Week #807 Our WebRTC project has somewhat stalled. We meet normally on Fridays, and the consensus is that it’s moving too slowly between bug reports and fixes. We proposed to meet on Wednesdays for a short time, then Fridays to organize priorities. This week, they cancelled the Wednesday meeting (not sure why), then last minute cancelled the Friday meeting. Which is annoying because we spent some time over the previous weekend and Tuesday night to fix the immediate issues for review. Now we’re…
A rather uneventful visit to EKSN. It was windy, with a single airplane parked on the airside.
Somehow it is August already. They made an Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. I had hoped to watch it with all three children but Emma said she wasn’t that interested and, truth be told, Rowan’s enthusiasm was at least 90% due to the popcorn I had opened into a bowl. I thought the film itself was fine. It was fun to see the characters again but I admit that it’s been less than a week and I’m struggling to remember much of what happened. It’s perhaps not that surprising given Rowan’s always…
Last month, I drove all the way to Taynish National Nature Reserve on the west coast of Scotland to look for the marsh fritillary butterfly. I didn’t see one sadly, so about two weeks later, I returned with my mate Nick for another attempt. Staying overnight, the first day we wandered around the reservse for hours, but didn’t have any luck. After dinner and a pint or two in the Tayvallich Inn that evening, we did a spot of fishing around the village. As well as a few small corkwing wrasse, we…
Torness Power Station is coming towards the end of its lifespan. In the next few years it will be decommissioned. I’ve caught a good variety of species from both the area where water is drawn in to cool the reactors and where it returns to the sea in a much hotter condition. The fishing can however be very mixed. Like the water around the station it can be hot or cold! I’ve had a few amazing sessions there, but also some very tough ones! Last month I visited twice and unfortunately the fishing…
And there you are, at the moment you knew it was about to come. You feel you cannot stand another day as a physician. You want to leave. You’ve decided you’re going to leave. You could leave now. But now you’re in the middle of your medical specialisation. You’ve been on a path for nearly a decade, and now you’re nearing its conclusion. How can you walk away? You make a decision. I don’t know if it’s the right or the wrong decision, but it’s a remarkable decision. You decide you’re going to…
Years before Github (or git, for that matter) existed, I was publishing my open source software on my own websites. However, larger projects (and eventually some of mine) used a website called SourceForge, which was a reliable source — you could trust downloads from that website. At some point, SourceForge offered CVS and/or Subversion support — for the youngsters, CSV and Subversion were other version control systems that predate git. Around 2007, Github launches and popularized Git and having…
Reading Maps plots fictional journeys on the map. Creator Aires Loutsaris explains: Reading Maps came out of a nagging thought that every story has happened somewhere. Odysseus crossed a real sea. The Pequod sailed real… More
When I went to bed on Wednesday night, I hoped I'd done enough to deal with an ant invasion into our home. I'd anticipated it. We live within the jurisdiction of a home owners association and periodically, when ant populations begin to surge, they lay down insecticide. Whenever they do this, within 30 minutes, the ants come inside.Of course, they're escaping the tragedy and my home, being relatively poison free, is a sanctuary. Usually, they just mill around on the floor, but this time, one the…
Barack Obama has announced his annual summer reading list: Kin, by Tayari JonesThe Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth StroutA World Appears, by Michael PollanWhistler, by Ann PatchettThis Land Is Your Land, by Beverly GageVigil, by George SaundersOne Sun Only, by Camille BordasSeek Immediate Shelter, by Vincent YuData Empire, by Roopika RisamTranscription, by Ben LernerCool Machine, by Colson Whitehead You can catch a video at The Obama Presidential Center’s Instagram post. (Don’t forget to turn…
I’ve never really held back from jumping in at the deep end, with both feet, not worrying whether in fact I can swim or not. I created my own self-belief long ago. Something I think I learnt from a very early age; maybe 3-4 years old? Preschool, one bright sunny afternoon, poolside, I took a huge flying leap towards some random guy in the pool my sister was dating who, arms open ready to catch me, turned at the very second I flew over his shoulders, whereupon I landed in the water with a rather…
Yesterday, I gave a workshop on zine making at rosh studio, famous for their drop-in Risograph printing sessions. It was so much fun! I had incredible support from J, L, and M and together we successfully blended the art of zines and Riso. The workshop format was deliberately mellow, with a low, almost non-existent entry barrier, and thus catered to the typical visitor of a Machwerktag, which is the open day of the creative hub Machwerkhaus, of which rosh studio is a part of. Machwerktag…
[He has no malice in his heart.] I fear it’s been a bit of a negative week here on OFT, so let’s end it on a higher note. There’s good news, as all “Chuck Norris Facts” are now about this Chuck Norris. He is very clearly the superior specimen.Link: https://annekadet.substack.com/i/208672854/the-nicest-man-in-new-york
For my first full day back on Honshu, we set out for a quick convenience store breakfast and then headed to the train station. We were off to Nara Park. After sorting out which train and rushing around to make sure we caught it, it turned out we had a few minutes to read all of the stops on the electronic display, which led to us choosing to take a different express train with fewer stops. Still feeling burned from my poor train-taking track record, I was a little apprehensive, but it worked…
For less than the price of a coffee I acquired a digital copy of a remake of a game from 1982. On the surface, it is just another Unity game with a nice colour palette and some geometric shapes. Once you get into, though, it is an addictive experience. Yars: Recharged, from the Recharged series of releases was my addiction of the week. If you don’t know Yars, because I certainly didn’t, it is part of a series of games with a special distinction. The first game in the series, Yars’ Revenge for…
Archaeology magazine, vol 61, no. 6, Nov/Dec 2008 has a cool article about UK witchcraft.
