overkill (I always lowercase it) has a bit of a new design. Manu had been working on it for a while, and would have probably finished it much earlier if I hadn't used AI in the past to completely wreck the codebase he originally created (and he promised me he will never touch again; just look at the footer). Still, it's done and things look slightly different. I like it. When I merged my personal blog and overkill, the original goal was to simply have one space where I shared my thoughts, no…

TL;DR: Running Recursive's new Flint model in Oh My Pi (OMP) was a looping disaster of telegraphic "caveman speak." But running the exact same user prompt in OpenCode was night-and-day articulate and competent. The contrast sent me digging through session traces and harness prompts—and reconsidering how quickly I'd judged the model. Photo by Alex Moliski on Unsplash Two harnesses, one model At work, I just got a new MacBook Pro with 64GB RAM and an M5 Max CPU. Just in time for news about M6…

While updating Kotoba from a hospital bed, I encountered a problem while presenting a UIKit view from SwitfUI on the iPhone Duo – it totally stumped me. It’s one of those things that make sense once you discover the solution, but is unintuitive until then. The main view in the app is written in SwiftUI and uses a couple of UIViewControllerRepresentable instances as sheets that are presented over the primary user interface. It looked like this: The vertical navigation and scroll indicators were…

Alaa Shehada in The Bridge, Bush Theatre. Photo Craig Fuller As the crow flies, it’s a short journey, crossing the bridge from Palestine to Jordan, but the reality is far different. Alaa is tasked with making the annual border crossing to carry freshly pressed olive oil from his grandfather’s olive grove to his aunt who lives in Jordan. Embarking on what is inevitably an arduous and patience-testing journey, he’s regarded as a hero by his mother, who can’t stop giving him things to take in…

(Just a quick reminder that if you like and appreciate my work, please consider signing up for a paid subscription tier. It genuinely helps keep the lights on. Consider it the equivalent of buying me a coffee every month. I very much appreciate your time and readership!) I've mentioned once or twice that I think the U.S. journalism industry has been completely hollowed out by consolidated corporate power, resulting in a bunch of bloodless trust fund brunchlords who cosplay as journalists but…

You could register accounts on SourceHut instances who disabled registration

In his preface to the Penguin edition of the second volume of Karl Marx's Capital, the translator David Fernbach notes, with palpable frustration that it is a difficult book to read. Those readers who have finished the first volume will know that one of the great triumphs of that book is that it is a work of political economy, and literature. It is full of references to history, legend and

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Bethesda Game Studios are celebrating their fortieth anniversary and, as part of the celebration, Todd Howard has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls VI will be called Sentinel. The game will be the long, long-awaited follow-up to the mega-selling Skyrim (2011), though exactly how long we'll have to wait for it remains unclear, since the teaser does not mention a release date. However, according to reliable reporter Jason Schreier, Bethesda are targeting a late 2028 release window for the…

My friends Austin and Mark recently started doing a podcast focused on comics. Titled, "Short Box Dads," you can find it on Amazon Music, Spotify, and so forth! I just recently finished listening to the fourth episode where the topic of variant and ratio covers was discussed. I quite enjoy SBD as it feels like you're sitting there with Austin and Mark chatting about comics with two enthusiastic guys. I've heard too many podcasts where the host/hosts sound bored with their subject, so I'm glad…

At Gamehole Con this year, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to hang out for extended periods with several notables who work for or with Goodman Games, starting with the Dark Master himself, Joseph Goodman. Joe has long been a fan and supporter of Grognardia and, over the years, he's been kind enough to ask me to do a few small projects for his company, generally introductions or essays that touch on our shared passion for the authors and tales of Appendix N. It's always great to have…

I’ve talked about the Cranes of East Anglia before. When we first saw them, I think they numbered in the thirties, this week, I see someone reporting 100+ at RSPB Ouse Washes near Manea in Cambridgeshire. We’ve seen them in various places over the last few years, but apparently, the species ain’t what it used to be. For more than 150 years, ornithologists have debated the identity of unusually large fossilised crane bones found across Europe. It was assumed they were the remains of an extinct…

scavengedluxury:Sainsbury’s “I’m purrfect” recycled plastic carrier bag, 2012. From the Sainsbury Archive.

