I quite lke this piece The Last Quiet Thing by Terry Goodier about the weight of expectation your own posessions now put on you. I don't wear a watch. I found this via Matthew Bogart's review of the small e-ink reader the Xteink X4 Pocket eReader which has also had decent reviews in places like Lifehacker although I'll also note that part of the review from the New York Times includes this incredible line: Unlike a Kindle or Kobo e-reader, which are essentially ready to use out of the box,…
The other week I was the MC for day 2 of CSS Day conference. It was my first time ever being an MC for a conference! I was so excited and, honestly, very nervous at the start. My hands were shaking a lot, and it's no wonder, as Bruce Lawson had been the MC of the previous day, and that's a tough act to follow. And if I can’t be funny on the spot, I will try to make up for it in other ways. I ended the day with the following: Throughout the day, when introducing our wonderful speakers, I've…
Most of my time this week went into goal-setting and on learning Japanese. On goal-setting: This was both attending training, and writing/reviewing goals for my department. Nearly there. On learning Japanese: I have been trying new tools and routine to see what works well, did orientation for my new classes, and have formally verified out that I am now somewhere between N5 and N4! And unexpectedly I played the role of translator on Friday. It felt like every day this week I got a different bit…
From The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy (Basic Books, 2017), Kindle pp. 127-131: The Ukrainian Cossacks, who had begun their international career in the 1550s by serving the tsar of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, paid an unsolicited visit to Moscow during the first decade of the seventeenth century. Muscovy was then in turmoil because of an economic, dynastic, and political crisis known as the Time of Troubles. It began at the turn of the seventeenth century with a number…
I should stop eating junk...My social battery is exhausted. I went out one too many times, I need some time to recover 🪫 #Life & People My girlfriend (J) and I went swimming on Monday which was a lot of fun since the pool was surprisingly empty. One of the items on my bucket list is to learn swimming properly, I want to do more water sports! Swapnil and I completed our 2nd 5K run 🎉 It feels nice to finally hit one of the milestones we’d set for ourselves. Onwards to 10K now 🏃🏻 I also had to buy…
This morning, I read a couple of posts on Reddit that I liked and wanted to reply to the community. Mistake, as usual: No big deal, it’s only 10 minutes down the drain. My account is several years old and has a lot of “karma.” I am not behind a VPN this time. There was no bad language or any adult content in my post. Yes, I know I’m not telling you anything new, and it’s my fault for trying to entertain myself to actually use Reddit for - gasp - posting something. But this is still where most…
Summer puzzles (all about sums, i.e. addition) 1) Use addition signs and as few '4's as possible to total 500. 2) 143+528=731 One digit in this sum is wrong. Correct it. 3) 9 + 8 + 7 + 65 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 99 Keeping the digits in that order, and using only addition signs, find another way to total 99. 4) [6 12 15 20 21 33 44 45 66] Select numbers from this list to make a total of 100. 5) Substitute digits for letters so that ONE + ONE + ONE + ONE = TEN. 6) How many solutions are there to TWO +…
There really isn't a question that we work more today than we did 30 or 50 years ago. Heck the average farmer in the 1300s worked around 1500 hours a year to get food on the table, and today we work more than double that amount to scrape by1. I suppose the question is why we work so much more now. We work more now, in large part, because we continually choose consumption of goods over leisure2. That raise could either buy you someone to do some stuff around the house that you don't want to do,…
Luckily it was too warm to sleep last night, as I'm not sure I would have made the effort to go see these storms otherwise. These are distant thunderstorms near Lille in France. That's at least 150 miles to my South East, so I'm quite amazed the skies were clear enough to capture some distant lightning. I was actually hoping to photograph some sprites, but out of 550 shots, I got precisely zero!
