Alistair Irvine

@carl_feynman @sarah_cone I read your Dad's book 'surely you're joking' in the 1980s at a tricky spot in my own PhD. He reminded me that science was fun when I needed it. Still grateful.

When I was about 14, we went to a company that manufactured oxygen sensors. You dip this probe into beer, sewage, or canned food a-stewing, and it tells you how much oxygen is in the slurry. It's got two electrodes, and there's some kind of electrochemical reaction that releases exactly one electron for each oxygen molecule consumed. Measuring the electric current lets you measure the oxygen concentration. However, the electrodes are delicate, and don't work if they're not clean. So they're inside a tiny compartment covered with a membrane of oxygen-porous but everything-else-proof plastic. The oxygen has to diffuse through the plastic before it can be consumed at the electrodes. The current is determined by the rate of diffusion. Gunk on the membrane can slow down diffusion, causing it to read an incorrect low concentration. And when you take the sensor from fresh air and dip it into something, it can take a long time to consume all the oxygen in the compartment and start reading the actual flow. So my dad suggested the following. Put a third electrode in the compartment, that regenerates one O2 molecule for each one consumed. Now the speed of diffusion doesn't matter because the oxygen isn't getting consumed. You're reading the concentration at the electrodes directly without affecting it. If the concentration around the sensor drops, oxygen can diffuse out of the compartment, instead of waiting for the oxygen to be consumed. And gunk on the membrane will slow down the reading, but it's still perfectly accurate. We went back next year and saw them manufacturing the three-electrode sensors. IIRC, my father didn't have any good ideas that year.

My dad (Richard Feynman) had a side hustle doing industrial consulting. He'd spend a few hours visiting a company, talking to the engineers, looking at stuff, and then maybe have a good suggestion. Sometimes he would bring his son along. I only recall one of his suggestions, but it made the company he was consulting for way better off, so I guess his exorbitant consulting fees were worth it. We could have been wealthier if he had done it systematically, but he didn't want to be organized about looking for jobs, so it just happened when someone asked.

@20th_Centurygal Im not sure there's one answer to the question, but what about this? youtu.be/STTLwI-u4Fg?si…

In your opinion, who has or had the best singing voice of all time? 🎤🎶

@ArthurMacwaters Well, she isn't our health secretary anymore - they got voted out in 2024. And I don't recall her deep frying a turkey in beef tallow like RFK Jr.

compared to the UK health secretary

bobby kennedy casually repping our 20 pullups at age 70 in a shirt and tie is the kind of thing the european mind simply cannot comprehend

@KingPablotz Leopard II got off light.

TOP 50 MOST HATED PEOPLE IN HISTORY 1. Adolf Hitler 🇩🇪 2. Joseph Stalin 🇷🇺 3. Pol Pot 🇰🇭 4. Leopold II of Belgium 🇧🇪 5. Mao Zedong 🇨🇳 6. Osama bin Laden 🇸🇦 7. Idi Amin 🇺🇬 8. Benito Mussolini 🇮🇹 9. Genghis Khan 🇲🇳 10. Saddam Hussein 🇮🇶 11. Heinrich Himmler 🇩🇪 12. Kim Jong-il 🇰🇵 13. Kim Jong-un 🇰🇵 14. Mengistu Haile Mariam 🇪🇹 15. Slobodan Milošević 🇷🇸 16. Francisco Franco 🇪🇸 17. Bashar al-Assad 🇸🇾 18. Joseph Kony 🇺🇬 19. Vlad the Impaler 🇷🇴 20. Charles Manson 🇺🇸 21. Jeffrey Dahmer 🇺🇸 22. Ted Bundy 🇺🇸 23. Hirohito 🇯🇵 24. Maximilien Robespierre 🇫🇷 25. Nero 🇮🇹 26. Caligula 🇮🇹 27. Attila the Hun 🇭🇺 28. Ratko Mladić 🇷🇸 29. Reinhard Heydrich 🇩🇪 30. Hideki Tojo 🇯🇵 31. Augusto Pinochet 🇨🇱 32. Robert Mugabe 🇿🇼 33. Pablo Escobar 🇨🇴 34. Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán 🇲🇽 35. Christopher Columbus 🇮🇹 36. Hernán Cortés 🇪🇸 37. Joseph Goebbels 🇩🇪 38. Fidel Castro 🇨🇺 39. Muammar Gaddafi 🇱🇾 40. Enver Hoxha 🇦🇱 41. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 🇯🇴 42. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 🇮🇶 43. Rasputin 🇷🇺 44. Jack the Ripper 🇬🇧 45. Lavrentiy Beria 🇷🇺 46. Mobutu Sese Seko 🇨🇩 47. King John of England 🇬🇧 48. Henry VIII 🇬🇧 49. Reinhard Gehlen 🇩🇪 50. Edward “Blackbeard” Teach 🏴‍☠️

@StevenWilsonHQ Steven, I'd like to thank you for making the overview and touring it. I reckon it's the album I've listened to the most this year. Have a great Christmas.

With many currently posting their 2025 Spotify Wrapped statistics on social media, and artists thanking their listeners for streaming their music, I’d like to take a moment to thank anyone and everyone that actually bought a PHYSICAL COPY of any of my records this year.

@bigbigtrain Sadly missed. Glad I got to see BBT with him at the Hackney Empire show. Brave Captain was something else.

David Longdon: 17th June 1965 – 20th November 2021   Today marks the fourth anniversary of David Longdon’s death.   While David’s music continues to resonate around the world, today serves principally as a day to remember him and the family and many friends he left behind.

@almurray Some fantastic combovers on display.

On BBC4 last night watched Call My Bluff and Face the Music, the latter in particular (David Attenborough taking part as a panellist, Joyce Grenfell, Robin Ray) like a transmission from a lost world.

@davidgmac9 @TheExtremeMusi1 Much as I'm a huge fan of Genesis, they weren't really a 3 piece. When they toured, there were 5 of them. Rush and Cream were trios in the studio and could reproduce it in the road. Hats off to them.

@TheExtremeMusi1 No. Bands better than Rush: Cream, ZZTop, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Grand Funk, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Genesis, America, Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Is this the best rock band trio ever?

@primarily_prog The live version on Seconds Out is (implausibly) even better.

For me, the single greatest moment of this album is the nod and final wave goodbye to Peter Gabriel in the concise, but hugely poignant lyrics of Los Endos.

@TheMonologist I re-read TMAB a few years ago. It's still a rattling good read.

@primarily_prog I've got a really soft spot for PG1.

@HackettOfficial That looks like a red special in the background. Is it a replica, or is Sir Brian going to be making a guest appearance?

Having fun recording something special with Jonas…

@primarily_prog I know what you mean, but I bought it too. Mostly as a souvenir of a gig I was at. We said hello to his mum during the interval. Great gig.

Now playing … By my count, his 9th Genesis Revisited live album. Can’t blame him for milking it, especially as non of the other four seem neither interested nor inclined.

@holland_tom @TheRestHistory Really enjoyed the Medici series. Looking forward to hearing about the Borgias next year. Trivial fact Terry Pratchett named the Patrician of Ankh Morpork 'Lord Vetinari' as a pun on the Medici. He'd fit right in.

Massive excitement today on @TheRestHistory, as our series on THE MEDICI reaches its thrilling climax!!! The Medici are forced into exile! Savanarola predicts the end of the world! Fire walks and tortures abound! Yes - it’s THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES

@StevenWilsonHQ Thanks to all of you. I was at one of the London shows. Objects Outlive Us/The Overview came over really well and were a real treat.

So I want to thank all of them for doing me and everyone that came along proud. The next leg will cover the USA, Canada and South America, starting in mid September, I can’t wait!

Two special evenings in Spain brought the European leg of The Overview tour to a close, 31 shows in 44 days, nearly all sold out, I couldn’t have hoped for a better response, to the point that I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun on a tour before! 📸 by Hajo Mueller

@dcsandbrook As a dad, I'm a teeny bit disappointed that we only came one place above LBJ with his 'peccadilloes'.

QED.

@BerisfordRon A pastor, a priest and a rabbit walk into a bar. The rabbit says ‘I think I may be a typographical error’.

Ouch!

@peterfrankopan Thanks for sharing this. Fascinating to see evidence that our ancestors were so mobile.

For more, open.substack.com/pub/peterfrank…

I wrote about what are perhaps the most exciting findings in recent North American archaeology: glass beads, found in Arctic Alaska that are indisputably European. Crucially they were made and deposited well before Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. 1/2

A humble, unassuming individual with Peruvian roots who has worn a red hat up until now, you say?

@JustRockContent It was on the 4th album following Peter Gabriel’s departure. Phil had been on vocals for about 6 years by the point this one was released.

“Turn It On Again” - Genesis It was one of the first Genesis songs to prominently feature Phil Collins as the lead vocalist, following Peter Gabriel’s departure in 1975. x.com/JVPALT2/status…