Computering is so fun again.

Shirley Temple (1928-2014) was born in in Santa Monica Cal. As a child Temple showed interest in dancing and singing so in 1931, her mother decided to enrol her in a Dance School Los Angeles. There she was scouted by Charles Lamount, Casting Director for Educational Pictures studio. Lamont & producer Jack Hays offered her a contract. They cast in a 1932 series of short films called Baby Burlesks where preschoolers reenacted famous films & current events and Temple was clearly the star. At 3…

One of my favourite things at the moment is curling up with the family an hour before bed and watching an episode of Snoopy. It’s 26min, 3 story format and tempo is just perfect for bringing our energies down after a hectic day.

My latest review for All About Jazz explores the self-titled debut of ALLVEI, the trio of Norwegian guitarist Eivind J. Vullum, Polish saxophonist Jerzy Mączyński, and Swiss drummer Nicolas Stocker. ECM listeners will recognize Stocker from the intricate rhythmic weave of Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile on Continuum (2016) and his sensitive percussion alongside Areni Agbabian’s voice and piano on Bloom (2019). Here, his melodic approach to rhythm helps turn spectral electronics, searching saxophone lines,…

Eastern Marsh wren doing a split, October 2023 (photo by Steve Gosser) 28 October 2026 eBird’s 2026 taxonomy update is currently in progress for perhaps a couple of weeks. I noticed it was underway when I received a Rare Bird Alert for Allegheny County that listed “Eastern Marsh Wren.” Eastern? I thought there was only one “Marsh Wren” but now there are two. Marsh Wren has become Eastern Marsh Wren (screenshot of eBird Rare Bird Alert, 27 Oct 2026) Here’s eBird’s summary of the process: Our…

Abbreviated Warship Wednesday, as I am on the road at an industry event in New England. With that, how about a throwback to “old” England? Some 85 years ago this week, the 13,000-ton County-type heavy cruiser HMS Kent (54), seen in October 1941, fresh off refit and attached to the 1st Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet, at Scapa Flow. By LT R G G Coote, Royal Navy official photographer, IWM A 6165 Ordered under the 1924-25 Estimates from HM Dockyard, Chatham, and commissioned in June 1928, Kent spent…

Occasionally I find out that web pages I used to like are no more online. Today I’ll recall from the oblivion a tiny fragment of the lost Internet. The topic is the 2011 Chess World Cup. It was one of the first chess events that I followed, shortly after my passion for chess started. When I had time, I would follow the games live, with the coverage provided by Chess Tempo and Chessbomb. Chessbomb, with its blue-and-red moves and the barely moderated chat, was a staple of the internet chess…

The classification of finite simple groups (CFSG) has been called the biggest theorem in mathematics. It is big, not necessarily in terms of its importance, but in the sense that its proof developed over the course of decades and thousands of pages of journal articles. Two days ago Axiom announced it had formalized the proof of CFSG in 43.1 million lines of Lean. If you click on the link for the accompanying paper, you’ll find that the title of the paper is The Unbalanced Group Theorem, not The…

I see where Kevin is ripping out his Fediverse support from his blog comments based on a post by Manu, and I was moved to follow suit. Like every blogger in the history of the world probably, I post on my social media accounts when I post a new blog post: that's POSSE. I was using my own version of Bridgy to check those social media posts and then bring back any interactions to my own site. So, if you liked or commented on something I posted from my site to Mastodon, for example, the like would…

came yesterday JoeYour hammer looks too good to use but it will get used as needed.the proud cornerThis box isn't as sturdy as the first one I just finished. I don't think it could stand the stress of it being planed so the plan was to flush the tails/pins with a chisel and then carefully sand the outside with 120 grit.spoiler alert upcomingWhen I filled the empty screw hole with super glue I thought about it getting into the scissor part of the hinge. Would it get into and freeze the hinge?…

Over the last couple years I have built up the Shelf page on this site more than any other. Reading has become a major part of my life. By hand I have added 120 books to this page. Each book includes title, author, cover, categories, audiobook links, purchase link, and a couple other metadata fields. Sometimes I’ve added a book lazily without the links and come back the next day to add links. Finding the cover, Audible and Canon+ audiobook links, store links, and more took time. Before, adding…

In 1983 Kurt Vonnegut said of his first novel Player Piano published in 1952 that it was “more timely with each passing day.” He died in 2007, but his novel, which is 75 (the same age as me), is even more relevant in 2026. The novel describes a world in which people are being progressively replaced by machines, creating an unhuman world and leaving people wondering whether their lives have any point or meaning. In both the novel and the world machines have already replaced many jobs that depend…

I watched Altman's fantastic 3 Women for the first time last night, and it got me thinking about the dream film as a form. Spoilers below.First of all, what a film. Shelly Duval and Sissy Spacek knocked it out of the park - it's sad and tender and erotic and unsettling, and then after a while it becomes deeply nightmarish. Two women move through and are nearly swallowed by the purgatory of California. They try their best to make it comfortable and sustainable, and they are ground away by it,…

