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Andy Buckley

@agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

63 followers 7 following 264 posts

Particle-physics prof at Glasgow Physics & Astronomy. Author of those physics codes you like, and that one you don't. Enthusiast for dirty QCD physics, data […] [bridged from mastodon.social/@agbuckley on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/10/2026

Disappointed to get turned down in the second round of a Leverhulme research-grant application: I thought it was such a nice proposal. Not getting grants is par for the course, though... to some extent it's a numbers game. But to get _no_ feedback is galling. I could understand that due to […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Why punctuation matters! Even as a native speaker and knowing the context of the Grenfell fire, the missing hyphen between the first two words turned the first half of this into a pile of disconnected words that took me a while to parse. There's only one […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Guardian headline: "Grenfell fire police investigators hand files to 20 firms and 54 people to CPS"

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Reposted by Andy Buckley

Liam Proven @lproven.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

« When I worked at BMP, the Head of Television commuted in from Brighton every day. He started reading The Exorcist on the train. He said he thought it was the most evil book he’d ever read. In fact, he said it was so evil he couldn’t finish it. So, at the weekend, he went to the end of […]

social.vivaldi.net

Original post on social.vivaldi.net

Reposted by Andy Buckley

Rob Bignell, Editor/Author @inventingreality.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#writingcommunity #writesky #writesky #author #amwriting #books

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

Saw a variant of this advert at Heathrow. A security blanket is a prop used by small children for reassurance against imaginary fears; the blanket itself does nothing. Is that what Cisco's selling: security theatre for emotional toddlers? Do the advertising folk at Cisco know what words are?

A huge billboard at an airport, with generic , swooshy, tech-looking rainbow lines and dots, and text reading "Cisco AI. Wrap yourself in the most powerful security blanket ever"

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/09/2026

Excellent and important article on UAE building populist alliances abroad to keep its petro-show on the road: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/ref… Also, that header photo. Looks like Farage is doing a Weekend at Bernies

democracyforsale.substack.com

Reform and the UAE – a threat to British politics

Nigel Farage's embrace of the UAE is part of a wider effort by the Gulf petrostate to build alliances with the far right across the West, says Alex Carlen.

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

"The Charles vs. Charles battle is a collision of two unpleasant men fighting over the legacy of a fairly ordinary posh woman who has been turned by circumstance and an avalanche of superlatives into a modern-day saint." 👏 brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/char…

brokenbottleboy.substack.com

Charles vs. Charles proves only one thing: Dead Diana still sells

There is disingenuousness and cynicism on all sides as Charles Spencer flogs his book and Charles Windsor tries to protect his ragged reputation.

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

Good call on the latest "military complex" excuse for Trumpy carbunkles across Washington: luciantruscott.substack.com/p/there… Why the fascination with this from a non-US citizen on the other side of the Atlantic? Besides the beyond-satire sideshow of the […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/09/2026

Feeling seen, by the Romans. Thanks, Antonine Wall

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2026

A particularly depressing triumvirate of tech headlines on Futurism today: futurism.com/artificial-intelligenc… futurism.com/future-society/lg-secr… […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

Analysing Justin Webb’s interview with Ed Miliband about sanctions on Israeli settlements: brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/anal… 👏

brokenbottleboy.substack.com

Analysing Justin Webb’s interview with Ed Miliband about sanctions on Israeli settlements

On the absence of balance in an encounter where the Foreign Secretary’s Jewishness was called into question.

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026

This is really good in itself, as well as being a colossal dump on the whole concept of the last 20 years of Ricky Gervais comedy: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuMA1Ebo374

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

Incredible. Pure interview without commentary is a great move. gripped.com/profiles/and-you-cant-d…

“And You Can’t Die”: Father of Kids Who Climb El Capitan Responds to Critics - Gripped Magazine

Yosemite climber Joe Evermore talks about his time on the walls with his two sons, Joey and Sylvan

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2026

Thanks, gulfof.mapquest.com/lakeontario

Map of Lake Ontario, renamed as Lake Inferiority Complex

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

Tiedrich on fire today, makes genuinely great argument that Trump and Dolly Parton are polar opposites: www.jefftiedrich.com/p/worst-person…

jefftiedrich.com

worst person in the world makes Dolly Parton’s death all about himself

shut the fuck up, Piggy

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

What an absolute child. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgwdn1…

Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America

Trump's order comes after the trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed late last week.

