Well if anyone needed confirmation that he's a terrible person... there it is.

Someone asked me once what was the point of studying what I studied. All I could think of was that happiness is a valid pursuit.

When your head is buried in study, you sometimes miss out on mind-blowing news.

Learning that this sort of binary neutron star collision is one source of a lot of heavy metals, not just the often reported gold and platinum, but a massive variety of elements heavier than iron, is incredible to me.

Anyway, if you've a few spare minutes: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GW170817

I'm used to thinking of cosmology in ancient atomist terms, the production of everything from atomic collisions. Like many others I am enamoured by Sagan's description of humans as being made of star-stuff, connected to the formation of planets and solar systems by the elements that make us.

I'm 146% sure that all academic staff were consulted* on this new strategy before it was rolled out. Doubtless there were no objections, alarms, questions, nothing worthy of a FOI request.

*Note, consultation does not require agreement.

Once upon a time, I worked on printer drivers. That was a low point which made me quit that particular job.

Besides the fact that they refuse to work even 50% of the time for me, no one has ever adequately explained why my printer requires yellow (or fucking cyan) to print black and white.