iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

András Gáspár @andrasgaspar.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This was posted on LinkedIn. Looks like a new record, possibly 3500 proposals. Good luck everyone on the JWST roulette. We really should have made two.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

\vspace this, \vspace that, I just want data from the James Webb \vspace Telescope!

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Good luck to everyone submitting their #JWST proposals today. My first version is in the bag, now to read it and find the O(dozens) of mistakes I made…. Scientific method FTW! #exoplanet #astrodon

The scientific method broken down into six actions, surrounded by a ring with the phrase "Fuck around and find out" which tbh is a pretty concise summary of the Scientific Method.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The number of times I've taken off my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose keeps going up and up....

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

astronomie.nl @astronomienl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In memoriam Frank Israel (1946 – 2026) www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/in-me... English: www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/in... 🔭

astronomie.nl

In memoriam Frank Israel (1946 – 2026)

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Witnesses say his belch was continuous and loud for almost four minutes.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Paul Cornish @paulgcornish.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I was one of the people interviewed for this article in Bristol Magazine and I spoke a bit about attitudes towards space science among the young people I've met through my work. thebristolmag.co.uk/space-expert...

thebristolmag.co.uk

It’s rocket science! | We chat to experts at the Bristol Astronomical Society and We The Curious - The Bristol Magazine Online

Are Bristol in the space race? We chat to experts at the Bristol Astronomical Society and We The Curious.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Congratulations to the whole team for this, I know people have been trying for a while to get radio emission from an exoplanet but it's fantastic to finally get a solid location and confirmation!

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I remember visiting that place last year, or was it three years ago?

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“I WILL NOT GO TO CHAT WITH YOU BABS I CAST YOU OUT UNCLEAN SPIRIT IN THE NAME OF-”

Truly traumatic image of a cheeky chatbot icon for Birmingham Airport called Babs. Babs is a pale blue bubble shaped letter B with the white eyes of a demon. Each time I close my eyes I see their eyes floating in the darkness in front of me. The last sentence it is saying is "Come chat to me...."

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I now have to pause when replying to a slightly weird/clueless comment on social media, because it may be a bot and this is simply a training gambit for some #ChatGPT word salad farm somewhere.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Happy tenth anniversary (+ 2 days) to @weratedogs.com for helping both Brênt and the rest of us understand that they are all good dogs.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Oh, great. Now I'll be spending my whole week muttering "Wine O'Horse" under my breath on the bus, at the airport, at faculty meetings....

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Having genuine terrors wondering how many wall socket power supplies can (safely!) deliver 240 W...

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Location saved for next time I'm visiting Oxford....

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Ben Elton basically called it in his novel "Stark" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_(...

en.wikipedia.org

Stark (novel) - Wikipedia

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Every time the chair of a meeting says “I’m sure we don’t need to take the full 90 minutes” at the start of the meeting, my left eyelid starts twitching uncontrollably until the end of the meeting some two hours later.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Essence of RBG 🦋 @rbgprevails.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Also my view on driverless cars, AI + harmful algorithms is if the tech billionaires wanted me to trust them on this, maybe they shouldn't have adopted "move fast and break things" as their motto!

static.klipy.com

Teachers Series: B-B-B-B-Bingo!

ALT: Teachers Series: B-B-B-B-Bingo!

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 08/09/2026

Just a normal camera, if “normal” means: 🔭 A 3.2-billion-pixel sensor 🌌 A field of view that could fit ~45 full Moons ⏱️ A new 8-gigabyte image every ~40 seconds NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's LSST Camera is the largest ever built (thanks SLAC!). Ok, maybe that's not normal. 🔭🧪

Technician in cleanroom suit inspecting a large, cylindrical camera barrel inside a clean room.

$Close-up of a Romanesco broccoli head showing its intricate fractal pattern in black and white. The mosaic grid of LSST Camera's ~200 individual CCDs is visible as vertical and horizontal black lines.$ Workers in safety gear guide the car-sized LSST Camera suspended by green straps inside Rubin's large maintenance hall.

Workers in safety gear guide the car-sized LSST Camera suspended by green straps inside Rubin's large maintenance hall.

Close-up view of the huge LSST Camera installed at the center of Rubin's 8.4-meter telescope, with metal scaffolding on either side.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

If I understand this, two mathematicians (one at Anthropic) combined a great deal of human effort with LLM input to come close to a famous problem, showing that the Navier-Stokes equations of fluid mechanics developed singularities. But someone from OpenAI might have peeked at their ChatGPT logs...

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Matt Kane @mk.gg · 08/09/2026

If the implication here is correct, nobody should use OpenAI models for anything that might compete with them. Even if it's not, it's still clear that OpenAI has behaved in a really shitty way.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 08/09/2026

The problem with people is, there's a god shaped hole in our heads where we want Something Important to live, and we insist on filling it with *something*, which might be god or king or astrology or jumped-up autocorrect.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Very cool! We really should be getting #exomoon transits with JWST....

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Note of caution for the MC Escher museum : it has a spiral staircase running up the middle of the building, but it's filled with hooded figures who seem to walk endlessly up and down the stairs....

