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jobrodie.bsky.social
Jo-ho-ho
@jobrodie.bsky.social
1.8K followers 2.2K following 1.7K posts
London, scicomm, pylons, aircraft, techy stuff (digital enthusiast), blogging, sound, bunting, QMUL, trees, big ships, science talks, film music, the designs of Iznik pottery and William De Morgan. Recently re-watched #Seinfeld :-)
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jobrodie.bsky.social
I invite others to share their Festively Repackaged Items Which Have Nothing To Do With Christmas.
It's super durable *and* long lasting.
#FestiveScrub
Festive Scrub - the fun Christmas tree design from Multy which is soft in warm water, firm in cool water. Also non-scratch and flexible, odour free and super durable and long lasting. Wonder if they know what durable means.
December 6, 2025 at 6:55 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Nice to see Woolwich Works doing so well these days. Big queue for an event, busy busy. I think the signposting from Elizabeth Line station is feeble, particularly at night. More on that anon. Meanwhile spot the Elizabeth Line station in Woolwich.
Woolwich Elizabeth Line station is next to qn M&S and largely hidden from view by the colonnade pillars. lt is quite purple, so prominently visible when you are upon it, but not exactly waving you in. I think there are some signs pointing to it but they're not lit so not very obvious at night. That said everyone seems to have found it, though I have been asked by lost people on several occasions.
December 6, 2025 at 5:58 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Wondering if I should remake this for Donald Trump. Inspired by Natalie Dee's "Hey peas" cartoon I made this medal for my nephew (when small) after he reluctantly braved some peas. Trump is pretty much a vanquisher of everyone's peace (I have no info about his dealings with peas) so it kinda works.
A small (two inch diameter) unfired ceramic disc painted with cartoon peas and a couple of celebratory stars with the text saying "Sam, vanquisher of peas". I awarded this to my nephew after he overcame his dislike of peas and ate some. The peas are modelled on Natalie Dee's "Hey peas" cartoon. Tweet from 30 December 2012 saying "We went pottery painting yesterday in which I recorded five year old nephew's battle with a plate of peas with a commemorative medal."
December 6, 2025 at 10:39 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
It was fun thinking up ways to link Christmas icons to computer science-related things. This bauble made me think of printed circuit boards so today's @cs4fn.bsky.social Advent post is about circuits, and there's even a circuit-themed puzzle cs4fn.blog/2023/12/06/c...
A hand-drawn cartoon Christms bauble with swirling patterns on, made in Inkscape and coloured in very bright pink. With a gold bit at the top to put thread through so it could be hung from a tree.
December 6, 2025 at 9:26 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Day 5 of the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calender and the window shows a snowman. You might think there's no link with computing but you'd be wrong!
a) you can make a water-based computer and
b) compacted snow made me think of data compression ;)
cs4fn.blog/advent/
cc @cs4fn.bsky.social
A grid of five Christmas themed cartoon images, one for each day from the first to the fifth of December. Four are coloured in and today's on the fifth of December is a snowman. The images and the text below them are clickable, each taking the reader to a post whose theme is suggested by the image. Monday's was a woolly jumper and the post was about the links between coding and knitting. Tuesday's was a pair of mittens so the post was about digital twins, paired programming and gestural gloves. Wednesdays was a snowflake picture and the post was about the six sided hexaflexagon that has even more faces within its folded paper - it's actually a hexa-hexa-flexagon. Yesterday's was a red skate which took you to a post about ice-cold detection of neutrinos and computer modelling of ice skaters' spins. Today's is about water computers and digital compression (the snowman is made of water in the form of compressed ice!).
December 5, 2025 at 1:18 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
cs4fn.blog/advent/
There's an ice-skate on today's @cs4fn.bsky.social Advent window so the post inside is a chilly look at neutrino detection, digitally modelling a skater's spins and finding some computer science in the film 'Frozen' (and a kriss kross puzzle).
Cover for the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar with a cartoon Christmas tree and lights and tinsel. Inexpertly drawn ice skate coloured in red with a white cuff. Below it the text says 'Skating on ice'. Both image and text are linked to the post so clicking either will take visitors to the article.
December 4, 2025 at 10:09 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Just started: Science & Tech Committee is finding out about Quantum Tech shortly, and hopefully so will I.
www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...

(First is the Innovation Showcase which has something to do with virtual reality (delirium training) in the NHS in Stafford).
Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. Tuesday second of December 2025 at nine thirty a.m. Today's agenda Subject: Innovation showcase Witness(es): Dr Rebecca Chubb, Deputy Clinical Director, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust; Joe McCrea, Associate Director of Communications, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust Subject: Science diplomacy Witness(es): Dr Manjari Chandran-Ramesh, Partner, Amadeus Capital Partners; Jessica Wade, Associate Professor, Imperial College London Witnesses: Jonathan Legh-Smith, Executive Director, UKQuantum; Duncan Jones, General Manager, Quantinuum Dr Rebecca Chubb, Deputy Clinical Director, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust Joe McCrea, Associate Director of Communications, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust Kyle Holloway, Digital Content Lead, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Trust
December 2, 2025 at 9:36 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Pinch Punch(cards) - the @cs4fn.bsky.social Christmas Computing Advent Calendar is back cs4fn.blog/cs4fn-christ...

