Not only have we been sitting indoors for the last months because of the coronavirus, it has also been unusually dry. We haven’t seen any proper rain in Warsaw for over a month. Meteorologists are warning that we already see water levels that we usually have in the middle of […]
Moscow, 1937 by Karl SchlögelMy rating: 5 of 5 stars The original title, Terror und Traum (Terror and Dream), really summarises the book perfectly. Schlögel paints a wide tapestry over Moscow and the Soviet Union at a time when it had emerged from the civil war and the future looked […]
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane My rating: 4 of 5 stars A very entertaining introduction to what artificial intelligence does and what it doesn’t. Full of hilarious examples of AI […]
We had a discussion the other day at work about Arthur Eddington, of solar eclipse fame. It started with a tweet from @landetannien about proofs in science. The point of the tweet being that she’s frustrated with people insisting that science needs to prove things. That reminded me of a […]
The fascinating story of the far end of the periodic table. The book starts off from the beginning of man-made elements, those beyond uranium, before moving on to the the beasts lurking above atomic number 104 – the superheavies. It’s a story I thought I knew quite well as a […]
We all get our fair share of spam – although as filters are getting better I actually don’t see that much of it – but as an academic scientist there is a special class of junk hitting the inbox: Invitations to publish in journals and to give talks at conferences. […]
All Saints’ Day is one of the most Polish holidays when people are taking to the cemeteries by the millions. Stanley Bill wrote beautifully about it on the new web-page for the Notes from Poland news service. Over the years I have taken many photos of our local cemetery at […]
Den 13 oktober är det parlamentsval här i Polen och allt lutar åt att regeringspartiet Lag och Rättvisa (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – PiS) kommer att vinna och sitta kvar i regeringsställning med egen majoritet i Sejmen. Det har huvudsakligen två anledningar: att PiS budskap är både populärt, populistiskt och att […]
This week the Polish Chemical Society (PT Chem) has its annual meeting. This year it’s in Warsaw at the technical university. Despite the fact that for several years now I officially count as chemist, I think this is the first general chemistry conference that I’ve been to. I mean, I’ve […]
I took a cycle trip today down along the river to the ferry between Gassy and Karczew south of Warsaw. It’s a nice trip on small roads with very little traffic. Unfortunately on the other side the only way back is along a more busy road – mostly without bicycle […]
