Last night's weekly My Life in Gaming stream showcased an exciting new feature on the RetroTINK-4K scaler—CRT curvature, bezels, glow, etc. Here are some of the notes from the initial 1.99.7 experimental firmware version of the RetroTINK software (Mike Chi is already on 1.99.9 as of November 1, 2026). Minor modifications to scaler to add tube curvature (spherical and cylindrical), glass glow / scatter, a bezel with reflections, tube sag / breathing and corner misconvergence 4K Pro also adds…

After a vacation with hundreds of snapshots daily, I took only a single photo today… with a phone… and it was for check-in on Foursquare Swarm. This app that lets you record and share your location was recently sold to an advertising firm, so I don’t know what the future holds. In many ways, Swarm is the most thorough record of my life (outside of this journal). Alas, I will keep taking photos wherever I go, whether to make note of location or the pumpkinification of foodstuffs. Currently…

Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou, aka Every Frame a Painting, are back at it. Well, they will be back at it. At the end of September the iconic essayist duo made the announcement on their Patreon: For the last 9 months, we’ve been doing a research project where we compare the South Korean film industry to the Canadian one. The end result is a 60-minute talk that will premiere at VIFF this Saturday October 3rd. But very specifically for you, Patreon supporters: we're working on some NEW PROJECTS. This…

Quoted Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia Anime Casts Sumo Wrestlers Tamawashi, Tamashoho by Crystalyn Hodgkins (Anime News Network) Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia, the television anime of Tomato Soup's A Witch's Life in Mongol (Tenmaku no Jādūgar) manga, has cast Mongolian wrestlers Tamawashi and Tamashoho (full names Ichirō Tamawashi and Manpei Tamashōhō) in the series. Both are active professional sumo wrestlers and are from the Kataonami stable. Tamawashi will voice Genghis Khan, the founder of…

The bot had planned for me to do 10 reps each set in the first group but I got nowhere near. I think I’m seeing the effects of lifting less, still trying to have my body heal. My elbows both are twinged now on the medial dorsal part between my ulna and humerus. My right side even at rest, when I put pressure on it. But my left side was new today, painful when I was doing tricep kickbacks. Unknown location (probably inside)

Happenings This week I was off work with the kids while my wife was at work. Did pumpkin carving with the kids. This was more-or-less my first pumpkin experience, since I never did Halloween growing up, and have never though to do it as an adult. I helped my eldest carve out a simple face he’d drawn on the pumpkin, and my youngest put some stickers on his (with a lot of daddy help). Took them to a softplay barn. The two young women staffing the place were former students of mine so it was nice…

Nintendo published the latest Ask the Developer interview series with this run focusing on the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. There are plenty of tidbits, but my favorite some of the reasoning behind remaking the game. Here is series producer Eiji Aonuma: "Many of the team members who work alongside me on Legend of Zelda games today have only experienced developing the more recent titles. That led me to wonder, 'Do they truly understand just how significant The Legend of Zelda:…

In about a month I will be replacing my comfortable routine of work, gigs and gym with the unpredictability of travel. I won’t be diving head first into the realm of travel but testing the waters with volunteer work in Serbia for 3 months. I will be joining other activists in helping People on the Move(POM)/migrants as the attempt to find a better life in the EU. After that the plan is to get on my bicycle and pedal in the opposite direction to the people I have tried to help towards Cambodia.…

As human knowledge fragments into trillions of data-points hidden in unreadable databases, there’s a sense of something — legibility, coherence, correlation — dissolving or liquefying. In a very interesting article, Fear of oozification, the consultant Venkatesh Rao, clarifies this process by naming it, and he charts a path to help us learn “how to stop worrying, and learn to love the ooze”. Oozification? What are you talking about? Well, here’s Venkatash’s working definition: “Oozification is…

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others. Rebecca Birrell’s novel Venus, Vanishing is an encompassing and unsettling debut. Booklist wrote of the book: “The literary debut from art historian Birrell magnificently reimagines Jewish…

Guys, a bad day of fishing beats a good day of yard work. I generally agree, but after my trip to the Sipsey Tailrace last Tuesday, I might add a little footnote: It's even better when you actually catch a fish! On this particular outing, I managed to do what every fisherman hopes to avoid but eventually experiences — I got skunked! Not a single fish landed, and not even a solid hit to give me a little encouragement. But before anyone questions my fishing abilities, let's look at what I was up…

Title: Toronto in the Seventies Author: Brian Condron Publisher: Figure 1 Publishing Pages: 144 The 1970s in Toronto were heady days of growth and optimism. With new additions to the skyline including the CN Tower and new places to gather like the Eaton Centre, the city began shifting away from its meatpacking and smoke-belching industry and transforming into a bustling modern metropolis. Social change and immigration followed apace, and “Toronto the Good” shed its puritan reputation and…

After several discussions with fellow software developers about whether we could truly “let go” and trust LLM-generated code, and a high-profile quality facepalm case, I've been reflecting on my thoughts on the matter. More often than not, I end up advocating for giving LLMs a chance, but I wouldn't count myself as a hyped-up AI booster. At least I wouldn't want to count myself as an unrealistic Kool-Aid drinker. I don't think LLMs are so good at generating code that we can just trust them and…

A recent paper argues that frontier LLMs can work with neural network weights directly. This seems superhuman, but it isn’t. The paper shows that GPT-6 Astra can take a small neural network and interact with its weights directly, “well past what we’d expect from humans or conventional algorithms”. Specifically, Astra was able to identify what games a small network1 was trained to play just by looking at the weights, and even tweak the weights itself. The most impressive result is Astra…

