Bubbles
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I recently stumbled upon a treasure trove of free online science fiction short stories while browsing Greg Egan's website. I have read very little of his stuff, but I plan on reviewing several of his stories - especially after coming...
This post first ran in the early days of the pandemic. There are some parts of the silence that I miss. But today, I am working in the back room of an elementary school as the “adult on site” during a camp run by high school students....
Color Book (2024) • View trailer4.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for occasional profanityAvailable via: NetflixBy Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.28.26Writer/director David Fortune’s sensitively assembled little film...
I aim to improve my Chinese reading through regular practice. This video represents a point on that journey. Text: Friend’s Tea - Chapter 8 (我要回家了) Source: Du Chinese Level: Elementary
On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds. “I reject the idea that we have to be slaves to surveillance capitalism in order to...
This was one of my most anticipated new releases of the year, having loved first Katherine Arden’s Winternight trilogy and then her standalone novel, The Warm Hands of Ghosts. The Unicorn Hunters promised the same blend of history,...
[The other Neville Morley, Supreme President In Chief of Ex University on Earth 2, has a further bulletin.] Earlier this year we introduced a new training course in Corporate Conscience, compulsory for anyone we thought had the potential...
I Am Frankelda (2025) • View trailer3.5 stars (out of five); rated PG, for dramatic intensity, scary images and fantasy violenceAvailable via: NetflixBy Derrick BangThe imagination, craft and world-building in this fantasy — Mexico’s...
They like their hops, up in the northern latitudes of Europe. By way of demonstration, today I've got three beers from three different Nordic brewers, all in the double IPA style.The first is by a new brewery to me, Friends Co. of...
My troubles with record identifiers starts with a web site I developed, Eksi Sozluk. It's been one of the most popular Turkish web sites in the world for the last quarter century. When I first wrote it in 1999, I had to run it on a...
Anybody who has been following this series will be aware that in England in the Early Modern Period, mathematical and scientific instruments played a central role in the world of practical mathematics. As we have seen from small...
For some reason, the Address Book tab/pane on Thunderbird’s menu bar had gone missing, and I struggled to find out how to get it back. So, for future me, what resolved it was: Ctrl + Shift + b
June 26, 2026 Her experiment of packing just teal and white was so much fun, she decided to try the same idea with a different accent color. Her painting inspiration is this: She had always had the persimmon/berry color in mind; this is...
So I was happy to discover the other day that I, in fact, did not give up all my copies of Dark Horse Presents to the store when I opened back in 2014, but kept them in what remains of the Vast Mikester Comic Archives. In particular, I...
It's Friday, and that means that I have a pair of above-average scans for you, to start off your weekend on a high note. This first one is undated, but I believe it is from the early 1970s (or late 1960s?); it's a very nice view of the...