Hello train travelers who know about the trains in Spain:

I have a trip soon with a leg #Barcelona Sants - Paris. When I used long distance trains in southern Spain last year, it involved metal detectors and much longer check in than I'm used to. Anyone know if this is also true for this connection? How early should I get there?

This is the only country I've had this (well, not true, there is the Eurostar since Brexit) so I'm not sure if that was temporary or not.

#rail #Spain #TrainTravel

Waiting.

Berlin HBf, May 2026

#photography #train #trainStation #Rail #TrainPhotography #LongExposure #Urban #Berlin #Pentax #PentaxK70 #PentaxK70_RN

Scientific writing, haiku form...

People say dogs, cats
Horses feel emotions but
why not chicken joy?

Based on a scoping review I'm working on covering human views of animal emotions. I may start all of my presentations now with haikus.

#haiku #scicomm #academia #ScienceArt #sciencecomms

The Transylvanian Steampunk Museam in Cluj-Napoca, Romania is fantastic.

#photography #Pentax #PentaxK70 #PentaxK70_RN #steampunk #Romania #Cluj #ClujNapoca #art #fantasy #museum

And in order to "dematerialise" I am sent to a French-only website....

SNCF sending me e-mails that read like a threat.
"I download the attachment or I dematerialise my card"

#SNCF #TRAIN #Franglish #CrossBorderRail #rail #RailTravel

Look at the floofy owlets!!

It is time for Beleef de Lente again! Live webcams following birds in the Netherlands, run by the Dutch Bird Protection Society... here a tawny owl with 4 owlets, who are apparently very hungry (9-ish rodents for dinner, and at least one bat...)

https://www.vogelbescherming.nl/beleefdelente/bosuil

Enjoy!

#owls #Birds #birdcam #vogelbescherming #birdsofmastodon

I have mixed feelings on the Keukenhof flower show. The flowers are beautiful. The way they are produced is not: the flower trade (especially bulbs) is a huge source of environmental damage through pesticides.
https://nltimes.nl/2026/02/14/dutch-flower-growers-massively-using-banned-pesticides Looking at the crisp rows with not even a sprig between the lines of tulips made me sad.

I guess I don´t have mixed feelings after all. This may well have been my last visit.

#Keukenhof #flowerTrade #FlowerShows #pesticides #tulips #sustainability

#tulips #keukenhof #flowers #bloomscrolling #photography #pentax #PentaxK70 #PentaxK70_RN

@academicchatter
I don´t want to produce more faster. I want to think- and I hope my students want that as well: the miraculous task of living.

@academicchatter
I realize I'm in a place of privilege here: tenured and native English speaker makes all the difference. But the commodification of writing, the focus on the product rather than the process, it frustrates me to no end. Yes, it is endlessly faster to have genAI shorten a text. But it also means that you don’t have to sit and think about what the real essence of the project or paper is. What can be cut out of the text? What can’t because removing it shifts the focus too much?

The more conversations I have about the role of AI in academic education and research, the more I want to yell this poem at people.

@academicchatter #HigherEd #writing #academia

#SilentSunday
#Utrecht #pentax #PentaxK70 #PentaxK70_RN #city #park

WOMEN: hey can we get equal rights and equal pay for equal work?

COMPANIES: no

COMPANIES ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: no, girlboss ✊🏻♀️

Just recieved reviewer comments on my proposal that include part of it is "charming" and I´m not sure if that is a compliment or not....

@academicchatter #GrantWriting #Academia #AcademicLife

Ukrainians have now lived with four years of war. They have lost limbs, loved ones, livelihoods and homes, but not hope. Here are some of their stories. All posed with photos taken before Russia’s full-scale invasion changed their lives.

https://apnews.com/photo-essay/ukraine-photo-essay-portraits-anniversary-war-d7bb463924e7cad9cfaa45e59600fc60

#Ukraine #Russia

A "two legged" academic does both education and research- but is it really possible to balance them? And are two legs enough?

A blog post on life as a bipedal academic https://rebeccanordquist.edublogs.org/2026/02/20/the-two-legged-academic/

@academicchatter #higherEd #HigherEducation #RecognitionRewards #WorkLifeBalance #VetEd #teaching

Hmm, this is a first- I had people react to one of my posts via the Bluesky bridge thing but it seems I can´t respond to them without a Bluesky accout- which I neither have nor want.

Reconsidering life choices here, I may turn off the bridge thing since it seems counterproductive to just show posts and not be able to respond to people.

@academicchatter Academia, in short, puts people in waiting rooms forever if you don´t follow the traditional path. A colleague who came in to the academy with a bizarre number of years of industry experience is still "junior" for this reason, as if that dosn´t bring useful knowledge.

Even if you do "follow the mold" you can still be referred to a "junior" or "early career" academic with >10 years of work experience (including PhD). That is just bizarre.