A spectrum of intimacy. A long time ago, I realized the concept of a best friend was flawed. I had “best friends” in high school, people I resonated with deeply and was inseparable from. We gravitated to each other, did things together, and shared interests or were willing to learn each other’s. I lost that after high school, when those friends left to study abroad or changed schools. I had really good friends after, people I spent a lot of time with, but I’ve always found myself swimming…

Parking lots and hospitals! This hotel picture has it all! I’m in Aurora for MileHiCon, where I am a guest of honor along with TK Kingfisher and others. There will be panels! And signings! And hanging out! As one does. It starts tomorrow. Come on down! — JS

During my college days, back when I had to come up with headlines for our newspaper, we used the AP Stylebook. I roughly remember that words that don’t have meaning of their own were lowercased and meaningful words got capitalized. This is more or less what I’ve done here, on my blog. The title of this post, “How do you Title your Posts,” is an example: “How” is the first word, so it gets capitalized (beginning of sentence). “Do” and “you” are meaningless on their own; they just glue to other…

Here’s another harvest related RPPC for fall…on the reverse is written “agricultural corn cob display c. 1910” I see the corn cobs lined up but what’s on the wall? Some type of plant (or plant art) Is it in a barn? A Museum? Real Photo Postcard c. 1910 collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

well, i did it. on a whim, i decided to just get a dumbphone. i opted for a dumb.co phone, because it was cheap and accessible for such a radical lifestyle change. i was honestly expecting it to be a little more challenging to make the switch, but there are enough tools i'm used to having built into the dumb.co phone that i'm actually not missing my smartphone at all. in fact, i'm pretty much just leaving my phone in my pocket for the most part, just using it to send text messages throughout…

"The fruit shall set you free!" Victor declared during The Traitors: New Blood episode 7. But NBC won't free us from its bonkers schedule so we have to wait a week to see the pardon play out.

Liam is the local male prostitute, biking between clients, everyone in town paying each other for sex on an app called Snaxxx. His girl Thea is having sex with guy Ray whose kid colored his face with marker, then she pops back into Ray’s apartment real quick and maybe murders him in the brain. Soon all their clients are dying, and Liam is the prime suspect. There’s a tiny bit of style via split-diopter giallo murderer shots and film-end flares, but I don’t mean to make the movie sound cooler…

by Cláudio Alves Olivia de Havilland won Best Actress twice in the late 40s. First, for Mitchell Leisen's TO EACH, HIS OWN in 1946, and, then, for William Wyler's THE HEIRESS in 1949. At long last, after a month of endless TIFF and NYFF reviews, the Alternative Best Actress series makes its grand return. For now, let's ease back into pre-fall festival season rhythms with a write-up that considers only four Oscar years, 1946-49. They were those of the immediate post-war, when the Best Actress…

Five o’clock tea, Edith Hayllar (1860–1948), oil on canvas, 18 x 14 in. (46 x 35 cm). Image is from a 2011 Christie’s auction. I assume the original is in a private collection. My eye imediately goes to the the almost sihlouetted woman sitting at the top of a small flight of stairs, her arm around a curled up dog (who I presume is waiting for her tea companion). I’m drawn by the contrast between her shadowed face and the brighter ground, as well as the contrast of the white flowers on her hat…

Tom played Viper in Top Gun (1986). Tom was the lead instructor and experienced aviator educating a young class of hotshots. I don’t remember the first time I saw this movie, but I was young, possibly only 5 years old. I watched it many times and unknowingly memorized it. Like many viewers of the time, it gave birth to my deep love of aviation which I hold to this day. Whenever anyone from my family asked young me what I wanted to do with my life, I would say, “I want to be a pilot.” It wasn’t…

The difference between a bug and a feature is intent

On Halloween day in 2024, I published an article titled Inflatable Halloween Pumpkins, Ghosts, and Spiders. That article featured four photos of inflatable decorations seen that year, with the second of four featuring a clever inflatable ghost positioned as if it were bursting through a ground-floor residential window on a Carroll Gardens Brownstone (I incorrectly guessed it was Cobble Hill rather than Carroll Gardens in 2024). Three days ago, in an article about an inflatable Jack-’o-lantern…

I’ve had the vague idea for a while that I’d like to write up my thoughts about local government outreach — I’m an opinionated person 😉 Originally, I thought I’d write an email newsletter, but after brainstorming a list of topics a couple years ago, the format didn’t feel quite right. This fall, I found myself with spare time, and thought I would evaluate the concept of writing and laying out a nonfiction book (which has always been on my design bucket list). Here, I’m documenting all the steps…

Even though it’s late, I still need to practice. Selfie a day for a year, day 54: Oct 22, 2026 edition.

