Imagine one day someone takes your left foot away. Painlessly. Because you offended someone. There’s more to the story, of course. There always is. You didn’t see it coming. That’s part of the trauma. You then have to show up in court. The…

Imaginary play, of an imaginary tale, on an imaginary stage, with an imaginary score, performed by imaginary artists. You can bring your own playlist, or make up the music in your head. A musical, with contrasting opera and heavy metal parts. There are distinct passages, but some parts are played together. Think Deep Purple’s “Concerto" [DP]. Ensemble - strings, woodwinds, brass, harp. Rock band - 80’s style heavy metal. Drums, bass guitar, electric guitar. Think something like Battle Beast…

Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verseby Carol Ann Duffy (editor)Genres: Poetry Pages: 80 Rating: Synopsis: In Off the Shelf: A Celebration of Bookshops in Verse, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned a selection of the UK's most loved and lauded poets to each write a poem in celebration of books and bookshops--the worlds they hold, the freedoms they promise, and the memories they evoke. From a basement of forgotten books to the shelves of a cramped Welsh arcade, from the…

I have recently moved my website to a new domain. My old posts may reappear in your feed reader — sorry for the inconvenience! I redirect the RSS feed to the new domain, but you might want to update the URL in your reader. I've also merged my dev, photography, and personal posts into a single feed. If you're only interested in one of these categories, you can subscribe to the corresponding feed: All posts Software development posts Photography posts Personal posts I'll soon publish an update on…

I’m not entirely sure how I ended up being so fortunate that I again got a copy of THE hot game of SPIEL without originally having any serious intend or plan to buy it. It happened last year with Feya’s Swamp where I—mostly out of curiosity—found myself queueing in line and saw in real time how publisher Fractal Juegos was hit apparently completely unaware of the hype that had built up on BGG during the weeks leading up to SPIEL. The head of SPIEL rushed past me, trying to dissolve the line as…

Alright, I am a little late to the party but here is my Interop 2027 ranking shortlist. Yes, CSS is… a little over-represented in my list. Share yours, too! My shortlist 🥇 CSS flex-wrap: balance. I re-implement this with block layout and inline-flex elements too often. Just gimme it. 🥈 CSS if() function. This would be so good to have for my theming shenanigans. And a thousand other things. 🥉 CSS filter(image, ...filters). How many times have set up pseudo-elements just to lower the opacity of a…

Animals by Geoff Ryman (NewCon Press, 2025) “Dad was the first to say, ‘Something is killing animals.’ He was the first to say, ‘It could be that we’re the carriers. We’re the ones making them sick.’ He was the first to say, ‘Something is bringing them back.’” Teddy is fifty when he decides to tell the story of his childhood, both the terror and the grief and the brief moments of astonishing, incredible intermingling, as a pandemic rewrites animal and human DNA and gives children a glimpse of…

Autograph Hound Saturday, and that rampant Autograph Hound known by the name Brian Leno has dug some stuff out, moved some stuff around, framed a few things and commandeered a wall. Much of the display spotlights signed materials. And much — most — of it fits right in the Halloween groove. Leno says, “Here’s a barrage of pictures — but there’s a lot on that wall. “Autographs of Chinese Gordon, Sir Richard Francis Burton, Vic Morrow, Rod Serling, Howard Pyle, Frederic March, Sax Rohmer and a…

It continues to be a crazy day with mom stuff but we’re determinedly going ahead with decorating. Nothing stops Halloween in this house! 😄

Dramatic title, but an unfortunate aspect of my coffee hobby and habits is that at least once a year, I have to undergo a caffeine detox to reset my brain. It always sucks, and all I can control is what flavor of “it sucks” I want this time around. I originally started writing this before doing my detox, but I have since done it–so I’ll talk about the experience and how this could perhaps help you, the reader :3 You’ll also get to enjoy un-edited draft notes from June 2026 Regal compared…

Elliot Kienzle illustrates the AI proof of the Mahler conjecture (\(\mathbb{M}\)) on symplectic embeddings of a ball into the Cartesian product of a convex body and its dual, showing that the product’s volume is always at least as large as the ball. On the generation of names of weevils and popes by L-systems (\(\mathbb{M}\)). Marginalia search (\(\mathbb{M}\)), a web search engine that prioritizes the stuff the big ones don’t: text-heavy, non-commercial pages, personal blogs, old university…

Review of Wildwood (movie, 2026), directed by Travis Knight ★★★★★ Rated 5 out of 5 Wildwood was a really fun movie. I've seen most of the LAIKA movies and have been seeing trailers for Wildwood on most movies over the last few months, but I wasn't sure how much I'd like it. The premise is that a girl in Portland is watching her baby brother when a murder of crows literally pick him up and carry him off into the aptly named Impenetrable Woods. She then sets off to rescue him. There are…

Apple's innovation?

Speaking about IBM Quantum at the Quantum Innovation Forum Austria by University of Innsbruck.