I love Om. I love Om’s “Cremation Ghat I.” I hate it that I always think of Michael Scott’s booze cruise dance every time I hear it. 🎵

I'd been running KDE Linux on my Lenovo X280 for a few months and enjoy it simplicity. I have an aversion to Flatpaks and for me it's still the biggest issue with KDE Linux. Dependency bundling is both a blessing and a curse, there's never an issue with mixing versions of libraries or drivers but it also means duplication of these. Removing unused runtimes doesn't (always) work. Sandboxing that is supposedly another benefit is overstated. Apps need alot of permissions, an IDE needs access to…

The most honest review of Meta's smart glasses comes from the people who quietly walk away from whoever's wearing them. The Chaser, Australia's satirical news outfit, captured it in a headline that works like a perfect small machine: "Meta Glasses capture footage of man being avoided for wearing Meta Glasses." It is a joke, and it is also a complete product review. The device records the exact social consequence of owning the device. I'd call that a feedback loop, though I doubt the engineers…

Quoted Don't Bring Home the Bacon? Abdul El-Sayed Compared Beloved Breakfast Meat to Plutonium: 'That's the Stuff We Make Nuclear Weapons Out Of' by Collin Anderson and Alana Goodman (freebeacon.com) Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed laced into one of America's most beloved foods—bacon—comparing the breakfast food to "plutonium" and arguing that both the breakfast meat and the "stuff we make nuclear weapons out of" cause cancer and put public health at risk, according to a…

Wiñay Kawsay isn’t your usual board game about history. For one thing, it’s actually about history — not just a historical topic, but the craft of history, from the biases and egos of historians to the damage done to archaeological sites whenever artifacts are removed from the soil. Today, we’re joined by Alison Collins to discuss the making of her game, what history can and should be, and what it’s like to explore Machu Picchu. Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the…

[This is a guest post by the AHM communications group. — T.] We are happy to announce that the Teaching Working Group of the Association for Human Mathematics wrote a set of recommendations on doctoral advising aimed at departments, advisors, and students. The document contains five guidelines centered on prioritizing human-authored writing, avoiding overreliance on AI, confronting the ethical concerns of AI use, and improving the wellbeing of students, as well as concrete proposals on how to…

3 seconds after the telephone box door is opened the phone now starts to ring. It doesn't stop if you...

I voted at Rosedale School in Austin, Texas. No line!

A civic-minded Macoun

I've been meaning to post this for a while: @brianschrader.com has created a @socialspec.org validator. Check it out: https://brianschrader.com/other-projects/social-spec-validator/?domain=brianschrader.com I love these early stages of an open source software project, when people start showing up and filling in obvious gaps around the project. This is how a community is formed! I've been meaning to add validators to all of the SocialSpec websites, but in some ways this is better than an…

After a long break, I’ve started creating small actions for Drafts again. Let’s see how it turns out.

One way I’ve been able to find more joy in life is by avoiding algorithms. It’s difficult, but thankfully not impossible to avoid them. AlgorithmsAlternativeSpotify or Apple MusicRecords, MP3 Players, RadioSubstackFollowing blogs on Ghost or WordPressInstagramVSCOFacebook or RedditRSS Feeds from your favourite websitesNetflixLetterboxd In my attempt to avoid algorithms (not a resolution, more so just a life goal), I’ve been spending more time trying to find bloggers to follow via RSS. I’m open…

Once, I lied to my teacher when she asked me if I had read Ivanhoe. I’m still a bit sad about that. But when I found this collection about Scottish folklore by Walter Scott, I immediately bought it. *Still in progress* 🏃Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

In the last few months, I’ve installed more and more services on my Raspberry Pi 5. It has “only” 8GB of RAM, but I’m very happy with it. From top, I see that it always has half of its memory available, so for now, I’m not afraid of overloading it. About a week ago, I installed a VaultWarden instance to replace KeePass, and I’m quite happy with it. Yesterday, though, a new challenge arose (exclusively in my head): to find a good alternative to one of the best iOS apps — Bear. For years, I’ve…

Same as for the talks archive counts for the speakers list. And don’t forget: many of them have spoken multiple times. Otherwise it would be even longer (Find the full image here). Reply via Email

I love the Internet Archive, but I don’t love its interface. It’s just… not great all around, homely and confusing. It has some endearing qualities, harking back to the web of the 1990s without endless commerce and incessant growth hacking – Wikipedia feels the same – but it’s unpleasant in many ways, and won’t inspire you the way good interfaces will. (Even the thing I once praised it for falls apart in details.) So this below, once more, is going to be caveated. I have been uploading things…