Menu ⇓

Barnaby Walters

Arranging atoms and pressurising air in a variety of manners, such as:

Pronouns: they/he

  1. Barely noticed the Turkey-wide power outages this morning as the building I’m staying in has a redundant power supply. Istanbul seems to be mostly back on line now.

  3. This is the view from our hotel in Istanbul. Apparently it’s also the site for the 2016 world satellite dish counting championships.

  5. ↪ Kyle Mahan: You are a Hugin master!

    Ha ha, thanks :) The latest versions of Hugin actually make things really easy — I used to be a purist and set all the control points manually, but that automatic cpfind function now works pretty well. Modern phones with panorama features take some of the novelty out of manual stitching, but you can still get much better results this way!

  6. Lesson learned this evening: If a waiter offers you food, and there’s the tiniest, slightest sliver of a chance it might be off menu, ask how much it’s going to cost up front.

  7. Getting ready to leave Eskişehir @ Rixos Hotel. Thanks to everyone at ICWS and to all the wonderful people I met in Eskişehir for making this part of the trip such a great experience! Next stop: Istanbul.

  9. about Songlines, an indigenous Australian belief which serves as a communication and navigation tool. Songlines, as well as much other aboriginal culture, seems to be fascinating supporting evidence for the thesis of The Singing Neanderthals — that proto-language was made up of holistic (no grammar), multi-modal communications utilising metaphor and mimickry.

  15. Based on what I learned from the coup de catre, I will not claim to be able to play the coup de six until I can freely stress or miss any of the buzzes, start the coup from any location, and use it to play in 7 and 5 time. Step one: balancing exercises! Slowly beginning to be able to start the coup de six from any of the six buzzes.

  16. Being around people who speak many languages is so inspiring. Must resist the temptation to learn Spanish and French immediately, refocus energy into getting good at German first…

  17. Hey Stockholm @Arlanda, why do your airport customer surveys have a “What is your gender? (Do not ask the participant, just note down)” question with only “Male/Female” options? I know you want to break results down by background variables, but having your staff just make assumptions about people’s gender, without asking them, providing non-binary options, the option not to say, or even TELLING THEM IT’S BEING COLLECTED is straight-up rude. Not only that, but the results of the survey will reflect your staff’s biases, as you’re requiring them to make assumptions. Doing a better job is easy. Just explicitly ask people, providing Female/Male/Other/Prefer Not To Say options at the very least.

  19. Successfully re-booked! A member of security staff asked to see my hurdy gurdy purely out of curiosity, which is a first for me. Usually they either don’t care or require a swab and search.

  20. Currently stranded at Stockholm airport following a delayed flight causing me to miss the connection to Istanbul. Airport bureaucracy knows no bounds! Talked to 6 (all very friendly and helpful) different people at 4 different desks, accumulated several additional sheets of paper, called people in three different countries, and now I might be able to rebook a later flight (crosses fingers).