The topic for Day 9 of The Daily Dish is Favorite Noir. I’ll give you three chances to guess what mine is, and the first two don’t count! Without question or hesitation, Double Indemnity (1944) will forever be my favorite noir – the one I’ve watched the most, the one I can quote the best, the one I’d recommend to any noir novice. It’s just perfect, for my money. It’s got an opening that grabs you with a vise-like grip, standout performances from stars Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and…

The Planned Parenthood Book Sale is held in September every year, and we have attended the sale for many years. The sale lasts ten days, and we go five times. This year, as usual, I bought far too many books. I noticed that the prices were generally higher this year, especially for more current books. That makes sense, but I was surprised. It did not impact how many books I bought; I consider the money I spend at the sale a donation to Planned Parenthood. In this post, I am featuring six of the…

A (not so serious) review of five fonts I had to install to write this review, and then uninstall again. The things I do for the fine people who read this blog. By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-11-09.

As you know, I am in a race with the Grim Reaper, trying to read at least one story from each issue of Weird Tales before I shuffle off this mortal coil. My diet today consisted of peanut butter cups and corn chips, so probably today the Reaper is gaining on me, but I promise to eat yogurt and broccoli tomorrow.Most of the time, when I look at the table of contents of an issue of Farnsworth Wright's essential contribution to the history of speculative fiction, I see familiar names and can read…

caught a spectacular sunset at Ocean Beach in San Francisco What a week!!! Halloween 👻, time change 🕘💥, the election 🌊, two appointments 🗓️, two films in theater 🎥, and a trip to California to see my fam ✈️ Win of the week: blue tsunami!!!!!* So much better than I let myself hope for. Time for accountability: impeachment, corruption investigations, disbarments, I want it all. We let the elected official insurrectionists off the hook last time, afraid of appearing politically biased, and look…

I really enjoy programming with AI agents. This is the closest I’ve ever come to having magical superpowers. Today’s AI is already smart, capable, resourceful and agentic enough to bring me joy. This post is about the flip side of that: for most people I know, this fun turns into a death march. We have these powerful tools, but we feel more exhausted and overworked than ever. We ship more, but enjoy it less. Why is that? What can we do about it? Side Effects Context Switching. Context switching…

Near Blankenburg there are these ancient sand caves were people used to live in, long long ago. We didn't expect anything like this. Never heard about them before which made us astound even more.

The “this meets that” premise feels more like a hat on a hat.

Tucked into a brief section at the back of The Poems of Edmund Blunden (Cobden-Sanderson, 1930) titled “Occasional Pieces” is “Under a Thousand Words,” a poem that seems at first to have little to do with Blunden’s service in the Great War. At age nineteen, Blunden was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment. He served for almost two years on the Western Front, took part in the engagements at Ypres and the Somme, and was awarded the Military Cross. “‘A thousand words on…

Perfume PosseBest laid plans So, I was in town for a haircut this past week and planned to try Mitsouko EdP and the reissued Diors. Alas, no. A good haircut, a visit to the jeweller to look into a repair, a couple of exemplary… Continue Reading → Perfume PosseBest laid plans

STUFF I'VE WRITTENDecisions you can stand on. The last of four weeks on values, and the step that does not work on your own.From the Archive: A door, not an answer. From August, the first time I mentioned any of this out loud.STUFF I'M READINGIrrational decisions. The decisions everyone approves of keep you where you are. He left a CEO job with no plan when the board asked for a three year one.When giving up teaches you more than persevering ever could. Quitting shows you what you are made of…

Preorder Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster! Your notes only serve you. Don’t prep your notes as though you’re writing for publication. Write what you need to run your next game. I think there are two common mistakes GMs make when they think about preparing their games. First, some GMs look at published adventures as examples of what their prep should look like. Second, some GMs write their prep material with the idea that they might publish it for other GMs. In both cases, writing your session notes…

It Was a Quarter-Century Flood The scale of the Democrats' victory is still revealing itself. It is massive. Let's look at the macro aspects now. We will discuss individual winners and losers later this week. The AP has now called 254 House seats for the Democrats and 162 for the Republicans, with 19 still too close to call yet. The Democrats are likely to hit 260 seats. Click here for full story

Fremantle2026 November 9 (Monday), 1:57PM· genealogy · Wikimedia · WikiTree · Andy Mabbett has an interesting post (from 2026-11-08) about how to add war memorials to Wikimedia Commons, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, and WikiTree. I think these four sites are really useful for family and local historians to use. There's so much incidental research that happens while you're digging into your main topic, and it's good to put it somewhere so it can help other people. For example, this morning I uploaded…

The account of the dukes Obelerius and Beatus, from the "Istoria Veneticorum" by John the Deacon.

