The episode of The West Wing that’s always bothered me is “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” which is Episode 20 of Season 4. It takes place on the day of the equinox (in March, not September, but I remembered it because today is an equinox), and one of the continuing subplots is C.J. trying to convince the others that you can stand an egg on its end at the exact moment of the equinox and only at that moment. Oh, and it has to be the vernal equinox, not the autumnal one.1 That someone in the…

A Short History of the World in 50 Liesby Natasha TiddGenres: History, Non-fiction Pages: 288 Rating: Synopsis: Taking readers on a global journey through human history, Natasha Tidd examines how lies can change the world around us, from Julius Caesar’s deceptive PR machine to the cover-ups that caused Chernobyl. From forgeries that created centuries worth of conflict and domination, such as The Donation of Constantine, the Protocols of Zion and the mysterious Testament of Peter the Great, to…

“Where The Echoes Bloom” is the debut solo work of L.A. based artist, Alia. A 9-track collection of electronic exotica, that showcases her virtuosity on theremin and kacapi, a Javanese zither. With assistance from percussionist Jamal Mohamed, she sets about creating the soundtrack for an alien tropics. “Crescent Sun” moves to a slow, sleek beat. The results in orbit with Water Melon’s Bond theme parody, “Moon Shaker”. “Jogja” incorporates field recordings, croaking frogs, songbirds, slo-mo…

Did Adam Smith’s direct experiences with some of the most celebrated doctors of his age motivate his remark in The Wealth of Nations regarding the absurd prescriptions of doctors? How could they not have! From his Oxford and Glasgow days (see, for example, here, here, and here) to the final weeks of his travelling tutor years (see here and here), Smith saw a wide range of home remedies and medical treatments first hand during his lifetime, including tar water, leeches, ipecacuanha, opiates,…

Russell Stone is a Rabbi whose career is on the slide. His run-down synagogue has been deserted by more or less everyone other than his cantor, Josh; the downbeat, miserable, occasionally outright distressing tone of his sermons may have something to do with this, and his hardline views have driven people away in the past – like Jack Lauder, who Stone expelled from his congregation eight years ago for having the temerity to seek an inter-faith marriage. Yeah, about that… three days ago, Lauder…

Credit: Photo by the author Accelerationism (The Good Kind) 2026-09-22T23:44:00+00:00, by Emma Humphries, from Infinite Wishes 🏳️‍⚧️🚀 Last weekend I was back on the Playa to fly rockets. I spent several attempts trying to get an old AeroTech K185W long burn motor to start. So I put it aside for the time being and few an H100W on a rocket I built at the start of the summer, Mass Romantic.1 I had my phone videoing the launch and was able to smash the software button to save a frame as a photo…

Well now we have Trump at the U.N. taking a page from the Hillary Clinton playbook and threatening to “annihilate” Iran. (To be fair, Clinton’s word was “obliterate,” not “annihilate”. ) This is a proposition for mass murder of millions of innocent people, a nuclear detonation, and possible nuclear war. Whether most Americans generally realize it or not, they actually want a socialist president, not more of these deranged Republicans or corporate Democrats. This is no theory. The latest poll…

__ Mercenaries photographed by Don McCullin and Gerd Heidemann The infamous Hitler Diaries are the subject of a BBC Radio and podcast series. It’s not the first time the scandal, which embarrassed both Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times and Germany’s Stern magazine, has been analysed as demonstrated by my blog post of 2016. Today’s episode focused on Stern’s journalist Gerd Heidemann. There’s an interesting link here back to Michael Heseltine’s men’s monthly Town. The January 1968 issue ran an…

It was 50 years ago today that, on September 22, 1976, that Charlie's Angels debuted on ABC. The show would prove to be an immediate hit, ranking no. 5 during its first season and continued to do well for its next few seasons. While ratings for Charlie's Angels would eventually falter and it would be cancelled after five seasons, it would not only prove to be a success in syndication, but would lead to feature films and even reboot series.Charlie's Angels centred on three female private…

🔖📚 Read Reading for pleasure - and for better health by Craig Brierley. Today, in a review published in Psychological Medicine, Professor Sahakian and Dr Langley, together with Vicki Perrin, CEO of The Queen’s Reading Room, argue that it doesn’t matter what or how we read, reading for enjoyment can bring huge benefits – and reading with others, whether it’s as part of a book club or a parent reading with their children, can bring even greater rewards. No surprises here and not a ton of evidence…

Twenty-seven years ago yesterday, the Taiwan earthquake of 1999, also known as the Chi-Chi earthquake, or the 921 earthquake, left more than 2,400 people dead and 100,000 without homes. A whole mountain and town disappeared, if I remember correctly.Sheryl and I had a small apartment in downtown Hsinchu near the wet market on Minzhu Rd., we would later move to Minzu Rd., which sounds the same but for the tone you use, when the earthquake hit. The apartment already had a lack of right angles…

This post is about the weather widget in the upper corner of my website. The widget is part of my .Net Core website. In this post I explain how the widget works and how you can use this widget in your app.

