I was privileged to be part of this, and the wrap-up/running order is now up at the Cosmic Shambles Network. Top quote “If this whole thing reads like a weird fever dream. It was.”
Some highlights will be up there soon too. I doubt I’ll make them, there was so much good stuff, but I might post my section up here later anyway if not, for all those Fourier analysis / uncertainty principle fans out there.
Continue readingOur house is being refurbished (nearly done, in fact), so since September we have been living in temporary accommodation. My daughter is on her way home from swimming club right now, and I’ve been sitting in this by-now-familiar kitchen looking through the saved drafts of posts I never posted. I found a rather nostalgic one which has now made me nostalgic about nostalgia. That seems suitably meta, so I am going to post it now (with some of the more in-the-news-at-that-moment stuff excised) in case it strikes any chords with anyone else.
During the lockdown we’ve been using the the little study space in our loft a lot. There’s only about two squares metres of space you can stand up in, but there’s plenty of room to recline and drink cocktails, and the skylights are nice.
My old tape collection is up here and for the first time in — literally — decades, I have started listening to some of them again. As I type, HQ by Roy Harper is playing. That’s not particularly representative of the archive, but it’s good.
I did another Sunday Science Shambles with Robin and Helen, and Becky Smethurst. The recording is available here…
“Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed in advance. The next president of the USA will be Joe Biden. The whiny tweet storm shortly to be launched by an ancient automatic defense system will result merely in the breakage of three coffee cups and a mouse cage, the bruising of somebody’s upper arm, and the untimely creation and sudden demise of a bowl of petunias and an innocent sperm whale. In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning exactly when the result will be “called”. This fact may safely be made the subject of suspense since it is of no significance whatsoever.”
Just as there’s always a tweet, there’s always a Douglas Adam’s quote.
Life and Physics 