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2026

This is quite lovely, and very poignant, on Nick Hitchens, fusion physicist who appeared through his life on the now-finishing Up TV series: youtu.be/o6BuZ9Eh1AE?is=IygNeHGnVDo… Definite goosebumps at how similar his and my lives are out to this point; oddly, I've even spent a fair […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2026

Can't get out of my head the suggestion I saw on an Allo Allo discussion (I know) to refilm it with (among other things) Christoph Waltz as Lt Gruber and his little tank. A great thread for factoids: Gruber was also the Kaled general who enabled the genesis of the Daleks, Helga is Christopher […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

I have never quite got my head around Jamie Oliver's overreaching restaurant chains going bust, leaving staff and suppliers in debt to the tune of £80M, and he + family just carry on being lauded by the media (and hence public, who I guess mostly don't know) and paying themselves millions per […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2026

Masterly article proposing "craft coding", using AI for review rather than vibe coding: peterbloem.nl/blog/craft-coding I agree, though hadn't thought it through this well. Coding is fun (for the right people, which largely speaking research scientists _should_ be) and review is largely […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

I enjoyed the Freudian typo of a "slippery slop" in this: futurism.com/future-society/student… I liked this section:

“Writing is a technology for thinking,” cognitive psychologist Ronald T. Kellogg told the New York Times in a new essay mulling the consequences of sidestepping the hard work of writing.

Writing, the piece notes, helps develop all sorts of cognitive faculties, including building our working memory, executive planning skills, and our metacognition, or the ability to be aware of your own thinking.

For all the romanticism around writing, it’s also a form of drudgery. Kellogg says that drafting a basic essay is as mentally taxing as digging a ditch is physically exhausting. You have to really rack your brain to find the right word and organize ideas in a way that makes sense to a broader audience. When they're manifested in the real world, you revise your ideas by going over them yourself or asking for feedback.

Writing, in other words, is inextricable from the labor that goes into it. And so
when you bring in a piece of machinery that offers to do the process for you, it's no longer writing, and by no extension, no longer exercising the brain.

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2026

"Superman" robot: futurismhuman.com/robots-and-machin… I know it's PR hype, but isn't the whole point of human athletics that it's impressive because we're physically limited? Of course we can build machines -- even humanoid machines […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Reposted by Andy Buckley

Joshua Barretto @jsbarretto.social.coop.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

I want to remind you: these bastards have spent $1.5 trillion of society's money on this technology. That it's produced *something* should not be surprising. That's 'solve aging', 'cure cancer', 'eliminate all poverty', 'shift climate change into reverse', or 'send a probe to another solar […]

Original post on social.coop

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/08/2026

I spent an unplanned, and surprising to myself, amount of time today trying to understand the Jason Arday situation. Partly because I know universities better than the reporters who pursued the story for culture-war reasons, and detail was lacking; partly because away from outrage-farming and […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/08/2026

Nominally about Arday, but actually about modern academic Cambridge and its mismatch to the popular conception: www.newstatesman.com/cover-story/20… Rather good, though much of Oxbridge _is_ academia on easy mode: money available to double up PhD studentships […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2026

New release today,. Professor 2.5.9: professor.hepforge.org / gitlab.com/hepcedar/professor -- surrogate-based optimisation and "tuning" tool for (particularly) HEP MC simulations. This new release fixes bugs and new incompatibilities (as always), but also adds awesome […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

I mentioned last week, while releasing other #Python packages with artistic names (cf. warhol), that I had a long-neglected web-gallery tool called emin... Neglected no longer! Now on #pypi emin 0.7.0 (which, tbh, should probably be a 1.x by now): pypi.org/project/emin - super-simple […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/08/2026

Grim Historian on monopolies: thegrimhistorian.substack.com/p/mon… I love these articles, they are angry and beautifully written, and all well worth your time.

thegrimhistorian.substack.com

Monopolies Made Life Unaffordable.

We Once Knew How to Stop Them.

Reposted by Andy Buckley

aoanla @aoanla.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

@agbuckley As I keep saying to people (some of whom then protest), *science* is a human project, involving humans learning things about how the world works. "I pointed this optimiser at the problem and it gave me this answer" is not science; just as learning that the Answer to the Ultimate […]

Original post on hachyderm.io

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

Interesting on #OpenAI maths results: www.scientificamerican.com/article/… Not just the sloppy failures to cite work that the LLMs will 100% have ingested, or the company's prioritisation of hype: their SOP, and […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026

I've wanted the ridiculous indulgence of an office guitar ever since my undergrad lit review supervisor had one (hi, Garrett Cotter!) And now, thanks to a recent dream purchase, I have a spare so... ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

