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Mike Prior-Jones

@drmikepj.bsky.social
656 followers 1.1K following 864 posts

Glaciologist and electronic engineer at Cardiff University. UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. 🏳️‍🌈(he,him)

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 10h
This was my favourite Bible verse as a young man. (I’m no longer a Christian). Though the preface to the Lord’s Prayer (“And when you pray, do not ramble on because you think you will be heard because of your many words…”) came close.
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Really, really good careers resources and advice for children aged 7 and up. The UK’s education system specialises early and best serves those (like me) who correctly worked out what careers would suit them before the age of 14. Most do not.
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Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The government, banks, utilities and similar services MUST make it easier for those with Power of Attorney to manage stuff online. I find I'm having to do a lot of stuff by phone. It's like being back in the 90s except without the 90s infrastructure to help.
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Steve Chambers @planningtransport.co.uk · 27/09/2026
An illiterate view. Why does the City of London lead the way in eliminating traffic and promoting active travel? To force out enterprise? To shoo away wealth?
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“If you’re going To Market Harborough, Be sure to wear Some flowers in your hair!”
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 26/09/2026
What earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slept in the lap of social labor?
centralbylines.co.uk
M&S Custard Cream Spread: Britain has completed food
One jar of M&S Custard Cream Spread has caused us to question civilisation, breakfast, mashed potato and the limits of human restraint
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 26/09/2026
Incidentally, the pattern on custard creams represents ferns. More generally the style is that of William Morris, in tiny biscuit form. I was not aware of any of this when growing up, only that being allowed to have a second one was a rare treat and having a third decadence beyond imagining.
A custard cream biscuit
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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
2yrs after I finished my MA History at Goldsmiths, my research rights were bought and I was hired to work as historical consultant on this TV show. It's had BAFTA and International Emmy nominations. I got a book deal, too. Goldsmiths: "No point in MA History, let's fire everyone and delete it."
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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can’t believe no one has ever thought of the idea of selling us hot food. I, for one, am both excited and, if I’m honest, a little apprehensive about the idea of warm food. www.ft.com/content/bdb6... Subway rival bets hot sandwiches will sell in UK’s ‘cold and rain’
US sandwich maker Jersey Mike’s is launching an ambitious expansion plan in the UK, with its billionaire founder betting that “the cold and the rain” in Britain will push consumers to embrace the brand’s hot subs.
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Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Processes must prioritise quality and allow the best ideas to come forward. Not to reinforce existing privilege. Something needs to change but the response cannot disadvantage those that already face systematic barriers including PT workers (hence my college or contributed peer review suggestion).
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AR Hanlon @arhanlon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I genuinely think most of these people are just online as a politics-flavored substitute for therapy, not actual politics.
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Will cycles slower than you 🇿🇦🇬🇧🏳️‍⚧️ @williamnb.eurosky.social · 22/09/2026
One for all those BuT hOsPiTaL pArKiNg ShOuLd Be FrEe people: the free parking at this hospital removed £10 million from being spent on patient care.
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Rob Larter @polarrobs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"... what we need people to understand is that net zero is literally a description of scientific fact. If we don’t reach net zero emissions, we will see temperatures continue to rise.” This cannot be repeated too often.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is a very recognisable depiction of various political subcultures and we all know it. I am Pessimistic about our ability to persuade people not to do this, but I am also baffled by the fact that so many people in fact want to do this. Some sort of instinct to small-group meanness is common!