Neo 75CU temptation

An interesting origin story! Maybe Linda Cardellini’s performance is a bit exaggerated, but overall the series is solid. A good homage to old horror movies. Rating: 🙂Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

Cranes Wings Of JoyGet It At DiscogsFrom the quiet, descending strings and woodwinds at the start of "Watersong," which launches Cranes' first proper full-length album, things are at once in sync with, and far removed from, the deep murk of the group's earliest days. The gripping, chilling atmosphere that Cranes dwell in hasn't moved an inch, but in terms of approach, it shows that on the (very well) self-produced Wings of Joy, the quartet has continued to expand its palette. One thing to note…

It is of course Halloween today and my four-year-old nephew celebrated by holding onto my head and whispering right into my ear, "Auntie Fran. Did you know. There are bugs. Who want to drink your blood." Updates here 26 posts, including the 400th. Also Pages on pages for the blog carnival, and the autumn edition of Joyride added a photo page inspired by Robert Birming and also going to try to update my some.pics occasionally Progresses elsewhere very domestic month doing autumn cleaning and…

Sequels: Ace of the Diamond, Aoashi S2, The Apothecary Diaries S3, As a Reincarnated Aristrocrat I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World S3, Black Clover S2, Blue Box S2, Chitose Is in the Ramune Bottle, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, The Detective is Already Dead S2, Dragon Ball Super: Beerus, The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System, Hotel Inhumans S2, The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World II, Mahou no Shimai LuluttoLily, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku: Restart, Mission…

“Turkish company Rovenma has detailed the technology behind its autonomous lockers used by The Courier Guy, which have rolled out at pace in South Africa in the last few years. Over 2,500 of these lockers have been installed to date, with a target of 3,000 by the end of 2026. Like post boxes, they allow customers to receive and send packages. For many South Africans, using the Post Office to send mail or small parcels is no longer an option, as the company has developed an infamous reputation…

It wasn't a random thing for me to have named my first emergent model mind "Number 1." [ day in progress... ]

Yesterday I went to Folkestone with Joan to visit a lovely house on the seafront at Sandgate with panels of framed Delft tiles on the walls. It was very sociable and such a change from the rest of the week; we sketched our favourite tiles and yakked with our host, who delighted in showing us around his very historic house and garden. It was a lovely glimpse into different world.The sunset was beautiful, and you could faintly see Dungeness in the distance.

I've not had breasts, or moobs, very long, but it's long enough, I think, to formulate a few thoughts about how I present myself in my new, larger, top-heavy, self. I'm very self-conscious about my naked chest, which perhaps drives my approach to both underwear and outer clothing. I find it almost impossible to have my naked chest exposed even around the house. As regards covering my breasts there's a balance between comfort, support and coverage. Comfort is in the construction of the cups…

From left: Opus 88 Koloro, seY Pen Tsugaru-Nuri Urushi, Bonecrusher7 Studios, Nagasawa Pilot Decimo Sengara Bay, Pilot Custom 845 Urushi in Prussian Blue. From left: Opus 88 Koloro, seY Pen Tsugaru-Nuri Urushi, Bonecrusher7 Studios, Nagasawa Pilot Decimo Sengara Bay, Pilot Custom 845 Urushi in Prussian Blue. Formal “Pen Show Season” is mostly over, with the big shows (California, D.C., and San Francisco) in the books. It’s been a busy year, to say the least. T.G.S. has attended the California…

I have struggled, lately, to write anything for the RPG Blog Carnival. For the sake of collegiality I like to take part if I have something to contribute, but for more than a few months this year I couldn't quite land on anything worth saying. I'm not sure if what I have to say about this month's topic is all that valuable either but, well, I think I can get something written this time, which is an improvement. And, as it happens, what I have to say concerns a pair of boots. Source: Vincent van…

I’ve written before that I am using a new RSS app called Birchfeed because I really like its keyboard shortcuts in the web app. The developer continues adding new features, and today it added a fast way to clear out unread messages. It provides a visualization of the age of articles and an easy way to mark them as read.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate daylight savings and the utter stupidity of disrupting my (already poorly attuned) circadian rhythms for a completely arbitrary change that makes mornings only slightly more bearable and evenings a dark pit of mild despair? Well, I guess I just have. It might have also been the tipping point for my feeling slightly feverish and achy towards the end of the working week, which certainly did not help my overall mood or productivity. Hacking The Norns The week…

On Wednesday, I went to the Duke of York's Cinema in Brighton to watch Kevin Wright's Punk Brighton documentary. It's been 15 years in the making and quite a few years ago a whole bunch of us met up at the Prince Albert to be filmed yakking about our own experience of punk in Brighton.I wan't sure how it would turn out- I think Kev was born in 1983- but he had done loads of research. It wasn't just masses of old photographs: he'd found audio of Vi Subversa talking, some footage of Peter and the…

I am a proud and active user of Readwise. I've had an account since December 31st of 2022. Today I reached 1,400 days of daily highlight reviews – 5 highlights a day from articles, books, PDFs, tweets, etc. that I've saved to my Readwise Highlights and/or have read through Readwise Reader. Readwise is a great company making great products, with their most recent being Readwise Books. If I had a smartphone, I would begin using that product immediately. Instead, I will wait until the desktop…

Every year I like to find great pictures of Halloween decorations. This year I thought I had one single photo, but I ended up finding more. As always, our neighbours never disappoint with their homemade dioramas. An upside-down jack-o-lantern with a scarecrow body sitting on a front lawn surrounded by leaves. A group of ghouls from the movie A Nightmare Before Christmas. Oogie Boogie is featured prominently posed next to a tree. There are little chidlren ghouls on either side. A small skeleton…