I recently scanned a batch of slides from Florida's Magic Kingdom, date-stamped "November, 1982" - over 40 years old! - and while they are a little bit on the dark side, it gives them a certain dramatic atmosphere that I find to be visually interesting. Let's begin with this photo in Fantasyland, with It's a Small World right in front of us. That taller building definitely echoes medieval architecture that you might see in Yurp. I'm assuming that a dark ride is near us to the left, any idea…
Little Women (1933)
Beasts, chevrons, and scrollsI apologise to any readers who have been frustrated at my previous post, which illustrates a notable Norman church but discusses the flowers in the churchyard. If that’s a little perverse for an architecture blog, I’d argue that a building’s context is often as important as the building itself. However, as St Mary’s, Kirkburn, is a Norman churches with some memorable carvings, I’m not going to let it pass without a few words, and a couple of pictures, of its…
I recently showed you Carcassonne's Castle and briefly introduced the city:Carcassonne CastleYou may have already heard of Carcassonne, located in the Southwest region of France. In short, it’s a walled medieval city that became important during the Albigensian Crusade and remained so for the rest of the Middle Ages, until the southern border of France moved south to the PyrénéesHowever, the castle is just a small part of the fortifications that protected the medieval town for centuries. The…
AbominationYear is only about halfway done and I'll say it: Adrian Chiarella's Leviticus is the best horror of the year. I mean-- something better might come in October (Eggers' Werwulf comes out December), but can't imagine what that might be, or how it can be.And yes I can see the pic's DNA-- Chiarella borrows freely from David Robert Mitchell's It Follows, from the cursed teens to the relentless pursuit to the industrial wasteland that serves as backdrop to the chase. Crucial difference: the…
Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we’ve got fruit lager, TV ads and AK. We don’t often put product launches in this top slot which we reserve for news but this piece about Brixton Brewery (Heineken) launching a fruit lager highlights a trend: “Flavoured lager is the fastest growing category in the on-trade, delivering 30% volume growth in 2025, and now accounting for more than 2% of all lager sales in the off-trade.” The thing is, we haven’t…
Source Still shot of a Bald Eagle capturing a Heron for its lunch in Glenwood, NS. Wow, I didn’t know they would do this. Hopefully, not fake.
@simonmaechling wrote: We don't have an information problem. We have a scientific literacy and trust problem. I agree. Kids learn science as a set of established facts, formulas, and historical discoveries. Best case is they come away from high school aware of some sequence of wrong theories eventually replaced by the correct one. Atoms were indivisible solid spheres, then we discovered they contained electrons, then protons and neutrons, and finally quantum mechanics revealed "what atoms…
An end of week recap “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” – J.R.R. Tolkien Helen Keller Day (today) honours the woman who transformed isolation into insight and became a lifelong champion of human dignity. Additionally, it is Global Smurf Day – a cheerful splash of blue amidst some of the more solemn commemorations. Among the literary…
The thought that some sort of sword would make a fun eraser stamp had been bubbling in the background in my brain for awhile. I kept imagining completely different swords. This is the one that materialized when I sat down to draw one up. The tip in the ground and the flower came into the vision pretty early on. In fact, they influenced the final form of this sword.The blade on the original version was a lot more complicated. It was too odd, and I simplified it to this.I have had trouble with…
London has seven rainbow plaques, the vivacious alternative to blue that commemorates significant people and places in LGBTQIA+ history. The most recent was unveiled last week remembering broadcaster, comedian, drag queen, dog lover and national treasure Paul O'Grady. Should you want to track down all seven this Pride month🏳️🌈, here's where they all are. [8 photos] 🌈 Victoria Mansions - South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall Paul O'Grady's plaque appears on a mansion block in Vauxhall, informally known…
When doing maintenance for this static generated website I found myself in a situation where I wanted to find a YAML (YAML Ain’t Markup Language) key within the front matter of all published Markdown based posts that is undefined or has a value of null. In my experience I’ve found this easier to achieve using a software program that is designed to process structured data like YAML. Therefore, I decided to use the program called “yq”. Since there will be multiple files the output needs to…
There’s something wonderfully old‑fashioned and comforting about Boston Brown Bread, with its deep molasses richness and hearty whole‑grain texture. These Boston Brown Bread Toaster Cakes/Muffins capture all that nostalgic New England flavour in a quick, modern format you can bake in minutes. No steaming, no fuss — just tender, wholesome little cakes perfect for toasting, and slathering with butter. They’re ideal for breakfast, alongside baked beans, or as a cozy anytime treat that brings warm,…
Saturday Q&A It's non-politics Saturday! If you're still pondering the headline theme, we'll suggest you'vE GOT to concentrate. Click here for full story
Today, I’d like to talk about logic — and before I do, I should probably explain why. But before we get to that, a definition may be in order: in a nutshell, logic is a system for drawing conclusions from premises (“facts”).Formal logic usually isn’t taught in high school; as far as I know, it’s not even a requirement for most computer science degrees. The concept is familiar to most mathematicians and to a handful of software engineers who dabble in esoteric programming languages. As for…
Yesterday, I noted that I woke up in an unusually bad state of mind. Some days, I wake up with not just fuzzy hair, but a fuzzy mind as well. The latter is worse. I say it was unusual, but that has been the case for a few days now. And I wanted to elaborate. Recently, too many thoughts have been crowding my head. From work, home and everything else. There’s too much happening, and when that’s the case, the mind stops working straight. Clear thinking stops. The mind goes quiet. Thoughts zig-zag,…
I have been using TailScale from 4 years. Recently, I wanted to self-host HeadScale(open source TailScale server) on my own server. During self hosting, I realised that HeadScale is not a drop-in replacement for TailScale. HeadScale doesn't support app-connectors. NetBird is completely open source and has a self-hosted server. Setting up split DNS tunneling and routing is easier with NetBird. NetBird still doesn't have support for light theme yet. Since I am not accustomed to dark theme, I am…
I left the house at 5 this morning, and having met George we are now on our way down to Steventon for the 009 exhibition…We will keep this updated through the day, so check back later…On the road at half six…
A ho-hum meditation, a couple mild lucid dreams, and an encounter with a skeleton-looking Liminal. A typical Saturday afternoon.
