When you get a visual take like that from something that big and hard to catch it is an event.

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others. Lee Bains’s poetry collection Work Lunch embeds the reader into the ever-evolving American South. Kiese Laymon wrote of the book: “Work Lunch is not simply the best of what poetry can be; it…

Previous posts in this series introduced Frml, then explained how it checks simplar scalar code, handles contracts between functions, and deals with loops. This post shows how Frml handles arrays. What We’re Doing A minimal array program is: fn main() -> Int { let a: Array<Int> = [2, 3, 5]; assert a[2] == 5; return length(a); } The array type checker subclasses the loop type checker and adds visitors for the array syntax. Everything scalar and every while loop is checked exactly as before; the…

I appreciate that it’s still mid-week, but I thought I’d spring this idea on you, especially as it will be the weekend, before we know it. I’m planning a day out in the attractive, north Kent town of Faversham, a location that despite a couple of changes, is easily accessible by rail. Furthermore, with the aid of my old git’s railcard, is a relatively inexpensive train ride away. It’s probably a couple of decades since I last visited the town, and so today, I spent part of my lunch-break at…

Inspired by a post I found today on dev.to and to hit my daily 10-idea list, here are 10 things every coder has blamed, or at least I have—Pair them with these 20+ signs you’re a real coder: #1. Lack of documentation: We all complained about poor or non-existent documentation, but who wants to write it in the first place? #2. Unclear requirements: “That’s what the use case/Jira ticket/user story said” or “It wasn’t clear from the use case…“ That excuse never fails. #3. Unreadable code: “This…

23:25 - Almost done. Will work on the background tomorrow. Stabbed my index finger yet again.

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others. The stories in P.J. Blumenthal’s collection Self Portraits are wonderfully diverse and fascinating. Elfriede Jelinek wrote of the book: “When you book Blumenthal, your trip is fully…

$485.98, to be exact. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was up to the trip today, health wise. Pain levels increased again during the night. Not especially bad, except the bleeding suddenly increased, too. I found myself feeling quite dizzy in the morning. I thought, at first, it was because I was really hungry but, … Continue reading Costco stock up trip – finally: this is what $486 looks like

Cătălin Gabriel Stănescu, Reader in Law at Newcastle University and member of the European Commission’s Financial Services Users Group. Photo credit: BNP Paribas HQ, by Boubloub, via Wikimedia Commons A pending reference from the Greek Council of State brings an old question back before the Court of Justice: when credit is transferred to a purchaser and its administration and recovery are entrusted to a separate company, how should EU financial law classify the activities of that company? In…

I find it endlessly entertaining watching journalists conduct flimsy but elaborate justifications as to why they still use X (formerly Twitter), a right wing propaganda sewer owned by an overt white supremacist directly responsible for the death of what ultimately may be millions of human beings. Quick reminder: Elon Musk is an unremarkable and virulent racist who cosplays as a supergenius engineer. He leveraged the money he lucked into at Paypal to opportunistically glom onto actual innovators…

WARNINGBipolar disorder is a serious mental health condition. This article is not meant to mock or laugh at this disorder, but merely use its name and some of its symptoms to convey a message. Never self diagnose, or use AI tools to diagnose yourself, and instead get a medical help if you suspect you are having any mental health conditions. Earlier this month I have received an invoice from Anthropic which ends at -0011, meaning it’s my eleventh month of paying Anthropic to use Claude. A year…

Not too long ago, Apple accessory company Elevation Lab released a product designed to silence the noises made by AirTags when they are out of range. That is a reasonable idea for an AirTag installed in something someone might steal. It is also a dangerous product in the hands of someone who might want to stalk or harass another person, a distressingly well-documented use of AirTags. Elevation Lab, today: We have removed the product and will use our patent on it to prevent anyone else from…

Rae Greiner has the kind of deep dive into word history that I love, in this case “1909: The Introduction of the Word ‘Empathy’ into English.” She begins thus: Empathy is a hot topic these days, on the lips of cognitive scientists, philosophers, literary critics, and U.S. Presidents alike. But what is it? Consider the opening paragraph of the opening essay of a 2011 collection entitled The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. In “These Things Called Empathy: Eight Related but Distinct Phenomena,” C.…

I haven't left the house in days the open window lets in air that almost smells like winter already the days keep running away from me I need to break away from this deceitful lull for stagnant water means death

2027 will be here before you know it, and as each new year takes us further away from the earliest days of television, the likelihood intensifies of its pioneers being forgotten. It’s unfortunate that this happens with television but not with movies. In the Criterion Closet videos on YouTube you’ll see celebrities in their 20s honoring films older than their grandparents. Whether it’s Fellini or Bergman, Chaplin or Tati, Kubrick or Kurosawa, they know the movies and why they should be known.Why…

