@Rhodium103@mastodon.social
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Rhodium103

@Rhodium103@mastodon.social

🧪 Lecturer in Physical Chemistry and Chemistry Education
📜 SFHEA dontcha know
👨‍🏫 (Deputy) Director of Education
🖥️ Self-appointed Canvas LMS expert
📊 Spreadsheet apologist
🎨 Occasional artist
⚔️ Warhammer adjacent
📺 Connoisseur of Netflix's finest trash
🐧 Chaotic neutral
🧒🏻 he/him/they
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿/🇬🇧 (not by choice, you understand...)

Now also running https://mstdn.science/@HullScience

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Spelling Bee Judge: Your word is "redacted".

Kid: ████████

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

"I'm tired. I'll sleep at a reasonable hour for the first time in three months."

opens whatsapp to be bombarded with photographs

"OH FOR FUCKS SAKE."

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Live scenes from this morning:

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar
Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

I guess computer literacy peaked with Gen X and Elder Millennials because they grew up with computers being ubiquitous, but also with computers being an absolute fucking pain in the arse to use.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Happy "Chaos with Ed Milliband" Day to those who observe.

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

Hey musicians - I was listening to a thing about Spotify being crappy in terms of rev share. This is a familiar experience for cartoonists on other platforms! SO, if I want to support musicians, what's the best way to consume? Website? YouTube? Physical media?

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith
Forget where, but I've read that it's reached the point where literally pirating the music is better for artists, then you throw the Spotify Premium cost at a random patreon every month instead.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Main character: "I used to do quad biking on my uncle's farm, and use a BB gun to hit wild hogs from it."

Military commanders: "Well, you seem perfectly qualified for us to gift you this top-of-the-line F22."

MC: "Also, I'll switch off all this tried and tested technology and use Space Magic I only first heard of less than 18 hours ago."

And yet Star Wars fans complain that Rey is a "Mary Sue". Yes, this is why hating you people is a load-bearing aspect of my personality.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

I get many of emails from random people wanting to do PhDs with me on areas not even remotely associated with what I do (why, yes, my academic profile does list my many achievements and publications in the field of nanotechnology...), but today is the first time one of them has gone so far as to actually apply through the official channels, generating work for me to reject it and deal with the admin of selecting a reason, none of which are "this is spam apparently written by GPT".

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

An under-appreciated benefit f quitting Twitter for Mastodon is that it's been over 18 months since I last felt compelled to scream "READ ANOTHER BOOK!" at a Harry Potter fan.

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

The real cancel culture is Netflix who can’t let a single good show get past season one

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan In the fantasy genre, we don't say "I loved your book", we say "Netflix would cancel this after one season", and I think that's beautiful.

simon, to random
@simon@simonwillison.net avatar

OK, nearly done with season 2 and I'm ready to say that Extraordinary is the best new British sitcom I've seen in years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_(TV_series)

It's very rude and has lots of cringe comedy, but the first two minutes of S1E1 will tell you everything you need to know about if you'll enjoy the rest of the show

The writing is so tight, all the performances are great and the soundtrack is spectacular - all bangers, all the time

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

@simon
Someone else has seen it! 😊

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

@simon
Just imagine the steps you need to take to explain to someone why they keep calling him "Jizzlord".

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

I can't quite explain this but it's true.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

"What's that film that you love?

...The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy.

He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin.

His father's a robot and he's fucking fucked his sister.

Lego! They're all made of fucking lego."

"Star Wars?"

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Knowledge is knowing that "steam" is invisible because gaseous water isn't visible, and what people mistakenly call steam is condensed liquid water suspended in the air.

Wisdom is not sticking your face above a boiling kettle.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

I a paper on the study we did on perceptions of at-home/online exams at the height of the pandemic.

I hope I can keep this line in:

"For the purposes of this study, we had no participants who experienced remotely-proctored examinations, so have neglected these. We also do not consider these to have been assessments: but instead a massive invasion of student privacy by systems proven to be racist, ableist, and ineffective, introduced out of professional negligence."

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

To clear up any confusion, fantasy is when the book's title is serif, and scifi is when it's sans serif.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

🔥Take:

I think it was a mistake to ever focus on English tuition fees as being a "bad" thing. It was an excuse to introduce a graduate tax by stealth, in a way that could be charged to overseas students.

Meanwhile, maintenance has converted from grant to loan, failed to keep up with inflation, and has effectively become a scam to transfer massive amounts of public funds to private landlords, since it no longer even covers basic rent.

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Not that fees are "good", just that focusing on them has been the problem. Because that casts academic staff as the Bad Guy, and drives an unnecessary wedge between students and their HEIs that the government can jam its claws into. "Value for money" is now a threat, and it's unobtainable in a world where for some people £9k is the cost of the annual family holiday, and for others it's a significant chunk of the total family income.

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

While inability to afford to live has destroyed many students' ability to actually study and focus.

Chuds are, like, "study a proper subject!"

Yeah, dude, sure. Those "proper" subjects are a 40 hour work week and the rest, and I've got people who can't afford to commute in for it or start passing out because they can't eat -- all because rent is £170 pcw when (if it just tracked inflation from when I was an undergraduate) it shouldn't even by £90.

Rhodium103, to chemistry
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Hello all, if you have 5-10 minutes to watch some demonstrations and answer a few questions, our project students would greatly appreciate it.

https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/hull/explosive-chemistry

Especially if you're not already into or studying chemistry.

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

Mar 18: Do you ever use parentheses/brackets in your writing?

Fiction: no.

Non-fiction: Look, if it doesn't have: (at least) one colon, two commas, a dash and parentheses (possibly even nested ones (like so)) -- is it even a real sentence?

danderson, to random
@danderson@hachyderm.io avatar

I went down a Voyager rabbit hole again. And I came up with a factoid that entertains me.

The original Grand Tour program was canceled in late 1971, due to congressional pressure over cost. Voyager was the cheaper mission to just Jupiter and Saturn.

Voyager and its team are incredible, and they managed to pull off the entire grand tour anyway, and then 34 years and counting more science after that.

There's a good chance Voyager might outlive the entire congress that killed the grand tour.

Rhodium103,
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

@danderson
Hang on, I think I've got this....

Rhodium103, to random
@Rhodium103@mastodon.social avatar

I created a Nextdoor account out of curiosity and it was..... unfortunately incredibly boring. Only the one post saying kids should have their bikes crushed out of several hundred that I trawled through. 0 out of 10. Not even worth it for a cringe binge.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • tester
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • hgfsjryuu7
  • everett
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • tsrsr
  • GTA5RPClips
  • PowerRangers
  • DreamBathrooms
  • Leos
  • mdbf
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • vwfavf
  • Durango
  • rosin
  • cisconetworking
  • osvaldo12
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • modclub
  • anitta
  • All magazines