Everyone thinks GHOSTBUSTERS is a libertarian fantasy about the triumph of business but it's actually a cautionary tale about how the 80s antipathy towards government & push for privatization results in dangerously incompetent bureaucrats & a private sector exploiting natural disasters for profit.

tesla owners admitting without shame they don’t know how to drive anymore

In the weeks after my sister passed, many in particle cos offered to cover teaching/tutorials to help. That collegiality is amazing. At same time, UoN launched an “academic profile” tool that pits academics against each other to fight for jobs. Why try and destroy the spirit that carried me through?

My god, to have the time....

Today in “Dudes Rock”: A dude playing Dire Straits’s “Sultans of Swing” guitar solo on…a recorder.

This annoyed me so much I had to write a thing. www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12...

My concise and heavily-referenced guide for #HigherEd #faculty on creating more #autistic -friendly #research groups is available here: arxiv.org/abs/2410.17929 Includes a downloadable printable poster. #ActuallyAutistic #AutisticInSTEM #DisabledInSTEM #ScienceIsForEveryone #EDI

I have a lot of sympathy for this take but I can think of a few exceptions. Reminds me of how bad coffee requires sugar. If you make me a coffee, and I put sugar in it, then i think your coffee is pretty bad.

After $300B in investment, we have finally created a machine that can reproduce the conscious and unconscious biases of the 6th form to physics tenure pipeline.

My colleague James Millen asked AI to make the picture of his group at their Christmas dinner look like distinguished scientists. It made all the brown people white and all but one of the women men...

I am now reading a white paper on data centers in space and oh my fucking god this is so dumb.

If you ever feel as if we're living in the wrong timeline, just think about how the ones in the 1983 global nuclear war timeline feel.

Holy moly: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope construction is completed! That's fantastic news — much needed right now — and I am very much looking forward to when this beast launches. It has 100X the field of view of Hubble. One. Hundred. *At the same resolution*. www.nasa.gov/image-articl...

AR4294 & AR4296 2025-12-03 04:21 UTC (12:21 pm MYT) Worsening sky in Kuala Lumpur. High clouds and hazy. Both group is still massive. My estimation the total length of both group spans at least 30 times Earth's diameter. ShahGazer Observatory, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I took the students from my stellar evolution class to see this today in our solar telescope.

I'm looking at the back of a packet of chocolate hobnobs. I'm grown up enough to know it would probably be unhealthy to attempt to live off them but I think there should at least be a feasibility study. The numbers are not far off. I could volunteer...

My doctor asked me if I smoke or drink coffee. I told him I drink it.

Having just been through the desert carrying a guy with no name, it felt good to get out of the rain.

Students, apply for a CERN summer studentship. Greatest experience ever! Deadline 26 January 2026. careers.cern/programmes/s... (It's not just for physicists. Check it out.)

This paper was written with my great collaborators at King's College London @kingsnmes.bsky.social : Malcolm Fairbairn @malcfairbairn.bsky.social and María Olalla Olea-Romacho. You can download it here: arxiv.org/abs/2511.016...

CARTOON OF THE DAY (From @mluckovichajc)

Mathematical Physics MSci at UoN earmarked for closure as mgmt start the cuts. As the custodians of Einstein’s famous blackboard, this is especially worrying. Will we still teach his greatest ideas in years to come? @uonucu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

The Spectator are confused. It's not going to be cost free. Billionaires are going to pay more. Join.greenparty.org.uk

Frankie Says RELAX

A complex solar halo with a full 360° parhelic circle was seen in Greenland on Oct 16, 2025.✨️✨️✨️

Let's unravel the mystery of Saturn's polar hexagon. A jet stream speeds around the pole at 320 km/h (200 mph). That’s common among planets, but what's not is that it oscillates up and down *very* stably. Each low point of this sine wave becomes a corner of a hexagon, when projected onto a sphere:

Oh, hi, yeah by the way, US democratic party, Trump is getting the credit for this peace deal because you were so useless. Trump. Think about that.

I've long thought Eric Clapton was a ****. AI algorithms pushing me towards the history of rock and roll indicate to me that he was bigger **** than I thought he was.

I shared my journey home with my partner then I idly clicked on the link I'd sent her. 12 minutes, but my journey says 13 minutes. Now re-evaluating my interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Can't complain...

Chris Mason, Nick Eardley and Laura Kuenssberg are probably very busy, which is why they haven't yet launched their relentless pursuit of Farage's tax affairs and financial arrangements. But they will. At some point. I'm certain.

There is quite some irony buying stop the boats flags from Ali Express

post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice In Chains

Does anybody remember when Clinton bombed a paracetamol factory in East Africa to divert attention from the Monica Lewinski story?

Whoops, I guess you saw this @bigshirtlesscol.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Starmer has the worst political instincts of any party leader in history. His entire strategy is trying to appease a bunch of people who already decided years ago they hated him. Meanwhile he's pissing off everybody who tolerated him.

This is vile. Local guy speaks to Sky News about the impact of asylum seekers protests. Watch what happens and share widely

Oh yes it is!

Alas! It is 68 years since the world was deprived of Peter Freuchen, anthropologist, arctic explorer, writer, WWII resistance fighter, quiz show contestant, film star, friend of Mae West, fucking enormous geezer, and maker of tools from frozen excrement

The responses to this tweet are pretty bad. Starmer is in a bit of a pickle.

📸 Gabriel Puyana

I'm sad to report that Rainer (Rai) Weiss passed away yesterday at age 92. Rai developed the design for LIGO, he and Kip got it funded, trained countless researchers, and received the 2017 Nobel Prize. Rai always had time for students and treated us as equals. May his memory be a blessing

short about my hottest take

This current press conference at the white house is just terribly cringe inducing. I'm glad I'm not one of the European leaders being rolled out to kiss Trumps ass.

This is amazing: From April 1990, four months after FLOOD was released, here’s @tmbg.bsky.social performing on The Tonight Show with guest host Jay Leno. They do BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL and ISTANBUL (NOT CONSTANTINOPLE), and yes, Doc and the orchestra play along. Inceedible. youtu.be/2AQ9nSbWJHI?...

Just for those who may be a little confused: This is how an American president should treat Putin.

'My best shot.' Sigue Sigue Sputnik at a Newcastle bed and breakfast, photo by Homer Sykes, 1986. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Winning....