Trying not to cry, scream, or drink at 7:30am in front if the kids.
More bourbon, or a few hours of sleep?
—well-known humorist and actor Wallace Shawn.
Warning: not funny.
R.I.P. James “The Amazing” Randi, a hero from my youth as a magician and my adulthood as a scientist. (h/t @telescoper)
I voted. In San Francisco, from London, via fax (because that’s somehow more secure?) Well, via a web-to-fax service. Surely there’s a better way?
Whatever it takes.
(Surprisingly?) nervous about running my first online @ImperialPhysics undergraduate tutorial in 8 minutes…
New book (first in ~15 years) from statistics/design master Edward Tufte — Seeing With Fresh Eyes: Meaning, Space, Data, Truth! (Astronomers: includes an example from Kepler exoplanet/exomoon analyses.)
The 2020 Physics Nobel goes to Roger Penrose “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of… relativity”, and Reinhard Genzel & Andrea Ghez “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.”
Tech friends: I’m getting very slow Time Machine backups (can be several days) from my MacBookPro (10.15.7) to Synology NAS (SMB, 1000M wired) w/Netgear Orbi router. Seems due to many small files. Problem occurs w/Mac either WiFi or wired (‘tho somewhat better wired). Any ideas?
McConnell, Graham, & the Republicans are all rank hypocrites, and I’m deathly afraid of a conservative court too, but I’m a little disappointed that the rest of us are now on board with their 2016 ‘no confirmation near an election’ nonsense, now that it suits us.