Click on the coloured image on each 'window' (new each day) then marvel at how I've managed to link it thematically with computer science!
Today: woolly jumpers = knitting & coding.
A cartoon Christmas tree next to a panel announcing the C. S. Four F. N. Christmas Computing Advent Calendar. C. S. Four F. N. means Computer Science For Fun.
December 1, 2025 at 1:41 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
@michaelrosenyes.bsky.social @davidarnold.bsky.social
Today Channel 4 is showing - -
We're Going on a Bear Hunt at 1.30pm 🐻
The Tiger Who Came to Tea at 2.40pm 🐅
:-)
TV listings for Channel 4 showing "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" at 1.30pm. TV listings for Channel 4 showing "The Tiger Who Came to Tea" at 2.40pm.
November 30, 2025 at 10:41 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
An intriguing set of empty red boxes in an emailed newsletter!
A series of nested red-edged squares - there seem to be at least 40 of them. Ordinarily these are boxed areas within which is text or imagery but there are a whole bunch of spares at the end of the email with nothing in. The gaps between them starts off larger and then gets apparently exponentially smaller. The effect is like looking into a box whose far side is rapidly receding and stretching away from you.
November 28, 2025 at 11:24 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
I've made some snowflakes in Inkscape, aren't they pretty! YouTube is awash with instructional videos on how to do this and Inkscape is free, so let's see your snowflakes :)

Suggested videos here docs.google.com/document/d/1... (this assumes familiarity w Inkscape. Might do one for Abs Beginners)
A shape with sharply defined eges made only from a swirl of blue snowflakes of different sizes on a black background. The snowflakes were made individually in Inkscape and then I used the spray tool to spray over a shape I'd drawn (and set it to spray only over my shape and not the background). Deleted the shape leaving the spray of snowflakes. I think it's rather pretty.
November 27, 2025 at 8:50 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Oooh-hoo :)
UKRI survey
portal.iffresearch.com/mrIWeb/mrIWe...
Me voting for public engagement in the UKRI's survey question which asks "In order to best meet the needs of you and your organisation, where is it most important UKRI focuses its efforts?".
November 21, 2025 at 2:02 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
What magical tech is behind me being able to click a coloured button then fill bits in with that colour? The black & white images are SVGs so I assume that's driving things but is this a really complicated thing to code?
www.coloringonline.com/coloring-pag...
cc @cs4fn.bsky.social (pixel puzzles..)
A black and white digital line drawing of hot air balloons over mountains (with different patterns on), on a page that lets you colour in every segment with a range of different colours.
November 21, 2025 at 11:40 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
WordPress remains terrible at formatting stuff.
On the left how a post looks in the Edit window. Everything is lined up correctly. On the right the published post is a chaotic mess with the number of a bullet point on the line above the point it references.
November 19, 2025 at 12:22 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
I'm too scared to re-try "Mark Gotham" Korean here and will try when at home. Paper in question is arxiv.org/pdf/2408.01096 (will autod/l PDF).
Mark gave a talk last week but due to me misinterpreting CET for GMT I turned up (online) pretty much just as everyone was clapping ;)
Six dragons fly again: reviving 15th century Korean court music with transformers and novel encoding.
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
@emilygarside.bsky.social Hi - not sure if you're working w any 3rd sector orgs (registered charity or social enterprises can apply) that might do this but thought possibly theatre 'stuff' might be of interest to this group & funding is available find-government-grants.service.gov.uk/grants/hmpps...
HMPPS Small Grants Scheme Cardiff Community Justice projects Cardiff Community Justice team (HMPPS) are offering small grants of up to £5,000 to local, third sector organisations that will provide services to people on probation in Cardiff and the Vale. The grants will be used to support those in the community subject to Probation supervision. The scope of services offered can be tailored by the third sector organisations and based on the needs of the participants. Activities include those targeting emotional wellbeing, sports and outdoor activities, arts and music, cooking and other services aimed to encourage rehabilitation and engagement with community provisions. We are particularly interested in hearing from organisations who can provide support within the Splott, Llanrumney and Ely areas of Cardiff.
November 17, 2025 at 2:24 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Previously I had two at one sitting then just chopped the remaining two up cold and put them into omelettes which reheated them without worrying about their 'height'.

