As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, over the past year or so I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading. My stack of books I’ve bought but never read is now down to half-a-dozen or so.
With sabbatical drawing to a close, the next major life even appearing on the horizon is retirement. Since that will involve a considerable reduction in income, and consequently money to buy books, and my house already has quite a lot of books in it, I thought I’d join the local public library so that when I’ve cleared the backlog of bought books, I’ll read books from the library instead.
With that in mind, I just joined the public library on Main Street, Maynooth, which is only about 15 minutes’ walk from my house. It’s a small branch library but is part of a larger network across County Kildare, with an extensive online catalogue from which one can acquire books on request. All this is free of charge.
Once I got my card, I had a quick look around the Maynooth branch. It has a good collection of classic literature (including poetry) as well as Irish and world history, which will keep me occupied for quite a while. The normal loan period is 3 weeks, which provides an incentive to read the book reasonably quickly.
I borrowed books in large quantities from public libraries when I was a child. I’m actually looking forward to getting into the library habit again.
I was very sad to learn yesterday of the death at the age of 96 of celebrity sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer, known universally as “Dr Ruth”. I remember her well from TV appearances back in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis when she was a staunch ally of the gay community. Her frank and non-judgmental approach to sex education – especially with regard to safer sex practices – probably saved many lives during that crisis. The fact that she looked like an archetypal little old lady made her use of explicit language rather shocking in a way but also extremely effective. I thought she was wonderful.
I actually had the privilege of meeting Dr Ruth. In fact, I had breakfast with her in a hotel in Reykjavik. We were both participants in a show called the Experiment Marathon which happened in 2008, before I started blogging. I still have the book of the event. Here is the list of participants, along with a picture of Dr Ruth during her contribution:
list of participantsDr Ruth in 2008
Anyway, all the participants were staying in the same hotel for this event and on the morning of my talk I came down for breakfast to find the dining room rather crowded. There was a space, however, at Dr Ruth’s table. I recognized her immediately and was a bit nervous but eventually asked if I could join her. She was absolutely charming, very friendly, extremely talkative and delightfully funny. When I was able to get a word in, I told her how much admired her work during the AIDS crisis. She was also extremely tiny, well under five foot tall.
Dr Ruth was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Germany in 1928. When the Nazis came to power she was moved to Switzerland while her parents remained in Germany. Her father was murdered in Auschwitz; her mother also died during the Holocaust though nobody knows the details. She often said that her attitude during the AIDS crisis was informed by her knowledge that the Nazis murdered gay people too so she felt it was important to her show solidarity.
I mentioned about ten days ago that I was stepping down from my position as Chair and leaving the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee (ECDC for short). The tedious matter of my broken laptop delayed the official handover, however, so it was only today that I managed to do the official handover to the new ECDC at a Zoom telecon. That was the last ECDC telecon I will chair and, indeed, the last one I will attend. I’ve been participating in these meetings every two weeks or so for four years now, for the last year as Chair, so they have been a regular feature in my calendar for quite a while. Chairing involves quite a lot of preparatory work – compiling and circulating the agenda, keeping minutes, etc – so it feels good to have the responsibility lifted!
I’d like to wish all the new members of the ECDC, who I met (virtually) for the first time today, and those previous members who are continuing, all the best in the future. I’d also like to extend personal thanks to those members who are leaving this year, especially Marc, Florence and Chiara. I’ve enjoyed everyone’s contribution to the discussions.
I’ll still have telecons for other things, of course. In fact I had two others today alone. Why are they so tiring? For better or worse, Zoom meetings are a standard part of academic life nowadays, even more so if you work in a big international consortium such as Euclid for which in-person meetings are not generally feasible. I won’t complain that I’ll be having many fewer of them in future though!
At long last the sad story of my laptop is coming to a close. This morning I collected a brand new machine from IT Services in Maynooth and returned the one I’ve had on loan since last week. I took the new machine home, hastily set it up, and installed Zoom on it, so I could do this afternoon’s telecon. Since that call finished I’ve been installing other necessary things (such as Slack), generally setting it up and connecting it to various accounts here and there. I still haven’t managed to get it to talk to my printer though.
The demise of my old machine has been a long, drawn out affair. The machine failed when I got back to Barcelona from Rome last month. I managed to resurrect it a couple of days later, but it was working only intermittently and even when it did it was very slow indeed. Last week it failed completely so I took it to IT Services and was without a machine until I borrowed a new one on Friday. The issue with the old one being fairly terminal I ordered a replacement on Monday. Today (Thursday) I got the new laptop – which is nice – and returned the one I had borrowed. The old laptop is still with the technical folks who are trying to retrieve my data from the hard disk the failure of which was behind all the problems, or so I’m told.
Although I handed over my old machine they didn’t need the power supply, which is a standard one of which they had plenty. Since the new laptop came with its own, identical to the old one, so I am now up by one power supply. Something I should have done ages ago was to get a spare power supply so I could leave one in the office to avoid having to carry it to and from home. That’s now been sorted for me.
I got my old laptop in 2018, so it is about 6 years old and therefore out of warranty. I suppose I should have thought about replacing it anyway, but I’ve actually been lucky with laptops. I have two much older that both still work.