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Dr Darcey Gillie @dfgillie.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Me to security person at Dublin Airport: I was given a lemon as a prize today. Can I bring my lemon through security? Security person (solemnly): Yes, you may bring your prize lemon through security.
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My whole career the Humanities seem to have been curled up in a defensive crouch trying to justify our meaning/existence. At times it has even seemed a productive thought exercise, but I think generally whatever body has demanded the justification is not really open to being persuaded of anything.
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Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This is the mad thing with all this - often it’s not cheap, and it’s due to get not-cheaper. So often, use of these things is about a weird ideological opposition to paying a skilled professional to do a better job.
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Super Shoe @shoe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is incredible nitter.app/banteg/statu... H/t @gregdoucette.bsky.social
nitter.app
banteg (@banteg)
>be me >discover effective altruism >apparently normal charity is inefficient >why donate to random sad thing when spreadsheet can tell you optimal sad thing >fair enough >buy mosquito nets >save live...
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British Science Association @britsciassoc.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Former British Science Association President, theoretical physicist, author, and broadcaster Professor Jim Al-Khalili will investigate the meaning and nature of time in the 2026 CHRISTMAS LECTURES® from the Royal Institution! Find out more >> www.rigb.org/2026-christm...
rigb.org
The 2026 CHRISTMAS LECTURES®
Professor Jim Al-Khalili tackles the awe-inspiring science of time.
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Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
[OVERTURE TO RUSLAN AND LUDMILLA (MINOR KEY)]
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
'In a blogpost...last week, Melissa Harrison...and Kyle Demes, chief operating officer of the OpenAlex bibliographic database, made the case that existing open science tools could replace some of what Researchfish does while reducing the burden for researchers.' blog.openalex.org/after-resear...
blog.openalex.org
After Researchfish: Europe PMC & OpenAlex on the future of grant outcomes reporting - OpenAlex blog
Researchfish is closing on 31 July 2027. For the more than 90 funders that relied on it, including UKRI, NIHR, and many of the UK’s largest research charities, the question of how to track what their ...
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Has any city solved the problem of pedestrians not expecting a cycle phase at traffic lights? Cardiff has a recurring problem with pedestrians crossing on “red man” because they don’t see cars coming, only to be surprised that bikes come towards them.
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Kees van der Leun @sustainable2050.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Glaciologist @matthias-huss.bsky.social shows that the centre of the Great Aletsch glacier in Switzerland (the biggest in the Alps) lost 6 meters(!) of thickness just this summer. "No words...", he adds on LinkedIn.
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Once again I am trying to buy an item of clothing and cursing the retailers and their stupid websites. In this case, it's shoes, which have been my particular nemesis since childhood. For the love of Mammon, please have proper filters and good quality metadata on the products!
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Money buys control - if you have money, you can control your life and the lives of others. Philanthropy is giving away the money but keeping the control that it buys. Taxation takes away both the money and the control it would have bought.
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Real Gaz on a proper bike: gazza_d@toot.bike @gazza-d.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
It's a real shame tin foil hat wankers like this never believe about the crap in car exhaust fumes and the damage to health the pollution causes. It's only ever stuff that inconveniences driving that they don't like. See also vandalising parking meters..
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Hercule Poirot dressed all in black speaks to Captain Hastings in a grand hallway “Please ask the suspects to gather in the library, Hastings: I wish to reveal that our births are random, our lives meaningless, and our deaths absurd.”

