iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Cornwall Exchange prototyping is done and we're starting the main build... Crystal Maze and Dr. Who inspired shenanigans for including younger people into local democracy and planning. And nope, they won't recognise the references :) […]

social.thentrythis.org

Original post on social.thentrythis.org

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 02/10/2026

Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Free moth making with Jasmine Saunders - the second of the Cocoon Residency events as part of our collab with the UK Moth Virome Project (University of Exeter and Butterfly Conservation, led by @b_longdon, funded by NERC) These are free drop in events […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Illustration of moths connected by curved and straight lines, with text that reads - free ceramic moth workshop, Fri 16th/Sat 24th Oct, 11-2pm drop in in the greenhouse at potager garden

Illustration of lots of moths with a few connecting lines between them, logos for University of Exeter, Then Try This, and NERC, with text reading - Join our collaborative sculpture inspired by moth research, led by Cocoon Resident Jasmine Saunders

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

[AI & vibecoding] Vibecoding presumes the purpose of programmers is to produce lines of code, and replaces that. Has anyone involved stopped to question this at all? The fundamental purpose of programming is to understand a problem well. The code itself is just a temporary expression of […]

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Lovely week with the first Cocoon resident, Melanie Hyo-In Han, working with us and the UK Moth Virome Project gang led by @ben. Mel ran a moth poetry workshop (and one participant instantly recruited her to run another a few days later). We also had a […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Poetry workshop in a greenhouse with people sat around a long wood table. A small black dog is also seated at the table.

Three residents and moth expert crouched down, and various other people, around a very bright light at night, looking at moths

Mel with her first ever moth she caught, with another person in a head torch and a young person with their back to the camera

Mel's Instagram post with a photo of her first moth - which is called a Snout moth because it has a long nose

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

Have done a slightly scary thing and added some things I've made to a *shop*! Here it is, only UK shipping for now while I figure this all out: www.drawingsaboutthings.com/shop

Heavy Topics print photographed next to a little cactus in a pot with a smiley face. The print is black on cream textured paper, and shows a stack of books with some legs sticking out under them, belonging to a squished person. The books are called 'Very serious book', 'Complicated', 'Things and Stuff', and 'Heavy Topics'

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Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

Our first Cocoon resident, Melanie Hyo-In Han, has arrived in Cornwall and is getting ready to run a poetry workshop on Monday. We'll all be brilliantly out of our comfort zones attempting poetic wordplay on moths and migration, with participants […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Inside a big greenhouse with a table and seats under a large wisteria plant that forms a canopy. The evening light is casting some long shadows inside.

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

Reposted by Dave Griffiths

New meme just dropped

Photo of my black fluffy dog eating a watermelon slice with four very prominent top teeth showing and a disaster girl glint in her crazed eyes

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 07/09/2026

Meet the newest member of our studio! Lucy is joining the @alpaca project for a couple of years, helping to figure out the best ways to share the research online, with a focus on community building and marginalised groups. This is part of @yaxu's […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Text says Welcome to the Then Try This gang: Lucy Cheesman, alongside a photo of a person smilling

Text reads: Lucy Cheesman has joined us to work part-time on the UKRI funded Alpaca project. She'll be looking at better ways to share research online, informed by permacomputing principles.

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Anyway, just leaving that there with the observation that all of tech policy is just basically different flavours of men being emotional about things and really what am I doing with my life

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

jonny (nonvenomous) @jonny.neuromatch.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026

At the MIT museum. "Can we trust an AI pilot to fly in aerial combat" the text frames the problem as a technical challenge like any other. Predicting a high dimensional state space of pilot actions. An interactive exhibit, but broken. Unresponsive touchscreen. The voice of an AI assistant […]

neuromatch.social

Original post on neuromatch.social

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 03/08/2026

Does anybody know why some companies make you jump through hoops to get a VAT receipt, while for others they are just the default?

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Anders Dahnielson @dahnielson.mastodon.gamedev.place.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2026

This one made me laugh for real.

The pointing Spider-Man meme but there are six of them pointing in all cardinal directions and labeled like the Blender axis.

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

Bill Oddie - I was once wandering home at an ungodly hour with a mate across Hampstead Heath after a long night out (Slimelight's probably). The mist was slowly rising in the pre-dawn light above the ponds, not another soul in sight - and there he was, binoculars in hand. A rarity indeed! He […]

Deep Space 90210 @ds90210.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Worf: What’s the meaning of life Jadzia? Jadzia: Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat.

