In September we took over Sheffield's Wintergarden with knots and woven robots with @Khipumancer and @yaxu as part of the @alpaca Festival You could create knot patterns based on Inca/Andean Khipu technology that would program the robots remotely, and […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

I really think that people who haven’t been poor should not give money or frugality advice to poor people. The problem with poor people isn’t money management or knowledge, it’s the insufficiency of money. This goes for anyone who wants to help people on food stamps navigate this situation […]

[uk politics] Somebody I know who clearly reads the Daily Mail dropped a comment the other day about the NHS struggling because of illegal immigration and "all the boats". They then said something like "but it's strange, I never see any of them anywhere". A lot to unpack there, but I wonder […]

Pro VAT tip - printing is zero rated but paper is 20%, so if you send blank images to printers you get the paper tax free #boredwhiledoingaccounting

We had a lucky break in the weather yesterday morning to get out with Cornish artist Libita Sibungu to Nangiles mine with our DIY mineral sound recording rig (contact mics and a electromagnetic sensor). As well a sounds, we collected lots of minerals […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

A bit annoying that free/open source communities are almost all hosted by a closed source platform owned by microsoft AI who use it to IP-wash all those projects by training LLMs.. While also supporting genocide etc.

Burning 1000 tonnes of fossil carbon, or emitting 4000 tonnes of CO2, causes the premature death of a future person from effects of anthropogenic global warming. It follows that for every hour that you fly, you typically steal from a future person: - one day if you are seated in economy class - […]

I hadn't really seen the manosphere stuff as an MLM scheme but of course. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/oct/21/why-the-manosphere-clicked-for-young-men-a-visual-deep-dive

Have LLM's created any new patents? This would seem like a low bar, as genetic programming did years ago.

We've built a special type of loom designed by Peter Collinwood to create the amazing illustrations in his book "The Techniques of Tablet Weaving". This is to help us closely examine the patterns and mathematics behind this weaving technique on the […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

So with absolutely zero singing experience I somewhat rashly joined a male voice choir a couple of months ago (wonderfully named "Many Men Soundsystem"). Last night we finally finished learning a new song (my first song) - a cover of "Chop Suey" by System Of A Down! The moment when it came […]

Organised Atoms Fun Palace 2025! We smashed rocks, found crystals and raved out in the rock lab. Thanks go to the Royal Society of Chemistry for supporting this kind of thing! https://thentrythis.org/notes/2025/10/08/organised-atoms-2025-fun-palace-events/

2006: "Data is the new oil" 2025: "AI is the new microplastics"

I got home today to a package with some beautiful art by @amberfirefly 🤩 Mastodon and #fedi made magic happen and a conversation we had contributed a tiny bit to the conception of these (and a series of others) beautiful artworks.

Does anyone remember the Reinhart-Rogoff affair? The paper that was widely used to justify austerity policies, but where the main result was only an artifact due to the researchers screwing up their Excel formulas? So yeah, can't see how putting the random number generator called "AI" in Excel […]

Pre-pre-pre-announcement that around the end of the year/early spring we'll be announcing some new funded residencies, based at our new studio in Cornwall to run around Aug/Sept 2026. The theme this time is moths and their viruses - as part of a bigger research grant on how viruses and their […]

Had a very convincing scam attempt on our business bank account yesterday. Had one of those fraudulent transaction query answer Y/N texts (with a totally made up payment to Adidas) which I quickly answered because I was out walking the dog. This led to a series of texts saying they were going […]

Is it only me or have Google turned off the comedy AI box of wrong facts at the top of their search in the last day or so?

Kind of amazing that Bryn Jones died in 1999 and we still have Muslimgauze releases happening in 2025

The reason the UK is historically opposed to ID cards when the rest of the EU has them is down to Napoleon, who was so into them the British naturally had to go the other way.

Is there a cure for "neurotypical" people?