I haven’t been to my morning mma classes for a week and a bit. I’m in danger of letting that stretch to two weeks. Shame. Guilt. Anger. Relief. I was listening to the Tao Te Ching yesterday. I am listening to it now. It’s interesting how effective I am when I am doing something for someone else and how ineffective I am for myself. Ineffective? More like I just don’t/won’t do things for myself. Neglect. I neglect the self. Why? I’m sure there are many reasons. Maybe today I will pretend that I…

Who do you think you are? Pulling into an hotel car-park in Burgundy I found myself face to face with this Quince, which looked distinctly unimpressed by the new visitors. Afterwards, I looked it up on the RHS site to see which variety it might be. It boiled down to two possibilities. I concluded it was the ‘Champion’, though its ‘expression’ reminded me of a couple of Serbian generals in the Balkans wars, one of whom died recently in prison. Quote of the Day ”Money can’t buy you happiness but…

🔖 Read In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? by Nikole Hannah-Jones (NYT gift link). Instead of fortifying our determination to fight for integration, we have instead chosen to succumb to a collective apathy in the face of a system so devastatingly unequal that it puts at odds trying to be a good person with trying to be a good parent. How do we work toward a more equal system without the work feeling like we’re doing it at our own childrens’ expense? I don’t have the answer…

I am back up. As in, up again, not a “backup,” a spare copy of something. By the way, have you backed up your files lately? You should do that. Have you checked your backups to make sure they work? Do that too. So basically my computer has been having some strange issues with the internet lately. I could connect just fine, I just couldn’t make any TCP connections. That’s most useful connections. It’s what websites use. So that was a problem. I still don’t understand just what was going on. This…

This fall, I don’t think apple picking is in the cards for us! But if you were lucky enough to make it to an orchard and are now staring down a very ambitious haul of apples, wondering how you’ll possibly use them all, I’ve got you covered. After cooking every single one of Ina Garten’s recipes, I’ve made my fair share of apple dishes, and she has plenty that go far beyond the usual apple pie. Today on the blog, I’m sharing my favorites, including savory dinners like Herbed Pork Tenderloins…

Click here to book Delwar Hussain writes about his mother’s horticultural activities in Puma Court Arful Nessa in her garden in Puma Court My mother is the first to admit that when it comes to growing anything, the success rate cannot be predicted – some years are simply better than others. But this summer has, on the whole, been a good one. Despite the aubergines not putting in a show, she has had quite a few runner beans, chillies galore, enough coriander to garnish an army with, mulas (a…

repotted the cyclamen, we've had it for over 20 years and the plastic pot finally started to breakthe ti leaf plant that was in the pot had died, I think it was too hot this summer for itso I dug up the roots and took out some of the soiland put cyclamen into the "new" potI wasn't able to "loosen" the dirt up because it was in that old pot for so long...I hope it will thrive

Finished reading: Heroes The Greek Myths Reimagined (Greek Mythology Book for Adults, Book of Greek Myths and Hero Tales) by Stephen Fry 📚🎧 Listened to Fry read this one himself, too. Great, as always.

BABA IS YOU is one of the most mind-bending puzzle video games of recent memory. Now, thanks to Peter C. Hayward, it’s also a board game. On today’s Space-Cast!, we discuss the peculiar adaptation of Arvi Teikari’s video game, from its inception in That Time You Killed Me and sickbed time-wasting to its gradual development and Hayward’s long-term plans to become a screenwriter. Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump. TIMESTAMPS 00:15 — obligatory compliments 17:11…

[This is a guest post by Martin Hairer, cross-posted from Proofs and Prompts. — T.] There has been a lot of speculation regarding the “Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artifical Intelligence” agmai.org since it was announced on Monday. In this short blog post, I would like to explain in a bit more detail how the group works, what we are trying to achieve, and why I agreed to be part of this group. First of all, let me lay down some facts that seem to have been drowned in a torrent of…

weather: ☀️ sure is day 1 of autumn in my region critters: family of woodpeckers one of my old supervisors snagged me in the hallway and told me he might have some temporary work for me soon, but also not to count on it. they're either hiring me to do the job soon or they're not hiring anyone until spring i'm already temping here for a pittance, everyone else in our little clump of people has scattered to the four winds over the summer, and nobody wants to spend the $$$ on someone with better…

The very worst waiters that I've ever seen all had something in common: They all felt that being a waiter was beneath them. When, in fact, being a waiter was well above them. It was their superiority that made them inferior. This much appreciated posting from way back in 2010 was only the start of my recognition of how upside down and embarrassing everything is.

Again used the laser cutter at TkkrLab to create a puzzle based on the China Labyrinth.

There’s something weirdly satisfying to me about taking a piece of gaming hardware I really love and making it a little better. Sometimes that means a new shell or a screen upgrade, while other times it can be something as small as replacing the buttons. GetBetterButtons sits firmly in that latter category, but creator Vincent Lee has taken the idea much further than simply making replacement parts.Vincent designs his buttons from the ground up, looking at everything from ergonomics and…

Clara and I found this Pentium III motherboard and a collection of parts off the side of the road in Chatswood back in 2024. I put it into an Antec case from my father in law, and it’s gradually become my primary utility PC. I use it to test hard drives and expansion cards before I put them into my other machines, and I use its 5.25 and 3.5 disk drives for imaging and creating boot disks. Weirdly, about a month ago the attached PS/2 started sending errant signals. Or so I thought. I’d be in a…

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Planet Hollywood, reflected in the glass façade of the nearby Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. The post Planet Hollywood Reflections appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.