The Man with No Time

Part of every scientist's job is to contribute to the literature. This responsibility comes in two forms. First, there's writing your own papers, submitting them to journals, and having them be published. With my thesis now fully published, I've got a decent amount of experience at that - four first author papers, and several papers on which I'm a secondary author. Fine. The second part of the responsibility is that of being the referee (or one of the referees) carrying out peer review on submitted papers. Asking around at work it seems as though quite a few people actually did this for the first time during their PhD, or at least fairly soon after starting their first postdoc position.  I actually had a request last year, but I was in the middle of writing up and just didn't have the time, so I turned it down. But a few days ago I received my second request to review a paper. Since it's something I'll have to learn to do at some point, not to mention ...

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the great forest called Braem Wood. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. " A Crown of Swords " marks the halfway point in my journey through the story of " The Wheel of Time ". But it doesn't feel that way at all, either in terms of the story itself, or my enjoyment of it. After brief slowdown with the previous volume (occasioned by my going on holiday for two weeks, without space to takes giant books), I'm back to rattling through roughly 50-75 pages a night. A measure of my enjoyment can be found in the fact that I've re-established a bad reading habit, namely jumping ahead...

As it was a nice day today, I decided to do something a little different to get myself out of the house for a while.  Since I moved back to Coventry I've discovered quite a few interesting sounding museums that I want to visit, and I thought that it was the perfect opportunity. A museum might not sound the best place to go on a summer's day, but this one was mostly open air. It was also the closest one to my house, which may or may not have played a part in my choice! The Midlands Air Museum is a small, volunteer-run museum right next to Coventry Airport. It's more of a collection of aeroplanes than a 'proper' museum, with the majority of the exhibits being planes on display outside. But it's' no less interesting for that. It's not a terribly assuming building. But the true gems are sitting outside, behind the hangar. (Credit: David Brown)

Privateer Press have just put up their latest round of previews from the next Expansion book for Hordes - ' Exigence '. And oh boy, is there something awesome in there. The cover art for ' Exigence ' features Skorne against the Legion of Everblight, who seem to get onto all of the Hordes covers. (Credit: privateerpress.com) One of the nice things about getting in weekly games at Warwick Sci-Fi is that it lets me try out different things compared to my normal Cryx force. The main thing I've been doing this year is learning to play with my fledgling Circle Orboros army, and I've been particularly enjoying playing with the two Baldurs and the various Wold constructs that they have. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw this in the new previews: Meet the Circle Orboros' latest warlock - Bradigus Thorle the Runecarver. I want this model so much. (Credit: privateerpress.com) Ohmygoshyes! I want it!  Now Bradigus Thorle has been in...

Monday nights is our weekly gaming session at Warwick Sci-Fi. There are only three of us that regularly play Warmachine & Hordes: myself, Paul (a PhD student), and Dom (a final-year undergraduate). It’s a bit of an awkward number, but we’ve worked around it with smaller points levels, three player games, and by only having two of us there a lot of the time. As Dom’s graduating this year he’s going to be leaving, and since last night was his final week at Sci-Fi we decided to do something a bit special as a send-off – a massive 100pts, two warcasters per side game. I’ve got easily the biggest collection, so I agreed to take one side by myself using my Cryx. Paul and Dom would take 50pts each of Khador and Circle Orboros respectively. I had several advantages going into the game. First, with 100pts to myself I had full control over my side. Second, Paul and Dom’s limited collection meant that I had a decent idea what they would be taking, particularly for their...