Work continues on closing all our open parentheses in the lead-up to the next Hanami release. I started this week fixing a regression in our body params logging. Thanks @Drowze for reporting it! In response to some good feedback from Paweł, I also filed an issue about possibly making body params logging a configurable thing in the future. While I was working in this space, I decided it was time we expanded Dry Logger’s log filtering, including substring matching and first-class regex support.…

The #OMN path is about the stories we tell to make technology acceptable, the institutions that repeat those stories, and the grassroots work left waiting while the money follows the next “miracle” story. A useful tool gets wrapped in a grand narrative, funding follows the narrative rather than community need, and the people building alternatives are pushed to the margins. When the story finally weakens, the underlying technology may remain – but the promised social transformation never…

Clouds reflect in the pond of the Japanese Garden, at the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. 京都市京セラ美術館の日本庭園にある池に、雲が映っている。

Daily Drawing 1032

While dozens of blocklists have faded into history or irrelevance over the past 25+ years, Spamhaus remains the heavyweight when it comes to IP and domain reputation. They run one of the oldest anti-spam blocklists in existence, still trusted by major mailbox providers and internet service providers (ISPs) worldwide. If your sending IP or domain lands on a Spamhaus list, you are going to have deliverability problems. And following in the footsteps of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, Spamhaus has…

link here

I keep meaning to do a long post on arguably the ultimate Silver Age cult comic, Herbie, a bizarre, out of nowhere character created by a journeyman and an artist of severely limited talent. The elements had no business working but somehow they came together perfectly, a chemistry that far more gifted creators have tried and failed to capture in various reboots. Herbie Popnecker's fans included Alan Moore, John Byrne, and Marv Wolfman who joked in the 70s that the only way at the time to figure…

I heard someone recently describe a formative moment from his childhood. Every time something difficult happens to him now, he thinks back to what his mom said every time he told her something bad happened: “Oh honey, things could always be worse.” He imitated her voice as he said it, and the whole group chuckled. He said it’s the reason he’s an optimist today, because things could always be worse. It isn’t a new idea. But hearing the story brought it to life in a beautiful way.

Only two weeks to go!What was punk really like in 1977? Not anything like the nostalgic memories would have you believe. This new set of songs tells it like it was, from the frontline.Glasgow Old Hairdresser's, 12th Novemberwith Lorraine LucasPresented in conjunction with Glas-Goes PopTickets: https://wegottickets.com/f/26674/Photo: Jeanie Jean, from Rebellion Punk Music Festival Almost Acoustic stage where I played the fledgeling songs. This time I'll be standing up- and won't need the words…

Via Newspapers.comOne for the “mini mysteries” file: This unresolved poisoning case was reported in the “South Wales Argus,” February 8, 1934.How did cyanide of potassium, used for electro-plating, find its way into a teacup from which a girl of 20 drank tea and died shortly afterwards? This was the mystery inquired into at Sheffield on Wednesday.An inquest was held on the girl, Lilian Charlotte Corbridge, of Ripon-street, Sheffield, who drank the tea on January 30 at the electro-plating works…

All art supplies...no artistI hate to admit this, but I kind of miss Lightroom Classic. It was nice having a very good RAW processor and capable catalog with a large ecosystem and all of my photos in one big library. I've spent so much time trying to concoct a non-Adobe workflow that I've forgotten why I bother. :). Plus, Negative Lab Pro. orgo · orgo Org is the source language, not an inconvenient input to be normalised into markdown. I'm pretty content with 11ty right now, but how am I not…

9727/21646Richard Herrings continue to flirt with death, but at last here's one that has survived attempts to take him out. Richard Herring of Kennett Square (no news on middle initial, but that usually only comes out on death) crashed his car in a one-car accident (seems unlikely- probably being chased by a Terminator from the future, trying to take down all the twenty-six Richard Herrings). He had minor injuries but refused to go to hospital (knowing full well that would give his potential…

The Google search engine has a new feature that creates images based on any description a user provides. These images are created in seconds. I used this feature to create images for this week’s blog entry and some of them are amazing. I had been using Deviant Art’s image prompts, but the program Google uses is much better, though still not always perfect. Google uses a program with the silly name–Nano Banana 2. The user has the option to improve upon the image with a revised description. Many…

Ten years ago, I wrote about a problem that was already undermining the #openweb, that nobody was linking to anybody. The incentives were all moving in the wrong direction. #Mainstreaming platforms had little reason to send people towards alternative sources, while grassroots projects were left struggling to build connections with each other. Even when people wanted to cooperate, there were plenty of reasons to avoid linking, sharing audiences or giving another project visibility. The result…

By Drew CollinsLiving Past GamesB/XLevels 2-4 Below the silver mines of Eisenstead, an underground structure was just uncovered. Something killed the mining crew; now the mines are closed, costing the crown a fortune every day. A powerful wizard is en route to resolve the crisis… but until he arrives, there’s an opportunity for some brave or desperate nobodies to find their fortunes and make a name for themselves. This 48 page adventure uses about 27 pages to describe a three level dungeon with…