Planck 2016 Liveblog: Day Two Session One

We move to the second day of the conference, and the only plenary session of the day.  Which is fine by me, I like the format for the conference this year more than last year.  We have a selection of collider phenomenology talks, though the connections seem a bit limited to me.

Planck 2016 Liveblog: Day One Session Four

Last session of the day, BSM 1.

Planck 2016 Liveblog: Day One Session Three

Unlike some Plancks I've been to, here we're into the parallel sessions from day one.  First off, I've chosen to attend the Higgs I session.

Also, mostly unrelated but lunch today was the best conference food I've ever had.

Planck 2016 Liveblog: Day One Session Two

Second session of the day looks quite technical.  Thankfully, at least for me, most other plenary sessions look more phenomenological.  We're running a few minutes behind already, thanks to the first session running about 15 minutes over.

Planck 2016 Liveblog: Day One Session One

It's that time of year again, the time I write most of my posts here: Conference Season!  I skipped Pheno this year for a variety of reasons, so I'm starting things off at Planck 2016, in the city of Valencia.  I've never been to this part of Spain before, but what little of the city I've seen so far does look very nice.

Link Round-Up

Looking through the news, I saw a surprising number of stories I could write posts on.  Rather than do them all justice, however, I'm just going to through a list of links together with a couple of sentences of commentary.

Privatised Social Service Fails

From the Guardian, we hear of systemic failures with the privatisation of the NHS ambulance service:

Hundreds of patients including people with cancer and kidney failure have missed important appointments for treatment because ambulances did not arrive to take them to hospital, after privatisation of NHS non-urgent transport services in Sussex this month.

Some elderly patients have had to wait more than five hours for ambulances and been stuck at hospital for long periods after their appointments because the transport service, now run by the private firm Coperforma, has proved so unreliable.

Patients, relatives, NHS bodies and local MPs have severely criticised the service’s performance, and a trade union representing ambulance crews said it was an “absolute shambles”. The NHS organisations that awarded the four-year, £63.5m contract have now launched an investigation.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you to hear that privatising an important public service has lead to a drop in quality.  It's never happened before, except for all those times that it has.