Before I go much further, I want to stress how serious earthquakes are. It's not really a laughing matter if you live as I do in earthquake country. Millions of people have died from earthquakes in the last century or two, and they are still recovering bodies in Venezuela from the quake last June (6,500 dead so far with tens of thousands still missing).San Francisco after the 1906 earthquakeStill, it is important to be reminded about the threat that we in California live under. Quakes happen…

The hymn chosen for today’s service is No. 296 from Hymns Ancient and Modern For all the saints who from their labours rest. This is usually song on All Saints Day (November 1st) but is topical because of today’s public sector strike.

Power Cat 2026-10-14 bad boy ben

I’ll spare you the joke the phlebotomist told me while drawing blood from my arm. Given the circumstance I mustered a polite titter in response. I had already diagnosed him as a member of that blight on humanity, the would-be comedian, the sort of guy – almost always male – who wishes to be thought a funny fellow, a jokester, a real card (“he has to be dealt with” – heh-heh). To make sure you recognize his wit, he helpfully laughs at his own joke. The condition’s etiology remains a mystery but…

One letter changed in the name and a week later. I’d have liked to get to this show, but a flu jab and decorating my daughter’s new property got in the way. But Allan supplied the usual photographic record of this rather good exhibition. Starting with Ventnor (O). Or perhaps the ‘Essence of Ventnor’. A very much compressed version of this unique station, but with all the character of the original. It would be enormous if to scale (as the 2mm and P4 versions that may occasionally be seen), but…

Twenty Years Ago on FITK The e-mail triggered it. It was a note from the place where I had reserved an apartment while at the Iceland AirWaves music festival. I had been "bumped" into a better one, in a different location (Garðastræti 40), just across the street from the Russian Embassy. Cool. And then the wild thoughts began: " …ohmygodimgoingtobethereinaweekandihaventgottenready

I am a habitual tab hoarder so I created a Firefox addon to help me manage every one of my very special browser tabs. Sort tabs by oldest, unload them, find duplicates, and consolidate tabs to a single window — buncha useful stuff in there! Download from Mozilla Addons Source code on GitHub Features Go directly to a tab by clicking on it. Shows Duplicate tabs open more than once. Supports Multi-account containers for a tab (and the color of the container too) Filter tabs by title, URL or…

I’ve bought one of those digital picture frame, and I added the picture folders that I’ve sorted through to it. When my husband and I were watching the slideshow, this picture came up, and I sighed, “I thought I’d already sorted these, but boy, it needs another pass!” We both laughed, and continued to watch the slideshow. Then just now my insomniac mind wanted to continue sorting, and I opened one folder in concerts to find this picture, and suddenly I was flooded with memories. April 2015,…

You might wonder why I'm posting about a stage show on a blog about toy trains'n'stuff. Well, this visit was inspired by something I spotted on an N gauge layout. Chatting to the owner, it turns out that this is a CatBus, from the 1988 film, "My Neighbour Totoro". Obviously this fascinates me, and I spend time I should be working falling down the CatBus rabbit hole on the internet. Fairly quickly, I find that there is a stage show put on by none other than the RSC. At this point, I decide to…

As I’m working with an agent to upgrade a repo from vibe-coded to something I can understand and dig into, I am reminded that Programming is Theory Building. By “theory” we mean: an understanding of the world, the software and how they relate that’s good enough to let us work intelligently on them, answer questions about them, and argue about them. Like: we have a theory about what the world needs (I need to be able to comment on this HTML!), how the software meets those needs (a server injects…

I just feel so alone. And I don't know how to extract myself from this void I crawled into. A void where life is just flat, deflated, persistent in its meaninglessness. And there's no spark. Sometimes a sip of alcohol or a good hitting edible brings some color and flavor but it's just a peak at a fantasy and nothing grounded in reality. Substances might show you things, but they also prevent you from getting where you need to go. It's just a tease. And for many it's a path to the grave. I spoke…

The Pet Shop Boys have a new album out: Created in collaboration with Alan Turing biographer, Andrew Hodges, and performed by Pet Shop Boys and the Manchester Camerata Octet with narration by Juliet Stevenson, string arrangements by Sven Helbig and additional production, programming and synthesisers by Maarten Vos, the work explores eight significant chapters in the life and death of Alan Turing, the pioneering British mathematician and cryptanalyst who laid the foundations of modern computing.…

How about another creepy car? Today I'm looking at the Drift Rod from the new Hot Wheels Silver Series: Universal Monsters set of cars. This muscle car has been given a new paint job inspired by the Wolf Man. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? A big, hairy V8 rolling down the road, honking a horn that lets out a big howl. Yeah, that's the ticket. The Wolf Man is my favorite of the Universal Monsters and I was really excited to see what this one looked like in person. Let's see what Larry…

I’m completely baffled by what has happened in the United States over the last decade. Whenever I read a news story about something I know well - startups, venture capital, or AI - I immediately see the posturing, positioning, spin, misdirection, and deceit. Some of it is sloppy reporting. A lot of it is someone with an agenda who got their version of the story printed. And this is just the news. I expect everyone reading this knows the next level down of the misinformation and deceit, which…

Rebellion have released information about their release schedule for 2000AD's 50th anniversary year of 2027. Here's a list of what to expect next year... not so many Treasury titles of older British material, but plenty of Dredd and quality (Definitive, Apex) 2000AD reprints.January 20272000AD: A Visual History 1977-2027Judge Dredd: Compact Crimes 1Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 52February

