SPOT THE RINGER I am delighted to have these four different apples from the Midwest Apple Improvement Association. Specifically, from David Doud in Indiana. ¶ Three of these are modern MAIA apples. One of those has been trademarked, so presumably has progressed from development to production. But the fourth was created by a much older fruit-breeding program in 1899.

I haven’t been posting much lately, but not for lack of trying. I’ve put many hours into various drafts over the past few weeks, and it’s making me realize that I should stick to shorter-form posts if I want to get these things published. If a post takes me longer than an hour end to end, it’s going to land in the drafts pile. And while I might have the purest intentions to finish it later, that rarely happens. A couple reasons jump to mind. First, drafts are messy, and I have enough messes in…

⌾ : Fujifilm XT5. ⚲ : Town Hall, Sydney. At first it was cute. A little girl holding her arms wide to feed the pigeons. I moved in anticipating that a cool photo might present. I wanted to frame the birds in motion from behind the girl. But things escalated quickly into a frenzied grey and white mass of greedy flapping feathers. It was suddenly obnoxiously noisy…and smelly. Someone had walked up at that moment and dumped a large pile of birdseed or bread or something on the ground. The mother…

I read Angel Howard's new Newsweek op-ed, "AI Must Strengthen, Not Replace, Human Judgment", and my reaction the whole way through was the same. Uhm, yeah. We already know this. AI can fake empathy but can't feel it. Companies shouldn't automate away the human touch. It should be about people. If you've read anything about AI in the last three years, you've read this piece already, just with a different byline. Sound bites, not an argumentThe examples are the ones everybody uses. A friend texts…

Whatever you think about generative AI—and you know what I think—you have to concede that it isn’t very good at making maps out of the box: there are so many examples of it going horribly… More

I built an audio plugin with Metacarp. It’s a (deliberately) small CLAP effect with a text editor, a Compile button, and a status label. The editor…

I had a grumpier post written out (tl;dr clients sending in AI written proposals is just... annoying for several reasons). BUT instead I will talk about my current work notebook set up, inspired by Juhis’s notebook post. I don’t consider myself picky with notebooks, but I do have a preference. I currently use a A5 Spiral Notebook from Daiso. I pick whatever one is in stock when I need to stock up on more. TBH this one is very much a brain dump notebook and includes task lists, sales pricing I’m…

I’ll be voting for Amir Zuccolo for Mayor of Charlottetown in the November 2, 2026 municipal election.Of the seven candidates on the ballot, Amir has the best combination of intelligence, experience, creativity, consensus building, and compassion. She will be an excellent mayor, and her election will mark an important inflection point for the city.In the 171 years since its incorporation in 1855, Charlottetown has seen a woman in the mayor’s office for only four years. While that alone is not…

September 2026 Yesterday I followed the coast of Lithuania south to Klaipeda. To continue along the coast I now need to take a ferry. The reason being that at the mouth of Klaipeda harbour is the Curonian Spit. This is, as the name suggests, a sand spit, but it’s a huge one. It is 98 kilometres (61 miles) long. Behind it is the Curonian Lagoon. However half of this sand spit is in Lithuania and half is in Russia, specifically the Kaliningrad Oblast region of Russia. It is an exclave of Russia…

Playing FF7 Rebirth and I love how wacky and GAY they get with it. Also I identify on a deep level with Red XIII's annoyance when people treat him like a dog. #ff7 #ff7rebirth #videogames #gaming

“Making the ‘Ukrai­nian Natio­na­list’: The KGB and the Produc­tion of an Enemy Image” by Evgenia Lezina, Geschichte der Gegenwart, Sept 29, 2026. Abstract: In the Soviet Union, national autonomy was always suspected of being ‘bourgeois nationalism’. Using the example of the KGB files, which have been accessible to researchers in Ukraine since 2015, it can be shown how the secret service created the enemy stereotype of the ‘bourgeois nationalist’ and also utilised popular culture for this…

Before there was a world– there was war – and for the first time in 20 years, return to the battlefields that defined a genre with an all-new update to Warcraft® III: Reforged. Warcraft III Reforged: Forsaken Kingdom premieres a brand-new playable campaign that starts you in The Last Days of Lordaeron, where you will step foot into the origins of The Undercity before millions knew its name. Play the best version of Warcraft III: Reforged with the Definitive Edition update which brings a…

Part of the Big Tech's War on Users series Meta reported earnings yesterday. Revenue up 26%. A $9.89 billion charge for the teen mental health settlement. Headcount down 15% from a year ago. And, tucked into the same press release, a brand new class of stock, created so that Mark Zuckerberg can pay a tax bill without losing an ounce of control over the company. My first reaction was the same as everyone's: wait, what? The Deal Here's what happened, per Forbes and Meta's own earnings release.…

I’ve written before about Michael Powell, in his documentary RETURN TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, sitting on a seacliff and describing documentarists as “failed poets,” which feels very much like a reference to documentarist Humphrey Jennings, who was a poet (and surrealist painter) before becoming a documentarist, and who died falling off a cliff. […]

