Jake Casella Brookins Hello all! It’s been another hectic month for me: in addition to all the usual things, I was on the road to present a paper at the SFRA conference in East Lansing (which was wonderful), and am in the midst of moving house. The upside: very slightly bigger podcast “studio”. The downside: moving books, which has made “next time in a hearse” my refrain for the move. I wasn’t able to arrange a podcast episode for SFRA; I just ran out of time & energy to set up something…
High Society is a Reiner Knizia game from 1995. I have heard of it so many times that I feel like I have played it before. This is one of the classics from Reiner Knizia that always comes back in print. This is an auction game. Everyone starts with the same set of money cards, each a different denomination, from $1 to $25. That’s all the money you will have
The American experiment is not going well. Our civic culture is at an all-time low, we have given up our great achievements of the twentieth century, and it isn't clear where effective new leadership is going to come from. I am pessimistic in the short and medium term, but optimistic in the long run, even though I may not live to see things change. Still, on the eve of the Fourth, it's time to turn once again to the ultimate authority on that holiday to put the Declaration of Independence and…
Despite seemingly an hour of runtime spent goofing around with ghosts, and the last hour of the movie being exhausting nonstop fights, this movie finds time for a surprising amount of plot twists. Jackie Chan is a kung fu monastery flunky as usual, when their most powerful secret book of killer moves is stolen and handed off to murderous enemy James Tien. Now James is unstoppable, as the only moves that can counter him are written in a long-lost book, which Jackie easily discovers while pissing…
Book review for The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd. I rated it 4 stars The Pathless Path introduces the concept of the “default path” or life script that most people tend to follow, or aspire to follow. Get a university degree, a 9 - 5 job, marriage and kids. After a period of illness, the author Paul Millerd discovered that this path was not for him, and instead embarked on what he’s dubbed the Pathless Path. As someone that got laid off from their tech job earlier this year, some of what he…
Review by Sandre the Giant Released: 9th January 2026 Stop the presses, the Killchain is reviewing Chilean death metal again? Well, it is an open secret around here that when we see a promo hit our emails that has Chile mentioned, we do perk up our battered ears but we’ve got a lot of reason to. Chile has become the country-de-jure for extreme metal in the past decade, pouring out a crazy amount of incredible bands and albums, and Oraculum are about to take centre stage with their debut full…
It all started innocently enough: sometime last summer, I ran into the blog post Start your own Internet Resiliency Club on Hacker News. …communicate with each other across a few kilometers without any centralized infrastructure using cheap, low-power, unlicensed LoRa radios and open source Meshtastic text messaging software. The idea of a local, infrastructure-free communications mesh sounded useful, especially as we were about to sail into the Pacific. Meshtastic While conflicts and natural…
Background For some years now I own a Xiaomi Mi 2 scooter. Of course I flashed it with SHFW using the ST-Link method, which then allows using the normal SHFW Android app to do all updating and configuring. This worked perfectly fine for about 2500km. Then the internal battery was noticeably degraded and I could no longer reach home from work in winter. So I got one of the last Rita adapters before the product was discontinued, which allows connecting an external battery with differing voltage…
Scribed by Sandre the Giant Released: 15th May 2006 Until just this week, I had no idea just when I got into British hardcore/metalcore/whatever they are now heroes Architects, because I have had their debut and a matching shirt for as far back as I can remember. But apparently they may have been the first support on the Sikth/Dead Man in Reno tour I literally just discussed in my last piece, which I have almost no memory of. But it does explain why I own these things. Anyway, the band have…
Satya Nadella at Microsoft’s Build conference this year: Perhaps the most important design criteria for us is: ‘how do we earn the permission from the communities in which we are building these data centres?’ That’s where these principles ground us and focus us. How do we ensure that the D.C.s do not increase the electricity prices? Making sure that we are replenishing all our water use. Creating jobs in the local communities for the local residents. Adding to the tax base. […] Kate Brandt,…
I don't usually remember John Allen's birthday - July 2 - until after the day has passed. This year I happened to notice the announcement in the G&D group (former Yahoo group) and decided I'd celebrate with a special train. I assembled a short consist of cars from John's friends who had contributed rolling stock from their railroads to run on the Gorre & Daphetid. These cars are actual equipment from those roads, not reproductions or tribute cars, though they may not match the car types seen on…
Swung, the past tense and past participle of the verb swing, is spelt double-u u. Without the abbreviation, w, it should be written suuung.
I will occasionally also be weird, odd, bizarre, esoteric, and/or incomprehensible.
