Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!” Warship Wednesday 23 September 2026:…

I've genuinely haven't had much to write about. There's been some post ideas, but most of 'em have ended up shelved for one reason or another. These past months have been a real creative drought for me. I think I need a shit-post side blog. One where I can kind of write about whatever without worrying about the content or if the posts starts to sound like a journal entry1. I think since this is my first blog, I overthink too much about what I put into it. Speaking of getting too into my head, I…

There’s a common saying in discussion of fractals that the length of a coastline depends on how small a device you use to measure it. I thought this was a hypothetical, say as applied to the steps in the construction of the Koch snowflake. But the saying has its roots in actually surveying. Lewis Fry Richardson discovered in 1803 that the length of the coast of Scotland depended on a the size of segments used to measure it. And he found that the length followed a power law, i.e. that there’s a…

The horseshoe theory is probably one of the funniest pseudo-scientific political “theories” out there. In case you’re unfamiliar with this theory, I’m sorry to be the one to disturb your blissful ignorance of it (that I’m jealous of), but here’s what it is: It’s the understanding that the political spectrum is shaped like a horseshoe in which Far-Right and Far-Left beliefs, like illiberalism and anti-establishment positions, converge and both become functionally the same. I would like to…

Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The right place to ask why Oktoberfest starts in September, and how Lo-Fi music snuck into your cookingHi there! On September 19th, Oktoberfest began in Germany, which literally means "October festival." So, naturally, it starts in September.It reminds me of Russia's October Revolution, year 1917, which by our calendar actually happened in November, because the tsars were still running on a different one.Two perfectly mismatched facts to sum up the disorientation…

it's weird that ai got too dangerous to keep advancing right around the time money got more expensive to borrow— dr. rich traditions, JD (@helldude.bsky.social) September 22, 2026 at 11:37 AMAt a time when everybody seems to be criticizing AI and particularly the large frontier LLM base models of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, it is helpful to distinguish between the different schools of arguments.The group which initially dominated the coverage but which seems to be losing ground is the…

For the last fortnight the news has been in a frenzy about AI killing us all. It started when Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic and posted that the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade“. One of Anthropic’s alignment leads replied that he personally put it at more than 10% within the next decade. Geoffrey Hinton went on Newsnight and called 10% “not unreasonable“. It has been headline news every day since. Politicians have piled in. Bernie Sanders:…

The cops I served burgers to asked me what good was learning anything if I couldn't help people. I tell my students, at the end of the term, that they must have hobbies, because if they don't have hobbies, then that means writing is their hobby, and it shouldn't be that way; writing should be their life and not their hobby. I tell them to learn new things, different things, things that have nothing to do with writing. And not just learn them, but be good at them; master them; impress others…

Work hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty! That is the Turtle Hermit way! An apt quote from our beloved Master Roshi. If Dragon Ball has taught me anything, besides that screaming your lungs out during strenuous work does in fact make you stronger, it’s that rest is as important to one’s success as the hard work you build around it. Rest of course, is earned. There’s an obvious difference between someone who is bone idle and someone who rests because they’ve worked hard or is feeling…

Mad Max: Fury Road is a great movie. I was thinking of it again today in relation to our current economy.

I returned home from an afternoon swim the other day and saw a juvenile cat literally eating the heart out of a bird’s chest cavity. She growled. Cats will stiff-arm each other over dry cat food, but they growl and viciously defend real meat. The ravenous cat ate her meal on some pine straw under an old holly bush near my front door. I could not identify what species of bird the cat was devouring–an unusual failure for me because I’m very knowledgeable about local wildlife. The bird was white…

More photos that fit the vibe of this project (if you will). Rubble, peeling paint, lichen and moss. All taken by me, copyright me, etc. Without further ado, please enjoy:

A very quick and simple but also delicious tofu marinade for all kinds of dishes.

On this page NixOS and Home Manager have plenty of options you can set. This is the result of a diligent community accumulating work over many years. You will not need most of it, but when you do want to configure any particular thing, it's nice to have the choice. I was looking at my config and noticed I have options that are used broadly across my machines. Over the years I've encountered some of these options that I wish I had known about sooner. Essentially, if I followed the installation…

Share a song that represents your current mood. I like to have upbeat music on in the morning, nothing to raucous just something uplifting that takes my current mood and elevates it. This is the song that was playing when I saw the prompt this morning and it feels very apt. A classic bit of house music (I’m on a bit of a DJ led exploration of electronic/house/disco music right now) and I can feel my mood lifting as I boogie in my seat. “Music Sounds Better with You (Radio Edit)” by Stardust…

This morning while I was doing my morning routine of drinking my coffee. That routine is setting up the weather page for the current day. Sure, I could automate it, but it takes little time to do it by hand, and I’d have to edit the markdown file anyway to put in the summary. I actually do glance at it, and today I glanced at it out of curiosity to see what yesterday’s rain total was. Normally I would have looked at the Ambient app, but I had this page open, so I scrolled down to look. I…

