Today we come to the end (for the time being) of my series shining a light into the crime fiction reviews of Anthony Shaffer, which appeared in London Mystery Magazine. This post will look at some of the reviews he wrote for the September 1959 issue. To access previous posts in this series are here […]
The forward motion this week was all subtraction. I kept expecting to reach for something new (a sharper state, a missing tool, a version of me upgraded enough to unlock the next thing) and every session handed back the same answer. There was nothing to acquire. The instrument never moved, the tools were already in my hands, and the only real work was taking off a belief I'd worn long enough to mistake for the landscape.
…also don’t tell lies. But I’m getting ahead of myself already. I keep running into people online who openly say that they use AI to do their writing for them. Now, technically, they may say they use AI to “help” their writing. It doesn’t matter. The distinction is immediately lost on everyone who sees that […]
Time for a break from all things toy trains, with a day spent lakeside, enjoying the Knightcote Model Boat Club open day. The weather was kind, and we saw more visitors than normal. From opening time to 3:30, there was always something on the water, with a wide variety of vessels to be enjoyed. For an open day, I like to make a bit of effort, and so had brought pride of the fleet "Pigeon Pie" out of storage for what appears to be its annual sail. Despite lack of use, the Pie didn't let me down,…
JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT “Pit and the Princess.” First appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, December 2014, Not reprinted or collected. Peter (Pit) Geller is what;s called a fixer, and he works primarily for a mob boss in Philadelphia. One distinguishing feature is that he has a photographic memory, but while it’s mentioned a couple of times, it really doesn’t come into play in this case, which involves his being sent to Vegas to look for his boss’s niece who has gone missing. The case…
John Grossman’s cover for vol. 1 of the fanzine Futurist, ed. Redd Boggs (Spring 1950) “Write a story that will give a few bigots the jolt they need. Write a story that will open the eyes of the unconsciously bigoted” (8). Chandler Davis (1926-2022) strikes a fascinating figure. He was a communist activist, science fiction author, fanzine editor, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan, and political prisoner. He was fired from the University of Michigan in 1954 and imprisoned…
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are the memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share them far and wide! Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot…
I like old-school flyers. I especially like the ones you hold onto for whatever reason. I have one here. It’s for a film, a work in progress, called Soul Searchin’, a documentary by Jesus Cruz and Alex Vigano. The flyer shows someone holding a copy of an old 45 on Emulate Records of Oakland, California. The single is ‘These Are The Things’ by The Emulations. I had to look it up. I had to listen to it carefully. It’s not that old Pale Fountains song, no, but rather it is a sublime slice of sweet…
Hello, loves! By Jove, I think he’s got it! We’ll find out. Also: design documentation. Results: very favorable. I took some time last night to think about our content objects and created this design document: ! I’m sure that’s entirely clear, but just in case, we’ll be finding out what it means over the next few sessions, if in fact it means anything. Key notions that doing that scribbling brought to mind: Pass desired subscriptions to the content constructor as data, event name, caller id,…
Midsummer sunrise The sun peeking over the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. A globe of firey starstuff over calm waves, orange and red spreading out into the sky.
!!!content warning!!!!!!scary!!! Full spoilers for Obsession (2026) you have been WARNED now let me get this off my chest Cat's dead. Title drop. this movie is about a dead cat.My partner (who now makes me jump if she walks around a corner too fast) pointed out that Bear is neglecting his cat before the start of the movie (open cans on the floor, extreme glut of dry food) and his neglect leads at least in part to its death. I think it goes further.We know that obsessed!Nikki isn't Nikki, and is…
Just passing by on my way to get jerk chicken from a nice friend.
