It’s strange how a competent biography that attempts to explain someone’s motivations and context can make them more sympathetic. Because, y’all, if Ann Lee was operating today, not one of us would think she’s worth listening to. Not that anyone is holding her up as a model, but you know what I mean
I wrote about hiking yesterday and mentioned “switchbacks.” On a steep hike, the trail almost never goes straight up. It zigzags — long diagonal legs cutting back and forth across the slope, taking you what feels like sideways when all you want is up. These are switchbacks, and there are two good reasons for them. The obvious one is that they make the climb bearable. Straight up a steep face is brutal on the legs and lungs; angling across the slope softens the grade to something a body can…
SID: So Joseph has done – well, just a whole lot of good work for us in the past. Whenever we’ve needed a witness or a third party for, I don’t know – a petition of grievance or alienation of affection — DEEANNA: And he’s reliable? JOE: I’m bonded, miss. SID: Joe is the most reliable human being on the planet, in our experience. All Eddie Mannix wants is to preserve the audience’s belief in DeeAnna Moran’s “innocence,” so that her pictures will continue to make money. All the pregnant and…
How do you tell users that the text they're about to read has been synthetically generated? It is polite to readers that you don't waste their time, it's also important that LLMs don't feed on their own regurgitated slurry lest they pollute their own development. I think there are a number of potential ways to do this0 and I'd be interested in your thoughts1. Let's go with some bad ideas first. What's your love language? Perhaps the simplest is to simply ascribe a unique language to AI. BCP 47…
A mourning dove calls from out of the fog, high-pitched and hesitant, as if just learning how to sing. A flower fly is licking my laptop where I rest my wrist.
[Picking up from this and this]I realize that my recommendations for Patrick Boyle videos tend to be a bit heavy-handed, but even by his standards, this one is essential for anyone trying to get a handle on the AI bubble and its increasingly likely ramifications. It is an extraordinarily pithy half hour, hitting a number of important topics. I really need to do at least one or two more posts on this.For today, let's focus on what may be the key point in the entire 2026 AI market discussion: the…
WS Merwin
Welcome to "Weekend Link Dump: The Musical!"The bombing of LaGuardia Airport.When dead bodies were asked to pick out their murderer.The amulet that could rewrite the history of Christianity.The world's most haunted museum. That's the boast, at any rate.It may be time to stop insulting the dodo bird.The U.S. Navy and the Soviets compete to find a crashed F-14 jet.15th century breach-of-promise cases.The mystery of "shared death experiences."Why we surrender with white flags.WWII's largest prison…
Today I launch a game that is probably my biggest ever – Battleteria. This project has been my game since the start of the year (with the exception of a month and a half where I worked on another project). I wanted to learn a few concepts in Pico-8. Sprite rotation, storing and retrieving levels, and highscore tables, and after a bit of work I’ve come up with this. Space Replicants have taken over the galaxy, and the Solar System is the last stop. Guide your ship through 50 waves of enemies in…
screenshot from @candiburke video embedded below 7 August 2026 Candice Burke posts wonderful bird photographs at @candiburke on X. In the past two weeks her yard in Hyrum in Utah’s Cache Valley has been a Little Bit of Hummingbird Heaven. Three species are possible at this time of year: black-chinned, broad-tailed, and rufous. Can you identify these? On 6 August 2026. Just chilling on the feeder, sporting some pollen on her head pic.twitter.com/QRSOuQToAK— Candice Burke (@candiburke) August 6,…
A few weeks ago, I walked down my alley with my half-frame Olympus PEN EE-2 camera and a roll of expired Kodak UltraMax 400 shot at ISO 100 (which accounts for a bit of the color cast). I am pretty pleased with the photos and while most of them are not “good” but any technical measure, they make me happy enough to want to share them.
Come see us in DC! It’s DC Pen Show Weekend! We’re looking forward to seeing many of you in person at one of the pen community’s premier 3-day events. We’ve brought Roterfaden, OnionBrand, Lochby, and of course select pens and paper with us to the show! We will of course remain open online and in-store in Nashville, with the new Blackwing Volume 458 Birding Pencil, more Lamy Meteorite and Meteora fountain pens, and restocked Nakabayashi paper. Online orders placed between Weds and Friday will…
“Witching Hour Test Pressing UK Addresses Only Sold Out,” there must be some music-collector somewhere who is extremely bothered by the existence of this artifact
“How much do you need? How often should you reapply? The short answer: about two tablespoons, every two hours. For stick sunscreen, that’s four passes back and forth. For sprays, until your skin glistens. Make sure you rub it in fully — yes, even for sticks and sprays, and even if the directions say otherwise. As for what to buy? The best sunscreen is the one you’ll apply liberally and often.” —Rose Maura Lorre, The Morning newsletter, The New York Times, July 25, 2026
From “1922 – 1940” (according to the New York Public Library) a postcard of “Bryant Park in 1853”: Except, of course, it wasn’t Bryant Park then (a) because it wasn’t a park, just vacant land behind the big distribution reservoir located where the NYPL is now and (b) William Cullen Bryant was, in 1853, a late-middle-aged poet and newspaper editor who was well-known but not yet someone you’d name a park after. As is so often true, the postcard image was very low resolution. This 1853 engraving…
Many rumor sites are speculating that Fujifilm will introduce the next generation of X-T camera the first week in September. I believe the speculation is for September 8th. About a month from now. I wonder what the X-T6 will be as compared to the X-T5 and will it be something I would consider buying? Unlike previous weeks leading up to a new release, rumors and information from the trusted rumor sites have been scarce. Usually, in the months and weeks prior to the introduction of a new camera,…
Agents amok. Read here.
