John and I play a lot of video games because we make excellent life choices, and last night was a particularly Jen kind of game. I was completely lost, fumbling around and stuck on a wall, muttering "Where am I? What room is this? WHAT IS HAPPENING?" - all in a game I've been playing for 2 years now - and John joked, "You watch, you'll get Play of the Game for this."AND I DID.Meaning 11 real live strangers on the internet watched an instant replay of my character walking into a wall and…

This week at Balkinization we are hosting a symposium on Diego Zambrano's new book, How Americans Enforce the Law (Stanford University Press, 2026). We have assembled a terrific group of commentators, including Nick Bagley (Michigan), Brian Fitzpatrick (Vanderbilt), Myriam Gilles (Northwestern), Jim Pfander (Northwestern), and David Schleicher (Yale).At the conclusion, Diego will respond to the commentators.

The smell of the leaves and the woods in the autumn is one of my favorite smells in the world! I am feeling a bit nostalgic still about the mountains. It really started when some idiot started a fire pit. I don’t even know where it was, but unfortunately the smoke was strong enough it was burning my eyes and making me throat irritated inside our own house. So I had to close the windows. That got me thinking of the campfires up the mountains. I can remember that from when I was very small.…

Rottnest2026 October 14 (Wednesday), 9:00PM ← Previous My main RSS news feed: https://samwilson.id.au/news.rss(or Wikimedia.rss, Fremantle.rss, OpenStreetMap.rss, etc. for topic feeds). Email me at sam@samwilson.id.au or leave a comment below…

2026-10-14Hello!I was considering writing the twist at the end, but I'll be direct: I lost my media card on the way home from New York.This was a photography festival, and the main highlight for me (besides talking with the vendors in the street fair booths) was some free time with modern cameras and lenses. What could this gear unlock for me that I would be unwilling to try given the otherwise high cost?The event organizers even gave me a free media card and a perk of two free prints. I have…

This is my entry for this month’s IndieWeb Carnival, hosted by Marisabel. To be honest, pages scare me. I mean the empty ones that I have to fill. I want to fill. I would like to fill. I have a strange relationship with writing: it is an action that both relaxes and terrifies me. It is hard, exhausting, and stressful. But it is also a relief and, sometimes, a joy like very few others. Each time I sit down to write a piece, I end up pressing the Backspace key way more often than I would like.…

Mike Jackson takes apart three common metaphors that get folks off on the wrong foot when thinking about systems: the elephant, the iceberg and the lever: When I make the case for eradication of elephants, icebergs and leverage points from the discourse of systems thinking, I am often told that, while these metaphors are simplistic, they do offer beginners an easy route in. I take a contrary view – that it is cruel, disheartening and confusing for novices to be led in the wrong direction and…

Lately, I've started receiving a few emails from readers. It feels so nice to know I'm not just writing into the void (although I don't write for anyone specific in mind). I love connecting with fellow Bear bloggers, whether that's via email, comments or mentions on their blog. I might not write as often as I'd like to, mostly out of lack of discipline, yet moving to Bear to reunite with blogging once again has been a fantastic move! In a effort to spend less time doom-scrolling, I come here at…

刚刚看到朋友圈，亲戚说她的儿子最近喜欢一个什么数学相关的玩具还是什么的。 然后另外一个亲戚评论说：喜欢数学好，以后逻辑思维强。 我想，怎么什么都有一个目的呢？对于小孩来说，喜欢玩所谓“益智”玩具和喜欢打游戏其实没区别，就是觉得好玩。 什么事倒推都成立。 假如以后她的小孩长大后数学真的很强，这个玩具肯定就是成就他们的愿意之一吧？ 但是，这玩具一年都卖了多少套啊。 据说朗朗父亲很严，把朗朗练成了。 换是我的话，就是我父亲把我扔进万丈深渊我也成不了。 17 minutes ago |

It is long overdue to continue writing this series on building platforms with Crossplane. Where the previous post mentioned why we’re throwing out a bunch of Terraform code it also just namedrops Crossplane, mic drops, and leaves everyone confused.

Chaos isn't a Pit. Chaos is a Countertop.: M.G. Siegler, writing about the Apple promo video for the new HomeView: It is also pure chaos. I'm not sure I've ever felt such anxiety watching a promotional video, and certainly not one made by Apple. I felt the same way. The video did not make me want to buy a HomeView. It made me want to go live by myself in a cabin. ✍️ Reply by email

(“A free, independent union”.)

Dear Apple, There is a beautiful Snoopy and Woodstock watch face on Apple Watch. There is a beautiful Snoopy and Woodstock screensaver on Apple TV. And now, there is a beautiful Snoopy and Woodstock face on HomeView. Why are Snoopy and Woodstock missing on iPhone? Why isn't there an animated wallpaper with Snoopy and Woodstock on iPhone lock screens? Or did you run out of money to pay the license fee for the biggest platform you have? Thank you. Sincerely, A Peanuts fan.

