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.)
Le beajoulais nouveau est arrivé, même au Japon!
(Reposted from 23 November to deal with technical issues.)
Momijigari (紅葉狩り) — hunting the autumn leaves. This version from the courtyard of our building in Tsukuba, Ibaraki.
Testing (mark 2).
Testing…
Kind of obsessed with our view of Fuji-san.
More famous views of Mt Fuji — from our apartment building, 90 miles distant, morning and evening.
Just 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”:
Le beajoulais nouveau est arrivé, même au Japon!
I’ve heard more (good, mostly American) jazz as background music in shops and cafes over the last three months in Japan than the previous fifty years in the US and UK.
Hard work is good work.
Somewhere between stupefaction and fury.
Seen earlier on a slide:
We are in the Golden Age of Theoretical Particle Physics, free from any experimental hints that would restrict free thinking.
Hmmmm… I see some possible problems with this approach.
The bars weren’t open this morning
They must’ve been voting for a new president or something
…
Honest to goodness, the tears have been falling
All over this country’s face
It was better before, before they voted for What’s-His-Name
This was supposed to be the new world
—X, “The New World” (1983)
I voted… in San Francisco (my last US residence),… from Japan (where I am on sabbatical),… by fax.
No one is completely normal for the same reason you don’t have any Monte Carlo samples near the peak of a multivariate probability distribution.
Two views of Mount Fuji, famous or otherwise.
Nobel prize in physics for the development of machine learning techniques. Interesting choice — incredibly consequential (it lies behind large language models like ChatGPT etc), but arguably not “physics”.
From Ninomiya House, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.
R.I.P. UC Berkeley Professor Paul Richards, a pioneer of designing experiments to measure the cosmic microwave background, including MAXIMA, on which I had the honor of collaborating in the late 90s.
Giants vs Dragons, live from Tokyo.
The only gaijin in the onsen.
I’ve arrived at QUP (full name: International Center for Quantum-field Measurement Systems for Studies of the Universe and Particles) at the KEK lab in Tsukuba, Japan, for the start of my sabbatical. I’ll be here through December.
Travelling in Japan as Typhoon no. 10 (Shanshan) approaches. We were staying near a town, Beppu, and received an emergency alert recommending the evacuation of the elderly. At only 58, I was instead able to leave on my own terms.
After years of planning, we’re in Japan, where I’ll be travelling to the KEK lab in Tsukuba in a couple of weeks, for the official start of my sabbatical.
We’re on a supposedly fast (tourist-filled) boat from Gili islands to Sanur on Bali. Rough water, and engine has cut out nine or ten times so far. 🤞 (Update: we made it — late, fume-sodden and queasy…)