First Parkrun out of the UK.
My book, The Random Universe, is due out in November. It discusses how we build models of the world, even under conditions of radical uncertainty.
(It was finished last year, but it turns out that there is still a lot of work to do even after the text is complete…)
I’m not completely sure this is something to be proud of.
For Embattled Starmer, U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal Will Count as a Win
Starting the final leg of my sabbatical — back in Europe for the first time since leaving last July. A quick stop through Madrid and then Leiden through most of the summer.
R.I.P. Dave Thomas of Pere Ubu, crazy pre-, proto-, art-, and somehow even post-punk post-rock band. Only saw them once, in the late 80s, at the beginning of their second phase, but regularly returned to their beautiful noise.
Category error.
At least there’s a new Mekons album to help us confront the Horror.
By the numbers, the tariffs are less an expression of economic theory and more a Dadaist art piece about the meaninglessness of expertise.
–There Is Only One Way to Make Sense of the Tariffs – Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
(h/t Manton Reece)
R.I.P. Sergei Shandarin, great cosmologist and lovely human.
Having not lived in the US since around 2000, I have just had my first a “non-fire emergency” (i.e., active shooter) information meeting.
I wish people would stop using “non-parametric” to mean “model with many parameters”.
My 9-yr old wants to start out on Minecraft (& I kinda want to). They have a fairly old iPad to use; we’ve also got a much more recent MBP and iPad Pro which are mostly mine… What is the best setup for them (and me)? Should we go with iPad and run that on macOS too? What about server choice?
First loaf in six months. (Needs work.)
I am very excited to be sitting down with a cup of coffee and an actual print copy of the Sunday New York Times (for all its well-documented faults of late).
R.I.P. Garth Hudson. The Band has meant a lot to me over the years.
We have somehow managed to schedule our train from Virginia to New York for today, requiring us to travel into DC on inauguration day. Trying to retain a sense of charity toward my fellow Americans
In DC, on a Capitol tour with my expat family. Easy & appropriate to be cynical about symbols of democracy 5 days before the awful inauguration. But somber & moving, even—or especially—speeches by senate Democrats excoriating Republican tax cuts for the wealthy disguised as populism.
Done: Long-tail boat, ferry, taxi, dash through the airport, 2-hour flight, taxi, hotel, food court dinner, pool, taxi, 9 1/2-hour flight, 6-hour airport hotel sleep. Still to come: 14-hour flight, back in the USA.
On the bus from Siem Reap (Cambodia) to Bangkok.
New Year Dawn
We were some of the first travellers on the new Ho Chi Minh City metro, open less than a week.
Overnight train from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City.
… is sad to be leaving Japan.
R.I.P. poet and Japanese Peanuts-translator Shuntaro Tanikawa. Here’s a great 1952 poem, “Two Billion Light-Years of Loneliness” about outer space, the gravitational force, and the difficulty of being a human (or a Martian) in a big Universe. Also, sneezing.
Fuji-san from my office at the QUP Centre, KEK lab.
Kind of obsessed with our views of Fuji-san.
(Reposted from 29 November to deal with technical issues.)
More famous views of Mt Fuji — from our apartment building, 90 miles away, morning and evening.
(Reposted from 27 November to deal with technical issues.)
Recently discovered that, on a clear day, we can see Mt Fuji, 90 miles distant, from our apartment building.
And, because it’s cool and scary, here’s a version after processing with Apple’s new “Clean Up”: 
Try to spot the difference…
(Reposted from 25 November to deal with technical issues.)