Surprised that Taylor needs to promote her latest with an A4 poster at the Imperial College elevators (lifts).
Statuses
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”.
@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.
Always impressed that Stockholm Arlanda airport has eduroam WiFi.
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).