The other day my friend Gillian was telling us about the first time her mom used a computer. It was a long time ago, back, back, way back, and the story goes that the whole family was unpacking their new heavy, chunky PC in the middle of the living room. Styrofoam was cracked apart, boxes were torn up, and then they all slowly gathered around this big gray Box of the Future, waiting for its information powers and knowledge showers to rain down upon them. Now, most of the fam had used a computer…

Renature is a game from master duo Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande, Tikal, Take 5) and Michael Kiesling (Azul, Tikal, Linko). It is a mid-weight game about nature, animals and trees. It is a tile placement game, and the tiles are dominos, each half showing an animal. During game setup, every player gets his own pile of face-down tiles, and a starting hand of three tiles. You play

I just spent hours and hours (and hours, and hours) talking to my Rocker Step writing partner Daniel about, well, everything. And, like all conversations about "everything," it was largely about one thing. That one thing boils down to a question, and that question is only three letters (and one punctuation mark) long. Why? When I was in Grade 6, my homeroom teacher Mr. Whittaker told a room full of 11- and 12-year olds a story. The story was about a university exam. The exam had only one…

The trouble started at the beginning of Lax, the fourth and mildest season of Cornucopia's six, when Urz stepped out to stretch their creaky joints. Their olfactory sensors sang to them of the renewal in the air, the tree's were ripe with fruit, and the solar paths were keeping them comfortably topped off, even as they left the neighborhood grid. They'd just sat down at their favorite little refreshment shop, when the network pinged them with an update on their incoming shipment. In that moment…

I am finally coming out of this massive depression and I just had a week where I felt like an actual human with real human energy and it was such a relief that I was saying yes to everything because I’ve been saying no for so long and Victor immediately took advantage of that toContinue reading "Maybe we’ll see Björk?"

I have been looking for a network protocol stack that can be run in addition to the regular TCP/IP network at TVC. Kiran has been exploring Meshtastic, mainly to connect the sensors to the Home Assistant that TVC runs. We have very poor cell phone connection and two BSNL wired internet connections, one of which is mostly down. Kiran has been laying OFC across TVC to share that network. I took a bit off-route and started looking for a protocol that can work in adverse conditions; I was okay with…

The gang stalkers were out in force again today, even if they were being more subtle. Part last night's harassment was an individual, who had clearly been waiting for me to arrive walked out in front of me, he was holding a very distinctive red bag. There were also several gangs on either side of the street at specific points making it difficult to cross. It was pretty clearly a setup, they wanted me to walk behind red bag bloke. It was so obviously a setup too. Everything had been normal, and…

Woman with a Parasol – New York, New York In an age of athleisure and other casual clothing, you don’t often see a woman in a white dress complete with a parasol. I spotted her in the Tribeca/SoHo area, and I had to take a picture. The first photo was the easier one, shot with the Leica D-Lux 8, a compact, autofocusing camera with a zoom lens. As I gently followed the woman, I made several exposures, zooming to different focal lengths. I guess I was double zooming, both with my feet and the…

I recently reviewed a novel titled Maya: Seed Takes Root, by Anand Gandhi and Zain Memon, for The Hindu. Excerpt: As with novels, the first symptom is the writing, which is conspicuously aphoristic. Lines like “If dreams inspire hope, nightmares inform vigilance” are peppered throughout the text. Of Maya’s three protagonists, Yachay is the anomaly, Kshar is predictability and control manifest, and Ayn represents the alternative path. Gandhi and Memon explore Maya’s concepts of choice through…

2026 UPDATE: Three years ago I finally grew a rutabaga after years of trying. I was so proud of it I had a photo shoot. I mean, it was a thing. I grew it again this year. It was one of only 5 or 6 things I grew at my big garden this year. I...Read More

Whenever philosophers sit around trying to figure out what it actually means to be a “good person,” they always muddy the waters with impossible standards. They talk about altruism, radical empathy, and walking fifty miles in someone else’s orthopedic shoes to understand their pain. Who has time for that? I have trouble walking fifty feet in my own shoes without tripping over something. It’s exhausting. And frankly, it sets the bar way too high for everyday humans who are just trying to get…

🛌 One of the few pleasures in life, that feeling you get when you land on fresh sheets and pillow.

Tonight’s movie is one I have not seen in a very long time.I saw Witchboard when it first came out, but I have not watched it since. I remembered the Ouija board, obviously. I remembered Tawny Kitaen. I remembered that it was one of those movies that seemed to be everywhere on video shelves for a while.Witchboard (1986)Jim (Todd Allen) and Linda (Kitaen) are throwing a party at their new place when Brandon (Stephen Nichols), Jim's friend and Linda's ex-boyfriend, produces a Ouija board. He…

Kid Bucle – “Bahia” Kid Bucle – “Memorabilia” Dubbel Dutch – “Full Break” (Dave Quam Remix) HVL – “Survivor Acid” HVL – “Test Subject” The post New Hots Hots 31 first appeared on Palms Out Sounds.

Tags: #sketches #places #portraits Korean shaved ice milk.The woman came out of nowhere and said “I was waiting for that spot” with a raised voice, slight accent and an angry look. “What. But.” We were already exiting the car. She pointed to her white Tesla Model X, the same one that had been backing out of another “add-a-spot” location at the head of the alley between the strip mall buildings when we arrived. “I was waiting for that spot” she said again, forceful, frustrated, even domineering.…