Earlier this year we had a rather unfortunate incident involving our 25-year-old stand-up freezer, in which the condenser failed while the thing was full of frozen things, which quickly became rather disgustingly unfrozen. The clean-up was stinky and terrible and no fun at all. Also, we needed to get a new freezer. Krissy got that new freezer a couple of days ago, and you can see it here, next to the drinks fridge we have in our garage — the drinks fridge being, as the name implies, an extra…
America at 250, America at 50 On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate a special Independence Day marking the 250th anniversary of America’s independence on July 4, 1776. While much attention will be on America’s 250th, this article will focus on the 200th anniversary of America’s 50th anniversary of its independence, better known as the American Jubilee or the July 4, 1826 semi-centennial. Of all of America’s full and half-centennials, the American Jubilee was unique in that three of…
Tree Shadows on the Park Wall, Roundhay, Leeds (1872) by John Atkinson Grimshaw. • “In many cases, the rules of physics that apply in a real scene appear to be optional in a painting; they can be obeyed or ignored at the discretion of the artist to enhance the painting’s intended effect.” An extract from The Visual World of Shadows by Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh, in which the authors examine some of the rule-breaking that takes place when artists are dealing with shadows in paintings. I…
For my wife's birthday last weekend I ran her and her friends a D&D one shot. My brief was thus: level eleven a more classic dungeon crawl dragon There were six of them. I had no clue how to balance six level eleven characters where four of these players I'd never played with before and two of the four haven't played all that much. Balancing not just in terms of encounters but time. So I winged it, basically. Which is what I think has to happen mostly anyway, in any game. Flexibility. Their…
Monday “Do you do this every week?” There’s trash in the open grass and trash by the bench. But there’s also a man on the bench admiring the view. As I didn’t want to disturb him, I was heading for the trash in the open first. I say sort of, and walk over. He tells me he usually picks stuff up from here himself and puts it in the bin, and we both turn to look. “I mean, it’s right there.” I shift a brick with my foot and lift out a glut of crushed cans stashed beneath it. Seems like freeing a…
Didn't bring my big camera to the track because I was so annoyed about yesterday.37 words · 1 image
Today is independence day.Tomorrow will also beindependence day.I wave the flag of the present moment.I listen to the robinand watch the swallowstreak across the twilit sky. The deer, the stray dog, the heart-wounded veterandon't need to hear loud noisestonight.Just the gentle explosionof peonies in my garden.Watch the sun setand greet whoever you meetwith a breath of peace.Something in your
Source Drought has pushed the Rio Grande river past the breaking point – in Albuquerque, it has completely dried up. For the third consecutive year, a combination of record-low winter snowpacks, warming spring temperatures, and persistent drought has left the Rio Grande completely dry through Albuquerque. This ecological crisis has arrived earlier and stretched further north than in previous years, leaving the river’s fragile ecosystem in jeopardy. Reservoirs across New Mexico are hovering at…
I did a terrible job taking pictures today.38 words · 1 image
Fireworks are for those with the training, the appropriate equipment, and the appropriate location (and conditions). If you don't have all three — just don't, and leave it to those who do. Big-screen TVs make that a lot easier than when I grew up, when black-and-white console TVs were about the best thing there was… But I'm perfectly willing to give this King the finger (symbolically,
We arrived at Silverstone and I made pizza. It was pretty good - the dough turned out great.18 words · 1 image
Last night, I learned that we lost Belghast, a truly special individual and a pillar of the gaming/MMO community. His blog, Tales of the Aggronaut, has stood tall since April 2009 (based on blog archives), and his tenacity at blogging and podcasting in the gaming realm is legendary.
The CaretakerEverywhere at the End of Time2019History Always Favours The Winners(part of Resident Advisor's 2000-2025 Best Albums) Memories are ghosts inside your mind; samples are ghosts extracted from records and trapped in forever loops. Starting from these premises, The Caretaker takes snippets of maudlin balladry from pre-World War II crooners like Al Bowlly and subjects them to escalating levels of erosion, simulating the stages of dementia. These nostalgic wisps of decaying music…
AITry it yourself and see your AI fluency report: A new way to reflect on how you use Claude \ Anthropic Voice is improving: This is the new ChatGPT Voice, powered by GPT-Live Links Cool camera app: Halide Mark III Wisdom: wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom Video everyone was right about the AYN Thor Slate Truck First Look: The $25,000 Modular EV! THE GHOST IN THE SHELL Official Trailer (2026) The Man Will Burn | Official Trailer | HBO Dune: Part Three | Official Trailer Star Fox –…
Last July 4th, I apologized to America, or at least the concept of what America could be, for what had become of the nation under Donald Trump and the GOP. Things most definitely have not become better, but the fight continues to save some shred of America's soul. America will be 250 years old, and keeps suffering as those in power keep telling outright lies whilst blaming minorities/immigrants/LGBTQ folks/etc. for any problems. Demonizing others and stoking the flames of hatred...all in the…
Late last night I heard the unmistakable sound of something colliding with a computer fan. Having only cleaned it out on Monday, I was worried that I must’ve broke something. I turned my phone’s light on and had a peek. My computer’s glass panel had some scratches on it, which weren’t there when I cleaned it out. Then the scratches flickered with the current of the fans. Oh. That’s spider silk. Bugger . I shine my light about, I can’t see anything. I sit back up, launch the program that…
I picked up Crusader Kings 3 last week. May have been a mistake, given the 30+ hours already spent in play, plus watching videos and reading the wiki. Ah well. Here's the story of my first post-tutorial playthrough. I started as the Earl of Dubhlinn because one video suggested that it was an interesting start, and the terrain of Ireland was somewhat familiar from the tutorial. Earl Murchad (1066)Rather quickly inherited Leinster, which I think was the point of the 'interesting start' video.…
Recent Comments cleveland — Jeff: “I think you misheard or he misspoke. It’s Bentonia MS for the Bentonia Blues Festival. Skip James’ Hard Time Killing Floor Blues is the…”
• Now and Wander (2026/07/04) New pages added, Now and Wander, they are both part of cool web projects I just joined, and which I'm going to talk more about in the last part of my article (gonna take awhile, the second part isn't even out yet).
Among the many RSS feeds that I subscribe to there are a few that contain posts that share other people’s writing. I find the posts valuable because they provide me links to articles to read that I may not otherwise find and tend to be thoughtfully curated. I want to provide my own “quoteblog” posts and landed on a method for creating them using the knowledge management app I’ve been developing for myself with Claude. My reading flow starts by reviewing articles collected and presented by…
No. 1 son Michael has been on holiday and started in York, of course including the railway museum. A key exhibit is Mallard – officially the fastest steam locomotive, but there are rumours that a Bulleid rebuilt Merchant Navy class beat the figure of 126mph. And York is well worth a visit, too…. Ir’s a bit of a shambles, really….. I assume that Michael was taking a photo of the Routemaster….. The flood levels are of professional interest. I’m sure that there were plenty of floods before 1892.…
Kev Walker, 1991: Kev Walker, 1997: Kev Walker, 2000: Kev Walker, 2001: (This is the sequel to the 1997 series above.) Kev Walker. 2023: So many styles, all good.
Camper Van Beethoven Telephone Free Landslide VictoryGet It At Discogs Camper Van Beethoven were one of the great, pioneering indie rock bands. When Spinart released the Cigarettes & Carrot Juice box in 2002, legions of Camper fans probably rushed out to pick up remastered versions of great albums that had been out of print for years. Two years later, when Spinart made the individual albums available again, this time augmented by bonus tracks (the box set contained just the original albums, as…
Verdict: underperforming relative to potential, long way to go to fulfill the creed. _ Reply via email
"Did you buy this rug because the neighbours are coming?" A nervy couple (Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen) invite their cool but intense neighbours (Edward Norton, Penelope Cruz) over to dinner. What fun it is to watch a film where the entire room is roaring with laughter. A chamber piece set around a dinner party is nothing new, and yet… something just clicked here that takes it to another level. The casting is excellent. All the actors understood the brief and ran with it in a way you don’t often…
8617/21536When I had chemo in 2021 it came with some fun side effects. It made me slightly hallucinate (or see the world as it really is, who knows?). I was reading a mind-bending book about quantum physics at the time and I fancied that I could start to see the blocks that made up reality. Also I saw a hare standing in a field at dusk who was standing stock still, but then turned into a crow (or something like that - I must have blogged about it, but can't find it).
I have been to Europe a handful of times in my life, but I've actually never been anywhere in Europe during the summer. So I was genuinely surprised to learn that many countries in Europe have extremely little air conditioning. I'd never considered running air conditioning any time I was in Europe - including the time I lived in Dublin for three or four months - so I'd never realized it wasn't available. I was silently reading a lot of the social media fighting about AC during the heat dome…
When OpenAI announced they were sunsetting Pulse, I used their recommended prompt to schedule a daily update. Two days in, I think it’s actually better than Pulse was. No pretty pictures, but both yesterday and today were more relevant, more actionable, and more attached to recent conversations.
Sail off anchor 6:20 on a clear, beautiful morning. Can hear the surf breaking on the beach on the other side of the banks. A flood tide running west to east, light southwest wind. Making 0.5 against the tide, then 0.9 with better wind. Shackleford Banks to port, Back Sound to starboard, and I could not be happier.7:15 making 1.5 to the west-northwest, Beaufort Inlet markets barely visible in the distance. 7:30 tack out off the beach to get around some shallows.7:30 gps crawls up to 2.4, the…
For our first July 4th together outside of Texas, we are doing the most Texas thing available: smoking a brisket. This is how it looked last night before it went on the smoker. (Don’t worry, the foil did not go with it.)
