Always impressed that Stockholm Arlanda airport has eduroam WiFi.
Author: defjaf
Very impressed that Apple’s autocorrect knows that it’s apostrophes and not quotes in “rock ’n’ roll”.
Flat tire in the Biesbosch (Holland, near Dordrecht).
From “aether” to “Zwicky, Fritz”, The Random Universe now has an index.
My morning bicycle commute (Leiden, NL)
I love the Netherlands, and I especially love cycling in the Netherlands. I don’t love the various motorized vehicles that are allowed to share the cycle lanes in the Netherlands.
Well, now I have a story about the time I went to see The Mekons but accidentally saw a very loud hardcore band with two drummers instead. This was not my desired outcome. (The Mekons were upstairs. I am kind of bereft.)
Going to Amsterdam, in the fourth country over 35 years in which I’ve seen The Mekons, a band whose music and shows and philosophy of life, art, and politics have meant more to me than almost any other.
The latest from the amazing Lisa Lucas at the NYT!
Apparently, my fingerprints are almost worn down (according to biometric scans of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND).
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.
