Stay tuned for Bunny's Christmas miracle.

And now for some real Christmas tunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2z46qcHecc

Interesssiert sich wieder außer mir niemand dafür, wieso "Macht hoch die Tür" auf einmal eine erhöhte IV und den dazugehörigen unpassenden Akkord enthält.

One of my collaborations made a picture with a whole bunch of stars. https://esawebb.org/images/potm2512a/

Someone is whistling 'Sound of Silence' in front of the house. It's quite loud.

Hey, Durham University, we haven't talked in a while. But do you know that you are literally the only university worldwide that requires to create a login and to remember the password just to submit a reference letter? I just thought you might like to know.

Last night I wrote about the mercurial sleeping habits of my dog. https://dalcashdvinsky.medium.com/let-sleeping-bunnies-lie-7af3e0f1dd7f

"Our calculations show the CRASH Clock is currently 2.8 days, which suggests there is now little time to recover from a wide-spread disruptive event, such as a solar storm. This is in stark contrast to the pre-megaconstellation era: in 2018, the CRASH Clock was 121 days." […]

Was reminded today by a stupid FB post that Karl Bushby is expected to finish his almost 30 year 'journey' from South America back home to Hull in England. As this is happening, it will be interesting to see how people talk about male heroism, how often they mention that Karl had an 8-year old […]

Still can't believe the Hydrasynth 49 Key went for about 500.

The three worst ways to be involved in the peer-review process. Number three is not responding at all to the review request, not even by clicking the 'decline button'. More subtle is number two, being impossible to find online, no website, no email listed on the institute pages, nothing. But the […]

One underrated professional skill that people never mention in their CVs is the ability to just politely badger people until they give.

"I think that's the key to success: to be bad." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbeIiI99zBQ

Oh, that's just Jean-Benoit Dunckel playing organ and Rhodes piano at the same time.

Oh! I forgot to add one last important bit to this rant. In the same document (linked above), SpaceX says basically "oh yeah, no big deal that we dropped a Starlink on Canada. But just in case, we're going to start reentering Starlink satellites over the Pacific." I have seen ZERO evidence that […]

A Kurt Sutter western show with two female leads? Does @donnerbella know about this?

Thorne-Zytkow objects.

Just in case anyone is interested in the SUN, this is looking just really busy. https://spaceweather.com/images2025/04dec25/hmi1898.gif

Why is my inbox so full.

Larry Goldings and Leland Sklar jamming together? Sklar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UOVLdPslmo

The one time Paul McCartney was the frontman for Nirvana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a8j_LEryAs

Good to know that in these uncertain times the website for what is likely the most elaborated joke I will ever make in my life is still online. http://weti-institute.org/index.html

Getting older more and more feels like being Scott Hatteberg in this scene in 'Moneyball', and every year Billy Bean comes to visit, sits in front of you and calmly tells you 'Scott, you are not a catcher anymore.' Aleks, you are not a something anymore. Except that every year it's something […]

Now that it is clear the numbers of people coming to the UK is actually drastically coming down, guess what the new big issue is? Yes, it's the number of people LEAVING the UK.

"There was a lot of commentary announcing ‘the death of the family’ as there was no longer any necessity to gather in one place; people like George Orwell were deploring the demise of the hearth as the family hub.” […]

It has taken a long time, but it seems by the end of the week I will be owner of a small bit of land at a lake. Land that is completely useless, except for birds, of course. Land that I will never be able to sell again. It will always be an overgrown mess.

I know Braemar has snow, and Aberdeen a bit (but probably not anymore). But what about all the other places in East Scotland? Where is the most southernly snow?

So the counter from Labour and Tories to the Idea of stripping EU nationals in Britain of benefits is that this would be kind of too much trouble to negotiate. Not that this stuff is cruel, unfair and xenophobic. Good to know.

"Lucky us to have such politicians in such an uncertain world. It’s hard to think of how things could have gone any better." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/19/john-crace-on-how-labour-shattered-his-expectations

Can you win an Academy Award if you are a dog? Asking for Indy.

Sunday morning, time for some solid Irish tunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMciymdDso8

Forbush decrease. Buy my book.

Hey, NHS, the fact that a fairly expensive diagnostic test came back negative is not a particularly good reason to not tell me about it. We want to know negative results, come on. Especially those.

Okay, a G4 storm and we are going to be covered in clouds all week. Wow.

KT Tunstall's pedalboard, with the old Akai Headrush E2 left of the centre, knobs all ruined.

Really weird Mastodon 'feature': A post I made yesterday (with the link to the ScienceNotes story) has disappeared from my feed and I can't see it, even with an external link. But apparently others can still see it. Did I censure myself, in some weird way?

When people walk their dog and have their phone in the hand, I go away - they are clearly distracted and can't pay attention to their dog and that's dangerous. But: When people want to pet my dog and have their phone in the hand, I usually agree, because it means they can never use both hands at […]

Dank @sciencenotes habe ich einen langen Text über mein Leben mit Braunen Zwergen geschrieben. https://sciencenotes.de/braune-zwerge-astronomie-james-webb-teleskop/

[Warning: Link contains graphic details of torture.] "She used coded messages to convey the cruelty she had suffered... She said she had invented names for her supposed intelligence handlers that were wordplay for “torture” in Hebrew, English and Russian, including “Ethan Nuima.” (E. Nuim […]

"One must not shy away from truth or reality; that way lies real madness. It’s a bitch, I don’t recommend it. But you don’t have to buy into the overlay of reality, when you can plainly see the truth underneath. Reality and truth are sometimes mere echoes of each other; learning to let go of the […]

Look, mum, I built an organ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alzogXtl80o

The public statements of John Cleese these days are a sight to behold. Welcome back to the fight, dicky old chap.

"What was for me satisfying about this film is how it showed the ongoing interaction between information and processes and human agency. Not one of these three things ever took absolute priority. This balance is rare in any political or indeed legal thriller." […]

It's again letter writing season for PhD programs. So, again, I'm imploring you, institutions, do not send me your crooked Word template to fill in information that I already have in a PDF. I'm looking at you, ANU. Yes, it's name and shame time.

If you somehow just woke up and are wondering how we got here, I guess not a bad way to start catching up is by watching or reading 'The Big Short'. But immediately after that I would recommend going back to Mark Blyth on austerity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0VR6Kf7KQ

'A 2019 survey concluded that 85 percent of dogs had behavioral problems; almost half of the owners reported that their pet had anxiety. The numbers seem incredible, until you look at the list of bad behaviors. Repetitive behaviors like digging in the yard or displaying a “tennis ball fetish” […]

Maybe, perhaps, someone can explain to me what the hell happened to this tree.

Decompression.

Keeping tabs.

"More chaos brings more power. More power brings more control." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXCCBsOMSg