... and there were people there dressed as Granny Weatherwax & ... I can’t remember who else she said. Might’ve been Cheery? Or Angua? I have a feeling it was someone from the Watch. Anyway,
2/6
I don’t know if they were cosplayers or an official part of the event, but my Nan being my Nan insisted that THEY sign the book, too...
3/6
They looked nervously at Terry because, well, they didn’t write it, did they?
He, of course, thought it was very funny & told them to go ahead,
4/6
So, they did.
And then, everyone else in the queue insisted they sign THEIR books as well.
After which, I’m sure all involved were cursing my Nan. But,
5/6
...hey, if anyone ought to have known that if you give pushy old ladies an inch, they take a mile and then scarper leaving a few leagues of chaos behind them, it ought to have been Terry Pratchett 😉
6/6
Edith Clarke was the first woman to be awarded an electrical engineering degree from MIT, and the first woman to be professionally employed as an electrical engineer in the US. She worked on the hydroelectric systems that, to this day, provide hydropower at the West Hoover Dam.
Mary Jackson was a mathematician and aerospace engineer at NACA, later to become NASA. She was NASA's first Black female engineer. She particularly worked in understanding air flow, including thrust and drag forces—important for aircraft design.
((un)fortunately there’s plenty of material, because English is a pain in the neck*)
(*when did it become bum/backside/arse? Surely a pain in the neck is worse…?)
allude: indirectly call attention to something (“she alluded to the events of last Friday”)
elude: escape from something (“they eluded their pursuer”)
Similar-sounding but with two different meanings. Remember to ALLude means to cALL attention.
which reminds me of…
peruse: examine carefully
pursue: chase/continue along
It only takes a small slip for autocorrect to bite you here. Imagine splitting the words –PER USE vs. PUR SUE – and remember someone might purSUE a legal claim where someone else was SUEd.
I’ve been asked to make a post about my twisty-turny career for #YoungScientistNetworking, because not all PhDs end up in academia. So, here goes… 🧵 1/8
I finished my chemistry PhD in 2000, at Nottingham University (home of @periodicvideos!). I briefly contemplated working for Bio-Rad, because I’d done a lot of infrared spec, but instead I joined UoN’s web design team (it was a pretty new thing, then) 2/8
After two years I decided I missed the science. So I left to complete a teacher-training course. I’d go on to teach secondary science, particularly chemistry, on and off for nearly twenty years 3/8