Reading list [Toby Atkin-Wright]

Off on an awfully big adventure
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Right now (7:30am) it is 14 degrees outside.

It is 24 degrees in our bedroom, despite the windows being open all night. Humidity is 92%.

This afternoon it will rise to 26 degrees. I'm glad the office has air conditioning. I'm not looking forward to tonight.

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Two lots for me tonight.

Firstly, for dinner dessert, fresh strawberries grown here in Monifieth. Served with a very generous serving of extra thick Scottish cream.

A bowl of huge juicy red strawberries covered in extremely thick cream, with a spoon waiting to eat

And for supper a little clutch of fresh cherries, bought at the Monifieth berry farm, and grown a bit further north here in Angus.

5 juicy looking dark red cherries sitting a saucer. The cherries still have their stems.

Yum.

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Onto the last in the Memoirs collection, and going to discuss this pivotal story with big spoilers. ( spoiler cut ... )

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1. Let Kids Be Loud: (tags:children noise )
2. Fascinating essay on photography lighting techniques that predate AI and why they are confused for it (amongst other things): (tags:lighting photography )
3. What if you Threw a Paper Airplane from the Space Station?: (tags:space paper airplanes viaPatrickHadfield )
4. Cellos totally belong in rock bands: (tags:music video awesome )
5. Time keeps on slipping - literally. Why today might have been the shortest day you'll ever experience: (tags:time earth )

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I never get to see much of Wimbledon now. I am asleep far too much, including most of the day. But I like watching doubles on the red button over dinner, and above all the fun invitational matches with old players that started today. We are currently enjoying a mixed doubles match including Todd Woodbridge and the wacky Mansour Bahrami. So much fun. I played tennis a lot as a teenager, including at inter club level.

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1. 7 Engineers Suspended After $2.3 Million Bridge Includes Bizarre 90-Degree Turn: (tags:architecture design epicfail India )
2. Edinburgh Airport liquid limit increased from 100ml to two litres: (tags:airport security Technology )
3. The Time Someone Plagiarized Calvin & Hobbes and Nobody Noticed or Cared: (tags:comics plagiarism history art ai )
4. Turns out a great way to get children to want to learn their times tables is to set them to pop songs: (tags:numbers video music )
5. Employers to be banned from silencing harassed or abused staff: (tags:regulation abuse work UK law )
6. Some English children are living in 'Dickensian' poverty, says commissioner: (tags:england poverty children OhForFucksSake )
7. Electricity from large solar arrays with batteries now cheaper than from fossil plants in Germany: (tags:electricity solarpower batteries germany GoodNews )
8. O Fortuna Misheard Lyrics: (tags:music hearing words illusion funny video )

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Getting near to the end of my catchup watch for the Cymera 2025 festival of scifi, fantasy and horror writing in Edinburgh. I had a digital weekend ticket, so had access until this coming weekend to the digital recordings. Didn't get through as many as in some years. But happy with what I've managed to see, considering. And found many new to me authors whose work I want to follow up.

Cymera Festival 2025 list of talks watched

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Doing another quick reading, drawing 4 cards at random, and arranging them from top to bottom in order of how much I connect with them. With the option to ignore or reduce in applicability the card I place at the bottom. Then some personal reflections on the topics raised by the cards drawn tonight, and how I feel about them.

I'm using my new in hand Venetian Tarot deck this time. Not only is the art gorgeous - Renaissance Venice inspired - but it's also fantastic to hold in the hand, great to shuffle, and gold gilded edges. Just lovely.

My first reaction was "Aarrgghh! I've drawn the Hanged Man!" But thinking more, it's the card in today's random draw that resonates with me the most. I'm currently in a state of transition, in more ways than one. I recently got some big work-related things finished, and am moving on to focus on other things. And I'm also seemingly starting to slowly come out of my latest 3-month neurological flare. And want to have fun. Meanings associated with this card can include all of sacrifice, release and new perspective. And I honestly feel that's on point.

Alongside that the Seven of Cups and Knight of Wands both fit in with this state of transition and where I'm moving to. The Cups card is often associated with romance, but also with new ideas, adventures, passions more generally. And I'm very much feeling that I want to pursue things I'm passionate about. Likewise the Knight of Wands brings up ideas like impulsivity, action and determination. And again ties in so strongly with how I'm currently feeling.

I placed the Ten of Swords at the bottom in my arrangement today. This is one of the more bleak cards in the Tarot deck, associated with despair, trauma and feeling rock bottom. I just don't feel that, though I do feel the hope this card can conversely be associated with. But yup, not really the card for how I'm feeling today.

That was so much fun. And wow, these cards are just stunning.

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Still early days, but encouraging signs ...

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1. Forced participation in religious activities to be classified as child abuse in Japan: (tags:religion abuse children Japan )
2. 'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers: (tags:ai research )
3. Xi Has Spent Decades Preparing for a Cold War With the U.S.: (tags:china USA trade )
4. Seine reopens to Paris swimmers after century-long ban: (tags:France Paris water pollution sewage )

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One of my discussion/assignment topics for students on Information Science at Meiji University has long been "Personalised Recommendations: Useful or Creepy". Lots of the academic publishers track what you read and try to recommend things. Due to my teaching at University of Tokyo being for students on Japan and East Asian studies, and on Environmental Science, I have been pulling up at least the abstracts and often the
full paper (via U=Tokyo subscription where Meiji doesn't have it) for lots of papers relevant to those topics. Particularly Environmental Science this semester because in teaching academic presentation and writing to the Env Sci students I've got them basing a presentation and a grant proposal on an existing paper, so of course i need to skim the paper to check the validity of their work. Not my field, but I can blag it well enough for the level needed. So, of course Science Direct, who track what I look at, have now started recommending Env Sci instead of Information Ethics papers to me.

Mood::

amused

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Just blogged about this on my academic musings blog.

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Had another dream about my long ago lost PhD this afternoon. This time a viva dream. Though I think it was going well! Anyway it prompted me to blog about the protracted mourning for my lost Computer Science PhD ...

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Got halfway to the bus stop to go to the pool and realised I didn't have my shoulder bag. Sprinted home, got it, and made it to the bus.

Got off the bus at the other end, realised Sophia's bag didn't have her swimming costume in it. Got a bus home, grabbed it, now in a taxi.

Fingers crossed that nothing else comes between me and drop-off and work!
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Toby Atkin-Wright

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It ain't no good if you're in the jungle.

Soft fruit x 2

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Wimbledon

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Cymera Festival 2025 watching

Today's tarot cards spread

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Hints of my latest 3 month long neurological illness flare starting to ease

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Ah, the joys of prsonal recommendations

Taking stock of academic research projects and papers in progress

A blog post about my lost PhD nearly three decades on

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July