Incoming from Rob Fisher: link to a piece in the Independent, about machine learning applied to old telescope data is finding new planets. Quote: A computer was trained to look through the data from the Kepler space telescope, and look for signals that might belong to planets. And it found new planets within existing systems, … Continue reading Googling for new planets
Earlier this evening at the Two Chairmen, Westminster, Adriana Lukas, who grew up in the old Czechoslovakia as was, gave a most eloquent talk about this experience. She didn’t bang on at length about the usual horrors – prison camps, executions, purges, and so on – although of course these were mentioned. Rather did she … Continue reading Adriana Lukas tells Libertarian Home about the experience of communism
Today, I was thinking, what with it being Friday: What can I put here about cats or other creatures that would be of interest? But instead of looking for something along those lines, I was listening to a video conversation between Jordan Peterson and Camille Paglia, about the sorry state of the humanities departments of … Continue reading Jordan Peterson on why zebras look the way they do
My recent life has been seriously deranged by this book, which is about French painting and painters during the nineteenth century. It’s by Ross King. Never heard of him until I acquired and started to read this book of his, but the loss was entirely mine. (Sounds more like a boxing promotor than an Art … Continue reading A disruptive book about nineteenth century French painting
If you think this game was a mismatch, try this game. Myanmar 45 all out off 22 overs in what was supposed to be a 50 overs each way game. Malaysia 46-0 in 4 overs. Ouch. But what interests me is the names of the Myanmar side: KK Lin Thu, Lwin Maw, Zarni Thein (c), … Continue reading Malaysia crushes some real Myanmarians
I am intrigued by how political opinions influence aesthetic feelings. Can you think that something is beautiful merely because it is the way that you think, in a political sort of way, that it ought to be? I say: yes. I have been experiencing an illustration of this tendency recently. And the effect was thrown … Continue reading When what I think it is determines how ugly or beautiful I feel it to be
I love the various visual effects you sometimes get when a piece of reinforced concrete is being destroyed and when it puts up a fight. I can’t say that it always does this, because you wouldn’t see anything when it is routed into oblivion in the space of a few hours, would you? But when … Continue reading 240 Blackfriars behind some reinforced concrete that is being demolished
I am a collector, and a way for me to satisfy this itch without taking up too much physical space is to collect not particular things, but photos of particular things. I collect such photos by finding them in the big wide world, mostly the London bit. But I also find such photos in my … Continue reading Collecting footbridges
Photographs are, as all the world has recently been learning, except those whose business – paid or unpaid – it is to complain about what all the world has recently been learning, a wonderful aid to memory. And many of the happiest memories of our extraordinarily comfortable and frequently very happy times involve food. So … Continue reading Food memories from the outer suburbs
I’ll let this guy explain it: The areas around Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays was once a series of docks that were slowly filled in and lost in the 1970s and early 1980s. As befits an area that was originally a marsh, and then an industrial hub, it was entirely flat, so it may surprise people … Continue reading The view from Stave Hill