A guitar – black Ibanez SZ 320, no less – in Andy's office among physics books and, I'm told, the worst map of Scotland ever drawn

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/08/2026

Just before it, and then toward the end of my holiday (the last two weeks) I got time to hack together a couple of little software packages to help manage our physics code projects. And since they're general, I decided why not package them up for everyone? So here goes; see following toots for […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026

I genuinely can't decide between ineptitude and Machiavellian genius at #STFC, who've managed to turn their finding crisis – a niche concern for most, no matter how intense the grinding of astro- and particle-physicist teeth – into front-page news by sacrificing _Jodrell Bank_ just as the King […]

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/07/2026

Saw this on the side of a luxury EV the other day. Have I lost my mind or is it proudly stating that this car can run for 15 mins at full power? (actually slightly less, usable capacity is 94 kWh) I'm sure it's perfectly fine in normal use – claimed range is […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Text on the side of a Polestar 4 car, reading "100 kWh / 400 kW"

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

The World Cube Association has only held one cubing event in Cuba, and that was 10 years ago. Come _on_, people!

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/07/2026

Add AI in education to the long list of things Bruce Schneier is perceptive, compelling and right about: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2…

Reposted by Andy Buckley

Dan Gillmor @dangillmor.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

Musk's Tesla modified contracts with customers -- without the customers' permission -- long after they were signed. How does this differ from outright fraud? electrek.co/2026/06/03/tesla-retroa…

Tesla retroactively added 'supervised' to FSD contracts owners signed years ago

Tesla appears to have retroactively modified FSD purchase agreements to add 'supervised' language that wasn't there when owners signed. Some contracts are now inaccessible.

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/07/2026

Ugh, new level of terrible science overhyping by bottom-feeding clickbait farms, now with double-nonsense AI graphics 🤮

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2026

I'll be hosting this lovely @mcnet / CERN short-term placement for PhD students: gitlab.cern.ch/mcnet/short-term-stu… Please check it out and apply! The shortie scheme is a great way for students in either theory or experiment to take a few months to work on […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

Following UKRI and STFC's typical clusterfuck late-announced "town hall" this afternoon — where they blandly told us to suck it up and do more science with even less funding (oh, and become entrepreneurs at the same time, somehow) — Jay Howarth was good enough to make real the image in my head...

The Shrek Lord Farquaad "Some of you may die but that's a sacrifice I am prepared to make" scene, but with (Sir) Ian Chapman's face

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

I'm sure you've all seen this, but Binface is a better communicator than 99% of politicians www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGOmzQbRT_E

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/07/2026

Oh goody. US tech stock valuations — driven by AI hype, of course — are now 40 times their earnings over the past decade, a degree of bubble indictor described here as "equivalent to the tide receding before a freak tsunami". Doesn't matter if you always saw the emperor's lack of clothes, the […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Reposted by Andy Buckley

Chris L @jayalane.mastodon.online.ap.brid.gy · 27/06/2026

RE: mamot.fr/@pluralistic/1168217997215… This book is well worth the read. It doesn’t really make me hate Meta more but it puts color behind the sense of evil they give off.

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/06/2026

Yes: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2…

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

Hate it when I agree with Ian Chapman: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr… Otoh, he's the guy who allocated £2bn of his budget to unspecified "AI-research" stuff while "accidentally" causing a […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Reposted by Andy Buckley

Sue Smith @sue.glasgow.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

So stock prices are typically now falling when companies announce ai stuff, but the only thing still attracting funding is ai stuff, and other sectors are seeing stock prices fall because the belief is that ai makes them obsolete.. Cool, got it

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/06/2026

Unless I'm missing something huge, I can't get upset about this loan restriction for "unis" that accept students without qualifications: www.theguardian.com/education/2026/… There's […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

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Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

David Blunkett and his lazy armchair governance can fuck the fuck off. "Just innovate", "Have you thought about research?" – jeez, aren't we lucky to have well-remunerated ex politicians with such vision?! Apparently zero acknowledgement, and maybe zero awareness, that unis are in the […]

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Original post on mastodon.social

Andy Buckley @agbuckley.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/06/2026

Old, but really good briefing on datacentres and water use: www.theregister.com/on-prem/2025/01…

theregister.com

Kicking datacenters' drinking habit is nearly impossible

Feature: If they're not consuming H2O directly, the power plant almost certainly is

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Reposted by Andy Buckley

conifergirl.bsky.social @conifergirl.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

And look at what we’re being asked to celebrate. The president of the United States and his top advisors will be sitting ringside while two men beat each other bloody inside a cage, calling it the “warrior ethos.” This is not military