iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

@skinnylatte this is one of my favourite signs from Singapore - ain’t no party without a full page of rules!

A huge billboard covered in dense text, with the headline “Party Rules”

Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2026

Had a very lovely cycle ride along largely traffic-free routes in the Valleys today. Not for the first time, I found myself thinking “if this wasn’t in an area people overlook, it would be wildly popular and have a National Trust cafe” Cycle route was […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Cycle trail - a tarmac path leading through the forest under a blue sky

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/06/2026

Palletloads of stuff to go to Greenland!

A pallet, piled high with boxes, sitting in a room with a parquet floor

A pallet, piled high with boxes, sitting in a room with a parquet floor. Two blue barrels are on the pallet in the foreground

A pallet, piled high with boxes, sitting in a room with a parquet floor. The top item is a big teal-coloured bag.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/05/2026

Do you have a social life? No, I have a social cupboard!

Interior shot of a hallway. A narrow white-painted plain door faces the camera. On the door is a label that says “social cupboard”

Closeup of a label, white text on a blue background, that says “Social Cupboard”

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/05/2026

@ianRobinson there’s a little logo on the back that looks like a jar with the lid off, and inside will be an indication of the shelf life - usually 12 or 18 months.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/04/2026

My husband bought me a weather station for my birthday!

View of my garden. A white weather station with spinning cups sits on top of a pole. In the distance are the backs of some terraced houses

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/04/2026

A few thoughts on how new technology has always been overhyped, by reference to some now-established technologies. Let's start with the helicopter. These were first mass produced in WWII. By the 1950s they were more powerful and versatile thanks to the use […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Dark green 1940s helicopter (Sikorski R4) against a blue sky. It has a US military livery. Image by United States Army Air Forces, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/03/2026

I highly recommend this book, which is a collection of vignettes of the suburban life of LGBTQ people in the UK. The author is from Croydon, so that part of outer London features strongly. Made me laugh and cry.

Hardback book with a red cover, on which is a black and white photo of two men embracing in a suburban kitchen.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

An old friend of mine will say “look, the Pope!” and point over his shoulder before stealing a chip off my plate. Today I walked along Park Place in Cardiff: look, the Pope!

View of a terrace of Edwardian houses. In the bay window of the one nearest to camera is a lifesize cardboard cutout of Pope Leo. (It’s in the window of the university Catholic chaplaincy)

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/01/2026

Here’s a photo from August fieldwork on Isunnguata Sermia in Greenland.

White guy in orange jacket, blue helmet, posing on a grey-white glacier. I have a climbing harness on and coils of rope around my shoulder in case either my colleague or I fall into a crevasse.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/10/2025

I have made a tear-off Darkness Calendar for the winter. Every week I can tear off a page and get the sunset times. It starts next week and runs for 14 weeks, by which time we’ll be back to sunset at 1700 here in Cardiff.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/10/2025

Thanks a heap, Microsoft. You were supposed to make collaboration easier. (Yes, I know Microsoft are bad, but it's what the institution provides so we're stuck with it)

Microsoft 365 login box. It says "Selected user account does not exist in tenant 'University of Sussex' in red text. Below you can see that I'm signed in with a Cardiff University email address.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2025

I see I’ve acquired a team of web developers!

Spider’s webs, glossy with dew, stretched across an area of succulent plants (actually the green roof of my bike shed)

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2025

Hey Admiral insurance - my name is not that special! @yournameisinvalid

Screenshot from Admiral travel insurance quote form. The surname box contains a name with a hyphen. An error message in yellow says "Must not contain special characters"

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2025

Late Western Railway are living up to their reputation.

A departure board at Cardiff Central. The London train is delayed half an hour.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2025

This is my Mous phone case, which has given up (the two different materials have split apart). This one was a warranty replacement for a previous one that failed the same way. They’re expensive and not worth it.

Black phone case. The rubber outer ring has split apart from the hard plastic backplate.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/07/2025

Fedex: "Your name contains invalid characters". Me: No, it doesn't. @yournameisinvalid

Screengrab from a webform. Under my name, which has a hyphen in it, is a red flash with an "x" saying "Your name contains invalid characters"

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2025

Today’s unexpected discovery: if you put condensed milk in the freezer it doesn’t actually freeze solid, so then you can take a dollop of -20C milky sweet deliciousness and stir it into your coffee for iced coffee!

