Mike Prior-Jones

@drmikepj.bsky.social

618 Followers 1022 Following

Glaciologist and electronic engineer at Cardiff University. Current designer of #cryoegg and #cryowurst. UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. 🏳️‍🌈(he,him)

Interior shot of a corridor. A narrow door faces the camera, labelled “Social Cupboard “
Old meme. There is a picture of a girl clutching her throat in disgust. A plate of cookies is labelled “STOP!! LOOK CLOSE! WAIT! LOOK AGAIN! FOOLS CHOCOLATE!! DON'T BE FOOLED!!! Raisins can be anywhere! Vigilance is your only protection against the dreaded fool's chocolate.”
A green plastic frame half buried in snow, on a flat snowy landscape.
Double spread featuring BART and the Bertin Aerotrain
Grand Terminus: Earthport Central, 2081 AD Passengers board train through here Outer airlock bly Robot cargo Retractable pads Mini-jet service vehicles You are looking at a possible intercontinental tube station of the next century At the top an airport-style loading finger swings over to the tube train's cabin door. The 600 passengers board their train here, while robot machines stack 100 cargo containers on the lower deck. In the background are the train sheds'. In the foreground technicians make last minute adjustments to the tube's airlock. When all is ready, the train's doors are sealed and it glides slowly into the airlock on retractable air cushion pads. The outer airlock closes and the train begins its high speed journey through the centre of the Earth. Journey through the centre of the Earth laner airlock The train glides doenhill past the ister airlock. All a is pumped out sl the tube, so there I biching to slow the train down. The train plunges down and is soon travelling at over 1,200 km/h. It is held in the centre of the tube by magnetic levitation. The first part of the The train picks up journey from A to so much speed C is downhill. After downhill that it a level stretch coasts most of the around B the train rest of the way. climbs up to its Motors are used for destination, C. the last few minutes. Driverless trains were first used in 1910 on an underground line carrying mail in Munich. Automatic control systems open the airlock as the train glides into the station at the end of its journey through the Earth. 29
FUTURE TRAINS? Speeds have risen a great deal since the Rocket's 46.7 km/h, and the present record is 380 km/h. One far off possibility is a train powered by a linear induction motor. A LIM train is powered by a type of electric motor, which, instcad of rotating on a shaft (like the one in a model train), is swept along a metal track. The track would be very expensive to build however. Adventurous innovations like this are unlikely to be developed commercially in the near future. By the year 2000, oil may well be in short supply and extremely expensive. One solution could be a return to coal, of which there are immense reserves. The train shown below is a coal powered Coal powered trains of the future This train is, believe it or not, designed to be powered by coal. The streamlined version shown on the right is a proposed passenger train locomotive; the cutaway below shows a similarly powered freight hauler. alternative to diesel trains. Looking far into the 21st century, clectricity will probably be generated by a combination of nuclear fusion, wind, solar and tidal power systems. The incredible train shown on the right could only be built and run using the torrents of cheap power that such systems could provide. Crusher 28 Steam pipe goes to turbine unit Using 'fluid bed' fireboxes, which supports the coal. This steam turbine trains could makes it burn more efliciently to become a practical reality. heat the boiler (4). The steam Crushed coal (1) is fed into a generated travels in pipes through sand-filled firebox (2). Jets of hot the smokebox (5) to be heated air (3) blow through the sand more, before going on to drive the turbines (6). Used steam is condensed (7) back into water, so there is no need for water storage. The turbines power electric motors (8), just as they would in a diesel locomotive. Onc luxury train in the USA has colour tv, two cinemas and one member of staff to every 13 passengers.
Cover of the Usborne book of Supertrains, featuring an orange TGV.
I am standing outside in front of a lorry, making a sour face and shrugging. On the van it says “bof”. (This is a French slang word that’s a bit like “meh” in English)
View of a terrace of Edwardian houses. In the bay window of the one nearest to camera is a lifesize cardboard cutout of Pope Leo. (It’s in the window of the university Catholic chaplaincy)
Oliver ripping Scruffy in half, as a rather shocked pannier tank (Duck?) looks on
White glacier, with blue-coloured water flowing into a moulin and making a rainbow
Airline style aluminium cart. On the top is a paper label that says “EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE CART EXPIRE DATE IS 30/09/2025”
Screeengrab from the website of Swiss outdoor brand Mammut. It says "Men / Women / Equipment"
A screengrab from a substack page. Underneath the text, a yellow box appears with an exclamation-sign roadsign symbol saying "This post is too long for email" and a button saying "Continue in the Substack app")
An A6 pad of paper. The top page has a list of sunset and twilight times for the week of October 27, 2025. At the top it says “The Darkness” in loopy font (it’s the logo of the band of the same name) and 2025-2026
Microsoft 365 login box. It says "Selected user account does not exist in tenant 'University of Sussex' in red text. Below you can see that I'm signed in with a Cardiff University email address.
Spider’s webs, glossy with dew, stretched across an area of succulent plants (actually the green roof of my bike shed)
A departure board at Cardiff Central. The London train is delayed half an hour.
Phone case - the outer rubber ring that grips the sides of the phone has separated from the hard plastic backplate
Big grey warship, very slab-sided, moored in a rippling dock, and with blue sky and cirrus clouds behind. A Canadian white ensign flies at the flagstaff.
White high-speed train at a station platform. A rainbow stripe runs along the side.
Selfie: balding white guy in blue shirt smiling, in front of a poster display with lots of glaciology fieldwork photos
An airline-style aluminium cart, as used to serve drinks or food on a plane. A white label says EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE CART
A close-up on the white plastic sink plug, showing how the thin white nylon cord goes through the metal ring on the plug. It's tied with a bowline knot.
A black carabiner, with a white cord dangling from it. Around the cord is a small roll of white gaffer tape, and a white stopper beneath it.
Person looking into a glacier moulin - a deep hole in the ice. They are leaning on a red safety rope.