Recent
485 posts in the past 24h
My 2015 London trip, part 5. Read part 4 here. ARCHIVE(D): JANUARY 21, 2015 MorningBreakfast and my walk to the office. LunchI believe this was lunch at The Sydney Arms. I look like a different person. (I was a different person.) I love meat pies (or pot pies, as we call them in the US). I was remember being disappointed because this was just a puff pastry on top with the filling in ramekin. I like it when the filling is baked into the pie. Then I had bread pudding for...
Sorry this one is a little later. I completely lost track of the days. However, it’s now time to dive in to this week’s metal releases. Hails! Torturous Inception - death - USAMorgued - death - USAAngoixa - death - SpainAtomic Aggressor - death - ChileEpicardiectomy - death - CzechiaNekomeshi(222) - melodeath - JapanProjector - melodeath - ChileXenith - melodeath/thrash - UKStatic Abyss - death/doom - USAGorod - death/prog - FranceMiscreance - tech death/thrash -...
I have been writing consistently here for a year now. You can go back a year and find one essay published every single day without fail. I have broken a lot of the writing advice that gets thrown around on social media, except for one piece of advice—and that is something I didn’t learn from social media. Social media is filled with advice about maintaining a swipe file of ideas. They tell you to keep track of trending topics. Write about subjects that are most likely to...
CHE reports on the letter here; I’ve sent CHE the following letter to the editor: I signed two earlier letters defending the academic freedom rights of Nathan Cofnas, since the principles of academic freedom encompass racist scholarship, as long as it meets the standards of the applicable discipline, and even if it is of dubious merit. I declined, however, to sign the most recent letter, the subject of your recent article:...
I will be showing at WOCA again this weekend. Saturday. A selection of works made from found objects at the beach. I’ll post photos in the future. But come on down to WOCA and I’ll be there. I hope it’ll be fun. We may get food from The Hat afterwards. Art Spiegelman remains an influence on me. This piece from The Guardian is–sobering–Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’. The documentary about him is rather good: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse. Here’s...
The moon disappeared for a while last night.
I watched a few videos this morning, looking for ideas of what I could use AI to do. In one video, someone had an agent monitor tech news sites every 30 minutes to notify him of a variety of developments. No doubt that’s less effort than visiting a bunch of sites every half hour. But not monitoring tech news in real time takes even less effort. Another video mentioned having Grok Bot order a sandwich through DoorDash. If I want a sandwich, I make a sandwich. One video...
Large traditional “sawing man” folk art whirligig with traces of white paint remaining. Long 30 inches, figure is nearly a foot tall. Considerable wear from friction on the saw. Found in Michigan circa 1940 - 1950. Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb
The best thing that happened this week It's been a while since I wrote these. I went away for vacation, celebrated my birthday and then I had to get back to work. In the meantime though, and that's by far the best thing that's happened lately, I've been digging into running again. I've been battling this injury and while I still sometimes feel it niggle, I've been running without pain for the past few weeks. This means I can really go for it again and so far it's working....
As a little addendum to yesterday's mention of Nick Cave, I feel remiss that I offered no examples of said songs that stopped me in my tracks. Cinnamon Horses.
Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), "On the Monument to Dante Being Erected in Florence," lines 7-17 (tr. Jonathan Galassi): O Italy, let it be in your heart to honor the ancients; for this land has no such men today, and no one to honor. Turn back, my country, look back on that infinity of immortals, and weep with shame; for grieving without shame is senseless: turn back and be ashamed and shake yourself awake and let the memory of those ancestors and what feebly followed stab...
There isn't a single correct way of living one's life. What my experience tells me is to never let other people defines what is success, and what we need to achieve. We have to, each of us, decide what we want to achieve, what we can let go, and what plan B looks like if we cannot achieve what we want. Or, Nikhil Lodha: Do not fret over what you couldn’t achieve. It is pointless if you do, and pointless if you don’t. There are people in our lives we have to take care of....
[Proper regulation is key.] Watch just about any traffic light in the Boston area until the signal changes, and you’ll almost certainly see one or even multiple cars blatantly running a red. It’s endemic, and it’s awful, yet nothing is done about it. The police have abdicated their responsibility for enforcing traffic laws and drivers know it. Everyone is less safe because of it. As a result, I find myself supporting the legalization of automated enforcement technologies...
