Photographers are always looking for things to photograph. This can be a problem. It can be a problem because photographs, the really good ones that work as a picture, are not made of things. Subjects are important, but I think we can all agree that even the most amazing subject can take centre stage in what ends up being a boring photograph. A pretty thing does not, ipso facto, make a pretty picture. It’s possible to be blinded by our subjects, so seduced by them that we overlook the absence…

A frequent question of new sailboat owners is what do with their outboard motor when trailering. Is it best to leave it on the boat or is it better to dismount it and haul it in the boat cockpit or …

The book sells itself as a subversion, a pure “Holy Maiden” who is actually a hard drinking, cynical dominatrix. What you actually get is a tedious and incoherent mess that intermittently reminds you the protagonist, Ysabel, is dominant, but requires you to slog 195 pages in for a perfectly adequate sex scene. I feel bad hating this, because it’s incredibly sincere. There is a dominant protagonist who gets to have a constant horny hunger, be messy, and fling herself about like a chaos gremlin.…

Assembling a tour in an unfamiliar area is hard work as a contra dance band (or caller). You need to figure out when the dances are, whether the schedules align, who the bookers are, how far out they like to book, and probably other things I'm forgetting. This is enough work that many tours that would be great just don't happen. One thing I've been on the receiving end of a few times is bookers offering a tour. This is so great, and I wish more series would give it a try! It's generally much…

The ability for models to steer browsers is now past the threshold of being clearly useful. LLM providers have been advertising computer use capabilities for a couple of years1, but in the times I’d tried, the results were more of a clunky curiosity than something I’d actually use on a daily basis. The models used to get stuck quite frequently, had trouble navigating applications that extended beyond their viewport, and would struggle with websites that were even a little outside the normal…

The ability for models to steer browsers is now past the threshold of being clearly useful. LLM providers have been advertising computer use capabilities for a couple of years1, but in the times I’d tried, the results were more of a clunky curiosity than something I’d actually use on a daily basis. The models used to get stuck quite frequently, had trouble navigating applications that extended beyond their viewport, and would struggle with websites that were even a little outside the normal…

Hi, welcome to this write-up for the 3. Pulling Focus challenge from Bellingcat. Here you can see my thought processes and what steps I took to get to the answer, but of course there are many different ways of reaching the same results. First lookWe've received a picture made by Aiganysh while travelling by car, so it's a bit blurry from movement. In the middle of the landscape is a building, and it's our task to find out what that building is being used for. I first inspected the photograph…

Welp, October’s over and 2026 is really hurtling to a close. Have you had a good month? October in general: October’s been a busy month for a lot of folks in tech or tech-adjacent roles, with some scary website vulnerabilities… but I still found plenty of time for gaming, reading and crochet, and I’ve even finally got back to cycling after a year without thanks to the wrist injury I sustained in August 2025. Speaking of crochet, it’s time to show off my progress! I’ve now finished the main body…

I want to bathe in starsLook up and cryI want to travel the worldExpand my mindI want to hold you at nightBodies entwineI want to die in my sleepFrom dream to dream

dry fit firstI did a dry fit first to make sure the aprons had the correct inset and that the dowels were the right length. Got it glued and cooking after I had double, triple checked it three times.hmm.......The dowels for the long aprons I left long because there wasn't room for the two apron dowels to bypass each other. Left the long aprons long because they carry/span more then the short ones will. Even at that the short aprons still have a 5/8" long dowel length in the dowel hole.glued I…

Webrings were one of those ideas that made perfect sense on the early web and then largely disappeared once search engines got better. The basic idea was simple. A group of websites covering a similar subject joined together, each site placed a small navigation block on its page, and visitors could move from one member site to the next. In a time when finding good sites was often harder than reaching them, a webring gave people a way to explore a subject without depending entirely on a search…

If Mark Rothko’s paintings represent a visual approach to the condition of music, then Samuel Beckett’s poems, plays and prose are the literary equivalent. Not just the music of words: a music suggested by the words, beyond them yet intrinsic to their sounds and rhythms. Stirrings Still was Beckett’s last piece of prose: nine pages, about 2,500 words, written between 1983 and 1987, which means it was finished two years before his death. And that’s what it seems to evoke: a man quietly…

The oldest sample in writing of Old Dutch happens to be scrawled in the margin of a manuscript stored in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The manuscript in which it sits is a copy of the Homilies of Ælfric of Eynsham.Ælfric (c. 955 – c. 1010) was English and educated as a Benedictine. When the abbey of Cerne was finished, Ælfric was sent to teach the Benedictine monks there. While there he became friends with the abbey's chief benefactor, the ealdorman Æthelmær the Stout, and Æthelmær's father,…

