant school in urban Portsmouth. The school was doing its best, but the neighbourhood was poor. At the time, this song was in the charts: https://youtu.be/ZDjdHe6U3Mo?si=2hZm6ttNE7PFNvV_

“Every day I look at you, dressed up in your ties of blue / saying there’s not much that you can do / to help the kids on Hope Street”

This article makes me realise that things are far worse now. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/mar/16/desperate-neglect-teachers-washing-clothes-and-finding-beds-as-poverty-grips-englands-schools?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

timonsku, to random
@timonsku@mastodon.social avatar

He is just happy to be here

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@timonsku basking in the reflected glory of Horowitz & Hill!

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

This is from a long list, mostly UK, compiled mid 20th century by the Opies. It's words kids use to stop a game/fight/chase in progress without surrendering. Did you have a word like this growing up? Phrases like "let's stop a minute" or "let me catch my breath" don't count. It needs to be a kind of magic term that invokes the response.

I talked to my 9-year-old last night and after a lot of thought, the closest we came up with was "pause!"

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith I went to school in the village that the Opies studied, and can confirm that "scribs" was still the standard term in the early 1990s.

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith I remember as a teenager going to Iona Opie’s house and discovering she was still collecting children’s toys and ephemera even then - alongside her Victorian dolls there were boxed action figures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

ianbetteridge, to random
@ianbetteridge@writing.exchange avatar

I accidentally revealed I was learning Welsh on Duolingo and now Welsh people are talking at me and all I know is how to read when Dewi is saying good morning to Gareth and that Mrs Jones feels terrible and HALP

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@ianbetteridge bore da!

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

TIL: pneumatically-synchronised public clocks used to be a thing in Paris and Vienna. I particularly love the photos and drawings on this webpage, especially the one entitled “THE PNEUMATIC DISTRIBUTION OF TIME”! http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/airclock/airclock.htm

drmikepj, to random
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@jonny you may also enjoy Hillel Wayne’s series comparing software engineering with other engineering disciplines. I was one of the engineers he interviewed. https://www.hillelwayne.com/tags/crossover-project/

jonny, (edited ) to random
@jonny@neuromatch.social avatar

Is there a term (English or not) for when people make something work for them in a way that is busted as hell but charmingly effective and doesnt need to be improved? Im thinking of dragging windows around in a screen recording frame as a way of editing videos rn, but also stuff like idk using a keychain ring on a pants zipper to loop around a button and keep it up, etc. The emphasis is more on the unexpectedness or laterality of approaches than them being "bad."

"Hack" or "kludge" implies too much jankiness and is usually negative, "macgyvering" or "Jerry rigging" is too specific to using only what is on hand to do something, there is a Brazilian word "gambiarra" that I think is quite close but I don't have the cultural context to tell.

Edit: I think gambiarra is what im looking for here, thanks @catzilla !

drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@jonny it really has that squelchy feeling of two things being put together with hot glue, doesn’t it?

Edent, to random
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drmikepj,
@drmikepj@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent we started giving questions in advance in my university department. What stops it being rehearsed too much is that panel members can ask a related follow-up question which the candidate has not seen, so it doesn’t become too stilted.

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