I purchased this slide in an online auction. Two things caught my interest - a nearly new CN cowl locomotive, and a green Burlington Northern "B" unit.
Server update.
In light of Blaugust, I've been looking over some of my past posts here to get ideas, and I've realized that...I love this blog. Sometimes I get self-conscious about my writing here, like it's not very good or interesting enough for anyone to want to read. And it is largely personal, largely for myself to be able to look back on and reminisce about times gone by. And that's exactly what I've been doing lately, so I suppose it's serving its purpose well. I've always said that the point of this…
what kind of tracker would make sense? morning/evening messaging/emails (1 square/day is enough, just fill it out in two halves) morning/evening mastodon and blogs (same as above, maybe they could just be One Category - morning/evening social stuff) One Video, even if i watch it in bits and pieces (1 square/day is enough, just color it in when the video's done) 1h random internet per day (seems like a lot, maybe half an hour??) - maybe posting on my blog, uploading a sketchbook, or just…
After today I will have read at least one story (in fact it looks like I will have read at least three stories) from each of the six issues of Weird Tales with a 1943 cover date. We are making progress in our grand quest to have read something from each issue of Weird Tales, a periodical the life of which spans from 1923 to 2025. And today may be a red letter day, with stories by blockbuster writer Ray Bradbury, fan fave Manly Wade Wellman, MPorcius fave Edmond Hamilton, and Lovecraft…
Only yesterday I had a grumble about Apple tricking me into upgrading my iPhone and iPad to iOS 26, despite my efforts to avoid it. Today I find iPadOS 26 is even worse than I thought, with UI glitches and poor handling of the simplest of things taken for granted for years (I’ve found rotation from landscape to portrait messes up the screen paint of Messages, for example). I’m finding that many simple operations are now more steps than previously. In the App Store, the list of updates would…
Overlooking the dunes at Durness, this chapel has an 8th-century connection with St Maelrubha, 'The Red Priest'
During the month of August I will be participating in Blaugust, a month long blogging challenge. Today’s TDC asks: Have you watched Stranger Things on Netflix? Even if you haven’t, imagine just how strange the world can get. Then write a story or create an image, or a soundtrack, or a video, of the Stranger Things you imagine. We won’t judge. Too much. The worlds is strange in ways I don’t really want to imagine at the moment, so I jumped over to Lunapic to see what filters I could use. I chose…
Yesterday was a good day overall, but also a bit overwhelming in understanding ways. I went from summer days when I'm around one or two people a day to a day full of humans. I went from the unstructuredness of summer days to a day of a rigid schedule.Happily, I was surrounded by other humans, my colleagues, who are delightful. I went from the free floating thinking of summer to focusing on teaching. I gave a workshop on using haiku to assess student learning--yes, it's a workshop I've given at…
Galen, On Avoiding Distress 14 (tr. Sophia Xenophontos): You should thus assume that I too have become the person I am because I am by nature similar to my ancestors, and also that because I received the same education as them, I have the same qualities of soul. I know that my father used to despise human affairs as of small importance, which holds especially for me too now in my old age. νόμιζε δὴ οὖν κἀμὲ καὶ φύσει μὲν ὅμοιον τοῖς προγόνοις ὄντα γενέσθαι τοιοῦτον, καὶ μέντοι καὶ παιδευθέντα…
ta daI did go back to the shop and chopped the stopped dadoes. First thing this AM I got the top seated in the dadoes. I didn't have to trim/shave either end to get them fitted. However it was awkward and a Royal PITA - I could get one side seated and then I couldn't get the other side seated. Then it seated and the other side would pop out. After see sawing and letting loose with my choicest expletives, I finally got them seated and clamped.glued and cookingI had to go to the VA to check on a…
Detail of a T-28B Trojan on display at the USS Lexington Museum, Corpus Christi, Texas. The post Prop appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.
