Girl on the Net (I will call her GOTN moving forward) wrote about the Cornell rape allegations. There’s plenty to read on her website and in the Wikipedia page if you want the details — it’s unfortunately a familiar story in American colleges. What moved me to think was this part: Far harder to start an awkward conversation. One-on-one or in the group chat with your guy friends. Somewhere there aren’t any women to show off to. Yeah. I know exactly what she’s talking about. I’m an IT guy. I work…

[Zip codes starting with “9” instead of “0” should have a real clue.] If not for the whims of a penny, there would be a Boston, Oregon, to go along with Boston, Massachusetts. Instead, Oregon’s largest city is named Portland, after Francis Pettygrove’s hometown of Portland, Maine. A couple centuries later, that fact resulted in ads about Maine’s Senate race being incorrectly shown to hundreds of thousands of Oregon residents, who were no doubt bemused and/or amused.Link:…

It's the quintessential symbol of Halloween: the Jack-O-Lantern. Fortunately, it's also one of the easiest designs for a baker to make. Just take one round cake, ice it in orange, add a cartoony face, and...voilá! AAAEEIII!!Er. Heh, sorry. Let's try that again.Voila! That's...not a cake. [rolling up sleeves] Voila! Is that...plastic?Cheater. Voila! A Pumpkin Poo-nicorn. Well. That's a first. [through gritted teeth] Voi-la. What the...what IS that? Come on, seriously, there's no way you could…

My computed probability of the risk that Chomp will eat me, or in statistical terms, P(CHOMP), is approximately 95%. This has been a tough realization for me, because I consider Chomp a close friend, and I insist that no harm or regulation should come to him. However, if he should succeed in making me his first human sacrifice, it gives me no joy to inform you that there is nothing to stop him from eating us all. I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve heard it all before: Aren’t you just…

Things didn't go merrily, merrily down the lane today. Spent the AM at the DMV getting my license renewed. The clerks there must attend 6 months learning how to be arrogant and exasperating all the while smiling smugly. IMO the forms are confusing, and the instructions when available make it even more confusing to fill out. After filling the pie hole I drew up a new battle plan for replacing the belt.my absolute best goofy looksCleaning up the two pulleys was a royal PITA. Holding a flashlight…

I often talk about wanting to be somewhere else — to travel, to see places other than my house and garage. I’ve planned out what it would take to live elsewhere for a couple of months in the winter. I have all these dreams about visiting and living in different places before, you know, the end. But when I get the chance, like this morning, I don’t want to leave. I just want to sit in the comfort of my office and type on my keyboard. To simply embrace the familiar.

“Actually, I changed my mind,” she said, cradling her mug with both hands. “Actually, no, I really mean it. I was listening to a wellness podcast about cognitive bandwidth and I realized I’ve been causing myself a lot of decision fatigue. Worse than that, I’ve been blocking you from your chance to really step in as a leader in this home. I want more balance. So starting right now, I am releasing the reins. Total autonomy. You make all the family choices.”She gave an encouraging nod and slid her…

From 1908, “Lower Manhattan from Governors Island – The City of Skyscrapers – Made possible by the development of the Otis Elevator.” I wonder who could possibly have paid for this card to be printed? Obviously, yes, safe elevators were necessary for the development of tall buildings, but I feel safe in saying that if Elisha Otis had not invented and popularized a safety elevator someone else would have. The state of tall buildings in lower Manhattan is well illustrated: the land here is pretty…

I’m off to Calgary today to attend PodSummit, which runs Friday and Saturday. I’m staying over Sunday to do some writing, explore the parts of the city I haven’t seen yet, and have dinner with some writer friends. I return Monday evening.I have no idea why I am going. Is it about networking, or meeting people? I’m absolutely horrible at this. Learning some new technique, or getting a sense of the ecosystem? Not technique, for sure. It’s a large spend without much strategy behind it. I’m sure I…

DIGGER is absolutely phenomenal. Groundbreaking on multiple levels and may just be the best thing I've seen in the last decade. The first retail order for THE SOLAR GRID hardback edition came in from the fine people at Partners and Son. Orders overall have passed the 100 mark. This is actually a very good metric given that I only posted about it 4 days ago. Compared to the Kickstarter campaign I ran way back when, which ran for two whole months and only managed to attract interest from around…

On a Minecraft kick again, feels good

In which I make the journey from the SE corner of Greater London to the City, via a few pubs and a short stop to enjoy some rather splendid views of the Thames.At the end of the last post I was hopping aboard a train at Chislehurst station, making the short one-stop trip to Petts Wood.The Pett family gave their name to this little corner of London. They were prominent shipbuilders between the 15th and 17th centuries who leased the woods in this region as a source of timber. One of the warships…

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This morning I woke up feeling pretty good. I was warm enough last night to sleep with the fan in the window. The cool air felt great and helped me get a restful night’s sleep I even slept in a little this morning until nearly 5! I got up and started drinking my coffee. I had to make a small little tweak on my sass files because I had misplaced a rule. That was a pretty straightforward fix after I tried everything wrong first. I realized what I did after I moved the at @media and @supports rule…

