@jobrodie
London, scicomm, pylons, aircraft, techy stuff (digital enthusiast), blogging, sound, bunting, QMUL, trees, big ships, science talks, film music, the designs of Iznik pottery and William De Morgan. Recently re-watched #Seinfeld :-)
Talking of celestial navigation, a post on Instagram prompted me to pay a visit to this at the V&A yesterday - a stall end from St Nicholas Chapel, Kings Lynn. Ship, stars and marine animals in one gorgeous bit of early 15thC carving #histSTM
collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O121909...
A tweet from me sent on 4 December 2011 - "What's the deal with the pandas? It's been at the level below yellow bulldozers all day (HitchHiker's Guide reference)"
... that they no longer have to specify what it is they're currently discussing. If I'm super interested I can track back, or just wait for the yellow bulldozer to 'drop' as time goes on and a picture emerges.
“The word yellow wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with."
I like this because it feels like the process of ambiently making sense of something. E.g. I might visit Bluesky and see posts from which I can infer that everyone's already been talking about a thing for so long...
“You know, said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.” “Why, what did she tell you?” “I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.”
Still chuffed I got that in as intro of my finals paper on Rousseau.
Nice, whale photos are helping people track them and have shown they cover a fair bit of ... water.
Obviously can't rule out identical-twin whale sharks or quantum whale sharks of course ;)
A composite image made of a grid of 8 photos taken over several days between 11th March and 4th April, showing the cherry tree saplings at Vanbrugh Gate by the Ignatius Sancho café being completely in bloom by 25th to 27th March and losing flowers by early April. As far as I'm aware this is the same species as the main ones on cherry tree avenue. I'd be tempted to suggest that they're blooming earlier cos they're saplings - but there are a couple of saplings at the row of cherries that don't open early so may be a different variety, or a different soil / environment / sun level etc. Dunno. Having fun trying to find out though.
A composite image made of a grid of 16 photos in a 4 by 4 grid pattern taken over several days between 11th March and 18th April, showing leaf and flower buds gradually opening in March and then really blossoming in April. These ones went into full blossom a couple of days before the row of cherry blossom in the park but I think they are the same species.
A composite image made of a grid of 16 photos in a 4 by 4 grid pattern taken over several days between 11th March and 18th April, showing leaf and flower buds gradually opening in March and then really blossoming in April. This is the large cherry tree in the Flower Garden right which is seperated from the Ignatius Sancho café by a railing and the entrance is near Vanbrugh Gate. There's also a block of loos there which is handy if you've been enjoying this with a cup of tea. I love my photo on 16th April, with the petal fall on the grass. So much pink!
I enjoyed making these & will now call myself a Data Scientist, oh yes :)
• Saplings @ Vanbrugh Gate / Ignatius Sancho café, Greenwich Park (earliest to bloom)
• Cherry tree blossom @ St John / Evangelist, Blackheath
• Large cherry tree in Flower Garden nr Vanbrugh Gt
Three photos of the same buds on a cherry tree in Greenwich Park taken on the 4th March (bottom), 7th March (middle) and 9th March (top). Although the angle of each photo is more or less the same there are slight differences (and different weather too) but the buds themselves don't seem to be budging.
I started checking the trees a bit earlier this year and certainly nothing much has happened (at least not visually) to these leaf / flower buds.*
Some species of Prunus have separate leaf and flower buds, some are combined - I'd never thought to pay attention to this before I made the composites!
A composite image made of a grid of 4 x 4 photos taken over several days between 11th March and 18th April, showing leaf and flower buds gradually opening in March and then really blossoming in April.
Last year the famous row of cherry trees (I have learned that they are Prunus serrulata var Pink Perfection, a variety of multi-petalled kanzan blossoms) properly bloomed on 12 April but were looking pretty imminent by 6th. I wonder if it will be the same this year. Get your predictions in ;)
While I'm sad not to be at Ronnie Scott's (upstairs) tonight to hear from film composer David Arnold (am coughing lots) I have just cheered myself up by remembering there's another episode of AI Confidential on BBC 2 at 9, followed by Small Prophets at 10pm.