I love some of the textures you can get at the seafront. Why do I love plants that grow on the beach so much?39 words · 1 image

my personal archives I have been writing a special Tuesday newsletter for paid subscribers for five years now, which means there’s a bunch of really good stuff just kind of hiding in the archives over there. I’ve tagged a lot of of it on the newsletter homepage in categories like “notebooks,” “mixtapes,” “tutorials,” “zines,” “typewriter interviews,” etc. But it’s hard to know how to point people back at stuff. A few weeks ago I had a sale on paid subscriptions, so I used it as an excuse to…

Several thespian edifices tower in the Zamonian literary landscape. Figuratively, the monumental ouevre of Aleisha Wimpersleake overshadows and underpins all; the creative energies of the Orm have spoken through no Zamonian so persistently as through she. Literally, the Puppetocircus Maximus' rotund silhouette dominates the skyline of Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books, from all angles. Around the spherical hulk of the Puppetocircus, a busy district has blossomed. Here, the streets bustle at…

“The Topic” being, of course, the Mathocalypse, except sometimes with AI alignment and even quantum computing and complexity theory and other stuff thrown in. With Ryan Peterman: Notably, near the end of the above podcast, you can watch my live reaction to the news that an Anthropic model found algorithms for the 3SUM and the All-Pairs-Shortest-Path problems beating records that stood for generations—news that hadn’t yet reached me when I woke up and logged in. (If you don’t feel like watching,…

I’ve been thinking about this thread a lot, specifically this bit: As far as I can tell the answer is something like LLMs are smart but not wise; they don’t induce that many of those “Aha!” moments that seem to be best mined through other means (or often, just doing nothing and pondering stuff on walks) These days, most of my “coding” work happens by me steering agents, and these agents are generally very good at making progress once I’ve framed the problem. But (as I’ve written about in the…

Ben Nadel demonstrates a buggy spread operator in Adobe ColdFusion 2025, update 13. This only happens when spreading the result of a scoped method call....

What the heck is a Jack Daniel’s ad doing in a post about a podcast appearance? Good question.The answer: I think this is one of the greatest (and longest-running) brand advertising campaigns ever created. Postcards from Lynchburg by Ted Simmons for Jack Daniel’s. “We’re not selling a bottle of booze, we’re selling a place.”And if branding is about trust, trust is about character. Specifically, defining and then staying in character. No series of brand advertisements ever did it better.So,…

Last week’s newsletter began: An out-of-town developer tore a house down at the end of my street and cut down every single tree on the lot. As I watched the big T-Rex excavator claw down the walls, a thought ran through my head: If it can be built, it can be torn down. True of houses, relationships, and civilizations. What got me the most was the smell of the big pile of demolished house. A smell of rot and death. And then the oxblood and rain lilies came up. Related: “Normal is what you can…

I got in that time period of the year where I ended up eating out too much for lunch (oops). Anyways, I bought some things to make an easily assembled bento to bring for lunch. I drew a little graphic since what I have packed is in my lunch box. I really like "set meal" type of lunches and don't get tired of eating them. I thing a huge part is because you can change up the protein & sides easily. This lunch is low effort because I'll air fry the shrimp tempura (thx costco) in the morning while…

Somehow, my data has been sold to Pennsylvania Republicans. Every election season, I get inundated with texts to vote Republican, and support horrible causes. I have never lived in Pennsylvania, I don’t vote Republican, and I don’t support horrible causes. I am happy to waste their resources, I guess.

It has taken SO LONG to get to this point, and to be honest I am just very very tired, physically and emotionally. I recently went to some event ion my village where I started to worry if I had the energy to walk home. I have no idea if its just a lot of stuff going on at once or age, or the stress of following world events way too much… but anyway, regardless whether people love or hate it, there is now a playable demo of my latest game: Ridiculous Space Battles. Enjoy this big clickable…

Since its acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022, Twitter/X has been considered a neighbourhood on the wrong side of the tracks. But not any more. Things have changed. Now it’s the place to be. Because, among other things, the platform is “cheerful” and “inclusive”. So say some people. But the question is vexed, the matter of Twitter/X being either in, or out of, favour. Especially for long time users, people there since the platform’s inception in 2006. I doubt many of them think all that highly of…

Many people say that AI is just another tool. But this is not quite true. Unlike any other tools, it doesn't just solve or automate some narrow problem, it constantly learns and adapts which allows it to compete with our cognitive abilities.

So, I write this … and then I chat with a guy in line at Starbucks who turned out to be an astronaut that uses Linux every day. The Universe works in scientific yet mysterious ways.