sequestering carbon, several books at a time CLXI

The latest batch:

The photography book is in response to the recent attempts to capture images of insects in the garden.  My other half wants to learn how to do it better.  Which will probably include a new fancy lens or two.

today is the first day of the rest of my life

Six weeks ago I discovered I was vitamin D deficient.  I have been taking my prescribed "loading dose" of 50,000 IU a week since then.

The effect has been nothing short of remarkable.  The fatigue evaporated almost immediately, by the end of the first week the bone pain was much reduced, and was completely gone by the end of the third week.  I can definitely recommend this!

So now my booster course is over, I will be taking a supplement to ensure I never get that low again.  My doctor recommended a 1000 IU tablet daily.  I bought a pack of 60 for £2.50, so that's 2 months worth, at less than 5p a day.  Ridiculously cheap, yet so effective.  I took my first one with lunch today, and this will now be a new daily ritual.

I've become a bit of a vitamin D evangelist!

If you ever wanted to know how potentially lucrative it would be to be an unethical journal editor, read on

I've blogged before about offers journal editors get to be unethical.

The offers continue:

Dear [editor in chief],

I hope you are doing well. My name is Ivy Yang, and I work as a publishing development editor focusing on academic journal collaborations and manuscript resources.

I am reaching out to explore the possibility of private cooperation with you regarding submissions to your journal. We have a stable number of manuscripts in related research areas and are looking for an experienced editor who can help oversee the handling process in an efficient and professional manner.

Our expectation is that submitted papers can receive timely attention, be assigned to suitable reviewers, and move through peer review smoothly. Where appropriate and in line with journal policy, we may also recommend qualified reviewer candidates for your consideration, which could help save time in the reviewer selection process.

For successfully accepted manuscripts, we would also be happy to offer a cooperation fee or honorarium. The specific arrangement can be discussed privately based on mutual understanding.

We highly value long-term cooperation based on mutual trust, efficiency, and professional communication. If this possibility is of interest to you, I would be glad to discuss details with you privately at your convenience.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Ivy Yang

I've bolded the most dubious part: a “cooperation fee” “discussed privately”.  Okaaaaay, that sounds legit.

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Well, Ivy is nothing if not persistent.  And the next email was much more explicit.  Actual dollar amounts.

Our work focuses on helping authors identify suitable journals and supporting them throughout the submission and peer-review process. This is a paid collaboration, and the compensation is provided on a per-paper basis, depending on the journal category:

EI-indexed journals: USD 200–1000 per paper;

SCI-indexed journals: USD 500–2200 per paper;

SSCI-indexed journals: USD 1000–3000 per paper.

The exact amount depends on the journal level, workload, and degree of involvement.

If you are interested in this opportunity, I would be happy to discuss further details with you. We can continue via email or any platform convenient for you.

Ivy Yang

Up to 3000 USD under-the-table remuneration per paper!  Pay-to-publish takes on a whole different meaning.  No wonder there are so many junk journals.  (Although, like any such scam, I would bet the numbers change once an "agreement" is in place.)

Remember, gentle reader, just because a paper is “in the literature” and has been “peer reviewed” doesn't mean it is of any value whatsoever (scientifically that is; clearly there is a monetary value!)  Junk journals, paper mills, AI slop.  The literature is not merely being polluted, it is being swamped with drek.  Is this how progress ends?  Sinking into the shoulders of Swamp Thing?

and yet it rotates

 Two pictures of a spotty sun, taken roughly 24 hours apart.

2026-05-29 16:48 GMT

2026-05-30 15:10 GMT

Look closely, and you can see that the spots have the same pattern, but have moved.  The sun rotates!

No matter how much we improve our ability to take photographs through our telescopes, we will never achieve anything to rival this amazing video, taken in October 2014 from NASA's orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory:

bugs in bloom

Photos from the garden.

Some tiny bugs in tiny flowers: 

A red damselfly perched on a bamboo cane:

A blue damselfly perched on the same bamboo cane:

This is what the internet is for

This popped up in my feed today.  Darth Vader's theme as a fugue.

A wonderful fugue.  And played on a guitar, no less!!  How does he have enough fingers?

At the end, there was a lovely bonus.  The next video up was Stayin' Alive as a Madrigal.

Sheer joy.

It was 30 years ago today...

 … that my first fully dated item appeared on my website: a review of Clannad’s 1996 tour at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, attended a week earlier.

I blogged about this piece of history 10 years ago.  What's changed since then?

Back in 2016 I was working at the University of York.  I have since retired, although I still have Emerita status there.

To date, on my website I have 623 non-fiction book reviews, 1094 science fiction reviews, and 82 other fiction reviews.  That's about 5 reviews a month averaged over the 30 years, although it had been decreasing, and was particularly low in 2016.  Over the last 10 years, that's a further 189 non-fiction, 250 science fiction, and 7 other fiction reviews, so a reading rate of about 3-4 book per month over that time period.  I hadn't decreased my reading, just my reading of books, as reading research papers took up a lot of my time at York.  There's a visible spike in number of book reviews last year as retirement kicked in, back to the previous rate of 5-6 a month.

There haven't been any major changes in the design of the website, just more material, mostly in terms of reviews, research publications, and solar power statistics.  So, maybe just more of the same in 2036, too?  Let's see!