Vintage 1995Vintage 2001
I bought one of them – from Dell, like my new one – when I was at Queen Mary. It still runs Windows 95 and I never connect it to the internet, but I find it good for typing things on as the keyboard has a good feel to it though it is rather heavy. The other one – from Toshiba – dates from 2001 and is much lighter than the other. It also still works, running Windows 2000*, though I don’t use it very often, primarily because the wi-fi antenna no longer works.
P.S. When people ask me whether I’ve upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, I always say that I’m way ahead of them – I’m already on Windows 2000!
I had a toy like the one shown above when I was a little kid in the 1960s. We always referred to it as a “Gonk” but I am reliably informed that it is actually a Troll Doll.
One of the things I remember about growing up in Newcastle upon Tyne back then was that there were lots of visitors from Norway in the town at weekends. They came by ferry from Oslo and Bergen to do shopping. For that reason I assumed my Gonk Troll was Norwegian, but these dolls seem to have originated in Denmark.
I just passed by some poppies growing on a rather scruffy piece of verge near my house. They reminded me of this poem by Sylvia Plath, which I have posted before.
It was officially announced at last year’s Euclid Consortium Meeting in Copenhagen that I had been appointed to the role of Chair of the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee (ECDC). Following the tradition, a similar announcement was made at the Rome meeting this year that from 1st July there would be a new Chair in the form of Helmut Dannerbauer, who is based at the Instituto de Astrofísicas de Canarias on Tenerife. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, not helped by my computer problems, but I’m gradually winding up my activity on the ECDC and handing things over to Helmut.
As I pointed out in my post last year, I was in the final year of my stint on the ECDC when I was made Chair so it was always envisaged that I would serve for only one year. I only agreed to do it, in fact, because I had my sabbatical coming up. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do the job alongside a full teaching and other workload and didn’t even consider continuing after my sabbatical was over.
Instead of trying to describe the role and activities of the ECDC generally, I will direct you to the information given on the brand new Euclid Consortium website which is a one-stop shop for everything to do with Euclid. You can find specific information about Equity, Diversity and Conduct there and/or on the ECDC’s own public website here from which I’ve taken a screengrab of the nice banner:
Just for information, the Euclid Consortium has about 2600 members so it really is a very large organization. It is also very international, with many people working in countries they were not born in and whose language is not their first. It is the aim of the ECDC to encourage a positive and inclusive environment within it for the benefit of everyone in it. The diversity in Euclid has many dimensions, including gender, nationality, ethnicity, and career stage as well as type of work; Euclid comprises specialists in instrumentation, software engineering, observational astronomy and theory to name but a few. The aim of the ECDC is to try to make sure everyone can work together in an inclusive environment.
It has been good to see over the few years some policies have been implemented to allow a greater diversity among leadership roles in the Euclid Consortium, especially by having a planned programme of rotating chairs and coordinators. I think this and other inititiatives are making a difference.
Euclid was launched a year ago yesterday, and the past twelve months have involved a huge amount of hard work by everyone concerned and not a little tension in some parts. The stress will continue as we head towards DR1, the first main Data Release, in 2026. The Euclid Consortium has a Code of Conduct to remind members to behave professionally towards their fellow workers at all times.
I’d like to wish all the new members of the ECDC, and those continuing, all the best in the future. I’d also like to extend personal thanks to those members who are leaving this year, especially Marc, Florence and Chiara. We have had regular telecons virtually every fortnight for the last year and I’ve enjoyed everyone’s contribution to the discussions.
Regular readers of this blog – both of them – may recall that earlier this month I gave the inaugural Pride Lecture in the Physics Department at Oxford University. That lecture was given in person but also streamed via Zoom. This is just an update to let you know that a recording of that stream is now available here should you wish to view it:
Here I am, on the train from Valencia back to Barcelona. I’ve been to Valencia many times but the last time was so long ago that I don’t remember when it was exactly. I only had time for a short walk about this morning before getting a lift to the University campus, which is a bit out of town. I gave my talk as planned, had a nice lunch, and was personally driven back to the railway station, and am now on my way back to Barcelona.
I’ll probably doze off on the way, so I’ll just take this opportunity to thank Vicent Martínez for inviting me (including last night’s dinner) and everyone for their hospitality and nice questions after my talk!
Update: I got back to Barcelona about 15 minutes late, which wasn’t a big deal, although it’s a notably slower route than the Madrid-Barcelona line I travelled on a couple of months ago.
As I reported a couple of days ago, my laptop (which is about 6 years old) failed to restart when I got back to Barcelona from Rome.
I couldn’t attempt a reply until I got a key from IT Services in Maynooth. The 48 digits duly arrived yesterday. I tried a number of times to repair the disk but it kept failing. Last night I left a disk scan running when I went to bed, as it advised that several hours would be needed. When I got up this morning I found it had failed again.
I decided to try one more time, started the recovery process again and went out shopping. It was still running when I got back. I had all but given up at this point and had stopped paying attention to the screen. When I finally went to check again I saw to my amazement that it had restarted as far as the Windows login.
I logged in with fingers crossed. It took an eternity to start up and is still running very slowly. It’s probably quite ill, perhaps more undead than alive, but at least I could retrieve my files onto the hard disk I brought with me.
I have to travel to Valencia next week to give a talk and was wondering how I would manage without having access to my slides let alone a laptop to present them from…
Anyway, I’m nervous about what might happen if I have to restart again, so I’ll leave it on while I celebrate with a glass or several of wine. The Resurrection of the Laptop may well prove to be temporary but I’ll make the most of it while it lasts…
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In the Dark 