Via Newspapers.comThis account of your basic friendly neighborhood monster appeared in the “Mexico Weekly Ledger,” December 13, 1883:MEXICO, Mo., December 8.--The neighborhood of Hopewell Church, near this city, is much excited over the appearance in the locality of a strange creature, which is thought by the credulous to be a ghost, and which is a puzzle at least to the most skeptical. The apparition is simply that of a lean monster man, between eight and ten feet in height, wearing a long…

Trust me #123F.E.A.R. by Ian BrownWhen The Stone Roses broke up in 1996, things didn't exactly go quiet. By that time, the band had left a huge legacy through their music, art, personalities and style. Post 1996, there is plenty to discuss and debate around; drugs, guitars, vocals, Mani joining Primal Scream, Squire at Knebworth, Reni's brief flirtation with The Rub, the sad fact that Reni hasn't drummed on enough recorded and released music, Brown's solo work and collaborations (especially Be…

What song always makes you feel better? I’ve always loved a song that builds, that layers in the instruments. I’ve always loved a great drum track. I’ve always loved interesting harmonies. I’ve always loved rock music. I’ve always loved a hint of tongue-in-cheek silliness. I’ve always loved Queen. And yeah, I’ll admit it, I’ve always loved a nice . “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Listen to Gordon McLean's Apple Music playlist…

I’m not gonna bother with the preamble about how I got to part six in this series1-5. You can read […]

Mexican long-nosed armadillo loping across a field (photo from Wikimedia) 23 September 2026 Three years ago, in April 2023, I wrote that Armadillos Are On Their Way to Pennsylvania. Since arriving in Texas in 1849 they’ve expanded their range north and east in the U.S. nearly ten times faster than the average rate expected for a mammal. In 2023 they were two states away in Indiana. Not anymore! The first documented naturally occurring armadillo was found as roadkill near Oxford, Ohio. video…

1:4 It’s like a curse… on the first matchday after the coach was fired, the guys (finally) scored 2 goals and beat Fortuna Köln at home to nil, only then to concede 3 goals at home against Duisburg within 15 minutes of the first half just 4 days later. OK, MSV is currently at the top of the standings and on a hot streak, but the ease with which they outplayed our defense was shocking. Like a hot knife through butter. Although the 1-3 goal just before halftime and the team’s determination early…

By Close ReaderOriental Mandarin LegendOSELevels 1-2 In order to thank the PC for killing the monsters in his territory, the Boold[sic] Baron invited the players to come to the bright Red castle he built on the Wild Eagle Mountain. This 28 page adventure presents seven-ish rooms in a scripted human sacrifice ceremony dungeon/scene/event. It has both EASL issues and is overly scripted. Disclaimer: I think this is a difficult review to write. I suspect strongly, based on the chinese characters in…

It was a long day today. I’m looking forward to the weekend. Selfie a day for a year, day 29: Sep 17, 2026 edition.

Lucky 13th Sept! A great day out. Maybe another last good day of Summer, although I think we must be into Autumn by now. I decided to visit Saltoun Big Wood again. This time I thought I'd risk the 113 bus and jogged up to Abbeyhill (rather than Carlton Terrace stop) because there is an electronic sign that says when the next bus will be along. (Yes I know there is an app but the built in redundancy of my iPhone can't download it.) Anyway the sign was temporarily fritzed and of no help. However…

I met with a friend yesterday and the conversation got to what the next hype might be after the current bubble pops. We live at the height of the “AI”-hype and bubble, the hype that took over from the short Metaverse hype which in turn came after the crypto bubble. And the main actors are often the same. The same folks who told us crypto was the future now tell us that “AI” is. Tech these days is built less around actual products but hype, less around building actually functional solutions but…

Hi, baby. I'm 18 weeks pregnant today. 16 weeks ago, you were a single cell with two nuclei, about to mix it together and make a new human. Look at you now: a tiny baby curled up in a foetal position. Sometimes it feels unreal. I can't grasp how lucky I am to have you in my belly. I think it will be easier when I'll really feel you move. For now, I'm always afraid that you might disappear, even though I feel my uterus stretching to give you room to grow. How does it feel? Are you comfortable?…

John Ottman is one of those filmmakers whose résumé is almost ridiculously varied. As a composer, he’s probably best known for movies like The Usual Suspects, X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Nice Guys, and Valkyrie. Horror fans will also recognize his work from Apt Pupil, Lake Placid, Eight Legged Freaks, Gothika, Hide and Seek, and Orphan. He even directed Urban Legends: Final Cut. In 2019, Ottman won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on…

From 2020, a random photo I took of a 1931 garage on Lafayette Street: In case you’re wondering, it looked much the same in 1940, although better maintained: Garages, in general, are not great works of architecture. Most of them in Manhattan are very plain and built in the mid-1900s. Some have nice brick facades, and those tend to be converted stables built before 1910. This one is something slightly different: a garage that has a facade that isn’t just a featureless box but was never anything…