Caption “Having investigated so many awful murders over the years, it was perhaps unsurprising that Hercule Poirot turned to Existentialism”


p.s. Poirot had presumably been reading a lot of Sartre recently…

 "It is meaningless that we live and it is meaningless that we die," Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant)

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (La Nausée)
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Jaap Burger @jaapburger.eu · 09/09/2026
What if giant slides were part of your commute? The town of Calw in Germany has installed two slides, one 17 metres long and the other 43 metres long, which allow a rapid transfer from the higher district (which has a large school) to the lower inner city.
spiegel.de
Calw: Hier kann man künftig einfach vom Stadtgarten Richtung Innenstadt rutschen
Zwei XXL-Rutschen sollen in Calw einen Park mit der Innenstadt verbinden. Vorausgesetzt, der TÜV gibt grünes Licht, geht es dann mit bis zu 35 Kilometern pro Stunde bergab.
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Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Today, this is the technical term, has been a "shit-storm of systemic sexist bullshit" 3 separate incidents of bullshit from 3 different places Blokes - how often do you spend your time and energy fighting systemic sexism? Black/Brown/Disabled/LGBTQ+ ... colleagues - all my respect and solidarity
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Carsten Timmermann @ctimmermann.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Imagine your kids are on a trip abroad with their sports team, and a deluded mob of angry locals breaks into their hotel and knocks on doors demanding IDs, and the local authorities state that no crimes were committed, and also: legitimate concerns.
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Dr Matt Lodder @mattlodder.com · 09/09/2026
The latest "AI did complex maths" story seems quite likely to be "humans did complex maths, fed it into AI, which then incorporated it into its training data such that when a user at the AI company asked the machine to solve the complex maths, it already knew the answer".
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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I've talked to the Reform councillor in Portsmouth who had to explain to a masked vigilante mob outside the city's Marriott hotel that a group of young men who had arrived on a coach were not asylum seekers but an U21 cricket team from Pakistan. He called it a “massively unfortunate incident”.
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Andrew Hickey @andrewhickey.500songs.com · 09/09/2026
Oh my God. I thought the "Blackshorts" thing was just the OP doing a Wodehouse reference. But no. They're actually wearing black shorts. Just like Roderick Spode. I think my brain is finally *fully* broken by this. Someone say "Eulalie" to Daniel Thomas
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attuned-to-zero.bsky.social @attuned-to-zero.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
at last, we've animated a swarm of obsessively goal-oriented autonomous assistants despite not fully understanding how they work, as depicted in the classic Disney musical short film 'Don't animate a swarm of obsessively goal-oriented autonomous assistants unless you fully understand how they work'
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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I am the very model of a modern day typographer A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan #typography #fonts #graphicdesign
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Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
With the increased use of AI, organisations and jobs are effectively redesigning themselves. This is happening without management direction and often without management knowledge. This isn’t a ‘new age of empowerment’. It’s creating new silos, new bottlenecks and new turf wars.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's entirely possible to outsiurce services and achieve efficiencies. It just requires your business processes to be simple and consistent with clear governance. There is not a single university in the UK whose business processes are simple and consistent with clear governance.
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Rick @flipchartrick.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Like the ostentatious flag-flying, making schools sing the national anthem is very un-British. We have never sung the national anthem regularly. It’s for special occasions. We only sang it at school when something royal was happening, like the jubilee, or on Armistice Day.
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Made it to Aberdeen! I’ve been here once before and I like the fact that the harbour is right in the city centre, so you walk round a corner to see big ships
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Help! Parton Community Council has 60 days to raise £70k to buy Parton Kirk (resting place of James Clerk Maxwell). They plan to turn it into a visitor centre celebrating our great hero! The other buyers could turn it into long-term storage 😬 Even £5 would help 🙏🧪⚛️ www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...
justgiving.com
Help raise £70000 to Save Parton Kirk – JustGiving Crowdfunding
Iʼm raising money to Save Parton Kirk. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I’m off to Aberdeen today, to attend the @igsoc.bsky.social British conference, which is one of my favourite meetings. Thanks to @willharcourt.bsky.social and colleagues for organising! My journey today is by train from Cardiff to Crewe, then to Glasgow and on to Aberdeen.
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 06/09/2026
It’s really weird reading weird supposedly pro small business stories when you run a small business. This paperwork is not what bothers you! It’s a minor annoyance! It’s the taxes on hiring young staff, the cliff edges, and the sense your fellow small companies aren’t paying any tax at all.
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Alice Lilly @aliceolilly.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
This is such a beautiful and generous piece and this bit especially rang true: “Have a baby and the world falls over itself to offer advice. But losing a parent remains a private, bewildering, lonely affair.”
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Dr Cassandra Steer @cassandrasteer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
A great homage to Gloria Steinem RIP a great thinker and communicator carlynbeccia.substack.com/p/gloria-ste...
carlynbeccia.substack.com
Gloria Steinem’s Fight to Free Boys
Steinem warned that we made masculinity available to women faster than we made femininity respectable for men. 50 years later, we still are not listening to her.
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William Lane @williamjtlane.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
An excellent post about one of the trickier aspects of feminism: making female coded activities and perspectives more available to men.
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Jeff Lazarus @jlazarus.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I love re-upping this: for decades the main library at UCLA had the generic name University Research Library because the person most responsible for getting it built was an English professor named Hugh G. Dick and the university refused to name it after him.
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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Watching a documentary on Robert Wise. After the clips of all his incredible films: “Everyone who worked with him said it was a pleasure to be on his sets and he was kind and easy to get along with.” I want more of this. Fuck being a tortured genius. Do the work. Be brilliant. Be nice.
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Another journalist whose work I previously liked turns out to be a TERF.
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
NEW The legal agony of Wile E Coyote Coyote vs Acme may be one of the best films about civil litigation ever made By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
prospectmagazine.co.uk
The legal agony of Wile E Coyote
Coyote vs Acme may be one of the best films about civil litigation ever made
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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
You may not remember 1990s political drama In The Red, but it featured a “man of the people” politician saying to a waiter “I’ll have egg and chips, because I tell voters that’s what I order, but if you bring me the lobster by mistake I won’t send it back”
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