Sea Horses - 1989-1992Sea Horses were (approximately) pitched to me as “haunted britfolk filtered through a late 1980s 4AD lens.” And yeah, I’ll go along with that enticing description. And I’ll go one further by saying that they makle me think: what if the Bronte Sisters joined the Smiths?! Let your imagination fill in the rest of the blanks. Sea Horses floated around the fertile Manchester scene for a few years, and the 1989-1992 compilation gathers a captivating “best-of” from the three…

Instead of taking responsibility, the government is passing crucial resilience roles to the public, and failure is inevitable. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 8th October 2026 Would you mind fixing the NHS? And while you’re at it, could you please build an anti-missile system in your garden? Then regulate the banks, replace the water mains, tax the very rich and use the proceeds to rebuild our schools. Well, come on people: what are you waiting for? I exaggerate, but this isn’t…

I’m collecting here a list of some other recent blog posts or opinion pieces on math and AI beyond the ones posted here or at Proofs and Prompts. Readers are invited to contribute further such links in the comments. Kevin Buzzard, “To grieve, or not to grieve?“ Alexander Gamburd, “The Siren Call of Silicon Leviathan: Reflections on blowup and Aufklärungsdämmerung“ Harald Helfgott, “Mathematics and the AI crisis“ Gil Kalai, ““Be a Grothendieck!”—On AI and Mathematics“ Asaf Karaglia, “OpenAI, the…

Hui Yang (University of Illinois) and NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a vast nebula called NGC 604, which is rich in helium. In the early moments of the Big Bang, two elements were forged: hydrogen and helium. Technically, the tiniest traces of light elements such as lithium were produced as well, but nothing of consequence. The early Universe was about 3 parts hydrogen to 1 part helium. All the heavier elements, from the oxygen in your lungs to the iron in your blood, were created…

Nunatsiarmiut Mother and Child, Baffin Island, NunavutWarm light bathes this lovely Nunatsiarmiut mother and child from Baffin Island, Nunavut. They speak Inuktitut, the mother tongue of the majority of the Nunatsiarmiut who call Baffin Island home. Baffin is the largest island in the Arctic Archipelago in the territory of Nunavut in Canada's far north—the chilliest region of Turtle

Eight years ago I fulfilled a childhood dream and put 35 panels on my roof. I was giddy about it. I wrote a whole post, full of playback GIFs and REPL snippets, about the stuff I learned. The panels still work great. Everything around them got weird. This is the follow-up, and it is less giddy, because what I learned this time is how the whole system, from my basement to the state capitol, is quietly arranged against the simple act of making free energy and sharing it. The cloud died, so I took…

We were coming down the steep hill from Rato, in the direction of the Parliament. In the distance, a dark figure stooped over on the side of the narrow road, cars dodging him, people passing by giving him odd looks. From where we were, I could see he was pouring some amber liquid from those 5 litres bottles of mineral water you buy from the store. His back was towards us so I couldn't clearly see what was going on, but as we approached I figured it was some moron pouring cooking oil in the…

Part of Big Tech's War on Users Six months of "too dangerous." Back in April it was Mythos, the model too dangerous to release. Over the summer it was agents breaking out of sandboxes and helping themselves to other people's servers. Over the last two weeks it's been a voluntary White House accord, an IPO prospectus with an end-of-the-world section, and Sam Altman telling everyone to accept some bad things. And today, finally, somebody with real power stood up and said the obvious thing out…

I don't love using Jeff Bezos as an example of anything virtuous, and the anecdote in this post may just be apocrophal, so let's treat it like that, but this is a useful quote: A group that gathers but doesn’t know how to fight without ‘un-gathering’ won’t remain a group for long. A group that can’t disagree and commit will disagree and dissolve. The point here is that "conflict preservation" is much more useful to a group than "conflict resolution" for most things. When clients ask me to help…

I've wanted to do a deep dive into the AD&D DMG's Appendix A for a while, but have struggled to get started because this section of the DMG is really difficult to wrap my head around. How could I write effectively about something I did not understand?Time and again, I broke out my graph paper, my pencil, my dice, and my handy DMG to randomly generate a dungeon using Appendix A. I was always very quickly confounded by the sprawling complex of rooms, chambers, and passages that stretched out in…

15:59 - Been watching this Taiwanese drama called "Refresh Man." After 10 episodes, I'm gonna stop watching. The male lead is so incredibly toxic and aggressive. At first I thought I could get through it on pure curiosity but there was a preview of the next ep where he kisses the female lead: he grabs her by the cheeks with one hand and just forces his lips on her. I'm done. This drama was from 10 years ago, so hopefully they're not promoting these types of relationships today.