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2026

Just look at the live fire map of US and Africa, and next year El Nino will be in top of this. Get your money out of the big banks and into triodos or co-op or whatever equivalent your country has, next to no effort and one of the most powerful ways not contribute to worsening this utter hell […]

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Original post on mastodon.green

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 22/07/2026

Managed to find and curve trace some molybdenite: cornish-semiconductor.com/index.php… Which is satisfying because it's currently looking like the most likely post-silicon semiconductor: a thousand times less energy hungry. You can make […] [Original post on post.lurk.org]

Glossy hexagonal metallic crystals surrounded by grainy quartz

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Alex McLean @yaxu.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 14/07/2026

UK non-academic researchers! UK Research and Innovation have one research funding programme - 'Future Leaders Fellowships' - which allow and support applications from non-academic researchers, i.e. those hosted by business including non-profits. It's well funded, over 4 years, extendable to 7 […]

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 10/07/2026

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Dig for Dirt has gone live 🌱 We're looking for growers and farmers to collectively find out more about the microbes under our feet. Soil bacteria can help clean up the toxic pollution that is the legacy of mining in our area, but very little is known […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Dig for Dirt is ready for you! With an isometric illustration of crop plants on one layer and soil bacteria on a lower layer

Do you grow food, flowers or keep livestock in the South-West UK? This could be in a garden, an allotment, a smallholding, or a commercial farm of any scale.

With a simple illustration of some kale.

Can you provide a small soil sample to help understand how bacteria clean up mining pollution? You'll get a simple sampling pack from us for collecting some soil, with the return post paid for.

With a simple illustration of a trowel in some soil.

In return for your time you will have access to your own soil bacteria
results, and see how they compare to others in the South West. You will also receive a beautiful printed photograph of your soil bacteria!

With a simple illustration of an old mine engine house.

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 06/07/2026

It must be awkward for those demanding we spend more on defence that Russia is failing and cheap drones win wars now rather than aircraft carriers

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

abadidea @0xabad1dea.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 01/07/2026

RE: toot.cafe/@baldur/116843978394340259 fresh reminder to make sure all your lovely Bandcamp albums are backed up locally before you wake up one day and the download button is gone #bandcamp #BandcampFriday

toot.cafe

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/07/2026

Finally got a fully operational crystal radio for cornish-semiconductor.com and it's _extremely_ cute. It was made in Manchester in 1923: www.radiomuseum.org/r/master_master…

A wooden box with a crystal holder, cat's whisker arm, a tuning knob and a bunch of screw connectors for earth, ariel and headphones. A BBC stamp in the middle declares that it is "type approved by post mastergeneral".

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Dr. Victoria Grinberg @vicgrinberg.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

We are all stardust. The oxygen you breath? That comes from dying massive stars, ending their life in a supernova. The iron in your blood? Some from massive stars dying, but mainly fron white dwarfs, the leftovers of dwarf stars like our own Sun, exploding […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Table of elements colored by their cosmic origin: big bang fusion, cosmic ray fusion, merging neutron stars, exploring massive stars, dying low mass stars, exploring white dwarfs.

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

Working on a new pattern language as part of @alpaca for understanding tablet weave draft patterns. I'm basing it's logic on underlying methods you can see used in Iron Age patterns like the Hallstatt textiles. If I'm reading them right - everything seems […] [Original post on post.lurk.org]

A text display of a sort of staggered staircase like pattern

Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

Well, I might be wrong, but I don't think Burnham mentioned AI once in his plans for the future... are we going to have a post-AI prime minister?

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

I'm trying to stay quiet about AI, but when someone sends you a slop synopsis about your own project that is entirely plausible sounding utter nonsense, it gives you a disorientating fuzzy head just reading it - you realise what's happening with everyone's brains.

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2026

[razor blade image (ancient radio tech)] No cat's whiskers? No problem: use two razor blades instead. Apart from being a touch on the dangerous side, this turns out to have other downsides. It's likely to create semiconducting junctions on both sides, or on […] [Original post on post.lurk.org]

Two razor blades stuck in corks with crocodile clips connecting them to a circuit on a breadboard. An arsenopyrite crystal is balanced on top of them, and other crystals (chalcopyrite, calcocite and cassiterite) are on the table around them.