Links Posted to Thoughts The Week of 06-14-2026 There were 1 links posted this week. 06/16/2026 @08:19 The SpaceX IPO Is A Giant Unworkable Con Orchestrated By An Overt White Supremacist HucksterLast week's SpaceX IPO is a stunning act of financial fraud that wouldn't be allowed in a country with functional regulators. It cobbles together a bunch of money-losing ventures into a giant pump-and-dump scheme untethered to objective reality, all controlled by a proven bullshitter.But because the…
When I started using the new blog publishing system for all writing on the blog, I only setup blog posts and links. It occurred to me that perhaps one of the reasons I‘m finding it a bit difficult to get back into a good blogging rhythm was because I never setup notes. Notes are another type of writing unit, not quite as big as a blog post, but more than a link. They are great for small thoughts, things you are pondering, but haven‘t really thought through. Maybe they will eventually turn into…
The summer solstice occurs today at 9.24am BST. It's the day of the year with the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset, hence the greatest length of daylight. If you check when that sunrise is you get a single time for London... my diary says 4.43am. If you check when that sunset is you get a single time for London... my diary says 9.21pm. But it's not quite as simple as that because London is a large city approximately 35 miles wide and 28 miles top to bottom. And that's large enough for…
My discussion with @ZackKorman on whether Dario and Anthropic are good or bad for the world.Some quick post-debate thoughts:I think Zach is very wrong about the tech itself and its capabilities, and the speed with which it's improving. And I think this is a big part of our disconnect.I think his core argument is bad, and I'm looking for a great analogy for it. But it does hinge on the point above. It's something like,We should give our new mini-nuke rocket tech to prison populations and 18-year…
Long Island City Grows Up – New York, New York I’m on the Number 7 Subway train going east through Queens. Long Island City is one of the first communities on the other side of the East River from Manhattan. It was once filled with warehouses, but things have changed a lot. Back when I lived in New York, for the longest time, Long Island City had one high-rise with the Citi logo emblazoned on top. Slowly, new skyscraper developments have compounded into something significant. Now, the cluster…
IntroductionIn this inquiry, we build a sequence from a single 2. The first rule of this sequence is that it has to describe itself.Starting with TwoHere is a 2. 2It says, "There are two here." The first number is a 2, so the next number has to be a 2 as well, so that there are "two here." We now have two 2's!2 2When it's not a two, it's a oneHere comes the second rule of our sequence. When it's not a two, it must be a one. What comes next? To start, our sequence says there are two of one thing…
While I am known to some of the LLMs (link via Flutterby), my own score (or “strength” as the site calls it) is in the upper two digit range. It picked up that I'm a blogger, but it also confabulated that I worked on the Apache module mod_python. Heh … close, but no cigar!
I look at the Japanese symbols that carry meaning entirely on their own.
Oh man it’s gonna be hot sauce time soon! Gonna try lacto-fermentation this time. Just gotta decide how much I want to temper the heat of these habs… 🌱
The more I read about “Dialog” — a Peter Thiel-adjacent semi-secret society — from the likes of Andrew Gelman and Cory Doctorow, the firmer my belief is that America has zipped through its oligarchy phase to become a full-blown kakistocracy. These people are morons.
Bunny is doing as well as can be expected, given that she really can't use her arms to get out of bed or a chair. But she does like looking at the finches they have in the main hall:
Approaching from the south on NV-321, we saw the sign welcoming us to Pioche. Our free subscription to Travel Nevada has inspired us to visit lots of towns and out-of-the-way places that we’d never have known about or visited otherwise. Many times we’ve whizzed past a town on our way to somewhere else, unaware of what there was to see there. So, on our way back from Cathedral Gorge State Park, we decided we’d stop in Pioche after having just read an article about why it might be worth a visit.…
See pt 1, about SSN 1 ep 15, if you want. Now I'm in SSN 2, maybe ep 8, of BBT & the misogyny is much better. Its still there, in pretty much every episode, but its better. Or less bad, I should say. Until. Howard is once again being an absolute creep to Penny. She tells him off, that he's creepy and will die alone. GOOD. About fucking time. But the guys need Howard (the engineer) for their robot destruction competition, so Leonard cashes in his ONE FAVOR with Penny to get her to go over to…
My love for sunscreens knows no bounds so when I see an interesting sunscreen in the market, I take notice and most of the time, I will end up adding it to my cart and eventually checking it out. When it started getting hot and humid this summer, I began to look for lightweight sunscreens […]
Mortal Kombat X combines unparalleled, cinematic presentation with all new gameplay. For the first time, players can choose from multiple variations of each character impacting both strategy and fighting style. Mortal Kombat X combines unparalleled, cinematic presentation with all new gameplay. For the first time, players can choose from multiple variations of each character impacting both strategy and fighting style. I got this on sale as well for the Steam Deck, even if I already had it on…
90 days of running, I’ve run a total of total of 275 miles since I started and my fastest mile was this past week at 7:36 (my goal was under eight minutes). I also completed my goal of running a 10k in under may age minutes. My 10k time was 54:45 – which in addition to being a nice palindrome it means I made the goal I actually set out to do last year. I’m Pretty proud of this accomplishment, but also looking forward to just going running again without this speed goal. 85/100 days dieting, I…
