Turned out to be a nice afternoon, so off to explore Hoveringham Railway Lake. High point (unphotographed) was finding myself face-to-face with a deer heading the other way on the path. I am not sure who was more surprised. 🪶

I may be a tad too invested in this game…

Coming from Nottingham, I am obliged to point out that Mr Morris’ contribution to society, as well as being partly responsible for a tediously addictive game, was almost destroying Derby County. While that may not be a bad thing, applying the same values to universities is demonstrably not good.

Well, there was a lovely metalwork teacher with anger management issues who accused me of not listening to him (I had been), and hauled me over a vice by my shirt to underline his irritation. The bruises took a few weeks to fade. I found it hard to stay quiet when he was eulogised a few years back.

Post a poster you used to have on your wall. Anyone else remember shopping at Athena?

My takeaway from last night’s planetarium video was… how bad planetarium videos are. No narrative. Random jargon. Monotone delivery. No distinction between simulation and observation. And this was better than most I’ve seen. (The following live presenter was excellent, however.) 🔭

Lovely day for a stroll around @uniofnottingham.bsky.social lake, to remind myself what a nice place it can be. All about the baby birds right now. 🪶

Astronomer’s answer: log(A) ~ π/4. 🔭

Today, I got to sit in my seat. 🔭

Unfortunately, the letter from many FRSs is paywalled, but it points out that cutting by 28% a physics dept that is ranked in the UK second only to Cambridge is a grossly stupid act, which will have wider implications for the country’s credibility as a serious player in research.

My favourite @birdfybynetvue.bsky.social birdbath video so far, complete with background squirrels. It’s not that robins are rare; just cheerful! 🪶

Look, I am not saying that 30C is all bad.

Just been chatting to another former colleague at @uniofnottingham.bsky.social, who says that receipt of the “at risk” letter threatening redundancy has meant that they have emotionally totally checked out from the organisation. 1/3

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“Look, employing a guy who imitates Hitler isn’t as bad as picking one who hung out with a pedophile” really isn’t the win that Reform seems to think it is. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Not one you are willing to die on? Hill issue.

Optimist: the cup is half full. Pessimist: the cup is half empty. Astronomer: as long as it’s filled with strong coffee, I don’t care.

Too warm for a serious stroll, so just a wander around one of my favourite random patches of local greenness.

At the beginning of April, I started working with ChatGPT to manage my share portfolio, to pursue an investment hunch I had. It seems to be working out rather well.

For the record, I don’t particularly care if you insist on saying “the data are…”; I just object to being sniffily told that I am wrong for saying “the data is…”.

1. “Data”, like “news”, is a non-count noun — you ask “how much data do you have,” not “how many…” 2. Non-count plural nouns take singular verbs. (“The news is bad”, not “the news are bad.”) 3. So “the data is…” is grammatically correct; scientists should get over themselves.

No longer can we ask “Does Judith Chalmers have a passport?” RIP.

To out myself in the arXiv debacle, there are references in papers on which I am an author that I *haven’t* read. That’s because some of my work involves things like collaboration with instrumentation specialists, so I devolve sections of the paper in which I’m not an expert. 1/2 🧪

Chilling.

This place was gorgeous even before the sun came out. But now…

Having taken the coast path north yesterday, today we headed south.

Clear enough to peer across the Irish Sea today — that’s Kilroot Power Station and Scrabo Tower, about 30 miles away.

This pretty much sums it up, particularly the cut-and-paste non-responsive response from the University. physicsworld.com/a/nottingham...

I could watch crashing waves for hours. In fact, I just did.

Mostly gulls bodysurfing, but a few other rock-perching 🪶 to enjoy:

A tub with a view…

The open letter to @uniofnottingham.bsky.social now has *6* Nobel Laureate signatures asking them to think again regarding their huge cuts to one of the country’s most successful physics depts. But I am sure their slash-and-burn senior managers know better. nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/

Haggis baked potato!

A very Scottish hike this morning.

A few home truths for the University of Nottingham’s senior management, in this open letter (nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/) But will they even read the letter, let alone reconsider their disastrous policy? I doubt it. But please prove me wrong.

Had a stroll; definitely would recommend!

I seem to have found us rather a nice spot to stay.

Just to prove I really am an old romantic, under this tree in the rain was where I said goodbye to my then-girlfriend in 1986, when I was emigrating to the USA for graduate school. And in 1994 it’s where I proposed to her. 32 years on, we are still married.

Bad NHS: somehow they did the wrong blood test last month. Good NHS: issue identified by GP at routine appointment; same-day test booked by GP’s receptionist at extended-hour service facility in town; results on the app that evening; reassuringly normal.

*This* is a preprint!

Unpopular opinion: let’s go back to the old definition where a preprint was a fully refereed article that was distributed before it was printed in the journal, rather than just whatever slop your AI has churned out this week.

I am sure it says something interesting that while a number of X users are ranting about arXiv’s moves to reduce AI slop in its repositories, the comments on Bluesky are widely supportive.

Good to see a thousand signatories. If you work in academia, please consider signing this letter expressing horror at the proposed destruction of one of the UK’s most successful physics departments. 🔭🧪 nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/

Very cool analysis of names for geographic features in the UK. My former PhD student Tom Peterken may have moved on from astrophysics, but great to see him still using those data analysis and visualisation skills on such interesting things. 🧪 www.linkedin.com/posts/tom-pe...

The fuss over arXiv refusing to accept papers reminded me of our publication that was rejected by arXiv because… it was too short. We successfully appealed, pointing out that it answered a question that a previous much longer paper had failed to manage. 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/abs/1612.00834

Just when you thought @uniofnottingham.bsky.social couldn’t get any more crass, they come up with this.

Yesterday, 56 of our fab colleagues at the Physics & Astronomy dept in Nottingham, received “at risk of redundancy” letters. The Uni is planning to reduce the size of the Physics dept by almost a third.🧪⚛️🔭 Sign this petition to show them your support ✍️: nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/

If you work in a university, please consider signing this petition against the destruction of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nottingham. I doubt it’ll do much good, but the staff deserve all the positive words they can get. nottinghamphysics.github.io/Open_Letter/...