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

Happy solstice from my new little friend 💫

Ringlet butterfly sitting on hand with a bright blue shed behind

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026

"The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb" – Marshall McLuhan

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

DW Innovation @dw-innovation.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/06/2026

AI's environmental impact is no joke. "By 2030, AI infrastructure could generate up to 2.5 million metric tons of e-waste each year, roughly equivalent to discarding 250 Eiffel Towers annually" (page 13). Roughly 50 pages on this very important matter by a team of reasearchers at the United […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Alex McLean @yaxu.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 16/06/2026

Maintaining a project on microsoft/azure github seems as bad as maintaining a profile on X It's bonkers that we let the free/open source community get so comprehensively captured by closed source, inhumane corporate tech. If your community on there doesn't have an exit plan, it might be worth […]

Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/06/2026

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AI is like the millennium bug, but in some ways the inverse. Fixing the mess after the fact is going to take years, and ironically - employ a mass of people.

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 02/06/2026

Had a nice bit of news lately that I can finally put on here - one of my prints has been longlisted for the World Illustration Awards in the editorial category :D I am baffled and confused but it seems to be real […] [Original post on mastodon.green]

Tetrapak print of a pile of books squashing a person flat. The books have the titles 'very serious book', 'complicated', 'things and stuff', and 'heavy topics'

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 01/06/2026

Cornish Semiconductor Corporation is now supported using public funding by Arts Council England. Dave got a Research and Development grant for individuals grant to make noise with mine waste. More info here […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Crystals in crocodile clips with diy circuits underneath and a synthesiser (a SH101) in the foreground.

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 17/05/2026

Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Tiny wood engraving print by Bewick from late 1700s-early 1800s. He engraved his own finger print at life size into this scene, the whole thing is about 4x2cm.

There is a detailed cottage on the right with a little fence, a rider on a horse is half visible with the front half under the carved fingerprint, there are trees behind. It is a black ink print on white paper, reproduced at the original scale in a book called Thomas Bewick, Tale-Pieces.

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Elen Le Foll 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 @elenlefoll.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 13/05/2026

I was only made aware of this (frankly awesome) case of LLM poisoning today: www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-…. A researcher made up a disease and published two evidently fake preprints about it (including sentences such as “this entire paper is made up” and “Fifty made-up […]

fediscience.org

Original post on fediscience.org

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Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 12/05/2026

A little while ago we were interviewed by the lovely Matt Dowse, a researcher on community technology. That research has now been published! It's a bit rare that people really just 'get' what we do and why, but we felt 100% understood this time, and he explains it better than we ever can […]

social.thentrythis.org

Original post on social.thentrythis.org

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 08/05/2026

Hot take, UK universities are eating themselves. They're making it SO hard to work with them, increasingly bad year on year, and I think it's just because they're scared of *everything*. So the research is getting shitter, the public engagement (everyone hates that term but here we are) is […]

mastodon.green

Original post on mastodon.green

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Reposted by Dave Griffiths

Then Try This @thentrythis.social.thentrythis.org.ap.brid.gy · 08/05/2026

If you're in Bristol, Dave will be taking part remotely in a panel discussion today at the Centre for Creative Technologies Showcase, talking about Then Try This. It's free entry and happening at 1PM: Bristol Digital Futures Institute, University of […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Showcase programme 8TH MAY BRISTOL DIGITAL FUTURES INSTITUTE
[Temple Quarter]

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Dave Griffiths @nebogeo.post.lurk.org.ap.brid.gy · 05/05/2026

It's kind of interesting that it seems impossible to get hold of beginner kits for electronics that don't include a microcontroller - as if learning to program is just a part of the process and not an *entirely separate* skill.

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Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 30/04/2026

Long day in the print room, first job was to test print this foxy etching plate...

Etching print in dark blue of three craggy mountains. On top of one is a small quite abstract person, on another, looking at her, is a huge arctic fox with a swooping tail full of stars filling the sky

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Amber Griffiths @amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy · 25/04/2026

Turns out I measure lib dem graphs for kicks. As you'd predict, Reform vote over exaggerated by the column height, while conservative, green and labour under exaggerated, to make the point they are trying to make.

Leaflet saying it's lib dem or reform in Cornwall, with the mm per vote scrawled on each bar of the graph