— I remind myself that one needn’t pay too much attention to things like the existence of Meta Glasses, but at the same time, as someone who has been reading about the male gaze, reading John Berger, Sontag, WJT Mitchell, Barthes, you name it, forever, I can’t not think about this moment. Very little, by which I mean nothing, to redeem this invention, but there will be a lot of fodder for anyone writing about seeing, surveillance. A perversion of photography. I’m sure you could form interesting…
Anthology by tyler etters & the northern information movement Endless Field Studios · Digital Listen & Download Tracklist 2012-10-01 (1:10) 2012-10-02 (2:13) 2012-10-03 (0:50) 2012-10-05 (4:01) 2012-10-26 (1:31) 2012-10-29 (1:56) 2012-11-01 (0:58) 2012-11-02 (2:20) 2012-11-05 (0:53) 2012-11-08 (0:37) 2012-11-10 (2:40) 2012-11-16 (4:47) 2012-11-18 (2:34) 2012-11-30 (2:14) 2012-12-01 (2:14) 2012-12-02 (0:34) 2012-12-03 (5:42) 2012-12-04 (1:54) 2012-12-12 (3:45) 2012-12-20 (3:23) 2012-12-24 (2:26)…
The first recording today is Pokemon: Battle Frontier – Queen of the Serpentine. Team Rocket try to steal Pikachu again. Jessie is disguised as the local Queen Lucy so maybe I can forgive Ash not recognising her, but James and Meowth? They try to escape in their balloon, but the real Queen Lucy arrives to stop them. It’s Seviper vs Seviper. Later, Ash and Queen Lucy battle, and Pikachu is the eventual winner. Ash wins the Luck Symbol. Media Centre Description: Popular animated series. Ash and…
RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season 11 episode 10 gave us yet another challenge with no clear guidelines, and that plus a format change led to a shocking outcome, Marshal Knight writes in his recap.
Former alien abductees Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor have to avoid the evil murderous secrecy corporation run by mastermind Colin Firth and hitman Henry Lloyd-Hughes and deal with their doubtful spouses (traitorous Wyatt Russell and loyal Flora) then journey to meet Colman Domingo at his Rehearsal house and deliver an extraterrestrial message to humanity. Heavy influences from Steven’s other films: the alien ones plus A.I. and Minority Report, I am not kidding about The Rehearsal, the final…
I traveled to The Hague to see the Graduate Show at the Royal Academy of Art.
Tall bamboo stalks rising overhead in Arashiyama
A path through tall bamboo stalks in Arashiyama
Power Cat 2026-07-03 I guess he had some kind of germ.
TALKIN SHIT Cardinals all the way down, man. Quick sidenote: celebrating my country feels pretty gross in normal times and these are far from normal times, so if you too are in the states: may your weekend be hopefully filled with like, barbecued food and good vibes instead of inhospitable temperatures, weird displays of "patriotism" and a prevalence of PTSD triggers for both people and pets. Like don't get me wrong, I do love SEEING fireworks, but I don't like how much they make the cats sad…
Did you know that you’re allowed to make real-world acrylic art that looks like a glitchy Playstation game from the early 00s???? This post will expose you to artists who are doing just that. It started as part of the regular “links post” for July 2026, but got big enough to stand on its own. I’ve been enjoying the low-poly N64 world of Gao Hang: Artist Sasha Yazov lives rent-free in my mind. (Here is his CV with more photos of his work). He is an airbrush & acrylic artist, and likes to show…
Yooooo, have you heard of Altın Gün?! It’s a Turkish psychedelic band from the Netherlands. Last month I heard their music playing at Rooster Coffee House (one of Toronto’s best cafes), and it was so fresh that I’ve been listening to their albums on a loop: Check out the track Cemalim, too. My only previous exposure to Turkish singing has been through the band She Past Away. If a secret little goth heart doth beat under your lace undershirt, then you should be listening to them. It sounds like……
I used to travel with my laptop partly to use as a media playback/streaming device but with a USB-C mini-dock that does PD passthrough and HDMI out, my Thor is as good or better! I really do just love this thing…
Yesterday — in my posting “National days”, a Peruvian (delivering food to my house) celebrated US Independence Day on my behalf: My dinner for June 27 was delivered by a courier bubbling over in delight about the coming Fourth of July, which he identified as my national day (adding that he was Peruvian and his national days came at the end of July…) In the posting, I played things the way the courier framed them and didn’t appreciate that he was probably also full of delight in America’s…
The turret house at 3880 NE Wistaria, built in 1928, has been through hard times the last 30 years. A Portland brother and sister duo who restore old homes purchased the house in February 2026 and are underway with restoration. New owners of the turret house at 3880 NE Wistaria have begun restoration work on the unique and visible 1928 home, tackling the biggest challenge first: decades of unaddressed water damage to the garage, porch and southern exterior wall. Siblings Amber Chang and Kyle…