Not yet tried freezing and defrosting (and then reheating).
#MushroomPizzas (sort of).
Chopped the stuffed mushroom and sprinkled it onto an omelette. Also delicious, shown here in the harsh glare of an iPhone camera flash along with some accompanying olives. This was an earlier batch.
November 15, 2025 at 12:17 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Re-heating advice sought please :-)
While this looks awful it's delicious (big mushroom, gills & stalk scraped / chopped into a bowl with [all chopped]: hard mozzarella, smoked ham, olives, coriander leaf, breadcrumbs, olive oil. Squashed onto 4 mushrooms, Gas Mk 4, 15mins (turn 180˚ ½-way through).
Actually delicious stuffed mushroom, despite appearance. It's a mushroom topped with the ingredients listed in the post and then zapped in the oven so it all gets mushed in with the melting cheese. It smells and tastes lovely but lacks a certain something in the visual domain. The raw ingredients for this batch of stuffed mushrooms included olive oil (to knit all the ingredients together), olives, coriander leaf, garlic (I actually forgot this bit!), the slightly yellower harder mozzarella that melts not the whiter softer stuff used in salads, any kind of breadcrumbs crunchy or Panko (it'll be crunchy once it's been through the oven) and ham, all chopped up small and piled into the space left by gutting the large mushrooms of their gills and stalk (cleaned and chopped also). Yum.
November 15, 2025 at 12:17 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Accessible / disabled loo at work. Should the clip be attached to the support or hanging freely like the one at the bottom? I wasn't sure what to do with it (so left it as it is) as it does fit snugly on the support (but have seen triangular ones that wouldn't).
A photograph showing a red emergency pull string which is touching the ground (correctly, in case someone falls and can only reach things at ground level) which has a red plastic clip attached to a wall support. I'm not sure if that's correct or if the whole thing should be hanging freely.
November 15, 2025 at 11:46 AM
jobrodie.bsky.social
I'm enjoying today's free computing education seminar from @raspberrypiorg.bsky.social. Am not a computing educator but my job is adjacent / supporting people who do that sort of thing. So it's handy to know what they're thinking about :)
#RPFseminars
www.raspberrypi.org/research-imp...
Computing Education Research Seminars: Teaching about AI and data science. Today's talk is Using the micro:bit to learn about machine learning practice.
November 11, 2025 at 5:30 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
I have never heard of this! I don't think I've ever downloaded clip art like that, but I can see how that might be annoying. Wonder if they opened the PNG & found it grey, not realising that if imported into a document the grey goes white.
Or can transparentify in Inkscape, probs Gimp + AI tools.
Composite image showing the creation of a transparent PNG using Inkscape and how, if you were to open the resulting file, it doesn't look transparent (has a grey background), but if you import it into a document - it does.
November 7, 2025 at 4:52 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Also a bit irritated by this. There's no option to say 'don't contact' but I'd assume it was implied by me giving permission for neither method (red box on right) but here's what my account looks like now (black box on left) ;)

Anyway I've just been out for a nice walk and the pigeons say 'hi'.
On the left a box showing some information about my account that includes my email address (redacted) and my Preferred contact method which is set to Any. However on the right the drop-down menu options were Any, Email, Phone and so I left it at Any as no option to say please do not contact me. I left unticked the marketing options so hopefully that will override and no-one will spam me.
November 3, 2025 at 2:20 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
But I don't want to create an account. This is a one-time purchase. I find this slightly enraging.

#ITTWTTHTMTINDTB though - "If that's the worst thing to happen to me today I'm not doing too badly", as my more stoic parents would say.
"You must be logged in to check out, please click here to log in"
November 3, 2025 at 2:08 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Wallace and Gromit at Woolwich Works with brass band concert, photo ops, merch and a chance to play the theme tune in the foyer.
A sign and colourful barrier directing visitors to the entrance to see and hear the film and concert. Cardboard cut-outs of Wallace, Feathers McGraw, Gromit and the Techno Trousers for people to photograph themselves with. Before the concert the big screen showed stills of footage from the development of The Wrong Trousers. This still shows someone's hand (presumably Nick Park) behind the penguin Feathers McGraw holding the controller to make the techno trousers work. Lots of bright red plastic trumpets, I think, on a table in the foyer plus some other colourful tubes below (red, yellow, green, possibly blue and orange) whose purpose I don't know. A sign says "come and have a blast with us" and I think children were being invited to have a go at playing the Wallace and Gromit theme tune.
November 2, 2025 at 9:19 PM
jobrodie.bsky.social
Today I went to see the KNDS Fairey Brass band (epic) perform (live) the score for Wallace & Gromit's The Wrong Trousers at @woolwichworks.bsky.social. Absolutely brilliant fun :) That's the first 'live to picture' concert I've heard of for a child-friendly audience, wondered if others exist.
Photograph pinched from The KNDS Fairey Band's website advertising their events today at the Woolwich Works. On screen Gromit is looking sadly at a photograph of him and Wallace as he resolves to leave his home now that Feathers McGraw has ingratiated himself into Wallace's household as a paying guest, in The Wrong Trousers.
November 2, 2025 at 8:54 PM