Me and my grandson (2026). Leica MP. Photo by Jessica.I swear if I hear the word "slop" one more time I'm going to punch someone in the throat. I just did a nice and thorough de-cluttering of my office and I feel much better. ✍️ Reply by email

Today was the day: I got my National Swimming Diploma C, the last of the three diplomas to reach the national swimming safety norms in The Netherlands. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m very curious about what’s going to come from this. I started swimming lessons back in January, after enrolling for the third time. The previous times, there was a waiting list, so I kept postponing it. In April I got my Diploma A, in July my Diploma B, and that same month I also did the Zwem4daagse, where…

Last night over dinner, my TEEM cohort exchanged notes over how tired we are. This onground intensive is, indeed, intense. We eat breakfast at the hotel, head over to the Synod office meeting space, and we're meeting from 8 until 4 or 5, depending on how long we took for lunch. Lunch is brought in, and we try to be back on task by 1 so that we can be done closer to 4:00.Monday and Tuesday, we learned about Lutheran Liturgy, the way worship is structured. Yesterday was a 1 day workshop to teach…

It has been a while since I’ve been here. A few odds and ends have happened in the week and a half since I last posted. We will get right into it in the order of importance as I see it. Jack Harvey: First and foremost, we learned the unsettling news on Tuesday that Jack […]

First published 6 October 2008. We all have our hobbies. Some people follow pro football, some run, some make lovely quilts, some fish, some solve the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. I like to explore abandoned roads. Yeah, that’s a great conversation starter at parties. I’m not sure where this vigor comes from. All I know is that the first time I found a stretch of forgotten asphalt was the coolest thing I’d ever experienced. Here’s a photo from that day, of a bridge over White Lick…

It’s now full on autumn here. “True” Thanksgiving last weekend* was great, thanks for asking. Had a gravy juice.** We’ve already taken drives to have a look at the multi-coloured leaves in the forests. And the walks down to the shore now need a bit of tweed instead of the linen shorts of a few weeks ago. Chilly. But it’s all going to be OK. Winter is coming. That’s all. by the way, I might be a bit short this week. Been busy, working on a PowerPoint presentation for a community group on the…

What I'm doing now

Can you still book a cheap London hotel for Christmas? Yes, but the choice is shrinking. On 13 October, I found at least 16 well-reviewed hotels with a room for two from 24 to 27 December for £450 or less for the three nights. The cheapest was £351, and most were between £410 and £450. Below are the 8 best, all with free cancellation, so you can book now and keep looking. How I pick these Every week, I search Booking.com for the same stay: three nights from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 December,…

The past week has been a bit of a roller-coaster for me. If you know me, you know I have plenty of stuff to keep myself busy and plenty of stuff I want to share – if only time and energy would permit. Whenever I can, I’ve spent my time authoring and producing content which I believe to be interesting, different, unique, valuable and of my own efforts (unless where specified, and that’s the exception rather than the rule). But since my recent choice to abstain from OzBargain because of their…

I really did rush through the first week of Orktober and I didn’t enjoy myself as much as I should’ve. For the second week I’ve paced myself more and enjoyed the process a hell of a lot more. It’s a fun competition but if it takes the fun out of painting minis that’s no good so lesson learnt for me haha. I’ve never owned a “weird-boy” ork until the most recent new one came along. Even though I like weird things I was never really drawn to the character. Dunno, wizards, warlocks, witches and…

Showery today with strong winds. Car washing. H.B1,B2 making 139 to date. Mike Reed leaves tonight. Cleared all the lab bins out. Insurance man came.

Imagination is the new moat.

I haven't had this old Ovation guitar out of it's formidable flight case for a couple of years. It was almost perfectly in tune out of the box but the electrics are a bit goosed. Hence the spray cans and some annoying fiddling about that I had to do. There were some slight improvements after a while. These are odd guitars. Tight and heavy. The plastic bulge of the back body shape makes them awkward to play standing up and/or sitting down. It's a very physical thing. The action is OK but ... it…

I think it's safe to classify both of today's photos as "standard Disneyland views". Nice enough, sure, but you probably won't call Aunt Marge to tell her all about them. (Call her anyway, she's lonely).Yep, it's no surprise that it's a photo of the Mark Twain. It looks pretty against that deep-blue sky. Daredevil ducks wait until the last possible second to scoot out of its way (while other less-brave ducks stayed safely out of harm's way). I'd say that this behavior does not set a good…

At the rock housesWhen I first went to school we were taught that the very first human homes were in caves and that these were clearly damp, dark, unpleasant places to live, soon superseded by tents, wooden huts, and other such shelters. Today, we have a great deal more knowledge of early human habitations around the world, from houses built on frames of mammoth bones to bark-walled dwellings. But along with this knowledge goes an awareness that we are in fact ignorant of the lives of many…

There are stages in layout construction where I have to make a list and push through the steps required to find myself able to enjoy the process once more…Moving from cardboard mock up to plastic rendition has taken five years on Defiance’s big brother - it is no surprise that this step is one that is to some degree, a necessary evil. I will enjoy what follows - for now, deliberate steps forward ensure focus is retained.I enjoy photographing my work throughout the creative process. Whilst…