This article is sponsored by Holy Art. While October offers plenty to reflect on in our Catholic faith, it is also a good time to begin thinking about the traditions we hope to share at Christmas. A little planning now can leave more room to enjoy those moments with our families when the season arrives. … Continue reading Christmas Village Sets: How to Create Your Own Holiday Display The post Christmas Village Sets: How to Create Your Own Holiday Display first appeared on The Simple Catholic.…

If social media/social network platforms were compared to planets, then X, previously Twitter, would be the Pluto of the solar system; a dwarf planet. Because unlike its peers, X, twenty years after launching in 2006, is still well short — make that a long way short — of joining the one-billion-member club. Should we take a leaf out of the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) handbook, when they re-determined Pluto’s status? 1 Should commercial social platforms with fewer than one-billion…

Pilot Custom NS Fountain Pen, via JetPens. Sponsor support is very important to me here at The Pen Addict. My sidebar advertisers put their faith in me to deliver good value for them month in and month out, and I want to shine the light on the best of the best for you. If you are shopping for pens, paper, inks, and more, please check out these great companies and see what they have to offer. Some recent highlights: Vanness Pens dropped three new ink colors from Lennon Tool Bar, all of which are…

My YouTube algorithm gave me a weird looking thumbnail video and I don't know what moved me, but I decided to check it out. This was "90s" by The Lazy Boys. I loved it immediately and put it in my Favourites. After a while I tried looking up some more info, but it was very difficult to find. Partly because it's so niche, but also because it seems like Japanese bands are not really marketing per se in Western media? Anyway, after a while I got this Gemini blurb: The Lazy Boys is a Tokyo-based…

reviewjolla phonesailfishOS Impressions After Two Months With SailfishOS on the Jolla Phone https://khleedril.org/blog/2026-10-22--jolla-impressions.html khleedril.org/2026-10-22--jolla-impressions Dale Mellor https://khleedril.org/dale-mellor 22nd October, 2026 Iʼve been happily daily-driving (this is my only phone nowadays) my Jolla Sailfish phone for two months, and here are my thoughts at this time. This article follows the two day and two week impressions. As a phone/communicator Its great…

We’re making it up as we go along. Remember when you were young and you looked up to the adults in the room? You could rest easy knowing everything was under control. They spoke confidently and with authority. Declarations and admonishments had real power. Things happened according to their will. But now I’m the adult in the room. My son looks up at me with those same wide eyes. I sit in boardrooms and nod along to the corporate jargon. I feel like an imposter. I've no fucking clue what’s going…

STRANGE SOLUTIONS FOR EVERYDAY PROBLEMS: THE APHEX TWIN To understand that the crucial events in David Lynch’s television series primarily occur during the dream sequences of the individual characters, one doesn’t necessarily need to have watched all 30 Twin Peaks episodes in one go, although an orgiastic two-day non-stop binge of the TV story can lead to entirely different interpretations than consuming one episode per week in small doses. Special Agent Cooper receives the most important clues…

Everyone's patched and we've got a plan for keeping them that way more strictly.307 words · 1 image

We chat to the man behind Gremlin's revival The post Gremlin Graphics Is Back: What Happens Next? – The Retro Hour EP553 appeared first on Retro Hour Podcast.

Recorded live at Play Expo in Blackpool The post GamesMaster: Golden Joysticks and ’90s TV with Dominik Diamond- The Retro Hour EP552 appeared first on Retro Hour Podcast.

On 17 July 2026, a trader bought 115.07 shares on Polymarket for 22 cents each. Both the public trade record and the on-chain settlement recorded it as a buy. Lee-Ready, a standard algorithm used in financial research, got it backwards and treated the purchase as a sale, overstating its full effective spread by four cents per share. We examine this trade in our new paper, Measuring Trade Direction in a Prediction Market, a follow-up to our earlier study of Polymarket’s order book. We wanted to…

Plus, Modern Vintage Gamer joins us for the news! The post Streets of Rage: Inside the Music with Yuzo Koshiro – The Retro Hour EP551 appeared first on Retro Hour Podcast.

Alphabetical order. I maintain the list in Floppy. 1Q8411/22/631491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created17761848: Year of RevolutionA Brief History of Seven KillingsA Confederacy of DuncesA Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, ConstructionA Perfect SpyA Resistance History of the United StatesA Savage Empire: Trappers, Traders, Tribes, and the Wars That Made AmericaA Tale of Two CitiesAll The Pretty HorsesAmerica and Americans and…

The stories behind Ultima, Deus Ex and Epic Mickey. The post Warren Spector: The Stories Behind Deus Ex and Ultima – The Retro Hour EP550 appeared first on Retro Hour Podcast.

Lumi is back at sewing class this week. Pretty amazing what she is able to create.

I’ve given up trying to figure this movie out, but I heard about your website on Fun For All Ages Podcast and searched and still came up short, so I thought I’d write. I believe this movie was seen by me around 1983-1984. I don't know when it was filmed, but it was in color. Here is all I can remember. There is some kind of big rock in the middle of a town or area that if you touch it you will catch fire for some reason, I remember someone getting pushed into it and they burst into flame, I…