The Random Universe isn’t due out until November 11, but not only can you pre-order your copy today, you can also download a free sample from the e-book. (Similar on Amazon UK and Apple Books — though it’s even better if you buy your hardcopy from an independent bookseller!)
Author: defjaf
The clocks went back an hour here in London overnight—summertime is over. I suppose I’m happy for the extra time to rest (though in fact I didn’t sleep very well last night) but not looking forward to six months of early darkness.
The Trump Administration’s Contempt for Science. (Thanks to the Yale University Press for letting me express my opinions.)
Apparently I am the subject of an unauthorised biopic.
Lots of fun recording an episode of the Mindscape podcast with Sean Carroll. Should appear on November 10, just before the release of The Random Universe.
I made a thing.
Surprised that Taylor needs to promote her latest with an A4 poster at the Imperial College elevators (lifts).
Last year was a sabbatical, so today I’ve got my first proper teaching in a full year and a half — a two-hour lecture to start my Information Theory course.
Feeling a bit nervous!
R.I.P. George Smoot, experimental cosmologist, Nobel prize winner and one of the discoverers of primordial fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background, a colleague and mentor back when I was a postdoc in Berkeley, always curious and enthusiastic.
macOS Tahoe/Safari complaint: in sidebar showing Tab Groups, current group shows tab list as if the disclosure triangle clicked.
Bad enough. But worse: old group in the sidebar stays open even when I click to a new one!
This seems so wrong that there must be a setting — but I couldn’t find it.
This seems like a whole mess of bugs. (Trying to update to macOS 26 Tahoe. Perhaps this is telling me it’s a bad idea?…)
PASSWORD_ALERT_TITLE_WITH_USERNAME_OSX_REBRAND_SERVICE_ICLOUD
PASSWORD_ALERT_MESSAGE_WITH_USERNAME_OSX_REBRAND
FOLLOWUP_RENEW_CREDENTIALS_TITLE_RERAND
FOLLOWUP_RENEW_CREDENTIALS_MESSAGE
SU_FOLLOW_UP_TITLE
And more…
Yesterday, someone walked into the café I was sitting in wearing a Primitives t-shirt. Today, their wonderful “Crash” came on my random streaming mix, so it seems appropriate to share one of the great pop songs of all time.
The amazing Lisa Lucas’ latest for the NY Times, on hunting the autumn leaves in Japan — 3 Days of ‘Momijigari’: Experiencing Japan’s Fiery Autumnal Foliage.
You can pre-order The Random Universe, get a 7% discount, and support local bookstores, all at the same time.
Back — home — to London after 386 days away.
A highlight of our road trip through Western Europe has been my daughters singing along to Lucinda Williams’ “Car Wheels on a gravel Road”, the Mekons’ version of “Wild and Blue”, and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” as well as songs from “Hamilton” (along with, yes, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran).
Spent the night with the family in the Frassenhütte at the top of an Austrian Alp…
… followed by our trek down the mountain in pouring rain, hail, thunder and lightning (and inappropriate clothing).
Spent the night with the family in the Frassenhütte at the top of an Austrian Alp.
Cornhole is “American pétanque”.
We left our home in London exactly a year ago for my sabbatical abroad. After stints in Japan & New York, tomorrow we depart from our last long-term stop — a temporary but already much-loved home — in Leiden, the Netherlands, with still a few weeks to go before our final return.
Congratulations to Imperial’s Professor Michele Dougherty, the UK’s new Astronomer Royal!
15% still seems like a lot.
@ppfideas.bsky.social Thanks to the Past Present Future podcast episodes on the American Revolution, trial of Charles I & English Revolution, I finally understand the American Revolution against the tyranny of the King despite the British constitution’s weak monarch and strong Parliament.
The latest from Lisa Lucas at the Guardian! Freewheeling family fun in the Netherlands: a cycling and camping trip along the Maas river. With special guests!
U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation
Now-canceled CMB-S4 project would have searched the afterglow of the Big Bang for signs of cosmic exponential growth spurt.
This is mildly clever, very slimy, and a little bit funny (since it only works against other slimy — or at least lazy — people).
It seems that olive oil, cheap balsamic vinegar, greek yogurt, miso paste and garlic make a good chicken marinade. (Also, this is a Wordland test.)