- Wearing my early-90s Tolkien Society outfit for tonight’s Viking yule feast with the students. Been so long since I wore it that I’d forgotten where I’d put it. It was neatly stacked in the back corner of my closet’s top shelf.
- I’m slow on the uptake. It took me long to realise that the subway gets me through town faster than does the airport bus. It took me even longer to realise that this is somehow true in both directions.
- Prepping students’ yuletide Viking feast is exactly like at a Tolkien Society event c. 1990!
- No more teaching this year. Only one lecture left in January, then a spring term of extramural research. Wonder where I’ll work a year from now.
- This historian I’m listening to is driving me nuts. Speaking really fast, making constant unexplained allusions and going off on nested tangents without bothering to even finish the sentence. Scatterbrain.
- Kids have great musical taste. Look at them flocking to gigs with Adele Adkins and Ed Sheeran!
- Jrette graduating for Yellow One in Choy Lee Fut’s style of kung fu.
- Stargazing. Now I know that the bright star on the line between Cassiopeia and the Pleiades is Algol in Perseus.
- Could someone please write a scifi novel where there’s a functioning tokamak on top of a nunatak?
- Between the Pleiades and Orion is Aldebaran in Taurus.
- I saw four Geminids in just a short while!
- 14 Dec: Two years today since Chang’e 3 and the Yutu rover landed on the Moon. The rover stopped responding back in March. I believe the lander may still be communicating, but the Chinese space programme isn’t very interested in outreach, particularly not regarding stuff failing.
- Must ask students to write the photo captions during next year’s excavations. This is boring.
- I like scifi written by authors of either gender, so I eagerly bought the “Women Are Destroying Science Fiction” ebook bundle, whose name is of course a joke on misogynists. Sadly it turned out to be compiled by someone who likes their scifi stupid and naïve.
- Movie: Taxi Teheran. Dissident director takes on the role of an amateur taxi driver and says some pretty hard-hitting yet humourous things about Iranian politics through his passengers. Grade: Pass.
- Mixed feelings. Several high-profile research projects in Swedish archaeology have received major funding in the past year or so. They all deal in solidly empirical archaeology with interesting questions and methods, without a lot of gratuitous philosophy. They all employ really good people whose work I admire. All this makes me happy. My discipline is going in exactly the right direction. But I’m not on one of these projects. This makes me sad.
- I’ve been seeing this Astrid Lindgren quote around Facebook where she says that when people in power stop listening to the people, then it’s time to put new people in power. Felt pretty good at first. Then I realised that it might as well be a Tea Party talking point.
- Annoying how slow an academic career moves. I’d like to learn about my opportunities, victories and defeats weekly, not quarterly.
- People are circulating this picture of a serial rapist & former policeman crying when he learns that he’s been sentenced to many years in jail. And they’re making gloating comments. I feel only sympathy when I see that pic. I would feel the same sympathy if I saw his victims crying.
- This is so funny. The advertising business organization IAB has announced that their member companies will “crack down on ad blocker plugins”. The wording of their statement is what you’d expect if this were the police talking about home cannabis plantations or drunk driving. Dear IAB, your failed business model is not my problem!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Ny5iv5
- Wearing my early-90s Tolkien Society outfit for tonight’s Viking yule feast with the students. Been so long since I wore it that I’d forgotten where I’d put it. It was neatly stacked in the back corner of my closet’s top shelf.
- I’m slow on the uptake. It took me long to realise that the subway gets me through town faster than does the airport bus. It took me even longer to realise that this is somehow true in both directions.
- Prepping students’ yuletide Viking feast is exactly like at a Tolkien Society event c. 1990!
- No more teaching this year. Only one lecture left in January, then a spring term of extramural research. Wonder where I’ll work a year from now.
- This historian I’m listening to is driving me nuts. Speaking really fast, making constant unexplained allusions and going off on nested tangents without bothering to even finish the sentence. Scatterbrain.
- Kids have great musical taste. Look at them flocking to gigs with Adele Adkins and Ed Sheeran!
- Jrette graduating for Yellow One in Choy Lee Fut’s style of kung fu.
- Stargazing. Now I know that the bright star on the line between Cassiopeia and the Pleiades is Algol in Perseus.
- Could someone please write a scifi novel where there’s a functioning tokamak on top of a nunatak?
- Between the Pleiades and Orion is Aldebaran in Taurus.
- I saw four Geminids in just a short while!
- 14 Dec: Two years today since Chang’e 3 and the Yutu rover landed on the Moon. The rover stopped responding back in March. I believe the lander may still be communicating, but the Chinese space programme isn’t very interested in outreach, particularly not regarding stuff failing.
- Must ask students to write the photo captions during next year’s excavations. This is boring.
- I like scifi written by authors of either gender, so I eagerly bought the “Women Are Destroying Science Fiction” ebook bundle, whose name is of course a joke on misogynists. Sadly it turned out to be compiled by someone who likes their scifi stupid and naïve.
- Movie: Taxi Teheran. Dissident director takes on the role of an amateur taxi driver and says some pretty hard-hitting yet humourous things about Iranian politics through his passengers. Grade: Pass.
- Mixed feelings. Several high-profile research projects in Swedish archaeology have received major funding in the past year or so. They all deal in solidly empirical archaeology with interesting questions and methods, without a lot of gratuitous philosophy. They all employ really good people whose work I admire. All this makes me happy. My discipline is going in exactly the right direction. But I’m not on one of these projects. This makes me sad.
- I’ve been seeing this Astrid Lindgren quote around Facebook where she says that when people in power stop listening to the people, then it’s time to put new people in power. Felt pretty good at first. Then I realised that it might as well be a Tea Party talking point.
- Annoying how slow an academic career moves. I’d like to learn about my opportunities, victories and defeats weekly, not quarterly.
- People are circulating this picture of a serial rapist & former policeman crying when he learns that he’s been sentenced to many years in jail. And they’re making gloating comments. I feel only sympathy when I see that pic. I would feel the same sympathy if I saw his victims crying.
- This is so funny. The advertising business organization IAB has announced that their member companies will “crack down on ad blocker plugins”. The wording of their statement is what you’d expect if this were the police talking about home cannabis plantations or drunk driving. Dear IAB, your failed business model is not my problem!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Ny5iv5
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