A white mug with milky brown coffee in it, ice cubes, and a teaspoon.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/07/2025

Had a lovely (but expensive - £70 return) day out on the beautiful Welsh Highland Railway from Porthmadog to Caernarfon and back. Beautiful scenery, amazing sight and sound of a steam engine working very hard. (Also, the train was driven and fired by two […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/06/2025

Off on #fieldwork today - my first time on an undergraduate residential field trip. We’re going to Switzerland to study glaciers, hydroelectric schemes and natural hazards. (No, we’re not going to Blatten…)

Selfie on a train. I’m a pink-faced white guy with glasses and a brown cap.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/05/2025

On my ride into work this morning I saw that HMCS Montréal, a Canadian frigate, was visiting Cardiff. I stopped by to speak to the sentries: Me: "Good morning, welcome to Cardiff! Did you find the Tim Hortons yet?" Sentries: "There's a Tim Hortons?!" I think I might have made their day!

Big grey warship, very slab-sided, moored in a rippling dock, and with blue sky and cirrus clouds behind. A Canadian white ensign flies at the flagstaff.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/05/2025

Particularly egregious case of Betteridge's Law here: Spoilers for the French Revolution?

Screenshot from the BBC website. It says "Marie Anotoinette - new series". A headline below asks "Can Marie Antoinette survive her reign?"

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2025

Want to come and see Cryoegg, Cryowurst and some of our other work on instruments for glaciology and hydrology? I’m in the MacGyver session in Hall A after lunch. #egu25 @egu-cr.bsky.social

Selfie: balding white guy in blue shirt smiling, in front of a poster display with lots of glaciology fieldwork photos

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/04/2025

Lovely evening in Köln, we stayed in the Ibis hotel in the railway station which lets you watch trains from the corridor!

View from a high window looking down on a railway station with an arched glass roof. A white ICE train is in the platform.

View of the two towers of the cathedral lit up by the evening sun

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/04/2025

We are being held up by a technical problem in the Channel Tunnel - probably an hour’s delay. Fortunately I spotted that there is EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE in the cafe car! #train2egu #emergencychocolate

An airline-style aluminium cart. On the top is a label that says EMERGENCY
CHOCOLATE CART
EXPIRE DATE IS
30/09/2025

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/04/2025

Went out today - ate dim sum, climbed a small mountain with a lovely view over South Wales and across to England, and met a very friendly horse.

View of the Bristol Channel, green Welsh countryside in the foreground and white fluffy clouds in a blue sky

View looking east across Newport and towards Bristol.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/04/2025

My local hardware store only had 2mm nylon cord - I think for a proper version I'd go up to 3mm or 4mm climbers' accessory cord (aka cordelette) - but I'd need to check that it'll go through the loop on the bath plug!

A close-up on the white plastic sink plug, showing how the thin white nylon cord goes through the metal ring on the plug. It's tied with a bowline knot.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/04/2025

In my job I do a lot of logistics - packing and unpacking, shipping and labelling. Last year, whilst doing fieldwork in Canada, I thought "wouldn't it be great to have a gaffer tape dispenser on my belt?". Behold, the prototype!

A black carabiner, with a white cord dangling from it. Around the cord is a small roll of white gaffer tape, and a white stopper beneath it.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2025

Last summer we installed a new bike shed in our front garden. It has a green roof covered in sedum plants. A few weeks ago, my partner said to me “what this needs is… miniature dinosaurs”, so last weekend we found these two stegosaurs and they’re happily browsing on the sedum.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/03/2025

Sunny day out: cycling from Penarth to St Fagans along the Ely Trail. Part way along I found this commemorative stone which celebrates the opening of a picnic area by the trail in 2009. There are no picnic tables now, just a clearing with access to the water for anglers.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/03/2025

I was in WH Smith today and they had a whole stand of Filofaxes. Have they come back into fashion or have WHS not updated their stock since the 80s?

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/02/2025

I have a PhD studentship available for a UK-resident mechanical engineer, physicist or engineering-minded geoscientist - developing a free-floating probe that'll travel through water channels inside glaciers in Greenland! […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

A red helicopter hovering over a glacier, with a blue sky behind. Piles of scientific equipment are on the ice. A person is signalling to the pilot with their hand raised.

Person looking into a glacier moulin - a deep hole in the ice. They are leaning on a red safety rope.

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