Sometimes I'm fast-smart and sometimes I'm slow-smart (the rest is an uninteresting morass of confused incompetence). The fast-smart part is talent. I can't really account for it. The slow-smart part — the larger part — is, paradoxically, where I do my best work. Slow-smart really means stupid-but-tenacious. It's a much better faculty, though very few people discover this (I'll explain why in a moment). The fast stuff is dangerous, and must be closely supervised. It's so facile that it can…
This week produced exactly five things worth talking about and one thing worth filing a tiny police report. Every week has its highlights. These were mine: Dundurn Castle I spent an hour in the kitchen garden of a nearby historic house. Historic castle if you want to be accurate about it. THIS is what I...Read More
Yet again, an English word surprises me with its multiple meanings. A reader complimented the “scruples” I apply to writing. I thought I knew the meaning of that word but wanted to check. Dr. Johnson doesn’t include scruples in his Dictionary but for scrupulous he gives: “nicely doubtful; hard to satisfy in determinations of conscience.” For the singular form, scruple, the OED gives ten definitions, starting with: “A thought or circumstance that troubles the mind or conscience; a doubt,…
Saturday 27th June 2026 During last year’s countdown of Britain’s Top 10 Quirky Bus Routes, blog reader Stephen got in touch with an intriguing question…. “Not sure whether this meets the criteria for ‘quirky bus route’ or some other category but next time you’re in Northumberland you might like to check out Chathill station and its two trains a day, both connected with the North Northumberland coast by Borders Buses (NCC contracted) route 918. This, to me, seems the ‘perfect’ rural bus-rail…
Living in Austin and being outside downtown a lot, you see a lot of ridiculous influencer behavior. The thing that always surprises me is that they do not like you watching them record stuff. It’s awkward. They feel awkward. And it just seems super duper highly ironic that it’s almost understood that it’s rude to watch an influencer make content. LOL's They are smiley, they are fun, they’re effervescent. But also super duper grumpy. How does this translate to a music blog, do you ask? Because…
Let’s talk about a college degree – what is the increase of knowledge comprised of? Meaning, if you take Alice and baseline her knowledge and skill in a subject, then send her to college for two years to get a masters degree in that subject, what are the specific sources of the change? For example, maybe we say this: Reading the required texts: 25% Attending the lectures: 20% Doing the assignments: 15% Completing a practicum: 15% Talking with professors: 15% Networking with other students: 10%…
Today I have the privilege to meet Derek Sivers. Through the years, he has inspired me to write. This is why I started this blog. His life's philosophy has helped me to stay focused on my business. During the one hour, we exchange stories about our life and philosophy. I asked for a parting advice that he can share with individuals who has no network, and no money. He thought about 20 seconds and said - Do the hard work. Doing the hard work that nobody else wants to do will help the person to…
Pylon, python. Ready with a wet rag. An impression of me, between sheets, humidly, on glass. My desire is to write the book on you—poised, perfect, candlelit—while you struggle, at my feet, to scratch the surface of my smile. My desire is to be cool, inaccessible, while you flounder, vulnerable, plundered. Imagine my shock when you put your paws on my lap and transform; the ice of my arrogance shattering under the diamond of your total understanding of me. Yes, this, all along. Hand me over to…
I follow a crypto blogger, but I see that almost all of his posts are about how successful he is. He flies business class, buys his wife gifts, and dines at expensive restaurants. But if I wanted to look at your photos, I’d follow you on Instagram, wouldn’t I?Your profile bio says you’ll teach me how to trade crypto. I followed you to learn something new, but after scrolling through a month’s worth of your posts, I only saw one piece of advice from an AI. How exactly is looking at all your…