I spent yesterday morning with a cup of coffee at the local marina, staring at the boats and the light and breathing it in, my deep pleasure at doing nothing at all spoiled only by an apple croissant that was, in fact, filled with marzipan. A nice surprise if you like marzipan, but I think it tastes like the inside of a goat. Still, the quiet was good for me. I drove home to find an email from a friend which included a link to this video about JW Turner, Ernst Haas, and Venice, and that kicked…
A contra dance organizer in another city wrote to me a while ago because they were stuck: the dance was in a few days and they didn't have anyone to run sound. They were asking if they could use some of my recorded music for the dance. Here's a lightly edited and linkified copy of what I sent them: This is a tricky situation, and I'm sorry you've ended up here. This is probably not what you want to hear, but I would not hold a dance with recorded music. Instead I'd: Have musicians play…
All my dreams come true ✒️ Written by: Abbie Caversham Wildlife Park is just north of Perth, and home to many RBFJs (round brown fluffy jobbies) (aka, my favourite type of animal). The day we spent there will forever be a big day in my life, because it was the first time I ever saw an animal I have always been desperate to see... The wombat. To make things better, we got a photo with one! And if that wasn't enough, it gets even better when koalas are added to the mix. The day started out with…
Just like cake, there are many flavors of geek fandom - and I love them all.Granted, I love some more than others: (By Chatter Cakes)NO LIE. I about fell over when I found not only a cake of my favorite video game character of all time - I found an AMAZING cake of him: (By Oakleaf Cakes)[Kermit flail] SONGBIRD!!Songbird here is a whopping three feet tall, and was made for Irrational Games. And I love him. You can check out the amazing build photos here. Who else loves Avatar? And I don't mean…
This post is not sponsored nor endorsed by GLITCH or any other business/organization. All views are the author's own. I was a bit late to the bandwagon that was this fandom; but that does not mean I could not have fun and theorize and panic over what this show becomes/became. Over the past 10 months, I have binge-watched the whole series twice over, and witnessed the world premieres of Episodes 7 and 8, as well as the theatrical release of Episode 9. I wasn't going to originally write a…
Whew. It’s Sunday, but I decided not to touch this one. Let’s see what AI has to say about Chester the Goatman: He traveled for over four decades (primarily the 1940s–1960s) in a ramshackle wagon pulled by a team of goats. He claimed to have traveled to every state except Hawaii, covering over 100,000 miles. He dressed in goatskins, lived off goat's milk, and supported himself by selling scrap metal and postcards featuring himself and his goats andgave up his wandering ways to livehis final…
The most stubborn facts are those of the spirit, not those of the physical world. — Jean Gottmann, Geography and International Relations In 1914, before the First World War, there was this belief: “a European war would be economically disastrous, the moneyed classes won’t let it happen”. Europe went to war anyways, and the war was in fact an economic disaster as everyone knew it would be. Why were those people wrong? Because the rich were not in control: the Tsar and the Kaiser and the Emperor…
On 21 June 1675 only a few onlookers observed as Thomas Strong, a master mason, set into place the first stone of St. Paul’s that was lowered deep into the earth. The lack of fanfare could be attributed to the King fearing for his safety. He had recently implemented financial measures which were unpopular in the city and had caused great distress, there had also been considerable controversy over the plans for the Cathedral. On 21 June 1937 the first TV broadcast of a tennis match from…
Had a DJ gig yesterday at a country club outside of town, and it was a yacht rock party. Number one, I really, really enjoyed putting together the set list. As a kid, I grew up half in the ’70s, half in the ’80s. All that music is imprinted down there somewhere. So that was really fun to go through and pick eight hours of music for a four-hour gig. I brought everything I own, basically, because I was going with a whole new rig: an iPad-based setup, a Reloop MixTour Pro, and a little Zoom L-6…
So I thought now that I do a little politics on the site by covering government issues that impact knives, I would wade into another controversial topic—parenting. I have two boys, one is 15 and the other is 10. Both have knives and both have used knives to varying degrees. My youngest son regularly uses his knives, as he is quite fond of going into the woods and hacking stuff down. We own the woods and it is pretty overgrown so more power to him. He also really enjoys carving and has two…
Power stations are a product which has grown dramatically in popularity, whether it be for use on recreational trips as a power source when you are “off-grid”, or as emergency sources of power. For many years, the price has hovered at about $1/Wh for a decent quality power station, with entry level units often being 200-300Wh in capacity. Thanks to some very attentive OzBargainers, combined with various cashback and sale offers, the ALLPOWERS VOLIX P300 which is a 256Wh power station was on…
To my father and all fathers, fathering even in the midst of criticism and nonsense My parents. Senior Prom. My photo of their photo. 2026 ©Tremaine L. Loadholt Teenage parenting couldn’t havebeen easy.What were you thinking when Icame along?Your first child—a girl, mirror imageof you in a tiny body…The community practice baby,Trial-and-error baby,First model of how to get itright and wrong.That’s a lot of pressure forsomeone who’d justbroken away from his ownmother’s home a year before.You did…
I now assume you didn’t write the email by yourself. It will be harder than ever to earn the courtesy of a reply from your recipient. The longer your email, the more surface area it exposes to a human brain’s bot detection. Therefore, what you write in your first email is critically important. If you are writing to a human, write like one. Cold emails written by bots quote generic lines from your webpage.