The encoding finally finished! [20:44:04] Finished work at: Thu Aug 6 20:44:04 2026 [20:44:04] libhb: work result = 0 Encode done! HandBrake has exited. Took about 7 days to encode 56 DVDs from VIDEO_TS folders into more modern .mkv format, using H.264 to save on space. It looks like the .mkv files are quite a bit smaller than the source material: $ du -sk */ | awk '{s+=$1} END {print "Original Folders: " s/1024/1024 " GB"}' Original Folders: 277.174 GB $ du -sk *.mkv | awk '{s+=$1} END {print…
Looks Unfamiliar with Georgy Jamieson talking to Tim Worthington about the EKCO Hostess Trolley, Terry's Spartan, A Sharp Intake Of Breath, John Cleese's How To Win Holes By Influencing People, Charlie Chester's Sunday Soapbox, the lost art of tuning your radio in to the television signal and more...!
Mao Zedong, in his statements, talked about peasantry being the main force of Chinese revolution. Peasantry, and not the urban proletariat was the main character - in a stark contrast both to classic Marxism, and to the mainstream Marxism-Leninism of the era.Why? What was even his point?Surface reading: he was waging an abstract theoretical discussion, academic style, and made an abstract statement of abstract truth.Actual reading: no, it was not some kind of theorising into the void. It was a…
Not captured in these words or images are the conversations you have with lifelong friends that tackle everything from the lightest to the weightier topics... not heavy, just important.Currently Listening: Charlie xcx “Camera”Reply via email
I’ve changed as a person. I’m becoming one of those people who reads sequels/series in relatively quick succession! I started Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume series in January, and I’ve made it to the fourth volume – published in Danish in 2022, and in translation by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell in 2026, making it perfect for Women in Translation Month. (Incidentally, I wonder why the translators have changed since the first volume?) Here are my thoughts on the books in…
Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #117, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web. To follow the series, you can subscribe here. A new NordLetter will land in your inbox every Sunday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read previous editions here. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed. You can reach out to me by replying to this mail. I am also posting on Mastodon. In a day including the…
A few more microfictions, still no LLMs. “Keeper of the Living Collections,” the job posting read. “Must always be in a good mood.” He called to inquire. “Ah, yeah. We can’t figure why, but the trees will only grow to songs of True Joy.” At first, bottled moments seemed like an exciting new industry. “Bottle of flopping onto the couch after 12 hours on your feet” sold like mad, and moment factories sprouted across the country. It all came crashing down once “bottle of baby’s first laugh” was…
Twenty Poets of Argentinaed D Samoilovich and A Graham-Yool, Redbeck Press 2004 This is best kind of book; the Introduction not only gives us a thorough background to modern Argentinean poetry, but also invaluable notes on the poetics used, so often missed in translations. The poets are chosen by having published two plus books by the time of translation; and so, as this book took four years up to publication, it is by necessity a book about history.In Latin America this has significance.It was…
The Host KnowsOur latest dog-sit brings us to Cucklington. It's quite possible over the three-day weekend that we may be able to do a walk in three different counties.We start in Dorset. During the introductions and our host listens to my planned walks at Castle Cary and Bruton. I can tell he is unimpressed and ask him where we should go. Shaftesbury is mentioned, but we have recreated bread advents. Then he says "Sherborne". We've never been. Plans are changed.We can tell on the drive in to…
This is a letter I wrote years ago in response to a challenge. For it you had to write something to a quality you wished you had more of.I've rewritten it to reflect who I am today.What would your letter be to?Dear courage,I thought I’d write a letter to you instead of diving into my life to find stories that will put me in your light.That is so hard to do as I don’t see myself as a very courageous person.You see, courage, as I’m writing this I am in bed, comfortably miserable. Days on end of…
PulpFest 2026 was a landmark. The convention drew 486 attendees — about 350 preregistrations and the rest walk-ups. That’s a record for PulpFest and its predecessor, Pulpcon. I’m on the organizing committee, and we announced the figure during our look ahead to next year on Saturday evening. As I’ve said before, PulpFest is the people […]
We drove our coach 206 miles / 332 km, about four hours of driving, from a boondocking spot in the parking lot of Mount Begbie Fire Lookout near 70 Mile House to MamaYeh RV Park & Campground near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada. Here’s a map showing our route, heading north: An interactive map, with potential stops pinned: Begbie Summit elevation 1232 m (4041 ft): Barn and 130 Mile Lake: Williams Lake rest area: Turn to Prince George: Interesting rocks: Bridge over Quesnel River: River…
Cassowary, CasuariiformesWherever you are in the world, it is likely that you know your local birds. True, you may call them des Oiseaux, pássaros or uccelli — but you'll know their common names by heart. You will also likely know their sounds. The tweets, chirps, hoots and caws of the species living in your backyard. Birds come in all shapes and sizes and their brethren blanket the globe. It is
Shortly after Apple launched the budget MacBook Neo, Dell announced their response, a new low-end XPS 13. Matching the Neo's current pricing, it starts at $699, or $599 with an educational discount. That discount is currently set to expire on November 2, and with the current component pricing insanity, I'd be surprised if we don't see a price increase on both laptops by next year. I ran the XPS 13 through my gauntlet of benchmarks, and published a review on my YouTube channel:
