Mesoscopic
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Admiral Ackbar's LiveJournal:
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| Saturday, June 13th, 2009 | | 6:44 pm |
| | Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 | | 3:04 pm |
| | 1:47 pm |
Postmodernism Drinking Game
RULE ONE: If *anyone*, at any *time*, for any *reason*, believes in, supports, or likes a person, place, or idea, it's only because they haven't uncovered the fundamental contradictions underlying it and you are allowed to laugh at them because they are Less Jaded than you. QUALIFICATION ONE: If *everyone* disbelieves in, attacks, or dislikes a person, place, or idea, it's only because they haven't uncovered the fundamental contradictions underlying that disbelief, and you may support that person, place, or idea, *and* you are allowed to laugh at the other players because they are Less Perceptive than you. COROLLARY: anyone who explains the rules is a MODERNIST PIG. Have a drink. | | Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 | | 11:32 am |
second month 2008
So it has been a couple of weeks since Jules and i made it back from the UK. Things proceed. It was touch and go there when i came back. i almost forgot everything i had learned in the past year. Plus I had to give a talk on the first day back. Luckily the talk was put back a week which gave me some valuable time to recover my mind from the chemical disposal unit of the holidays. Jules was an angel during that period as i was a mess. Thank goodness for my beautiful girl. But now with what has turned out to be a fresh set of eyes i have spied some new things in an old set of data form last year. So, it has been several weeks of feverish measurements in my lab. While at the end of the day feverish measurements make you feel like you have accomplished things at work, it does mean that you hide away in your little hole without much external input. And you can get bogged down in measurement sand stop seeing the big picture of what the hell it is that you are looking at. I am now almost at the end of the measurements and i have to step back and not be horrified at the incomprehensibility of what i have done. Saturday is a Chinese new year party at my professor's house. It promises to be good. I think i will follow the usual procedure and get ridiculously drunk. However that is a common occurrence amongst the academics (work hard, play hard... hardly). I have been reading Porterhouse Blue which is about an imaginary college at Cambridge in the 1970s. The English sense of tradition "we didn't win the war, we just stubbornly refused to lose" and it's hesitance to change. The college is, as i said imaginary and take s place on part of the grounds of Clare college. it is kind of cool to wander around thew set for the book on the way to work. My usual coffee shop just outside trinity and st johns is right near where the supposed porterhouse is and so i sit as usual with my coffee under Newton's watchful glare and now i imagine Skullion and Zipser too. Trinity road is in some ways the main vein of the university in Cambridge. So many students and so many wild characters from england past come riding by on their push bikes. Then i ride on my way to the Cavendish laboratories to take my place. It is inspiring at times. Enough so, that when i was in oz i ran a D&D campaign set in England and starting in the little town of Cambridge during the Danelaw in 999. Jules had her first taste of (table top) role playing and seemed to enjoy it. A victory for geekish pursuits if ever there was one. Pete is heading here in a few weeks (we hope) as long as his visa is sorted. it will be good to have another Caringbah 'old boy' in the fray. Looking forward to seeing Stef and Pete in London town. Which reminds me. We were down in London just a few weeks ago to see Stef for his housewarming. He has moved to archway in a lovely little house right near the tube station and highgate cemetary. Never saw his last digs but from all reports this is infinitely preferable. Pete, we left you a housewarming gift there but now that you are delayed we might have to get you another. until next time dear journal. Tootle-pip! | | Saturday, December 8th, 2007 | | 2:20 pm |
| | Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 | | 12:27 pm |
Ugh, where did the year go!
