iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 24/03/2025

🚨 PhD Project Alert 🚨 UK and RoI students - here's a project looking at understanding how lowering methane emissions may change the quality profile of beef produced under typical UK/Ireland production systems. #phdprojects #phd #foodsecurity www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

020 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 14/01/2025

Producing food is arguably the easy (well, easier) part - making sure all of that food is safe to eat and isn't going make human or animal consumers ill, that's the real challenge. #FoodSafety www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/food-produ...

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 13/01/2025

Is Nigel Farage really selling nappies over on X at the moment @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social ? It must surely be a wind-up.

Screenshot of Twitter/X showing Nigel Farage advertising nappies.

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 11/01/2025

PhD project alert - I'm co-supervising a mass spectrometry PhD, making use of our Waters TQ-Absolute system with DESI-XS imaging platform to develop faster, more sensitive food contaminant tests. Deadline 7th February. DMs open for queries. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

A picture of a Waters TQ-Absolute triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer fitted with a Desorption ElectroSpray Ionisation (DESI) imaging platform source.

073 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 04/01/2025

Vienna has maintenance trams but didn't see any lubricating tram like the Prague one when I was visiting over the summer.

A maintenance tram coupled to a freight wagon, seen in front of Austria's parliament building on the Ringstraße. The maintenance tram and wagon are in the rainbow flag colours, ready for the annual Vienna Pride procession.

020 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 04/01/2025

it's back! That's brilliant news, have genuinely missed it whilst the feed has been offline. We had a brief liaison in September 2022, don't think I saw the lubricating tram when I was out in November last year.

My photo of Prague's lubricating tram as it passes Praha Masarykovo nádraží. The photo shows an orange Tatra T3 tram modified to undertake maintenance tasks.

The tram's photo of me, having just finished taking a photograph of the tram. A man with his hands in his pockets stands in front of Praha Masarykovo nádraží.

100 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 01/01/2025

that's a ground source heat pump, the majority of people should be using an air source heat pump - which needs about 100mm of excavation for the pad it sits on, rather than a 100m borehole. They're also safer than gas boilers (negligible explosion risk, no CO incomplete combustion risks).

A compact air source heat pump (ASHP) sit beside a grey wood clad and brick wall.

011 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 29/12/2024

Apple have the right idea on USB-C with the current MacBook Air M3. It comes with their proprietary (and brilliant) MagSafe 3 connector, but can also be charged through USB-C which makes life so easy when travelling.

010 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 28/12/2024

yes, that would definitely make sense - though it then raises the question of why they didn't use the rear lights from XJ41/42 for XJ220, were they not as advanced in production readiness or just couldn't be packaged correctly ?

100 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 25/12/2024

at the other end of Slocombe's incredible career, which saw him shoot fabulous things like "Rollerball" and "Never Say Never Again" is "The Titfield Thunderbolt". Ealing's first (though not Slocombe's) to be filmed in Technicolor, it's a vivid trip through 1950s England. 12pm, BBC 2, 30th Dec).

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 25/12/2024

Slocombe, who learned his craft as a war correspondent during WW2 and later at Ealing, would later film the first three Indiana Jones films, after working with Spielberg on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". I rather like "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (6.40pm, Channel 4, 31st Dec).

110 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 25/12/2024

Just a little reminder, that if you're enjoying The Italian Job (1969) and in particular the gorgeous way it was shot by Douglas Slocombe, you can have another couple of his films he shot next week.

110 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 25/12/2024

First up, a slightly forgotten sister piece to The Snowman, it's another Raymond Briggs adaptation. It's not the most seasonal of films, being a nuclear apocalypse death horror. It's "When the Wind Blows" with a David Bowie and Roger Waters soundtrack. bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3...

An old couple, one holding a teapot, standing in front of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion. The frame is taken from the animated film When the Wind Blows.

110 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 25/12/2024

Everybody loves The Snowman at Christmas, but a few may be unaware of some of the other works from the team of Jimmy Murakami, John Coates and Dianne Jackson who made The Snowman.

A frame from The Snowman, showing The Snowman standing next to a decorated Christmas tree, whilst the small boy looks on in a state of some confusion.

100 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 24/12/2024

I can't imagine why WH Smith would have put Miranda Hart's "I Haven't Been Entirely Honest with You" next to "Unleashed", Boris Johnson's latest work of fiction.

A picture of Boris Johnson's latest book "Unleashed", next to Miranda Hart's new book which is entitled "I Haven't Been Entirely Honest with You"

1260 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 17/12/2024

yeah, clearly a photoshop...

110 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 11/12/2024

Just when I thought the algorithms on things like Spotify, YouTube and Amazon Prime were so utterly useless, Amazon Prime comes up with "The Bed Sitting Room" as a suggestion. 1969 film cut from the same cloth as Monty Python and likely overlooked because of Python, it's fabulously bizarre.

Poster for the film The Bed Sitting Room

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 09/12/2024

Why have one Graduation Ceremony this week, when you can have two. Different gowns both days and I even get a certificate today.

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 08/12/2024

Synthesis of the usual compounds responsible for Christmas trees having their characteristic smell?

140 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 30/11/2024

If current Starmer competency is anything to go by, this will be the Sherpa he uses...

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 28/11/2024

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't deep fry your frozen turkey in the middle of your kitchen, for the love of god, and do make sure it's properly cooked, an extra hour in the oven is an extra hour drinking time, so do make sure it's not raw.

010 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 23/11/2024

unsurprisingly, I'd recommend anybody looking for a good family or first mid-size EV jump at this. It's a really good car. Kings Red is a really deep, gorgeous colour, the advert photos don't do it justice, here's a photo I took of a pre-facelift which is a bit better, it really pops in real life.

010 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 21/11/2024

seems after a bit of digging, Jaguar retouched the photo (it's taken from the first XJS brochure).

130 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 21/11/2024

that car confuses the hell out of me - same number plate, different rear boot paint treatment (which someone has explained to me before but I've now forgotten - was it an option in the first model year or two, then quietly dropped ?)

110 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 19/11/2024

Jaguar owners past and present are, I'm told, hating this new Jaguar design language and brand imaging. Well, I'm an old Jaguar owner (in both senses of the word) and I think it's bloody brilliant. I love Jaguar, love iPace (it's a bit too big, or I'd have one) and hope for good things next month.

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 16/11/2024

DYK that Robert Wyatt and Julian Glover are half brothers. I feel like this and other little nuggets of slightly incredible information should reward newcomers to Bluesky this weekend.

An image of English musician Robert Wyatt with a white beard, wearing a black leather jacket.

An image of English actor Julian Glover in evening dress, taken from the James Bond film 'For Your Eyes Only'.

010 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 29/08/2024

I was looking for a photo of something earlier and stumbled across these photos from April 2017, taken the day I was told I had been successful in applying for a PhD at Queen's University Belfast. I can't believe that's 7½ years ago.

Picture of Lunan Bay, in eastern Scotland, showing a bright blue sky, a large expanse of beach, and a train passing over a bridge in the distance

000 0

Dr Nick Birse @nbir.se · 10/08/2024

Waters TQ-XS being used for some of the Olympics anti-doping tests. It'll be interesting to see how things develop in the next decade, but with mass specs as sensitive as the TQ-XS, we're likely capable of detecting doping way below effective levels right now. #TeamMassSpec

000 0