Do enjoy some reading pleasure before the weekend commences. Does Computer Science Need Computers?, by Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine In Hilbert Space, All Things Are Quantumly Possible, by Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine The Restaurant Is 118 Years Old. The Merch Is New., by Charlotte Druckman, Grub Street
Last week, the library informed me that my hold on an ice cream maker attachment for my mixer was ready for pick-up from their Library of Things. I have literally no recollection of placing a hold on an ice cream maker. But when life hands you an ice cream maker, make a brown sugar peach frozen custard with bourbon maple pecan granola. Apparently.
We have a brand-new child-financial situation to deal with: what to do, financially, about an adult child who is working full-time and living at home. I will start by telling you what we did about children’s income when the children were still in school, because it feels relevant. A child working part-time (like during the school year) put half of their earnings into their own college fund, and kept the other half. A child working full-time (like during the summer), put...
Charles Bukowski noted that "Only boring people get bored.” It entered popular consciousness when Betty Draper stole the line on Mad Men. It's worth considering the mechanism behind this. I think it reflects a flipped perspective; a misapprehension of cause and effect. A framing error. It's not that the world bores bored people. It's that they suppress the world’s interestingness. Bored people are like Kryptonite for interestingness. They don't innocently miss it, they...
M-am uitat la clipul lui Cristi și Ralu, în care povesteau despre o problemă cu geamul vecinului lor. Am devenit curios despre ce spune legea în despre această „problemă” pe care o au muți oameni în România și legea chiar este concret despre acest lucru. În România, Codul Civil reglementează prin articolul 615 distanța minimă pentru ferestrele de vedere - adică acele ferestre prin care poți privi direct în proprietatea vecinului. Legea generală spune că o astfel de...
I stumbled across the dc command, after mistyping cd. It’s a math tool. It’s pretty esoteric in my opinion, but you can switch bases, which means you can do something like convert from a hex color to rgb, albeit digit-by-digit. For example, if you wanted to convert the hex color #FAFBFC, you’d convert FC, then FB, then FC (note the uppercase is necessary for dc). dc -e '16 i FA p' # 250
The Kinks - BBC Sessions 1964-1972 [A Prof Stoned Comp]If your kink is Kinks rarities, well, this one is for you! Prof. Stoned recently unleashed a fairly massive, absolutely crucial overhaul of the band’s BBC sessions from 1964 through 1972. Most of these recordings have been available on various comps or piecemeal on boxed sets, but as usual, the Professor has dug up the best available sources, cleaned up shoddy recordings, and worked his usual magic. Thank you,...
The Kinks - BBC Sessions 1964-1972 [A Prof Stoned Comp]If your kink is Kinks rarities, well, this one is for you! Prof. Stoned recently unleashed a fairly massive, absolutely crucial overhaul of the band’s BBC sessions from 1964 through 1972. Most of these recordings have been available on various comps or piecemeal on boxed sets, but as usual, the Professor has dug up the best available sources, cleaned up shoddy recordings, and worked his usual magic. Thank you,...
“There goes the last great American dynastyWho knows, if she never showed up, what could've been …” I’ve become something of a Swifty these last few years, having discovered the singer songwriter during lockdown. And I have to say my favourite album (to date) has to be Folklore. There’s something about the songs on this album that reached out to me. Not least because I can sing along to them all, and know all the words—yes, by heart. It wasn’t till recently though that I...
Poesiola a scopo di archiviazione, non fateci l'abitudine
I have never seen real-time rendering like this in a game. This is what 13 years, "unlimited" money, and Rockstar's developers can do.1 Goodness gracious. I love the clear Die Hard and Heat vibes. The minutia and groundedness reminds me a lot of Red Dead Redemption II, a game that I adore. The leaks of the past couple of weeks compared to this official look is a great reminder that the real deal is always worth the wait. I vividly remember the midnight launch of GTA V. The...
Humor, honesty, and kindness. Those are the character traits I value most in my fellow human beings. Funny, honest, and kind. That's how I, and those who knew him, would describe my dad. Today marks three years since he passed away. Even though it feels sad that he's no longer with us, it's with joy and warmth that I remember him. Thank you for everything, world's best dad ♥️