I’m completely captivated by AI-assisted game decompilations. The way these projects work is by taking a game, running a disassembly tool on it and then writing the equivalent the source code until the compiled code matches the binary. In the past (i.e. one year ago) this would involve a lot of manual labor, for example Paper Mario was completely done by hand. Once this byte-matching decompilation is done, you end up with source code that can then be inspected and modified to fix bugs, add…

Havana Syndrome is the claim that some enemy is targeting Americans with a futuristic weapon which is undetectable and which causes mental damage to the victim. It’s so-named because CIA operatives in Havana were the first ones to report it.Since first reporting in 2017, there have been additional reports from around the world. The CIA has officially sought to frame the reports as mass hysteria at best, and a money-grab at worst.60 Minutes has been reporting on it for some time, and a new book…

22 Beacon | INDEX | 24 Bake Self-imposed constraint: Use the letters of the prompt word inside a 2-inch square to illustrate its meaning. Hongdian Black Forest fountain pen, EF, black ink on 120 gsm paper.

love has many facets: an idea, a hope, a myth, but mostly it is a mystery to me i am talking about romantic love my lifestyle is special i value freedom i don’t need much i prefer being alone i don’t have to work i like to read and watch i care for privacy and security i spent time in front of my laptop the chance that i’ll meet someone is slim and i am content with getting old alone having said that, i still believe in love the woman who accepts me as i am the woman who makes me a better man…

Apple Roils Adtech With Its Latest Privacy Update - Business Insider “Why do you use Apple stuff?” “This right here.” The hand-wringing and pearl-clutching of advertisers who worry that they may not be able to efficiently target me is a delight to my soul. Weep those salty tears for me!

I’ve been working on a new short story for almost a year now. I know that sounds like a really long time—and it is—but it also feels like never enough time, because it’s in honor of my mother. This story hits close to home (literally and figuratively.) The plot is inspired by a tale my mom told me about her childhood in Hyderabad, India. She witnessed the impact of a dam closing, leaving countless dead fish on one side of the river. As I listened to her story, I found myself wondering what…

Imagine me in a real pickle sandwich. The middle of preview season (ho ho ho), and suddenly I come down with not one illness, but two. Something chronic, something acute. And me with a whole stack of board games to write about. Some of them time-sensitive, counting down the minutes on crowdfunding platforms as we speak. What’s an old man to do? Write about all three in a single splash, naturally. In other words, here are three very different tabletop titles, each worth a wink of your time. Come…

Our reading group recently read a story set on Venus. I don’t want to mention it specifically because this essay isn’t about criticizing such stories, but I want to discuss science fiction set on Venus in general. Before we knew what Venus was like, science fiction writers often used that planet. In the 1930s, Edgar Rice Burroughs began a series of books set on Venus. The first novel was called The Pirates of Venus. This series was never as famous as his Mars and Tarzan stories, or even his…

Taren writes:In terms of Q’s, I am happy to give you an excuse to write about Californian house prices!Despite being on the other side of the world I love hearing about how housing is different in different areas.I find that a lot of the problems mirror the market elsewhere so always happy to learn more about that.I am delighted to have this excuse because there are a lot of people in the US who are freaking out about property taxes and have ballot measures restricting them. Unfortunately, as…

I've updated the 1:144 model of the Hawker Hart that I built quite some time ago, and added some wing rib detail and a flight stand socket.The updated model can be had at https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/hawker-hart-light-bomber

On May 26th of this year I decided I was going to walk 10 miles. Here we are, 150 days later, and I’ve done that every single day, for a total of 1715.1 miles (11.43 miles per day). Most of those miles were walking, but I’m starting to run about 20 miles per week again. The other day I had a packed day of travel, so I actually ran three times for nine miles. One of those runs was on a shady sidewalk because the treadmills were broken at the hotel I was staying at. I’m down about 25 pounds,…

The fifth issue of, "Undie Comix," is available for order. I have a new article they were kind enough to include in this latest edition! You can get yourself a copy at this link and, as always, check out the Patreon here. My article is about how the character of, "The Punisher," could very well work as an Underground Comix concept. Have a peek:I want to thank Undie Comix again for being kind enough to consider my work for inclusion in their fun 'zine and would encourage everyone to show them…

Here are parts 1 (intro), 2 (Letter #109), and 3 (Letter #112). The next piece of official customs-house correspondence in my sample of Adam Smith letters from 1784-1785 is Letter #118. This letter, which is dated 1 November 1784, is an official administrative order issued by the Board of Customs Commissioners in Scotland and is signed by three of the commissioners: Adam Smith (top signature), Basil Cochrane (middle), and David Reid (bottom). The letter, which deals with a routine personnel…

The Driver's Seat returned on The Amazing Race 39 episode 5, bringing the social game to the forefront. But noone being able to spell "no one" was the real shock!

Jason Koebler, 404 Media: To give you a sense of what I’m seeing, Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins professor and one of the most respected cryptographers in the world, posted “we’re in the part of the movie where you need to throw whatever you can in the path of the zombies and hope it slows them down,” and “so many people discovering that the whole Internet is dry tinder and the only thing keeping it from burning is the fact that teenagers haven’t found the matches yet,” […] And all those posts…

Fremantle2026 October 23 (Friday), 8:14AM· Fremantle Cemetery · graves · Freopedia · I found myself near Fremantle Cemetery today, so stopped to get some photos of Curley and Maud Molyneux's grave: ← Previous My main RSS news feed: https://samwilson.id.au/news.rss(or Wikimedia.rss, Fremantle.rss, OpenStreetMap.rss, etc. for topic feeds). Email me at sam@samwilson.id.au to leave a comment.