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Fancy Friday Who’d have thought that The Pedant & Armchair would go all la-di-dah and ‘gastro’ with outside seating. It just needs a little Farrow & Ball green/grey paintwork to complete the ‘look’ so it will appeal to types who have children called Toby and Tabatha. I’m mean, who calls their child Toby, unless you know they’re going to be an estate agent in Knightsbridge? The pub is now so posh that it even does meals and snacks for horses, with Hubert eager to check the...
More showers again and cold with it. Did all the mowing but very wet. Socky and Len Withers got wed today. Went to the Legion with Bill Ed and the Oak.
Questioning the JS frontend paradigm#Links with the ⚠ sign are, in my opinion, the most important ones. If you lack time, focus on those.2018#The Thirty Million Line ProblemCasey Muratori explains why software has become unmaintanable due to the amount of code present in most projects. link2020#⚠ Second-guessing the modern webA very influential and discussed essay by Tom MacWright where he questions the (then) emerging norm of building a React SPA with server...
Peter Cullen was one of the nicest people I have ever met. He made such an impact on so many lives by putting a soul into a children’s toy. He was also really down to nerd out about microphones and recording gear, as you might imagine. Now he’s gone but his legacy lives on. Farewell, Optimus Prime.
2026 fantasy, first in a possible series. Maggie Haley went to sleep one night and woke up naked in a ditch in her favourite fantasy series. She has nothing but a painful and specialised superpower, a fanatical knowledge of the books, and a determination to survive.
The set up is a NixOS server with two user accounts, ~zach and ~agents. The ~agents account has a series of pi-msg agents. pi-msg is my XMPP wrapper the Pi coding harness that eschews the TUI and forces all comms to be over XMPP. Each pi-msg instance has name and a corresponding XMPP account. Since its NixOS, the agents can run nix shell -p <package> to ephemerally install any package they desire without the need to worry about global machine state. All my projects have...
Duncan Rawlinson photographed this aerial view over the Thousand Islands region of Ontario, Canada. A lone boat traces a clean wake across calm water, its path rippling outward in parallel lines that draw the eye through the frame. Small forested islands anchor the left side of the composition, their bare branches and dusted shorelines marking the early cold. The monochrome treatment emphasizes the tonal contrast between smooth water and textured landforms, while the...
"Last Contact" is a 2007 science fiction short story by Stephen Baxter. It is about a field of dark energy that is devouring the entire universe. Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell: "Last Contact" follows two women, Maureen and Caitlin, as they live through the last few months of Earth's existence. Maureen is intent on fixing up the yard at the new house she's just bought in Oxford, while her daughter Caitlin, an astrophysicist, is helping the public understand and cope...
The Christophers (2025) • View trailerFour stars (out of five); rated R, for profanityAvailable via: HuluBy Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.30.26Once upon a time, this thoughtful character study would have arrived with a visible splash, and enjoyed a modest but well-deserved run at arthouse theaters. Instead, it landed directly in streaming purgatory, likely never to be found by the potential audience that mainstream release would have attracted....
It has been a week away from the bench, as you might have gathered from various references in posts this week…I have been down visiting my Mum in Penarth with my son. We usually travel by train but for a few reasons we drove this time - and that isn’t something I’d be repeating in a hurry! A few different days out and some trains old and new. Rather than write up the week in long form I’ll share some captioned photographs…My first opportunity to ride a 398 from Bay to...
Connie waited for him, naked, on the mattress. Warren contemplated her perfect body: the firm breasts, the narrow waist, the long aristocratic legs. How could a simple maid be so beautiful?She wanted him. She begged him to get inside her, surrendering to his brutal ways with moans and obscenities. Warren conducted their coupling with skill, prolonging his pleasure until he made her shudder repeatedly.Only then did he allow himself to come.He caught his breath, got up from...
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. “In ages past they stole the commons so you had to work for them to live. Then you had to work for a wage, so they stole your wages and labor. Now they steal your thoughts and ideas to lease them back to you on subscription. They are thieves of not only wealth and power, but of our creativity, our histories, and our potential.”...
The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James published 1896/7 Fleda Vetch. How would you picture this character? In a Patricia Wentworth book she would be one of those minxy girls with dark hair, flashing eyes, bright red nails and a talent for stealing other girls’ boyfriends. In an Angela Brazil school story she would be the Sneak of the Fourth Form. In Henry James she is a splendid heroine. Where DID he get that name from? I once wrote a whole article for the Guardian about...
Uniform Open pack: 1 random sticker (uniform) per pack out of 20 possible, priced 1 unit of currency. Unlimited availability of packs. Size of pack: N Non-uniform What if we lose the “unlimited availability”? As a kid I lived through several collecting manias in the midst of my peers. Hockey cards, Pogs, Cs… Most of them managed to mostly pass me. I had owned some, but I was never really into the thing to the point of spending my own money on it. The only exception were...
