Mark Goodsell

In fairness, there is an entire business pre-Gpt doing just this -- blinkist. And to the extent that it works it's because a lot of non-fiction nowadays is basically a handful of ideas repeated over 200 pages of anecdotes

The Ant Mill Jesper Grimstrup kindly sent me an electronic copy of his new book,  The Ant Mill . He was also kind enough to give me some feedback on a fi...

I wrote a review of Jesper Grimstrup's new book 'The Ant Mill,' about problems with the High Energy Physics research community. It has many interesting personal and general observations about academia; just a shame it's so unremittingly negative: realselfenergy.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-...

At that point it would have praised my low heart rate

True. I normally get "maintaining" or occasionally "productive". And of course I live for validation

I thought you thought I was going to die in the heat?

I went for a 10k run in this heat because I was feeling cooped up and there were some clouds. Obviously I was slower than usual. My sports watch called it "unproductive," the bastard

Plaque commemorating the Mora, William the conqueror's ship, gifted to him by his wife to take him to invade England

Ruins of the Roman baths near Valognes

Canon that fought at the battle of Barfleur in 1692

Phare de Gatteville, built around 1830, at the North-East tip of the Cotentin peninsula

It struck me that in parts of France like #Normandy you can see 2000 years of history in a day, there are so many sites close by just dotted around the landscape, many with very little marking them out

IRN Terascale @ IPHC Strasbourg We are looking forward to welcoming you for the fall meeting of the IRN Terascale in Strasbourg on 19-21 May 2025. Abstract submission and registration are now open until April 14th and May 2nd, respe...

indico.in2p3.fr/event/35622/

On my way to the IRN Terascale meeting in Strasbourg!

In the station I could not avoid an advert inciting me to take out a subscription to ... the toilets. Welcome to 2025

What's the story?

Gutted that Ireland failed to make it in the #ESC. Best song about a dead dog I've heard

My take on the announcements about "Choose France for Science" : realselfenergy.blogspot.com/2025/05/choo...

This is at Dampierre -en-Yvelines today. More of a château than a castle, but it's beautiful, and was once owned by the duc de Guise, who according to the Guerre des Thrones was one of the main bad guys

Duolingo lying to me again

Watching A Team with the kids (yes I'm inflicting my childhood on them) and tonight Murdoch consults a ouija board before every decision.

For some reason this reminds me of a friend who asks ChatGPT the same sort of questions.

Yksi kaksi kolme AAAARGH

We introduced the kids to #Eurovision a couple of years ago. My daughter (8) became mildly obsessed (it combines two things she loves: staying up late and pop music). As a consequence I've already heard this year's Swedish entry so many times I'm sick of it, and there's still weeks to go ...

Quite enjoying this series of #doctorwho . Apart from planet of the incels (too incoherent) there've have been some fun ideas.

It's now also French government policy that scientists should do this when visiting the USA

Found an error in my code just before having to leave the office. GAAAAH!

Feels like the US is living in a Harry Potter novel now with these executive orders like the 'ministerial decrees', and Dolores McMahon has just been appointed at Hogwarts

That's a pity! There were since very cool things announced like open event generation. And I hadn't heard of HS3, it's awesome that pyhf is supporting that.

(I wanted to ask if it was called that after HS2 was cancelled but that's probably a niche British joke)

(Re)interpretation of the LHC results for new physics This is the 9th general workshop of the “Forum on the interpretation of the LHC results for BSM studies”, or LHC Reinterpretation Forum (RIF) for short. Its aim is to review new developments on the to...

Am at CERN for the big recasting workshop: indico.cern.ch/event/1466101/

Lots of great talks and ideas, keeping the work done today usable for the (far) future.

But was a bit sad to hear one speaker say "in 20 years, when there are no more proton-proton collisions"

Entire city is shrouded in fog. Spookiest experience I've had in a while!

Today I'm flying to Warsaw for the first time, to give a talk. I'll be missing the massive French community FCC Vs linac circular firing squad at Sorbonne U, oh no!

I just checked that @sorbonne-universite.fr had deactivated it's X account and only advertises it's socials here. Wow!

Yes the FCC tunnel (or equivalent elsewhere) is what I was thinking of. I don't have a good source (e.g. costings) because it's not being widely discussed (yet)

Plan B ought to be the main subject for the EPPSU, instead we have a bitter FCCee Vs linac row. But some people are seriously considering e.g. a 50TeV pp machine as a contingency

I need an Amazon service where they come and take their empty boxes away.

I assume this duck is a bound state of two top quacks?

This is great news! I see statements occasionally that solar is even competitive financially nowadays; any idea of the costs? The fact that they're not specified in the article is disappointing.