M. van A.

These are the icy mountains of Pluto. It took 9 years to get these magnificent images… and 4.8 billion kilometers.

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild:
Manatee
Moose
Wild boar
Brown bear
Alligator

YouTube video by Generic Entertainment I Read the Iliad. Here's what I Learned about B2B Sales.

Beautiful parody of AI slop!
youtu.be/GLNe7Z-rQAA?...

One day, I'll have to tell you the story of how my dad trolled our American guests by serving the trumpets of death we'd foraged in the Alps (they're delicious mushrooms served with pork chops - they're just black and look like trumpets)!

Je suis célibataire, inoubliable, et à mon décès j'espère bien que le Monde publiera un article à mon propos.

Oh, hey, I just saw that one!

The harpsichord and the viola da gamba are fantastic at evoking the ringing bells, while the violin tells the story of a spy darting through the streets of Paris, trying to escape the police's notice during a secret mission.

YouTube video by Ensemble Fantasticus Marin Marais: Sonnerie de Saint Geneviève du Mont-de-Paris

Marin Marais's "bells of Saint Geneviève in Paris" belongs among the best pieces of baroque music:
youtu.be/FAoxkVQ5NDA

A friend reminded me of this blogpost, today. It's an old link, from back when I read such articles bulimically. I don't know how I feel about it now. I don't think it's genius anymore, but it's still part of who I am.
fugitivus.net/2010/06/10/o...

YouTube video by Kenny Teeology Monty Python - People Falling Out of High Buildings

"American Psycho" in a nutshell:

Roman sun hat on display in the Bolton Museum (https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/73883)

It warms my hear that this 1800 year old Roman hat is still around for us to admire (source: www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/73883 ):

I wish I could focus on this thought when I'm trudging, jet-lagged and hating the entire world, through an airport. But I doubt I'm enlightened enough to remember this when I'm not relaxed at home.

YouTube video by GSCinemas River | Official Trailer | The Weekend Japanese Film Show (August 2025) | Get Free Tickets Now

"River" (2025) is a super cute groundhog minute comedy! At an inn in a Japanese mountain resort, the same two minutes keep repeating. The staff and customers disagree on whether they want time to resume or continue looping. High jinks ensue... I had a lovely time.
#filmsky 🎥
youtu.be/vjYJzb44KRg?...

For a Westerner who wants to watch more foreign movies but is not too adventurous, this is a really good watch. Great acting, a solid script, really great explanations of the context in which the story happens. Maybe not the movie of the year for me, but I'm really happy I saw it!

I just came back from "Pooja, Sir," a Nepalese thriller about the disappearance of two boys during a riot in the South of the country. It's a very by-the-books police procedural that is light on gorgeous views of Nepal, but teeaches the viewer a lot about current politics in the country.
#filmsky 🎥

Front of the church of the Abbatiale de Saint-Ouen in Rouen, France

We're really spoiled with Gothic churches in Rouen. I wasn't that fussed over the Abbatiale de Saint-Ouen, but then they uncovered the newly cleaned front of the church, and now I get it...

Moi, mon premier réflexe a été de penser aux résultats de ChatGPT-5...

I have seen the greatest minds of a generation driven to madness by a smoke detector that is low on battery.

YouTube video by PulpVEVO Pulp - Common People

A propos of nothing:

This is hilarious.

A great novel plus a great guest! I'm so looking forward to this!

You are not more likely to be killed by a coconut than a shark. This is a statistical error.

Coconuts Georg, who lives under a coconut tree and is killed by 10,000 coconuts a year is an outlier and should not have been counted.

“This might be the biggest day of my life,” said Naomi Lu, 9.

For her sake, I really hope not.

#HorrorSky #FilmSky

Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un long voyage... et qui doit remplir le frigo.

The International Joint Laboratory iC2MC: Complex Matrices - Molecular Characterization at #ASMS2025! Don't miss out on all our excellent presentations!

The text above the image reads: Ever since I learned the word for a group of raccoons is a gaze, scenes from English literature take on whole new meanings. [laughing-emoji] Within the image, there are four different scenes corresponding to different literary quotes. Number 1: "Your gaze is very direct, Miss Eyre" from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. In the picture, Jane Eyre is accompanied by a group of raccoons, one of whom has just said to Mr. Rochester, "We want food!" Number 2: "She returned his gaze" from Ian McEwan's Atonement shows a woman carrying a box full of raccoons back to her reluctant ex-boyfriend. Number 3: "His gaze was direct, holding my eyes" from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander shows a clustered group of racoons physically holding open a shocked woman's eyelids. And number 4: "That somber, thoughtful gaze of his did not leave her face. She did not find it embarrassing" from Agatha Christie's Towards Zero shows a woman on a sun-lounger with her face entirely covered by a swarm of raccoons.

Fabulousness from @raprevec.bsky.social. ;)

It's tough when you're rehearsing your English-language presentation and you realize that there's a word you've only ever seen in writing and you have no idea how to pronounce...

Don't miss out on Simon Ollivier's talk on "Top-Down ExD fragmentation of immunoglobulins on a prototype timsOmni enables confident annotation of the hypervariable regions" this afternoon WOA pm 04:10 at #ASMS2025!

The International Joint Laboratory iC2MC: Complex Matrices - Molecular Characterization at #ASMS2025! Don't miss out on all our excellent presentations!