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

When I was a graduate student, the administrative assistants had TWO FULL FILING CABINETS crammed with all the alternative theories sent into the #astronomy department. So much time and thought went into them, too.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I don't know, I haven't heard it yet

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I think part of the attraction of murmurations are that they're a great demonstration of optical depth - it's surpising to see how suddenly they go from transparent to opaque very quickly!

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

It's my best guess for this push for hard AI and data centres in space - they think that a super AI will be able to upload them to Digital Heaven in the sky where they can be safe from the pitchforks of the plebs.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Leiden Observatory Masters graduate Valerie Bakker leads a paper on “The Hill sphere transits of Beta Pictoris c and the search for another 1981-like event” where we (sadly) did not find circumplanetary dust… but maybe it’s already condensed into #exomoons ..? #astrodon #exoplanets

A plot showing the best fit of the 1981 brightening event seen towards Beta Pictoris using three different photometric surveys, shown as wiggling lines in red, green and blue.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Oh my god, I absolutely want those badge flairs for the next #SPIE #astronomy conference...

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I watched “Back to the Future” for the n’th time last night. It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling, as tight as a drum. With each rewatch I appreciate more just how much physical humour Fox, Lloyd, Thompson, Glover and Wilson put into their roles. Go watch it! #scifi #HelloMcFly

Marty watching his father getting bullied by Biff Tanner in 1955.

Marty talking with his mother as a teenager in 1955.

Marty looking shocked and out of focus whilst Doc Brown breaks the fourth wall with his finger saying the name of the film.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Oxford in the 1990's, there was this local band playing and I was offered a ticket for 5 quid. I skipped it, the ticket was sold to a scalper outside the venue and they bought a kebab with the proceeds. And that, kids, is how I missed seeing Radiohead playing their second album "The Bends".

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I am shocked, shocked I tell you! Well, okay, not that shocked really.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Larry R. Nittler 🚀🎹🌖☄️ @larrynittler.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I gave my talk (basically my thesis defense from a few months earlier) and noticed a silver-haired woman in the second row who I had not met, furiously knitting. When I finished, her hand shot up to ask first question. 2/

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Br. Robert Macke SJ @brbobmackesj.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

A little something I found in the Vatican Observatory guestbook:

Signature dated 12 June 1975 of Nancy Grace Roman, Washington DC USA, NASA

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I KNEW IT! I KNEW I WAS NOT GOING MAD! This has driven me INSANE at most Dutch gatherings.... and now I have PROOF! Bakje it is from now on for me.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

From stepping off the plane at #AMS, through passport control, onto a train to #Leiden, bike from the train station to home - 43 minutes total. At #LGW the same amount of time left me waiting for a delayed train at the airport railway station….. good #infrastructure really makes a difference.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

“Honestly Jens they’re more persistent than those rats in the kitchen… tomorrow morning you promise me you’ll put down more of that powder around the bedposts.” Seen at #MuseumBredius in #DenHaag

On oil painting of a 17th century woman sitting in a chair with an exasperated expression on her upturned face, looking up above her four poster bed where ten cheerful/psychotic looking cherubs are laughing and gamboling around the rafters. Her husband is to one side, looking up aghast.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🎶 “….and after aaaaaaall, you’re my wonderwaaaaall….” 🎶 Seen at #MuseumBredius in #DenHaag

A 17th century oil painting with a gray haired man sitting down playing a guitar, with a woman standing over his right shoulder holding what appears to be an alcoholic drink, giving him a long suffering look. He is, without doubt, playing Oasis songs.

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Reposted by Matthew Kenworthy

Michael Brown @mjibrown.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Doesn’t address the big issue that at least 1,000 Reflect Orbital satellites are needed to get only 10% of the midday sun at just one site, and this would cost at least $5,000,000 per hour.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Wow! an absolutely spectacular capture, bravo!

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Wow, the sun projection box was far more successful than I would have guessed… two dozen people in our Dutch neighbourhood came by and took a look at the sun, and someone brought solar glasses too - echt gezellig! #astrodon #astronomy #SolarEclipse

A crescent Sun projected onto a white piece of paper sitting inside a cardboard box, projected by a binocular eyepiece. It is on a card table with brown scorched grass below and against a green bush.&10;

About a dozen people are standing in the setting sun and talking. They are standing around the card table with the solar projector sitting on a card table. One person is wearing solar glasses and is looking at the setting sun, around the time of maximum eclipse. There are two large bikes propped up on their kick stands in the foreground.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Ready for the eclipse with an old cardboard box, a pair of cheap binoculars, and loads of duct tape. Harking back to my astroinstrumentation roots! #astrodon

WIlem Dafoe in Spiderman saying "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself"

A cardboard box covered in duct tape, propped up by an upturned black plant pot, sitting on a cheap blue card table, itself standing in a garden with a brick wall and bushes behind it. The side of the cardboard box is missing and an image of the Sun can be seen projected on a sheet of white paper duct taped onto the inside back of the cardboard box.

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Matthew Kenworthy @mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Always loved taking the London coach and looking out for this on the way into Oxford.

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