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.
Received my absentee ballot for Nov 3… I am not the most strategically useful voter — I still vote in San Francisco. But can any of my SF friends recommend a good source of information and endorsements?
Earth-shaking news if this really is a signature of life…
I said when it drops
Oh you gonna feel it
Oh that you were doin’ it wrong, wrong, wrong
Now when it drops
Oh you gonna feel it
That you were doin’ it wrong and how
R.I.P. Toots Hibbert
Imperial mathematician Martin Hairer scoops $3m Breakthrough Prize.
Really digging @XTheBand‘s Alphabetland, like, I guess, everyone else (of a certain age, at least, because who else would care, really?).
Aside: Am I the only who really loves See How We Are?
I never understood why you might want the title in the header of every page until our two-year old starting tearing up the books.
The government continues to implicitly & explicitly encourage all sorts of risky behaviour (e.g., flights, restaurants) which seems likely to bring an autumn (read: school-time) resurgence of the virus. Holidaymakers’ plans in disarray after quarantine imposed on Spain
Why aren’t face coverings compulsory in the UK? There’s no social or governmental pressure at all. At least it’s controversial in the US — no one even talks about it here.
Thinking, as I do every year on the Summer solstice, of venturing at dawn with @disquiet to join Sun Ra and Don Cherry welcoming the sun at the southern tip of Manhattan.
Not sure how to process this from my undergrad alma mater. It actually seems that they are admitting to systemic racism but are unwilling to call it that.
Yale Astronomers Said Their Department Isn’t Racist Because They Hired One Black Employee In 1985
Welcome triumph of privacy over a centralised database — from an institution with a very bad IT track record. UK virus-tracing app switches to Google-Apple model – BBC News
Do you remember how your science teachers told you that all numbers had to have error bars? This is why.
Scientists say most likely number of contactable alien civilisations is 36
This.
“There is concern that there should only be one public message about the science. But there isn’t such a thing as ‘the science’. There are lots of different sciences.”
This Wednesday, we @ImperialAstro will cancel our regular (virtual) seminar to support #ShutDownSTEM and #Strike4BlackLives, instead holding a discussion of issues of race and anti-black racism in astrophysics, science, academia — and the wider world.
I’m also happy to report that @ImperialPhysics has postponed its monthly staff meeting in further support and solidarity.
After a day by the beautiful Thames, overcrowded & difficult to social-distance, flabbergasted that the UK govt isn’t pushing masks much more strongly (yes, mostly for others, not the wearer). Mayor @SadiqKhan is there an opportunity for you to step up, for London at least?
After pointing out just yesterday how many hundreds of miles we’d cycled together without a flat…
Goose with somewhere to go.
Weekday bread 🍞
Rosemary bread, glazed ham, roasted asparagus, Good Ordinary White.
Floating flowers
R.I.P. John Erhardt, Guitarist for Wussy and Ass Ponys. Wussy is one of the great rock ‘n’ roll bands of our time. The band and their UK label will be hosting a watch party tonight (11
May) showing their great 2016 London gig in his memory.
Of course we understand what they’re really getting at, but in (I guess) an effort to make things more understandable for most (?) people, the government has made it more confusing for anyone remotely numerate.
“But for countries trying to go it alone, like the UK, the restrictions could literally be fatal.”
Without Apple and Google, the UK’s contact-tracing app is in trouble – The Verge
New loaf and new wall. 🍞
Have any of my scientist-friends out there used juno and/or junoconnect to run python/jupyter notebooks on the iPad?