November Writing Month: Haiku Project⁠§There are only 58 days before the end of 2026, and before we reach December there’s November which is National #WritingMonth! Created by the talented Amin, it is a project that promotes writing (of all types). There’s a buddy system where you can see each other’s projects and goal progress. If you want to add me as your buddy, send a request from my Writing Month profile! I have decided on a low pressure project for November: A Haiku Habit, where my goal…

A boxed set of novels published by Eerdmans in 1981. Not something I own, unfortunately. A couple of years ago I decided to read in order all seven of Charles Williams’ supernatural thrillers: War in Heaven (1930), Many Dimensions (1930), The Place of the Lion (1931), The Greater Trumps (1932), Shadows of Ecstasy (1933), Descent into Hell (1937) and All Hallows’ Eve (1945). The plan foundered at the end of Shadows of Ecstasy when I felt in need of a break from Williams’ fiction but this week…

This post does not represent the opinions of any current, past or future employers. These are my words, mine only. You do not know me at work. Either way, I’m just a dragon, rawr rawr… So… A year and a half ago (July 2025), I wrote a sad toot. I was in the middle of a huge anxiety spike, at work, in the middle of the open-space I am working in, with colleagues around me. Overall, the day was already quite bad, and during a casual conversation, my team leader misgendered me by accident (despite…

Bushby has walked approximately 36,000 miles (58,000km), breaking the record for the longest unbroken foot journey and far exceeding the 25,000-mile circumference of the world. When he gets home he will be the first person to have walked continuously across the world, visiting 29 countries. Now that’s a way to spend a life. 28 years, from 1998 to 2026, from Chile to the North of England. “I took death seriously. You’re dying, you’ve got one life, and what are you going to do with it? That…

Disclaimer: While this post is about the “Black on Black” keycap set specifically, it is also a more general review of the PBS profile. In the Q3 2026 update I mentioned the set of PBS Black on Black, which has been on my Kunai ever since. I said back then that I might write a dedicated review once I could better judge it over a longer period of time. A year and a half earlier, in the Q1 2025 update, I had complained about the lack of textured PBT keycaps in the KAM profile and expressed my…

It's my blog and I can whine if I want to rules apply.I think Ghost, the CMS I use to run this blog, requiring a $29USD/month plan to use a custom theme is too much and it should be included in the base $15USD/month plan.See Ghost pricing for more specifics.I understand there's some work involved in helping support custom themes. And a theme designer, such as Themex Studio for example, may not give much support and force users to rely on Ghost's support which puts more strain on Ghost's support…

Three years ago I wrote, Just Looking In The Rear View Mirror, which I think is one of my better essays. Here is a paragraph that I think holds up: The current obsession with polarization means more interest is in the argument rather than progress. I am not sure either side really wants progress because whenever either one has the ability to make progress disagreements within their ranks prevents it from happening. Polarization is focused on getting one’s way and beating the other and lost is…

NHS appointments problems worth owningFollowing the second (unofficial) design history post on my time working with a team looking to bring more appointments into the NHS App, I felt there was a lot I didn't tap into, especially where next?Here's a bit of a brain dump. This pulls together thoughts, information, and documents I've come across over the months: where things stand, what people say goes wrong, and where a bit of effort might pay off, especially given how little money and time local…

The lifeblood of every internet marketing strategy involves content. All content starts as an idea. Most ideas are not great. They’re also cheap; AI can generate 10 ideas in seconds. People can also generate ideas, and though it may take longer, they can end up with more unique, unusual, results. It takes courage to come up with many bad ideas and move on to the next one. Filtering through these ideas is what takes precious time and energy. It’s a skill that requires taste and judgment. Good…

There’s been a lot of demand for this, and today it finally went live! If you search the App Store for Neo Pocket, it should come up. But the link is here in case: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6816721843 Probably the coolest thing about the App Store page is you can see the first couple paragraphs of next year’s new Silo novel. ;) My agent hasn’t even seen these pages yet! The post NEO on the iOS Store! appeared first on Hugh Howey.

The trees are all but bear, the soft rain is here today, and the chill has set in warning of nasty things to come with frost warnings and snow squalls up north. Yes, already. Here are the last of my autumn photos. No crisp leaves to crunch here, they were all slick and wet …

A quair is a Scots word, the equivalent of quire, usually without the numerical sense of 24 or 25 sheets of paper. It’s a dictionary word, not one you’re going to meet coming down the Galapark Road. It just means a bunch of pages, thus a book. Perhaps the most renowned one is The Kingis Quair, a long poem by King James I written when he was in captivity in England in 1406. It starts: Heigh in the hevynnis figure circulereThe rody sterres twynklyng as the fyre,And, in Aquary, Citherea the…

Nominations are open for this year’s Indie Ink Awards! Corners of the Deep Dark is eligible: the novel is listed on Indie Story Geek, Cryptic Plumage Press is a solo imprint, and neither I nor cover artist Addison Smith use any so-called AI in our workflow. So if you enjoyed the book and feel like it’s a good fit for one of the award categories, please do consider nominating it this November. Cover art by Addison Smith.

by Victoria Lucas The Book OK, that's done. The book I worked on since 1969 and previewed in the Galactic Journey of May 22, 1969, with rights activist Jeff Poland, is finally in print. Paperback, yes: it sure is a small thing for so much work. Oh, and I used a pseudonym I have used … Continue reading [November 2, 1971] It's Over–both the book and the summer → The post [November 2, 1971] It's Over–both the book and the summer appeared first on Galactic Journey.

What a great season!!! 00:00 Intro 01:10 Unfinished – The Elusive Samurai Season 2 02:10 Trash The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System From Overshadowed to Overpowered: Second Reincarnation of a Talentless Sage The Ogre’s Bride Sparks of Tomorrow That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime S4 09:28 Fine BLACK TORCH The Duke’s Son Claims He Won’t Love Me Yet Showers Me with Adoration The Forsaken Saintess and Her Foodie Roadtrip in Another World Hana-Kimi Season 2 I Became a Legend…

There Is No Antimemetics Divisionby qntmGenres: Horror, Science Fiction Pages: 275 Rating: Synopsis: Humanity is under assault by malevolent "antimemes" – ideas that attack memory, identity, and the fabric of reality itself – in this wickedly brain-bending tale of science-fiction horror, an entirely reimagined and expanded version of the beloved online novel. They're all around us, hiding in plain sight. One could be in the room with you, now, just to your left. You could be seeing it right now…

Classic string boards labelled “Human Murder Board,” “Map with Pins,” and “Clues” appear in VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026). ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲ VisionQuest s01e04 (Disney+, 2026) ▲…

This has been a thing for years now. It's cute and weird and also annoying. There's no stopping her. When she hears the exercise mat being rolled out, she comes running from wherever she was and stands there, waiting for me to bump my head against her back over and over again. Perhaps she's like one of those dogs that help people having seizures avoid hitting their heads on the floor?

Back when I lived in Portland, OR, every year around this time I would venture out to southwest Washington to the old grist mill on Cedar Creek. It’s been there since 1876 and volunteers still run it as a working museum. The covered wooden bridge, the mill building and the aqueduct overgrown with moss make a great foreground for the fall colors of the forest around them.Since moving up to the Seattle area I haven’t found an equivalent close by, and now with little kids don’t have the time to go…

I rolled back my biggest changes and went “back to basics” — for me anyway. This is a quick video just talking through what changed and what I did to fix it. Most of the items listed in the video: Owl Paper Co B6 6-month planner A6 Live | Plan | Dream® Notebook by Lauren Phelps Designs Washi Wallet Aura Estelle 2027 B6 Daily Magnet Planner Pens: Staedtler Triplus Fineliner Marvy Le Pen Flex Sakura BallSign (Discontinued) Pilot JuiceUp Iconic Mild Gel pen Inks: PenBBS #224 Leo Tolstoy HTF Kaweco…

Review by Sandre the Giant Released: 18th September 2026 Originally published here: https://thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/krallice-scour-order/ I spent a lot of time with New York’s progressive black metal kingpins Krallice in the late 2000s and early 2010s, indulging in their experimental and expansive take on a genre that is notorious for its rigidity at times, and I have a great fondness for that 09-15 era of the band. But like many bands of that time, I fell behind on their work for a…

Movies Not a lot of movies during this period, I basically skipped all of September. I am likely to end up with a much lower total number of movies watched this year compared to the last year and I keep having to remind myself that it's fine, I'm not a corporation bound by "line must go up"! A Time to Kill (1996) Watched on 2026-10-11: ★★★ A Time to Kill (1996) Decided to watch this because it was leaving Netflix soon and I hadn't seen anything John Grisham in a while. I was not expecting it to…

I’m seeing a new class of software emerging, which I call Open Intent Software (OIS). Open intent means software shipped as a description of what it would do, and instructions for a coding agent to build it. For a long time we basically had two types of software to work with: closed source and open source software. Closed source is usually paid, an individual or more often a company developing the software, packaging it for certain platforms and cases, and maintaining various services around…

In past elections I’ve given substantial money to congressional candidates, mostly for close races. I didn’t donate to politicians much this year. Just one local race and one in Texas after Talarico won the primary. I stopped because of overwhelming cynicism. The crushing awfulness of the corruption of the Trump era. The industrialized grift of Democratic fundraising. (Over 80% of donations to the aggressive PACs goes to fundraising expenses.) My reward for donating is overwhelming spam on my…

This practical guide tells you what to pay attention to when migrating to Python 3.15. This short article walks you through the main things to keep in mind when migrating your code to Python 3.15: backwards-compatible features: features released in 3.15 that you can start using because they're backwards compatible backwards-incompatible features: features released in 3.15 that you can only start using if your project only targets Python 3.15+ features that are now 100% supported: features…

Let me start by saying I am not bashing marriage. I honestly believe it is the best thing for some people. I have friends who have been married for decades and seem happy and in love. I’ve discovered that it isn’t the life I want for myself. I’ve been married more than once, and I spent a long time trying to make that life work. There were reasons I stayed, including obligation and wanting to be there for my kids. I’m not going to revisit the details here. This is simply, as is everything on…

Mark Gurman, in his Power On newsletter, writing about the new MacBook Pro and how Apple launched it: Adding touch to that should have been treated as the biggest change to the Mac in more than half a decade. Instead, Apple presented it as more of a routine upgrade — rather than an opportunity to build something new. The updated models are significantly lighter and slightly thinner, with better heat management and a redesigned cooling system. Yet they look much like the tried-and-true 2021…

Shit is getting real, people: Apple Spotify YouTube

There has been some discourse about hirelings. I felt this discussion leaned more towards "NPCs you recruit to fight alongside you" - i.e. men-at-arms (hirelings) or henchman (different than hirelings). I've already written about henchman in AD&D (and assassins and spies, kind of, cartographers, briefly, and sages - all of whom are "expert" hirelings), so I thought I'd write something about all the other hirelings one can hire in AD&D.Hirelings are different than henchmen. Henchmen are…