Free NHS and paid private covid and flu jabs are open, book 'em up, don't forget 💚

New-new studio so close to being up and running ✨ be nice to see an end to the relentless moving and carrying and shelf building and to be back in the world

Some extreme hotel debugging going down for #alpaca2025 - come along to our public khipu play session with @Khipumancer tomorrow in the Sheffield Winter Garden 1-3pm

Revolution organised on discord https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Nepalese_Gen_Z_protests

The local etiquette section on https://2025.algorithmicpattern.org/sheffield/local-info/ : "People observe bus queues here. If you arrive at an empty bus stop and sit in the middle of the bench, people will still queue behind you, even if the stop serves multiple buses, even if this means […]

Little wood engraving of a shrew. We all share a common ancestor with a shrew like creature that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, so say hello to your great great great great great great great great great great great great shrewmother 💚

Had a quick allotment visit this morning before getting the train to Sheffield for https://2025.algorithmicpattern.org

I've been using git for nearly 20 years, I still only know 3 or 4 commands, and it still makes me feel stupid

First bits in our new spot, welcome to the 'Propagation Studio', it is the nicest place we've ever been

Across Europe, when centrist parties have adopted far right themes and sought to appease far right voters, they go down in flames. Why? Because: 1. They alienate their own base. 2. They tell other voters that the far right is correct. The determination not to learn this lesson is a wonder to behold.

Been nudging bits of my illustration website around including a shameless 'upcoming exhibitions' bit and a gratuitous new 'open for commissions' thing - so if anyone wants a drawing about a thing here I am 💚 https://www.drawingsaboutthings.com/ p.s. why is it so relentlessly painful writing […]

Can anyone tell me why you can have Wifi working well on a Raspberry Pi, then come back a year or so later and it's broken. Update the OS and it works again? It seems like a regular thing that has always been the case but I find it baffling.

«I do understand: you want permission. There’s a machine in the corner wrapped in human skin that makes things out of shit and blood to look like whatever you want (as long as you don’t look too closely). […] You want to know you can use it sometimes without me thinking less of you. You don’t […]

If you carefully look inside it, Alpaca festival is made up of over 42+ incredible artists ! https://2025.algorithmicpattern.org/sheffield/artists/

Seeing views tick up on an unapproved but common mineral photo on mindat is a curious thing: sometimes it means you've misidentified something rarer, and there is an argument going on about it you can't see. Only occasionally though, it can also mean someone is on holiday!

Managed to replicate the pyrite noise generator on the cardboard synth - single transistor operation for high quality analogue crackles! This one will be in the workshop guide... #organisedatoms

We're happy to announce dates for Organised Atoms 2025 - free workshops for kids and their families and friends where we search for crystals, examine them under a microscope and make electronic noises with them! Location: United Downs Raceway, St Day, Cornwall (situated to the south east of St […]

Wondering what on earth was up with this, and then I remembered how much it rained on the last workshop #organisedatoms

Still thinking about how @julian told me that you can just email a couple of people to start a conversation with them about something. This was a couple of years ago I think, I haven't had the nerve to try it yet.

Just remembered someone I knew years ago who said "directories are an abstract concept", and stubbornly kept all their files flat in their home folder with an intense naming system.

OMG it's #organisedatoms time of year again

China is installing 100 solar panels every second while we argue about the cost of net zero

Top tip from a dog trainer - if you need people to not bring their dogs close to yours because yours is nervy or is in training, tell them your dog has kennel cough, or was violently sick all night, because people are twats and ignore anything else/think they know better. She said all her […]

So our spot in Gray's Wharf will be available from 1 Oct if anyone happens to want a decent size studio with a humane landlord...

We only just moved studio, but unexpectedly then got offered one we've had our eye on for a whole decade... so from September we'll be heading out to Potager as our new work-home! It's a beautiful spot, with hammocks, a huge greenhouse to sit in, a fab […] [Original post on social.thentrythis.org]

Met someone the other day who chose to play trombone and fiddle (maybe not simultaneously as I immediately imagined) due to the ability to do microtonal music

I find it so strange how relatively difficult it is to build a voltage controlled amplifier. Lots of circuits do it simply by distorting or clipping the signal, but relative to filtering and generating signals it's really tricky to basically emulate turning a volume control. Buchla do it using […]

I think the term "post-AI" has so much power, are people using it much yet? Just like postmodernism didn't reject everything about modernism, post-AI needn't throw out all AI.. But look beyond its dodgy ideals and hype to focus on other stuff. We don't need AI institutes, AI art funding calls […]

I like this one a lot, chalcocite is a really strange semiconductor: https://soundcloud.com/cornish_semiconductor/penstruthal-chalcocite-transistor-part-1 https://archive.org/details/cornish-semiconductor-penstruthal-chalcocite-1