Yeahhh it's been a little while. Things aren't the best. Coding/Tech Working on my 'life aggregation' tool. Slowly but surely Lots of other things going on in my head instead of actually doing them Gaming Took a long break from everything Played 007: First Light. Really enjoyed it! It was way too short though I want to go back to Factorio with a 'forever' save since now next week they will be releasing the final update Because of the long weekend (which I made longer) I took some time to try…
Why bounce back and forth between So many options? Choose one and glean From others what you can, but fix Upon the one. Else you will mix Together what should remain clean. Evaluate as best you may Within a time, perhaps a day, And don’t look back, but be serene. Avoid the mental politics. While choosing, don’t forget to pray.
Our discussion on clerical celibacy, and how Emperor Justinian decreed no bishop or higher position could be married, leads us to take a look at popes that were married.The first, of course, was Peter, long before the mater of celibacy was ever raised in the early Church. Peter's mother-in-law gets mentioned in Mark 1:30, Luke 4:38, and Matthew 8:14–15 when Jesus enters the house where she is and heals her.Pope Felix III (483 - 492) was the son of a priest and was married himself, though he was…
Another week another blur of activity as I sit to write this with a pint of fizzy water with a dash of lime whilst my house is currently 24c and due to get to 28c today. Mini heatwave! I haven’t really taken and photos this week, so here’s a Trio in the garden! 🥩 It is father’s day in the UK and I’m doing that very stereotypical bloke thing of cooking a steak for dinner. I’m making a chimichurri to go with it as well as Chef John’s scalloped potato gratin (the best!). I probably won’t be able…
It's that time again for my weekly update, which includes a short collection of noteworthy finds, posts that inspire, as well as a few reflections from the past week or two. I'll aim to land these in your inbox by the weekend, in time to pair with your morning coffee (or your preferred cup of inspiration).The Latest Drippings ☕️Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting. Remember 2020? The great reset of everything. Work from home was the future: a promise of more time for you, your family, and your…
Hello friends! I’m so glad we’ve reached the summer solstice and the darkness can start to return. I miss the stars and the moon. It’s not often I highlight just one bird in a newsletter - but this is no ordinary bird. Without further ado, let’s get to this incredible surprise.Meet Betty, the Brown Booby! Ok, I don’t know if her name is Betty, since no one here speaks booby. But I feel she needs a name! I saw someone post that conservation officials had confirmed her as a female, but I don’t…
3 years ago I did a video on "How to Build a Project That Will Actually Get You a Job". It is crazy how much has changed since then. I still think there is value in creating these projects to help your chances of getting a job, but they definitely don't have as much sway as they used to. The reason of course is due to AI. How does a hiring manager looking at your profile know you didn't just vibe code the whole thing? The main points I covered in that video still apply though. The code was…
Sometimes I hate Sunday evenings, especially when it is around 6pm. I look back at the weekend, I realised that it is gone and I did not do anything feels regenerative. The weekend is mostly running errands for the family. I might be able to slip in sometime to take a nap, read a few pages of book and exercise. Yet, I do not feel relax. In the back of my mind, there is always something that I need to do. When Sunday evening comes, I know Monday is around the corner, and I have to prepare for…