The top use cases for AI in 2026 are:Therapy and companionshipTroubleshootingFun and nonsenseFan fiction and storytellingTechnical use of softwareAutonomous agentic operationsRelationship adviceWork buddyAstrology and tarot readingsGeneral advice Marc Zao-Sander https://hbr.org/2026/06/how-people-are-really-using-ai-in-2026 My use cases are 6, 5, 2, 10, and a little bit of 8. Might need to look into Astrology and tarot readings though, as it seems a natural fit for AI’s...
Nature can take hold in precarious places. Chapel Rock on Lake Superior has a single tree perched atop its column. By rights the tree should not be there: the small surface area of land on the top of the rock is insufficient to sustain a tree of this size. There is hardly any topsoil, certainly not enough for an obviously thriving tree. How then does it flourish? Image Credit Flickr User DJblock99 Image Credit Flickr User Jim's Travels Look a little closer and you will see...
A Filipino perya game is more than a simple pastime. It is part of the atmosphere of fiestas, fairs, and community celebrations, where colorful booths and quick games can draw curious players from across the crowd. Traditional perya attractions range from Color Game and Pula Puti to ring toss, shooting games, and ball-based activities.Some of these familiar formats are now available online. Digital platforms can recreate mechanics involving colors, dice, balls, numbers,...
August 28, 2026 I keep track of what I wear – I actually have an Excel spreadsheet that I’ve been keep for years… But I don’t often actually USE this data for analysis… Until just a few days ago, I decided to see what I could learn about myself and my wardrobe from this diligent record-keeping. Most frequently worn garment? Blue jeans Second most frequently worn garment? Black jeans (I sense a theme…) THIRD most frequently worn garment? Khakis! Or chinos! Or whatever...
Virtually no cask ale means absolutely no warm cask ale: a win for the Dublin pub scene, there. At JD Wetherspoon, the cellar cooling system was well able to deal with anything the summer threw at it.To wit, at The Silver Penny, Hook Norton Haymaker. I'm guessing this pale ale is named for its strength: a whopping 5% ABV. The dark golden colour helps underline its projected power, likewise an aroma which suggests generous quantities of malt, evoking pastry or cakes with a...
[I played the original Japanese release for this article, which is a touch different from the later international releases. You can read more about the alterations here.] Final Fantasy‘s been many things over the years. Turn-based RPG. Action RPG. MMO. RTS. Mobile gacha. Music game. TCG. Fighting game. Arcade game. Movie. Anime. Manga. It’s one of the series’ charms—and one of the reasons why it’s survived so long, I’m sure. Yet in spite of the series’ tireless desire to...
Hi pals…I haven’t had the blogging time I’ve needed for my longer-form posts lately. I still owe you all a follow-up spoiler-riffic post about the recent Swamp Thing 1989 mini-series, which I discussed in a more-or-less spoiler-free entry way back when. And another entry in the Fantastic Four-ay posts, as we’re moving firmly into the post-Byrne era. And of course the continuing entries in the Final ’90s Countdown of your favorite indie books of that decade. I don’t know if...
Here's a pair of pretty Disneyland photos from March 28, 1972. With a specific date available, it's always fun to consult "Jason's Disneyland Almanac"; that was a Tuesday, and the park was open from 8:00AM until midnight. The temperature got up to a pleasant 74º, though it got down to a chilly 46º in the wee hours. There are no attendance estimates, unfortunately. So, I wonder if the photographer's eye was drawn to that huge bouquet of Mickey balloons? Red was clearly the...
While I was reading Kafka’s “The Castle” recently, I checked out the bibliography in the back and saw mention of an interesting sounding title – “Kafka’s Other Trial” by Elias Canetti. The latter is an author I’ve only started reading relatively recently, and I was most impressed with his “The Book Against Death“; so I wondered what this title was about and had a little noodle around online. The book is often subtitled “The Letters to Felice” (and is translated by...
Spoopy! Felt a bit weird reading a gothic horror ghost story in 37ºC summer heat but here we are. My first Henry James book! A novella really, read it in two short sittings. Surprisingly unsettling for a victorian-era book, v creepy. Enjoyed the unusually ambiguous ending. A young governess arrives at a stately home to govern two perfect children (OR ARE THEY) who are visited by apparitions of dead former staff (OR WERE THEY). Download free from standard ebooks
Es gibt wenig was mir so schlechte Laune macht wie Pedanterie, und aus irgendeinem mir unbekannten Grund fällt mir in den letzten Tagen sehr viel auf, was ich als pedantisch empfinde. Mit Pedanterie meine ich nicht, etwas Genau zu nehmen. In vielen Fällen ist Genauigkeit, Präzession usw. sehr wichtig. Niemand möchte zum Beispiel Missverstanden werden, und deswegen muss man ab und zu darauf achten, wo ein Komma gesetzt wird.1 Aber in vielen Sätzen macht ein fehlendes Komma...