“There is not the slightest doubt that bicycle riding, if persisted in, leads to weakness of mind, general lunacy, and homicidal mania,” says The New York Times article titled “Lunacy in England” published in 1894. Moral panics are a recurring feature. They are bursts of exaggerated fear that some new thing will wreck society’s core values. The history of mankind is riddled with ideas that were once considered indisputable truths but now sound like a silly joke. With bicycles, doctors cataloged…
In August last year, couple of months before it launched in the midst of its "2 of the 6 clans will be Day 1 DLC" PR disaster I called Bloodlines 2 [the most unbuyable game I've ever seen](https://criminallyvulgar.dev/bloodlines-2-is-the-most-unbuyable-game-ive-ever-seen/. While I stand by that take I've had time to relax, forget the furore, and observe a 50% discount. My partner is in the middle of an online TTRPG VtM campaign so my interest is at a local maximum and I've just finished an…
I asked my my little one who he wants to be or what he wants to do when he grows up. He answered: I just want to be myself. *Be myself** Simple but not easy! The worst part - we forget about it when we grow up. 初心 📧 |
In his post Wanting to Write More, Joshua Maynard explains that he has a hard time writing more. He says: The site is just about where I realistically want it to be, so it's time to start posting and I feel like I have nothing - I do have nothing. I totally understand that feeling of not having anything to write. I have it too, very often, and have written about it several times in posts like Nothing new to write. It's always hard to come up with good advice since we're all unique in our own…
I accidentally hit 'back' on a post about growing cloud forest orchids through a heat wave and can't be bothered to re-write it. So instead - have a freaky little cloud forest orchid that is making it through. Pleurothallis tribuloides Native to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean. Grows in wet forests at elevations of 300 to 1300 meters. Described as a cool to hot grower which I suppose means its not fussy.…
Here’s Calcifer from the Studio Ghibli classic Howl’s Moving Castle! I printed this eraser carving in red ink, and added some additional yellow and orange with watercolor pencils.Makerblock designed and 3D printed a holder for carving erasers, and sent me one to try. This was my first go at using that. It works really well!The Fabriano Unica printmaking paper I have been using for most of these eraser prints bled a lot with the red ink. I experimented with the Strathmore printmaking paper and…
Victoria Square This and more in today's update to Northern Folk Archive here -https://northernfolkarchive.pagecord.com/rainy-day-in-bolton-12-january-2017
The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō is a ukiyo-e print series by Keisai Eisen and Utagawa Hiroshige depicting notable places on one of the main roads leading from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto. A modern-day version of the series by Katsuyuki Nishijima follows a similar route (as much as it still exists) showing some of the old buildings seen along the way. Nishijima’s prints have heavier lines than you find in their 19th-century equivalents but few of his scenes look immediately contemporary. In…
Yesterday, a friend asked me, “How does writing a book feel?” She had just bought a printed copy of 10 Simple Ideas That Changed My Life. Well… The first days are full of excitement. I use 10-idea lists to come up with a title, subtitle, and outline. I come up with cover ideas. The next few days are full of doubt. It’s when the inner critic speaks louder. “Is anyone going to like this?” The next few weeks are quiet. Like a marathon, it’s one foot after the other. It’s doing something small…
Everyone's favourite world leader made a call to FIFA and got a red card suspended for a year. Even if the US men's football team were to win its upcoming match against Belgium, football fans outside the US will view the result with disdain. I know I will be rooting for the Red Devils. Disgraceful how politics bleeds into sports. P.S. If Singapore could somehow make a call and qualify for World Cup 2050...I wouldn't want that for us.
Haiti is one of the earliest nations to be eliminated from the 2026 World Cup. After just two matches, they lost 0-1 to Scotland on June 14 and then lost again 0-3 to Brazil on June 20.But if we check the archive, their World Cup journey was actually much longer than those two matches. The qualification stage started in 2024, and they had to endure at least ten matches before securing their place at the World Cup. Before being eliminated by Scotland and Brazil in the group stage, they had…
Dr. Meltem İneli Ciğer, Associate Professor of International Law, Suleyman Demirel University Faculty of Law, Türkiye; Honorary Fellow, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool With comments from Professor Steve Peers, Law School, Royal Holloway University of London Photo credit: President of Ukraine, via Wikimedia Commons Nearly every year since I started teaching temporary protection and the Council Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 (Temporary Protection Directive) at the…
A truly fascinating 17-minute video where Chris Siebert at 100th Coin ventures out to play Super Mario in a way where every single byte of code and every single byte of graphics are used, and then shows his work: There was something about seeing the visualization of the entirety of the code being “used” that made me sit up: It reminded me of IBM 1401, the 1959 business computer I saw a lot at the Computer History Museum. It takes up a big chunk of the room… …but is still so simple that you can…
I live in my calendar and todo lists. If it is not in my calendar, I won't remember. I write down every chores and ambitions in my todo list app. I am a productivity junkie - I hope the tricks and apps can soothe my pain of getting things done. I don't care whether human can go to Mars one day, I don't see the point. I need to stop treating life as a project. Maybe we all do ? 📧 |
Weekly cleaning series. I have a slight headache and am feeling tired. I slept around 6 hours, which isn't ideal for me. I'm drinking a cold coffee to hopefully wake me up. I don't have too many engagements this week, which is nice. Weekly cleanWe haven't cleaned the living room floor since before we left for the Netherlands and it's looking grim. So today, the focus will be cleaning the floor and dusting the surfaces. Sometimes, I'll have a desire to do some sort of home improvement task…