Uncommon Web “a field guide to stylistically unusual web libraries” 462 live demos of stylistically unusual web libraries: dither shaders, DOM-free text layout, retro OS stylesheets, hand-drawn charts, WebGL, motion and live-coding. [ 📌sachaa ] Normal Tools “Useful online tools, no nonsense” 193 focused calculators, converters, checkers, generators, and hardware tests. No account, no download, and no clutter. [ 📌koolinus ]

For once at a show, I had a shopping list. OK, it was "Battery Boxes", but at least there was a plan. A couple of work projects require them, and I knew Component Shop had a stand - although it took me a couple of circuits to spot them!While waiting, I was taken by a long, flexible LED, and it was too cheap to say no to. Once I've fired it up, I'll post on here. Talking of cheap, one trader had brass section at 2012 prices, so I stocked up. How this stuff was still on the stand after four days…

As noted at the start of this, there will be days when I do nothing. Today is one of those days. I went out birding and my entire evening (it is 10:21 p.m. as I type this) was filled with strata-related nonsense, so no time to do anything but ponder. I have pondered. A little.

I once had a friend who, every year on his birthday, would make a list of things he liked and disliked. He'd compare it to the previous year's list as a way of keeping track of what genuinely interested him, rather than continuing to pursue something simply because he'd always enjoyed it. I always thought this was a great way to take stock of yourself. It's easy to continue chasing old dreams or holding on to interests that no longer mean as much to you as they once did. Sometimes we become so…

Watched a buncha jerma lately (as usual) finally got to the part of his nopixel rp streams where his permadeath character, Gil Washington, dies. It's so easy to make me cry, but damn. His character's two best friends were there too, Baron and Carlos. I'm curious how this shapes their characters and the rest of the server. RIP Gil, may heaven be clean and safe <3

It’s a rare treat. Maybe it’s that lazy Sunday with a hot coffee, fat paper, and dusty sunlight beaming through the windows. Or maybe it’s the Friday sick day where you leave the glasses on, tie the ponytail up, and lounge around in a robe watching soaps with the cat. Or maybe it’s Mother’s Day after breakfast cuddling up with the kids watching movies before ordering pizza for dinner. Sure, sometimes you wake up without firm plans to stay in your pajamas all day. Maybe you have some errands, a…

For those who aren’t on the Hugo forums, there was great post about upgrading themes to 0.146.0+.

Found a neat book at the library: the Everyman’s Libary edition of Essays by George Orwell. Over 1300 pages… it took awhile. Then I read it again, taking notes this time. Orwell is one of my favorite writers– every couple of years I re-read A Collection of Essays, a mere 300-page book. If you have a moderate interest in Orwell, read that one– every essay is good. It’s a little odd that reading Orwell is so relaxing. I expect he’d be surprised himself… he was used to everyone disagreeing with…

YouTube updated its mobile app on Android and iOS so that Subscriptions is no longer in the bottom bar. Why?? Subscriptions has been in the bottom bar since 2017. Always visible and easy to get to. Now Subscriptions is at the top of the Home tab. Except when it isn’t, because when I first open the app, Subscriptions is hidden. I have to scroll down to make Subscriptions appear at the top. Terrible user experience.

"I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" by Meat Loaf Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Post one of your favorite ballads. I like this one because my wife likes it. View Mandaris's Crucial Tracks profile Listen to my Apple Music playlist

Here I am back on Pika. I’ve been changing around a bit lately trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. Good news is I decided not to decide. What I do know is I need this thing. So here I am. Banteay Srei Temple And that’s a nice Angkor temple I happen to love.

I make too many mashed potatoes on purpose. It's one of the few things I deliberately overproduce, along with dirty laundry and unfinished projects. A bowl of cold mashed potatoes in the fridge doesn't look like much. In fact, after a couple of days it looks considerably less appealing than it did when it was...Read More

I was interviewed by Professor Bokai Yao at Peking University on philosophy, mathematics, and the mysteries of infinity. The interview took place 22 July 2026 on the PKU campus, where I have been appointed as Guest Chair Professor for 2026-2028, … Continue reading →

Subway Interior, NY Transit Museum – New York, New York I’ve mentioned a few times how I generally don’t like art museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I included in this series, is an exception since it has many displays that go beyond the paintings and sculptures found in typical art museums. I especially loved The Met’s period interiors and furnishings from recreated rooms in old mansions. On the other hand, I generally love train museums, especially the New York Transit Museum in…

We see dead people. Also, voidfrogs, a sad dog, and a sick cat. Plenty of things happened. But I'm tired. So let's stick to the key points: wandered town. Found Meister's house. She's rude and physically falling apart but gives us a lecture on how important it is to become godwoken while making it also sound like a very bad idea. She gives us a recipe for a hallucinogenic fog that took me a very long time to figure out how to make in game/crafting terms. Then we met our goddess again who gave…