On Trappings of Sleep, the latest release from former ECM producer Sun Chung’s Red Hook imprint, every musical phrase bears record of an intercepted confidence. Caroline Davis’s alto saxophone and electronics extend the body into that disruption, while Grey Mcmurray’s guitar illuminates the intervening dark. Qasim Naqvi approaches the drums with an alertness that makes even the smallest quiver consequential. Together, they suggest an observatory of reflection. Recorded in Brooklyn in May 2025,…

I spend part of the morning writing a few paragraphs in my diary, much like my uncle and grandfather did. They wrote about the weather, the price of pigs at market, who visited and what work was done that day. I write about the weather, sleep, and whatever negativity or problems I'm carrying, of which there has been much. Lately, perhaps less so.One habit I like is reviewing past entries from the same day a year or twelve years prior. Sometimes these entries have pictures, often of where we…

A good friend has a term he uses when he coaches people on how to be a better direct report. He calls it “show the ramp.” The idea is simple. Don’t go from “everything is okay” one day to blindsiding your manager the next. Showing the ramp means your manager can see you move from okay, to here are some reasons to be upset, to actually being upset. It gives them a chance to react while there’s still time to do something about it. People value predictability. A problem that goes from calm to…

Expand imageStill wary of every single sound in the house I’m back home in Ghaziabad as of this Saturday, and will be for the next 3 weeks. Weeknotes might be a little less exciting going forward for that reason, also because a little too much happened this week :) Personal I’m in petting distance of Ellie again! She’s been overjoyed at the prospect and has spent a considerable amount of time in my bed as I caught up on sleep. She still refuses to be held by anyone while sleeping but with how…

November began in Thomas Hood mode – 'No sun – no moon! No morn – no noon', etc. However, the morning fog gradually thinned, and suddenly the sun came through – glorious mellow sunlight, illuminating the beautiful autumn colours. There is something special about sunshine in November, as Edward Thomas knew – THERE'S nothing like the sun as the year dies,Kind as it can be, this world being made so,To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,To all things that it touches except snow,Whether…

As of today, I've been on the Mastodon social network for 10 years. I think that deserves a little reflection and celebration. Post by @Edent@mastodon.social View on Mastodon Social networks often launch in a blaze of glory but limp out of existence within a year or so0. How many services have you signed up to, only to gradually drift away from? If you're anything like me1, your password manager is a graveyard of unloved services and your MFA app is filled with icons of websites you barely…

From her talk at Oblong books in Rhinebeck NY October 2026

Pagecord has gone invite-only for November as an experiment to reduce spam and improve the signal to noise ratio of sites on the platform. The invitation gate will make the acquisition funnel worse, but it's already pretty terrible so I don't mind. If you're a happy customer, please continue to spread the good word about Pagecord on your blog, or on your social media network of choice. It really makes a difference!

We continued our holiday at Center Parcs in De Haan, Belgium. We kept our boys busy. As well as daily swims/slides in the Aqua Mondo swimming pool, soft play, mini golf, foot-golf, badminton, and table tennis, they had workshops for making binoculars, lanterns and pizzas. There was a Halloween pool party (also for reluctant parents) where staff dressed up as zombies, ghosts and blood-soaked clowns, and half-chased swimmers around the pool with fake knives and chainsaws. Our children loved it. I…

The release of Paul Greengrass' film The Uprising about the events of the 1381 English Peasants' Revolt have spurred me to read, or reread a number of works that I last read when writing "Kill all the Gentlemen". Perhaps the greatest pleasure however has been reading A.K. Blakemore's new novel Doom Painting which tells the story of the rising through the experiences of a number of key figures,

My favourite month of the year has finally arrived! It is officially the month to celebrate all things Film Noir. Let me know what you’ve got lined up to watch. I hope you all enjoy your walk down those dark and twisty alleyways. I’ve decided to dust off my Noir archives and share a few reviews and articles. Would love to get your thoughts on these. I hope you all also enjoy my recent interview with the founder of the UK’s only Film Noir Festival. Film Noir Fest 2026 Interview Cry Of The…

Time-change day. It’s cold and very still. A lone goose flies past the half moon, honking.

Yesterday saw the first of the new, Gen-Z-led protests in Germany. As expected and most likely planned, the police escalated quickly and used excessive force against mostly young and very young people on the street. A society that sends its police to beat up its pupils, apprentices, and students is severely broken. I wonder whether … Continue reading GenZ Regelt

Celebrating 10 million jabs I've been spending some time this weekend working on a mission patch for RAVS (record a vaccination). So instead of normal weeknotes, I'm going to share progress on that. RAVS has recently reached a big milestone – 10 million vaccinations have been recorded using our service! RAVS reached 1 million back in January 2025, so that's a big leap. Choosing a design I asked the team for ideas a few weeks ago. Some of the team used AI to bring their ideas to life, I then…

Daily Drawing 1036

Given the vast numbers of commuters that the Long Island Railroad carries, It’s easy to forget that it also carries freight. From a couple of years ago, a view of tracks elevated above Glendale, Queens, as a freight train with a much-grafittied hopper car goes by some brick bow-front rowhouses: