Claude wrote three stinky translators, each one birthed a rule, and functools.singledispatch passed all of them. Now I put that shit on everything.

By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Macbeth - Act 4 From the singular wizard of Hartlebury to the witches across Worcestershire, of which there appears to have been many. It is well known (from Monty Python and other sources) that to test a suspected witch, they should be bound hand and foot and thrown into a body of water. Should they sink then they could be assumed to be innocent. If they floated then surely they must be a witch. I don’t think history outlines for…

Dear doctors or to whom it may concern,I'd be quite happy not to have tiny air bubbles going "click" in my knees from time to time. It is because I don't like the idea of my joints holding onto small pockets of air. It's a bit uncomfortable too. This sort of thing is quite new to me, not something I'm used to. I'm not the feckin' Michelin Man ... yet. Knees should operate silently. I'm sure that at one time mine were quietly going about their business. Those days are gone. There's been a…

Despite the fact that I have barely dented the existing Penguin Projects I have pages for on the Ramblings, I seem to have inadvertently committed to another one! I could blame Liz at Adventures in reading, running and working from home, since she kindly sent me one of these volumes for the 1949 Club; but in truth, I have the collecting mentality and can rarely resist the temptation to start a new one. The volumes in question are The Penguin New Writing; literary periodicals released between…

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Daredevil #255 Date: June 1988 Publisher: Marvel Comics Cover Price: 75¢ 2013 NM Price Range: $5.00 Stats: 31 color pages plus Bullpen Bulletins and ads Writer: Ann Nocenti Artists: John Romita Jr, Al Williamson, Joe Rosen, Max Scheele Notable Notes: Typhoid Mary begins her plan of destruction! Like Watching Law & Order! Here's an issue of Daredevil (one of many, I'm afraid) where the technicalities of a high profile trial and all the legal planning that precedes it kind of gets in the way of…

Welcome to one of Helen and Cameron’s periodic conversations on wool! If you haven’t been following along, this all started when Helen wore a wool dress for 100 days, and Cameron wondered how that was possible. Along the way, the two of us found we had the same sheep-themed place settings. Now, Helen is back from a pilgrimage to Japan where she had deep thoughts on wool, among other things. And there is lots of other news, too, including Helen’s new job as the production manager of the…

I was scrolling a bit on my tablet this morning when I saw the glow coming in the bathroom window. It’s across the house but with the bedroom door and bathroom dour open it’s in direct line of sight. I always open the blind in the morning too because it’s nice having the sun come in. I didn’t get up right away because at first I thought it was just the somewhat colored leaves on the neighbor’s tree. I realized it was too bright for that so I got up. Putting pants on was a chore since I had to…

who speaks American English; Mandarin Chinese, with a Taiwanese accent, probably; and Spanish (one semester of middle school) Notation: I'll write IPA unadorned, example English words or "intuitive" fragments in quotes, and X-SAMPA as code. Example: the IPA ə is the "a" in "about" and has X-SAMPA @. VowelsThe bad news is that none of the lowercase vowels (a e i o u) are intuitive for an English speaker; the good news is that all of them are intuitive for a Spanish speaker. The "English 101"…

I've been on a P.J. Kavanagh jag recently. Paradoxically first reading a more recent memoir (Finding Connections 1990) which focused on the old dead; and now his first book (The Perfect Stranger a memoir of love and survival 1966) about a tragic young death. The death of young people is normally tragic, dying in the fullness of his years less so. The ever young [Sally 24] and the finished up old [PJ 84]are buried in the same grave, same churchyard [R] in Westwell, Oxforshire [photo Tom Robinson…

“do not research simply to decorate your writing with impressive names and references. Research should extend your thinking, not replace it.” — Alexis McElroy, The Muse & The Melody, How to Turn Your Thoughts Into Something Worth Reading. Substack

Later tonight I'll meet Oliver to celebrate IcaPlanet's 15th anniversary! I wish I had an screenshot of the first version. I refrain from taking a screenshot of the current one as it's practically a JaimePlanet at this moment, haha. Hey, Oliver, we should add hackergotchis!

Not all of the content might be visible on your feed reader. Consider checking out the original post. It’s been a while since I wrote an interactive post. With the cleanup of my website, I’ve been removing and rehousing things that no longer make sense to be where they were. One of those was a noise experiment I made years ago, whose goal was to replicate those old TVs. So I decided to bring that back as an interactive post, with more customization than ever! In the age of AI, making this sort…

Mt Hayachine (早池峰山, hayachine-san) is a mountain located in Tohoku's Iwate prefecture. At an elevation of 1917m, it's the second highest mountain in Iwate, and among some of the tallest mountains in the entire Tohoku region. I don't think it's as well-known as some of the other peaks like Mt Iwate or Mt Gassan - unless you, like many other Japanese hikers, are specifically setting out to hike the Hundred Famous Mountains of Japan. Our hike starts at the Kawaranobo (河原の坊) trailhead's carpark.…

Yesterday I had a rough, small idea for a post: The Mythical Man-Month in the age of AI. It was an open question: more like thinking out loud for myself (for me, this is one of the fun things about blogging). I wrote these thoughts down and went about my day. "Publish and proceed" as they say. A few hours later I was browsing Hacker News and saw my own post near the top?! Well, that was a surprise. This meant my post should be generating some traffic? And indeed a tail -f on my logs confirmed…