There are honestly so many different ways for me to communicate the minutiae of my life that i am beginning to get sick of it. Well it is a bit stale to say that i am getting sick of it because i haven't really committed anything of any value to any of the half a bazillion forms of blogging i am registered for for some time now. Any way i will be headed back to Australia for a nice long month of sun, doing nothing and catching up with friends. This will be lovely. I am looking forward to it immensely. It is very nice to have something be aiming at. Particularly if at times the living and working has seemed cold and unrewarding. Even if i know that at the end of the holiday i will be hading back to the cold, the memories and spiritual recharging will be much more than the sum of the holiday's parts. So anyone who wants to get together, hang out whatever i am very open to suggestions. Just send me an email of some sort. It has been a year since i have seen many of my people so i am sure that you will have many things to tell me.But i am sot so sure i will be able to return the favor. Hard work and living in a country town can make dull companions out of the best of us. But try you luck, see what happens. | | Saturday, March 24th, 2007 | | 5:06 am |
Trashed is the new trashed
After a break of several months to a year here is admiral ackbar, broadcasting to you from the suburbs of london. I thought it was a trap, but the shields were down. london I have you now! Focus all firepower on my brain. The music is on, the hour is late and serotonin levels are close to being depleted. Ha you know the score. the keyboard is swimming and the screen is a wash of white and blue. The antipodean contingent Stefan, Jules and I have been fed some lovely materials by out south african hosts. Pictures may ensue, but all interested parties can find me on my Myspace which is also under the alias mesoscopic. Ha ha i could have posted on myspace but livejournal is the place for deeply trashed input. Which in it's usual way is devoid of content. But why is that. i need someone to talk to. i cant just SHOUT INTO THE ETHERNET! In fact where are all my people from the past I know i am many thousands of miles away but a click of a button may keel the gossamer thread of contact intact. I miss you all. toby.hallam at gmail et al. Current Mood:  awake | | Monday, September 25th, 2006 | | 2:00 pm |
And so i have my PhD and have secured a postdoctoral position at Cambridge working in Richard Friend's group at the Cavendish laboratories under Professor Sirringhaus. The time is approaching that i have to leave. Watch this space... | | Saturday, July 15th, 2006 | | 10:58 pm |
An appropriate place to finish the teaser promotions.
 I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings, Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. | | Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 | | 8:07 am |
Luxor
 Here i am in Karnak "the most perfect of places". Central temple of Ptolemaic Thebes and the entire ancient Egyptian culture. | | Monday, July 10th, 2006 | | 8:22 pm |
The Nile
 People disagreeing everywhere you look, Makes you wanna stop and read a book. Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street That was really shook. But this ol' river keeps on rollin', though, No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow, And as long as it does I'll just sit here And watch the river flow. | | Monday, June 19th, 2006 | | 11:33 am |
I'm out here a thousand miles from my home,
Walkin' a road other men have gone down.
I'm seein' your world of people and things,
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings.
I'm a-leaving' tomorrow, but I could leave today,
Somewhere down the road someday.
The very last thing that I'd want to do
Is to say I've been hittin' some hard travelin' too.Toby's birthday and farewell drinks. @Newtown. Tuesday. 9pm. All Welcome. | | Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 | | 12:56 pm |
WOOOO!
Full steam ahead!!!The monsterous 300 page thesis manuscripts go to the international referees today. I booked my ticket to Egypt. I leave on the 21st of June for three weeks! | | Thursday, May 25th, 2006 | | 12:17 pm |
Happy Towel Day
A towel, ... is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Current Mood: Cool and Froody | | Friday, May 19th, 2006 | | 3:02 pm |
| | Tuesday, May 16th, 2006 | | 12:21 pm |
"Like revenge, power is a dish best considered and then passed over in favour of the soup." | | Sunday, May 7th, 2006 | | 1:46 am |
trashy quote:
It is a fact of life that everybody gets terribly conservative when put in little cardboard boxes. | | Friday, May 5th, 2006 | | 1:32 pm |
| | Wednesday, April 19th, 2006 | | 12:56 pm |
| | Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 | | 5:18 pm |
Newtown, Newtown it's a helluva town The hub is up, but the uni is down. the townie is more than a hole in the ground newtown, newtown it's a helluva town (--points to the silos--) Hey, Gabey! Gabey, look. (--consulting his guidebook with reverence and excitement--) Gabey, it says here "There were 65 pubs in Newtown, not counting gothmore road, a charming thoroughfare filled with..." OZZIE: Here we go again! CHIP: The in-famous places to visit are so many, Or so the guidebooks say. I promised Daddy I wouldn't miss on any. And we have just one day. Got to see the whole town From lord street on down to the old fish cafe GABEY, CHIP, OZZIE: In just one day! newtown, newtown, a visitor's place, Where no one lives on account of the pace, But seven homeless abbos are screaming for space. newtown, newtown, it's a visitor's place! (--Two dykes enter, weaving and weary-looking - one happy, one very glum.--) GABEY: Hey! Look who's comin' back! It's Tom and Andy! OZZIE: Hey, Tom, Andy! Hey, fellas, how are the Newtown dames? ANDY: Wonderful - I don't remember a thing! TOM: Awful! I remember everything! (--Tom and Andy exit.--) OZZIE: Stanmore women are dressed in chains and mohawks, Or so the fellas say; There's just one thing that's important in Stanmore, When you have just one day; Gotta pick up a date... CHIP: At the sly fox... ? OZZIE: At the bank ? GABEY, CHIP, OZZIE: It's still closed today! Newtown, Newtown, a helluva town. The hub is up, but the uni's down. The townie's not just a hole in the groun'. Newtown, Newtown, it's a helluva town!! |
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