Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 11h

Gotta love the irony that Heathrow Airport -- home to the seond-most polluting form of travel known to humankind, after space rockets -- is just inside the Ultra Low Emissions Zone.

(Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a good thing to discourage people driving to airports. But still...)

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 20h

Apparently, my name is not on the list. They say they've never even heard of me.

Svenska Akademien in Stockholm, where the Nobel Prizes are currently being announced.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 4d

Looking good for Observe The Moon night at @uniofreading.bsky.social

Building in foreground. Moon at twilight in background

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 4d

Not saying I've become middle class. But I am considered taking a couple of ibuprofen to take the edge off my Risotto Shoulder.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 5d

Pretty sure you've found the hidden entrance to the Bat Cave.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 5d

Reading UK folk - did you know that for a few quid you can hire a table at @eclecticgames.bsky.social and play almost any of their board and card games for a few hours? Amazing. My daughter was in heaven.

Downside: Now we've got to find room on the overcrowded game shelf for Flamecraft.

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Reposted by Mathew Owens

Sarah Watson @sarahrosewatson.bsky.social · 5d

Excited for this! The comet may cross the heliospheric current sheet, which can affect the tail of a comet, so will be interesting to see if we see any evidence of this.😍☄️

Jonathan O'Callaghan @astrojonny.bsky.social · 6d

Interstellar comet 3I/Atlas is flying past Mars today. Might get some cool views!

skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

Mars Orbiters Will Have Front-row Seats to Interstellar Comet

Spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet will aim a suite of instruments at Comet 3I/ATLAS to capture details about this enigmatic object.

skyandtelescope.org

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 6d

Ah! It doesn't happen at all. Though it probably needs to...

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 6d

Haven't the bottom two panels been switched around?

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 6d

Gah. Oxford Research Encyclopedia has put my review papers on the Solar Cycle and the Solar Wind Structure behind a paywall. Even the author can't get them.

So here the preprints. Which have better figure quality anyway.

centaur.reading.ac.uk/89323/
centaur.reading.ac.uk/92369/

Solar-wind structure - CentAUR

University Publications

centaur.reading.ac.uk

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 6d

That's my leadership strategy.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 6d

Feature requests straight to the Met Office Chief Exec?! I can't even get to speak to anyone in our IT dept without filing a ticket and waiting a week.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 7d

Haha. Brilliant.

Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 8d

No blackboards in the lecture theatres these days. Whiteboards though. I'll break out my markers (non-permanent -- I've made that mistake before).

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 8d

Thanks, yeah, I spotted Open Office was well out of date and have gone Libre!

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 8d

Yeah, I'll be going this route too, thanks. On the devices that my IT dept allows me to install stuff. Which is much fewer, as a result of Microsoft's admin-rights crackdown imposed on the uni.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 8d

"Remember me on this device". The greatest lie ever told.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 8d

Gotta love your uni being so tied to the Microsoft ecosystem. Had to update Office, but the new install won't register/validate the licence, because it *always* defaults to the wrong MS account.

Now I can't even open Powerpoint. My teaching starts in 68 minutes. I'm rapidly installed OpenOffice.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 9d

Yeah. For a habit to stick, I need two things. An arbitrary target, and a means to track progress (the numbers go up!). Strava and Google Scholar have mean I've become a consistent -- if somewhat pedestrian -- runner and scientific author.

Gotta lean into your compulsive side sometimes!

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 9d

Honesty, it's probably done my career more harm than good. And there was one year that was only saved by a publisher taking 6 months to get something in press.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 9d

See also: I must publish one first-author paper a year. Absolutely no-one cares but me. At times, it's probably lead me to do safe rather than risky science. But I've kept it up for 20+ years.

It's something that's also getting more difficult with age, but for very different reasons...

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 9d

***Boring running post***

Because I respond massively to self-imposed, completely arbitrary targets, I'm trying to run 10,000 miles in my 40s.

Exactly 8 years in, I've done 8,720 miles (14 Mm). Which is about on track, given it's easier to rack up distance in your early than late 40s.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 9d

Hard agree. Though the UK's solution of just throwing *even more money* at commercial publishers is equally nuts.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 10d

Look at that eyewall spin!

cira-csu.bsky.social @cira-csu.bsky.social · 11d

An absolutely stunning view today of Hurricane Humberto, a Category 5 storm.

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Mathew Owens @mathewjowens.bsky.social · 10d

Woah, nice.

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