Notices by Mike Prior-Jones (drmikepj@mastodon.social)

@fesshole I was once interviewing a young man who wanted a job. He seemed okay if a bit cocky. Afterwards I was told he’d been rude to the (female) receptionist, the (female) HR officer and the (female) catering assistant who had brought him a coffee. He did not get the job.

@skinnylatte my Singaporean husband endorses the Meaco fans, which move a lot of air quietly https://www.meaco.com/collections/fans but I don’t think they’re sold in the US.

@skinnylatte I love the offhand comments like this that people make in research that are so normal to them but exciting for others. Today I said “I can’t do that date next week, I’m on a polar bear safety course”, and I have heard one of my collaborators say “I don’t like working with plutonium, it’s a lot of paperwork” and “that might go on a small mission, perhaps just to the Moon”!

@skinnylatte yeah, it was a big shock for me going to the Bay Area for the first time on a business trip and discovering that I couldn’t walk from my hotel to a restaurant but had to drive. Nor could I travel from Milpitas to Oakland on public transport without going massively out of my way (at least the BART extension fixed that). But my biggest wtf in California (in Palo Alto) was realising that buses don’t have adverts because bus users aren’t considered worth advertising to.

In case the #budget has got you wondering about whether the various millions and billions announced today are big or small numbers, here’s my thread on it:

tl;dr: £500m is about what it costs to run a middle-rank university for a year; £1bn will run a large local authority or a high-end hospital; £5.6bn will run the BBC; £24bn is the entire Welsh Government. £54bn runs Defence; £60bn schools; pensioner benefits cost £134bn; the NHS costs £180bn. Per year.

https://mastodon.social/@drmikepj/113035611032761600

@thomasfuchs Canon Ion? https://www.digitalkameramuseum.de/en/esvc/item/canon-rc-251

I have never had a job as frustrating as being an academic. You're constantly exhorted to aim for the sky, only to find that whilst you're looking at the stars your institution has tied your shoelaces together and you fall flat on your face.

@whitequark in Germany there are two cities called Frankfurt. The main one and the other one. (Requires knowledge of German geography and a bit of German vocabulary)