NOTE: The Painted Backdrop book is Out of Print. Announcing "The Painted Backdrop" a major new photography book examining the previously undocumented beauty of hand-painted studio backgrounds in 19th century tintype photographs.Common wisdom holds the lowly painter was out of work when realistic images created by the camera came along in the 19th century. Maybe not! On the contrary, this beautiful book shows that some artists thrived during the period by creating extraordinary drapes, screens…

The third attempt to adapt the entire Chronicles of Narnia book series by C.S. Lewis to film has received its first trailer.For the first time, this attempt will adapt the seven books in chronological order rather than publishing order. Previous efforts always began with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), the first book written and released by Lewis. This new effort from Netflix starts instead with The Magician's Nephew (1955), the sixth-published book but the chronological oldest…

Why is it so friggin' hot in October! 80° yesterday, forecast nearly that today. I just put away all my summer clothes! So, of course. Why am I even asking? The CPAP adventure continues. I gave it another try last night and ripped it off my face about 90 minutes after I put it on. I think I may have actually fallen asleep at some point, but I'm not sure. I never have trouble falling asleep at bedtime. I lie down, think about something I like and I'm out. Minutes. With that face-hugger wrapped…

A Victorian seal of the sun breaking through clouds.Finisterre's Kaia 2mm Yulex suit, for jumping in wherever you are.Underwater Weaving's laptop basket (this delights me for inexplicable reasons).A sun to keep, from Choosing Keeping.Sensible shoes (Quoddy bluchers) + frivolous socks (by Exquisite J).Iris Garden by John Cage and William Gedney, a book that combines photographs and stories to create a work of chance.Ayoko & Family greengage plum jam (essentially eatable sunshine).A…

Warm and breezy at sunrise. One katydid is still calling, as if reluctant to see the end of what could be the katydids’ last big party night of the year. Two yellow walnut leaves land on my laptop.

At first I thought Riccardo was joking when he posted this screenshot from Daring Fireball. I can only assume “lost their minds” is a watermark: If you have stayed away, or even just mostly away, from X for years and then come back, people just say things like “Hey, glad you’re back! On the other networks, especially Mastodon, they tell you you’re “feeding Nazis” — by going to the platform where Tim Cook posts Pikachu videos. These people have either lost their minds or refuse to check their…

I usually skip out on all parades when I go to Disneyland. But I was with friends who love them, so I saw a three different parades today: Harmony in Color, The Villains’ Halloween: Into the Frenzy (not pictured), and the Tokyo Disneyland Elecrical Parade. What made the first parade a little more interesting than usual is that it was a little rainy, so characters were in transparent raincoats! The Electrical Parade is an all-time classic, and I’ve not seen it in its entirety in a while. It is…

Learn how to use the new frozendict built-in to create and manipulate immutable dictionaries. Python 3.15 introduced a new built-in data type: the frozendict. A frozendict is an immutable dictionary that can be created with the built-in of the same name: version_info = frozendict( {"major": 3, "minor": 15, "patch": 0} ) The dictionary literal syntax using the curly braces {} creates a regular dictionary, so you must always use the built-in frozendict to create a new frozen dictionary. In this…

Thirty-one years ago today I had the best and last first date of my life.

I am not an actor. I have no desire to be an actor today, and I didn't wanted to grow up to be an actor when I was little. I have no idea how to tell the difference between good actors and excellent actors. Never ask me to predict who will win the Oscars. (Yes, I know winning awards isn't entirely merit-based.) John Green's Hollywood, Ending is set in the world of actors, a world that I don't know much about beyond watching late night talk show and Entertainment Tonight. However, it painted a…

Welcome to Secret Breakfast / The best place to start thinking that fridges are spaceships, and cheese is where land, animals and culture meetHi there! At first, this issue is a random mess, as usual. But it’s also a reflection on the senses. That may sound extreme, but pleasure, discomfort, and even lunch boxes are all about the senses.Hope you enjoy it!Piero✹Anne Carson, the freshest Nobel Prize in Literature, cut and pasted from The Glass Essay. I suggest you take your time to read that with…

Previous posts in this series introduced Frml, then explained how it checks simplar scalar code, handles contracts between functions, deals with loops, and checks arrays. This post shows how Frml handles built-in functions like push and pop. Here’s an example program to motivate the discussion: fn main() -> Int { let a: Array<Int> = [1]; push(a, 2); assert length(a) == 2; return 0; } Built-in Functions Frml’s built-in functions live in frml/builtins.py: read(path: String) -> String returns the…

When I was a young girl my mom would make me and my sister help her make our brothers’ beds after she had washed the sheets. It was easier for us to climb up on the top bunk and the boys were nowhere to be found. I thought it was a travesty that the girls in the house were expected to make the beds of three capable boys. I was mad the entire time and would ask when the boys ever helped make our beds (never). Mom just wanted the job done and told me to stop my complaining and get on with it. In…

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Peter Bihr, in Do we all want to be middle-managers for AI assistants?, writes:These AI assistants are like putting an intern in charge of your life. Do you really want to middle-manage all of this, focus on quality control and all, rather than just do the thing yourself? The doing, that friction that it brings, that is the life, that is the work!I mean, who wants to be a middle-manager for their own life?An echo of a similar sentiment from China that I linked to yesterday.Peter’s reference to…

Updated October 2026 Cooking for Jeffrey is Ina’s love letter to her husband of more than five decades and a delightful look at the couple many of us consider the ultimate #relationshipgoals. Throughout the book, Ina shares tidbits on her and Jeffrey’s life together – my favorite of which may be their first date, where a 16-year-old Ina tries to take Jeffrey to a bar and is promptly denied entry. She talks about their camping trip through France (jealous!), shares adorable personal photos, and…

I ordered some bulbs for the garden some months ago. They arrived today. It is possible that I may have overdone it. TODAY: How Europe’s most wanted cocaine trafficker turned Sierra Leone into the world’s first true narco state The Limits of China’s Surveillance State Elon Musk’s foundation is opaque, miserly and self-serving OPERATIONS: big scripting day – I fell behind again. I have put Sunday’s newsletter to bed already.READING: RED SHEET, James Ellroy (UK) (US+).LISTENING: COMPLETE CELLO…