Today while reading the Rust Documentation, I encountered a fantastic UX touch. The authors provide this image with each code block that intentionally doesn’t compile:
In her memoir Airplane Mode, author Shahnaz Habib shares her travels around the world. One of my favorite passages, though, was about her taking her local Brooklyn bus as a new parent, “Where I wanted to be was on the bus… The bus itself became my destination. A place to sit, a window to look through as the world streamed by, offering itself without demanding anything.” This passage came to mind to me today as I went to renew my Canadian passport just outside of downtown Toronto. I usually…
Adventurers Character Race Class Description Anoran Hall Human Cleric level 2 A thin, wiry, and bald follower of Promehene, the God of Time. He doesn't know what drives him to adventure. Drokh Human Monk level 2 A tall, lean human monk with piercing eyes, weathered skin, and a warrior’s poise—calm and charismatic, he speaks with purpose and strikes with precision, wielding spear, bow, and blade. Ignaeus Elf Fighter level 4 / magic-user level 5 An arrogant and self-assured sellsword wandering…
Why not raising prices on existing customers can be good for business. The other day I was on X and I came across this post from my friend, Matt: I think we can all relate on some level. Price increases have become an expected part of life. Matt mentioned how he raised prices at The Events Calendar during his time there, and it made me think about what I would do today if I were running a software company and wanted to raise pricing. Honestly, I'm on the fence. On one hand, I get the reason for…
We used to worry about fire. A house fire could claim the photo albums, the letters, the dusty box of cassette tapes in the closet. We knew exactly what we were protecting, and from what. The threat was not only visible, but olfactory: you could smell smoke. Now the threat is something else entirely: not loss through destruction, but loss through indifference. The server shuts down. The startup pivots. The platform “sunsets” a feature you’d spent years filling with memories. And just like that,…
This comic was originally funded by members of my Patreon, to whom I am endlessly grateful. If you like it and want to see more, why not become a member yourself? The post Greebo Chapter 4: The Wise Man appeared first on Other Strangeness — merritt k.
This month's Retrospectiva comes a little later than usual. The whole house got sick battling the flu the past couple weeks. Mixed with a small heatwave here in Copenhagen, means summer hasn't blessed us like we expected. At least not yet. Now that I'm feeling a bit better, I finally managed to get some writing in. Let's get to it. Using GLM-5.2: Finally. An open-weights model that competes with the big frontier models. For the past weeks I've been using GLM-5.2 extensively. Through OpenCode Go…
Review season. You start your career thinking the review is the most important milestone of the year, but as an individual, you only see part of the picture. Everyone cares about the compensation (base salary, bonus, and stock). That’s the data they care about, but where did this pile of compensation come from? Who decided how big it is? And how is it allocated? It is a long, complicated, and large process that began over a year ago. And as a Senior Leader, it’s your job to figure it out. The…
It’s July already and we are halfway through 2026. So, I thought it would be a good time to stop and evaluate my current journal/planner/notebook set-up in an official Techo Kaigi (stationery meeting). I started the year with a B6 Aura Estelle Daily (5053), a Mark’s EDiT B7 semi, a Creeping Moon B6 Tarot Journal, a Pineider “Hollywood” A5 lined notebook and a personal-szied Filofax. Some of these are ging strong, others fell out of use almost immediately (more ambition than time or energy, I…
In late June, we headed up to the North East last week for a couple of nights to celebrate the E's birthday. Now, I used to spend a fair bit of time in Newcastle back in my working days, but the Northumberland coast? Completely unknown territory. What would we find apart from dodgy weather?Our home for two nights was The Olde Ship Inn in Seahouses. Central, it does food, and it offers nine cask lines, though I doubt if E considered the latter aspect when booking us in.Well, you never know, I…
Bench, Saugatuck, MI - Nikon F100 / Kodak ColorPlus 200Spent hours this morning trying new ways to deal with film scans on Linux. It involved Vuescan, Darktable, and a lot of cursing. I'm making progress, though, and I don't hate the results as much now. ✍️ Reply by email
I've been painting our garden furniture in a futile attempt to extend it's life. However the struggle, on wet days mostly, is real. It seems that despite the huge selection of available paint in modern DIY stores, I'm left with some nagging doubts about the paint industry and the quality and effectiveness of the paint they produce and sell to us gormless idiots still willing to try to paint stuff. Of course I asked my friends on AI Street, Cowdenbeath, (across from the Gothic themed data…
I have Buckdancer rehearsal this week. I have the continuing job of getting these Daphne Falls bass, drums, and synth tracks ready for live. (There’s not really a timeline on that yet.) Two private party DJ sets coming up. I want to get back to writing because I hardly wrote anything last month. And I’ve got a solo set later this month. More than anything, my job is to get organized and stay on schedule. The good news is that I’m way ahead on all this stuff, and I want to do it all really well.…
He saw a chipmunk on the bird feeder once and now he just assumes they live there.
A roundup of interesting links I have enjoyed recently. Weather without the ads: jmrk84.github.io A daily gerrymandering game: gerrymandle.com Daily puzzles and learning games for kids: zeepza.com A Linux distro chooser test: distrochooser.de A town square for your website: townsquare.cauenapier.com An independent website for trusted climate information: climate.us An archive of millions of artworks found in the world’s museums: lastmuseum.com A distraction-free digital typewriter: pomera.us…