This is one of the most insightful breakdowns and analyses of a most tragic (and complex) situation. It happens in a subway car, where fear and apprehension are intensified, judgements uncertain, transactions fleeting and consequences sometimes tragic; the latter is not a frequent occurrence, although fearmongers will proclaim differently. This is a tale of someone who arguably did the right thing- at least at first, and then quickly lost control. The fear he seemingly conquered, ultimately…

October 28, 2026 This caught my eye instantly: This painting also has plenty of black and some pretty pink… Our heroine has a casual week planned, with only one or two days in which she will have to be out and about. She loves sweatshirts and sweatpants – especially this pair, which are comfortable but still have a bit of style. The pants – without elastic ankles on the pant legs – look much less sporty than an identical pair with the elastic. These little details matter! When you’re starting…

The ropes, and the weight, coming off allows me to float, to soar. Unless I'm tethered to the ground. Am I? Only time will tell. Will I disperse and scatter throughout the sky and universe once the weight is removed. Or will I gently hover over the surface, floating freely until the roots restrict my movement, holding me back in place. Seeing the world from one vantage point. My vantage point.

Final Fantasy Resonance Alright, had a couple tough fights where I had to either change a vision or alter the party order (because someone kept snorting them away). Nice to have a couple fun challenges. I've really considered upping the difficulty because the game feels a little too easy to force me to really interact with the systems, but I'm afraid it'll just make it feel grindier and more annoying. Optional T bosses (Titan and Typhon) down though. I also found where Sephiroth is and got…

Since expanding the site for more mediums, those mediums will all each get their own canons! My rubric is essentially similar to the one for video games and here's a post that celebrates the initial roster of the canon. Concordia Concordia is a monument to simplistic but deep design and it has so much freshness just from new maps. It's a game that, to me, represents what this hobby is at the sweetest spot. Easy to learn, hard to master, lots of depth. I love the card cycling and the scoring…

Working on a jumper, and a dinky app to import and track my knitting projects 🧶🐑

So I was searching through my emails, trying to track down something or ‘nother, when I came across a promotional message sent to the ProgRuin mailboxes back in 2015. Now, I did read it at the time, but of course had no recollection of doing as such over a decade later. And frankly, I’m surprised I didn’t bring it up on the site here, because boy, this sounds interesting. The item promoted? Why, it’s Diagram for Delinquents, a DVD documentary about Dr. Fredric Wertham: Seems unlikely that…

The Cycle is a 2026 horror movie running on the Shudder channel, starring Deborah Ann Woll as a forensic scientist with an exceptional skill at deducing what happened to a dead body from a minimum of information. Jeffrey Donovan and Will Hochman play cops who ask for her help investigating a strange case: the body of a dead man was found near the bodies of two other people torn apart by some sort of animal, but all signs say that the man had been dead for much longer. And get this twist: that…

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries. Sharlene has the link this week. We Are Not Machines by Sarah O’Connor – Financial…

I love "Disneyland in the 50s", even when the photos are a bit mundane. This first scan isn't mundane, though! It's a nice shot of guests walking beneath the arched entrance to Adventureland. Those are genuine elephant tusks, but don't worry, that elephant was a jerk. If it looks like something is missing to the left, it's because this is some five or six years before you'd see the building that would house The Enchanted Tiki Room. OK, this one is a pretty common view, but I still love seeing…

The Goonies (1985)

47 dull lists 5-letter national capitals: Abuja, Accra, Amman, Cairo, Dakar, Hanoi, Kabul, La Paz, Minsk, Paris, Praia, Quito, Rabat, Sana'a, Seoul, Sofia, Tokyo, Tunis, Vaduz Chinese Zodiac animals in Japanese: 子, 丑, 寅, 卯, 辰, 巳, 午, 未, 申, 酉, 戌, 亥 Posh M&S crisp flavours: Aberdeen Angus Beef and Mustard, Butter Basted Roast Turkey, British Ham and Hot Mustard, Cornish Cruncher and Pickled Onion, Mature Cheddar and Spring Onion, Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar/Cracked Black Pepper, Roast Chicken…

We take construction seriously in this cityHappy Halloween!A few years ago I wrote about the Halloween decorations on the Upper East Side. But in the neighborhood for which the Gramercy Tools brand and logo is named, Gramercy Park, some people also put in a fair amount of effort. Part two of the construction display The Gramercy neighborhood is loosely 14th Street to 23rd Streets, Park Avenue South to First Avenue. The area in the teens and twenties was first built just before the Civil War.…

I hold many beliefs that are unpopular. These are some of them. I will not share all of my unpopular beliefs, because it is unwise to do so publicly. My selection criteria is that these are unpopular but still within the threshold where someone might inquire them and come to see things the way I do, or pitch a solid case to me that might convince me to change them. I also do not include beliefs that are not actually unpopular but are treated as such depending on which bubble you ask (eg:…

My recent detour into Japanese detective fiction and the captivating mysteries of locked-room whodunits reminded me of popular BBC series Jonathan Creek. The show ran for three seasons between 1997–99. It returned with season 4 and 5 in 2003 and 2014 respectively. A few feature-length specials were scattered between seasons with a final one in 2016.Fond memories led me to the only reasonable action: binge the entire lot in a fortnight.The original 90’s episodes remain the best. They’re…