Give the people what they want :-)
Not read the article myself but it's a good thread on the keenness for some TV producers to prioritise the wrong kind of adversarial discussion. I'd not enjoy being on television in the first place and definitely wouldn't do any better with additional stresses.
Purple sweet violet plant with purple flowers. Sun is shining on the plant.
Sweet violet enjoying a bit of spring sunshine a couple of days ago. #wildflowerhour
Thanks for posting your blooms :-)
@davidarnold.bsky.social Alas I am not terribly well (not ill ill, just coughing [not Covid/flu]) so not at your event tonight :( Plus I think me sitting there with a mask on coughing away will just make everyone else a bit ill-at-ease ;) I hope it all goes brilliantly though!
Can we describe this as a Clactoning?
Clactoning: a no show, to be absent or unavailable
Close-up of 3 fully open white flowers with others in bud on a lichen-covered branch, with the background softly blurred
Blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, just starting to flower in our garden hedgerow this week
#SignsOfSpring #BlackthornBlossom #WildflowerHour @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social
Everyone is very angry at Timothee Chalamet over on Threads, because he was mean about opera and ballet, and I feel like that’s the sort of scandal we were meant to be having in the President Kamala timeline
Two different trees with white cherry blossom type flowers. I don't know if they're cherry trees or plums or something else from within the Prunus genus. One has brownish-orange leves and the other has green leaves. The stamen bases on the brown leafed tree look pinker and the ones on the green leafed tree look pinkish but less so, bit more yellow overall. On both pictures there's a smaller inset photo showing the petal drop below. The brown-leaed tree seems to shed petals.
Testing the theory that the brown-leafed Prunus* sp (left) loses flowers and the green-leafed one on the right loses petals.
*It will be some time before I learn which is which, possibly not a cherry tree (could be plum, blackthorn).
A bee enjoying some "cherry blossom"* in Blackheath on 4 March 2026 when the sun came out.
Note this is a different speces of blossom-producing tree from the famous ones in Greenwich Park which bloom much later.
*Prunus spp.
There are ~340 Prunus species (apricots, plums, cherries, almonds)
Much better 👇🏼 I'd also like to nominate "SPECS OFFENDERS". Thank you, I yield my time.
The Rest is Science podcast episode on whether you can build a Turing machine out of bees is fun and I think @cs4fn.bsky.social will enjoy it. Relevant bit is from about 8mins, the listener question comes at 57s, here podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h... (login not required as far as I can see).
Good title!
Aha, my number was spoofed to try and spam the other person. They rang ('them') back (so it came to me) and I got their missed call. All the makings of a rom-com surely ;)
www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-b...
Heh. I just checked my Gmail bin & found 2 emails in there with personal info. Alas I cannot stop either company from emailing me (when Other Jo mistypes their address) because I don't have an account with them. Also my canned response might have stopped working (emitted if no '.' in address). Grr.
I remember a long irritating call with Booking dot com who kept sending me someone else's hotel booking info & reminders and were very puzzled about the whole thing and slow to unhook me. I was very tempted to just cancel the booking and hope Other Jo noticed the refund, but risky if travel involved
Complete stranger rang (spotted missed call so rang back to find out who) & they said they'd had a missed call from me earlier this morning.
My phone does not show any outgoing call at the time (+ I didn't ring them, had never heard of them). What is going on? I assume someone 'spoofed' my No.?
Just thought up this quite good word for an accountancy company and very pleased to see someone's already called their business that find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/1641...
legerdemain - lightness of hand / magic tricks
∴ leDgerdemain = whizzy with spreadsheets :)
@newscientist.com Delighted to see that the technology has moved on from the animal studies 25 years ago, to this ;-) pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11453473/
A description of the flaws of Researchfish
It’s that time again (groan). Nice summary here (via LSE)
