December 2010
5 posts
moving on...
OK kids, I’ve grown irritated enough to decide to leave wobbly wobbly Tumblr for now. I am going to give Wordpress a go at cosmicsymmetry.wordpress.com.
I feel a bit funny doing this. I went quiet for a while there because I didn’t really see the point in carrying on wibbling pointlessly into the ether. Then I supposed that if I was going to wibble pointlessly into the ether, I may...
Tokyo, Almost-Encounters, and “Passing By” →
Apparently, I react to sneezes in a rather Japanese manner.
BBC - Mind The Gap: Why do south London trains... →
We have a foot of snow and it keeps falling, so we’re basically under house arrest. Apparently people were stuck in trains overnight at Orpington station, so I’m not even contemplating facing Southeastern trains for days yet.
November 2010
19 posts
The Second-Place Sex § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM →
I have been playing chess again lately, a little bit. Because of the weather and my schedule, I have only made it to the chess club on campus once, but every week I always intend to. My ipad has a rather good app on it, ChessWise, but I much prefer playing real people, and this is why I wish to go to chess club. The one time I went, I was the only girl that wasn’t a complete n00b and yet I...
“To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left...”
– Anthony Trollope
Jet Lag May Cause Stupidity | Wired Science →
Look at me, I’m living proof. I’m sitting in the quad, freezing, staring at the sun trying to wake up enough to finish my general relativity homework. To no avail.
the grinch strikes back
I hate xmas. I sometimes forget how much I hate it and then it creeps up on me, hello! Tacky decoration and stupid advert time!
There was an interesting post on 3QD about using Thanksgiving to push back on Christmas, and one choice meaty bit was this:
Second, rethink gift-giving. It is a simple and lamentable fact that the percentage of the Christmas gifts you receive that are useless to you...
The Shadow Scholar - The Chronicle of Higher... →
A person that writes essays and dissertations for hire tells their side of the story. If only there were shadow physicists and mathematicians…
{Impossibly cool} icons | Luster →
finding oneself by accident in NYC
Alright, I’ll tell you about the trip to NY because it is midnight and I have jetlag insomnia despite being exhausted. Life has been too mad to even grant me the time to sort my photos so I have hundreds yet to go though, albeit the same boring ones of buildings and food as usual.
Seriously, life’s dealt me a rough hand this week despite transatlantic posho jaunts. I have a problem sheet...
High-Speed Video Reveals Cats’ Secret Tongue... →
the life
Just had cream tea in Virgin Upper Class lounge, now to enquire at the cowshed spa desk about their offerings.
SEC informs MSU of cowbell violation - The... →
What this needs is… more cowbell.
If the election really mattered to you, you’d do... →
Studying Candy as a Guilty Indulgence -... →
“I guess I have always been
deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife...”
– Marilyn Monroe
“That’s better than Sheldon’s tshirt folder.”
– Mr Man re: his magical new tardis suitcase
oh go on, then...
Just another day, today, up at misty dawn, dress in student pleb-wear, vespa to station. Three and a half hours of galaxy and cluster dynamics, followed by the sort of last minute shopping one does before going abroad: little empty bottles, socks, and a power adaptor at Muji. Chanel Paradoxal nail polish (now installed on my toes). A book for plane reading (as recommended by Mr Gibson).
Louche...
October 2010
26 posts
“Plant an expectation; reap a disappointment.”
– Hmong proverb
Engineer Finds Secret to Growing Ridiculously Huge... →
“The hipster moment did not produce artists, but tattoo artists. It did not yield...”
– What Was the Hipster? in NYMag
spill
I had a nightmare the other night where I was trying to push something off of me, except in real life I actually reached out and pushed a glass off of my night stand.
It was a full pint of water.
It landed on my particle physics notes and textbooks and went everywhere.
A rude awakening, from a sleep nightmare to a real life one, there we were at 5am mopping up half the bedroom. The notes...
SpaceTime - Scientific computing in the palm of... →
I just put this app on my iPad because I got bored of beating Wolfram Alpha with sticks and having to rely on a network connection for getting shiny shiny integrals. My poor TI-89 is dead jealous. So are all the boys in my class.
COSMIC SIPPING | More Intelligent Life →
Biodynamic wine? Cosmic energies? Excuse me while I set my bullshit detector to ‘search and destroy’.
Scooter wear that can turn heads - latimes.com →
I’m glad that I’m not the only scooter rider that doesn’t want to dress like a giant kevlar flourescent dork. I got a rather clever parka yesterday with stealth armour built into the shoulders and elbows. Good thing I upgraded the coat, because my seat was covered in frost this morning!
Google Sky Lets Users Map the Universe |... →
I should really use this before voicing my opinion, but I can’t shake the feeling that this is another layer of abstraction between the observer and the glories of heaven which sort of defeats the point.
I’m quite scathing about GOTO scopes, at least for small starter scopes, because I’m old school and crotchety and believe that if you want to get into astronomy, you should deal...
“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six...”
– Oscar Wilde
ESO - Rare 360-degree Panorama of the Southern... →
Clicking this image will make your life happier. Once upon a time, all of our night skies looked a bit like that.
Whilst you are in the throes of astronomical ecstasy, take the virtual tour and behold the high Atacama and the crazy technology it hosts. There’s an indoor swimming pool!
How to Make a White Hole in Your Kitchen Sink |... →
Seriously — turn on the tap, create an event horizon. Absolutely brilliant.
1am and drowning in equations
The second week of school and I am officially in the shit, like to the point where weekends become rife with guilty pleasures that I shouldn’t partake in because I have three problem sheets due this week, one deadline every other day. And it will be the same next week. And the week after that I dash off to NY for a bit of a jaunt, as you do.
Fuck.
TAM London is on, and despite the insane...
scarlet woman
So I am loving my Vespa, but I am also bearing in mind that it hasn’t rained since it arrived. Nonetheless, I got on it and drove down to Biggin Hill just to put petrol in it, and then just kept on driving randomly. Because I can. It’s like that. And it takes only five quid for a fill-up!
To share my joy, I am taking a break from the Collisionless Boltzmann Equation to present to...
“The innocent and light-minded, who believe that astronomy can be studied by...”
– Plato’s warning from Timaeus, as stated in Sparke and Gallagher’s Galaxies in the Universe.
c0smickitten: 'Theoretical physicists, they lie to... →
musical chairs
One would think that the 21st/4th best university in the known universe could muster the resources to sort out lecture rooms with enough whiteboards, let alone enough seats for the students, but apparently not. Twice this week and counting: standing room only astrophysics lectures of at least two hours. I pity the fool who gets to class late!
So they rescheduled my high energy astrophysics class...
c0smickitten: Possibly severe gale 9 later in... →