Title: This Is For Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web Author: Tim Berners-Lee Publisher: Picador Pages: 400 Since its invention in 1989, the World Wide Web has changed everything—transforming humanity into the first digital species. Through the web, we live, work, dream, quarrel, and connect. It has launched a new era of creativity and collaboration while unleashing powerful forces that imperil truth and privacy and polarize public debate. As artificial intelligence…

Remember that 90s dance hit Santa Maria? That's going round and round in my head now.There were more neat newly laid gardens over the top of the station, chopping the street in half so that traffic was less of a priority. Which is how it should be, of course.This was a less charming end of Milan, a bit more bland and corporate. The buildings were newer - probably built with one eye on that handy M4 link - and well-appointed but they were filler. Density for the sake of it. A cross at the road…

Rockwell Kent illustration of Moby Dick from the 1930 trade edition, as sold by MFLibra I’m trying to remember what hit me this morning that made me wonder about Moby Dick told from the perspective of the whale, but it’s something that’s come up before. Google feels like it’s rapidly losing its credibility for making factual statements, but if there’s one thing this blog is about, it’s subjectivity, and me trying to overcome the limitations of my knowledge. So I can say that a quick search of…

"The Herring Gull's World" It’s been ages since I was this excited to receive a book in the post. It’s the 1953 book by Niko Tinbergen on gull society. A beautiful object, and a great writer.Don’t take my word for it:Not only one of the most exciting books for the birdwatcher that has ever been published, but also one that could with advantage be read by politicians and voters who have never watched a bird in their life. A thorough and fascinating study of the social life of a very social bird.…

it's too early no one is awake but me I crawl under your blanket for safety you pull me closer still deep in sleep I want to wake you but won't I'll wait to see how you want to wake me

Yellow House – Bisbee, AZ – Fujifilm X-T5 – Astia Azure Astia is named after Fujichrome Astia, a color reversal (slide) film that was known for its low contrast, subdued saturation, and excellent skin tones. It was particularly popular among portrait and fashion photographers; however, the Astia Film Simulation is notably divergent from the film it was named after. What Fujifilm did instead is create what they consider to be an idealized version of Astia, with more vibrant colors and stronger…

Another collection of random bits that wouldn’t make very substantial posts on their own (the “V” is ‘five,’ not ‘vee’ — there have been four previous such posts): 1) My wife and I were watching a Morse episode last night — I think it was “Deadly Slumber” — and outside one of the pubs Morse and Lewis visited was a sign that said FREE HOUSE. I’m sure every Brit knows what this is, but I had to look it up: free house in British English noun British a public house not bound to sell only one…

Recently I acquired an Elegoo 3D printer from a friend. While I’ve never got interested in 3d printing enough that made me go ahead and buy one, there were certainly projects in the back of my head, just waiting for the right opportunity. One of them was printing some of the objects I modeled for my Shadertoy shaders. The whole challenge was understanding how to convert SDFs into actual meshes that could get sliced and printed. In this text I’m describing my process going through that. Night…

David McCullough loved to read. He also liked to tell people about what he read and the books that impacted his life and style as a writer the most. History Matters, a collection of his speeches and writings published by his daughter, is filled with such references. The last few chapters are specifically dedicated to the books that influenced him the most, but there are such references and recommendations scattered throughout the entire book. So I went through the book and collected a list of…

So as a backstory, I discovered Kev Quirk's PureBlog some months ago and gave it a run on one of my websites because I liked the simplicity, yet the powerful features Kev put into his product. Then I got sidelined with other projects and while I didn't forget PureBlog, it sort of fell off my radar. But after reading some of his blog posts recently on Bubbles and realizing this site needed an overhaul (A. to get away from WordPress, B. to get me back interested in posting here) I decided to spin…

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2026. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $114.5 billion, up 12 percent year over year. Company gross margin was 47.9 percent, including a favorable impact of approximately 1 percentage point from tariff refunds. Diluted earnings per share was $2.10, up 14 percent year over year, and included a favorable impact of $0.05 from tariff refunds. For comparison, Q3 2026 (last quarter) and Q4 2025 (this…

If you are helping build something that might kill everyone, maybe stop doing that. Ideally, when you do stop, tell everyone else to also stop building it. That is certainly the obvious, first-level thing to do. You need a damn good reason to decide that no, actually you should keep building the thing that might kill everyone. Scott Alexander is worried too many people are insisting upon this too loudly. He comes out against a strategy focused on getting people to stop. I disagree. I think many…

🎃 Halloween came and went. No trick-or-treating (as this is Japan), but Leo dressed up as Woody from Toy Story and wore it to English class. The costume we bought years ago finally fit him 😀.🥋 I saw Street Fighter with Leo –in Japanese. If we had watched it last week we could have seen it at my local theater in English, but alas. I don't think anyone goes in to a Street Fighter movie for the story, you go for action, and on that it delivered. And it's setup for a sequel as well. It took place…

Only image I took today. It is funny, I thought I might need a filler tonight, so let's take an image of the graffiti practice wall, just in case I don't get anything else. Well, here we are.

Writing a post about the start of Michaelmas term has been on my to-do list for three weeks. I’ve been too busy to write about how busy I am. However, the weather today – an autumnal mix of sun, clouds, and light rain – inspired me to take a few photos. Here they are. Gibbs’ Building from the Porter’s Lodge Gibbs’ Building and the King’s College Chapel I work in Gibbs’ Building, directly across from the Porter’s Lodge which is the College’s front entrance. My office is in G2: The G staircase is…

I was served a cup of Earl Grey in a café recently; Picard's brew of choice, if memory serves. I rather enjoyed it so I bought a box from Twinings and they have a story on the side where they claim to have invented it. The blend was put together on the instruction of the then Prime Minister of England, Earl Grey, who liked it so much he gave his name to it. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. Thanks for reading this post via RSS! Let me know your thoughts by sending me an email: rss@thomasrigby.com.