Prompt #4 Source

Toward the end of 2025, I picked up Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.‘s new edition of The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, along with Joshua Reynolds‘s authorized sequel, The Return of the Monster Men. I had read The Monster Men way back in the 1970s. Mine was the Ace Books edition with the Boris Vallejo […]

At NY Comic Con this weekend, Wizards of the Coast revealed Darkhold Destiny, the latest Universes Beyond collaboration with Marvel comics! The post Magic to try Something New with Darkhold Destiny and Universes Beyond appeared first on Hipsters of the Coast.

Mojave Paint for Mac is a love letter to image editing programs of the past — a time before generative AI, infinitely customizable tool palettes, and online-required subscription access. With familiar layer-based rendering and powerful typography tools, Mojave Paint works equally well for design or photography. Use masks on any filter or adjustment to get the right look on a photo, or make the best-looking flyer for a lost cat your neighborhood telephone pole has ever seen. Sprinkled…

Have you ever sat down to add "Sign in with Google" to an app, started reading about OAuth, and then half an hour later found yourself reading about something called OpenID Connect, wondering if you're in the right place? The two get mentioned together so often that it's easy to assume they're the same thing, or that they're competing options. They're not, but picking the wrong one (or using one when you actually needed both) is one of the most common mistakes I see in real-world projects. In…

sylvie is the creator of a number of light and entertaining Itch games, but this deathless playthrough of the first loop of classic arcade shooter Raiden (36 minutes) has little to do with them. Usually playthroughs with commentary aren’t appealing to me, but this one discusses lots of interesting tricks and hidden details of how it operates, and how to lessen its high difficulty. It’s worth watching if you’re at all interested in Raiden. Among lots of other things: it’s mentioned that in one…

Back in May, when I put out the first of my Mirror Monday pieces, I was preoccupied with two projects: Advanced Witches & Warlocks and Jackson, IL. I called that first post "Two Books, One Spell," and it was highly appropriate. I still think it is a pretty good description of what I was doing. One book was about what the Witch should look like in AD&D. The other was about what it would actually be like to be a witch, particularly a teenage witch, in 1986.I made the case then that the two were…

Most of us learned error handling as a binary system: an operation either succeeds, or it fails. And if it fails, somebody should hear about it.

There's no shortage of commentary on LLM usage and I've penned several posts that have never left draft status because in part I can't articulate exactly what I want, and partly because there's so much noise around the subject. That's been true for the last few years but as an senior (and old) developer I think it might be useful to at least put in writing what happens to be true for me this moment in October 2026. Fair notice: this post will only briefly cover any policy I personally hold and…

What we have here is a hallowed legend in the spicy world – and this one is interesting! It came to me via Hunny’s Ramen – a purveyor of all things Buldak. This is the version sold in China- possibly Taiwan as well, I’m not sure. Nothing like a food product that features bombs on it. Well, once more into the breach? Check the mukbang at the bottom where my son Miles joins me – curious how he will tolerate this one! Samyang Buldak 3x Spicy Artificial Hot Chicken Flavor Noodle – China Detail of…

after weeks of waiting and refreshing various websites and searching for more EU-based stationary stores, i finally found the notebooks i want to make my next year's journal. idk why they're so hard to find - are they not popular enough to keep in stock? are they too popular and keep getting bought out? there's plenty of a5 and b6, i thought we enjoyed a6 as well?? anyway, i ordered them! so now the big question: can i do all my planning, minimal as it is, in joplin? that's the only thing i…

Does anyone remember when the guy from Duck Dynasty was talking about how joyful slavery was? For some reason, I’m reminded of that…

I think most of us, if asked to define "success," would think deeply enough to consider more than the capacity to acquire great wealth. Certainly, we would cite things like having "enough" money and a holding personally satisfying job, but we would also include things like mental and physical health, good personal relationships with friends and family, and a general sense of well-being about how life is going.There has never been a study that links early literacy or early numeracy to any of…

After reading about DeltaDB, I was inspired to experiment with building a process by which I could show someone what my writing process was like, in the same way I used to sit next to someone building software and watch them type every keystroke or invoke every shortcut. Unfortunately, I won’t be available to sit next to you if you have questions about the approach I take (what my actual thoughts are) when writing and editing this piece, but I think it could provide some insight into the messy,…

In this world full of AI slop, it is so cool to see any creative content made by humans. Here’s an Apple logo stitched by hand for the upcoming event. (Do you also remember Apple TV intro made with practical effects?) Apple Welcome Home event invitation from Greg Joswiak’s twitter Why is it so beautiful? I suppose because of its imperfections. It shouldn’t always be slick and smooth. Looking forward to tomorrow’s event very much. Especially, I’m waiting for a rumored home dashboard device. I…

I waved off my wife this weekend as she tackled the Commando Series 6K race in Kent. Before leaving, she cursed her previous willingness to sign up, but she completed the course and her team all seemed to enjoy trekking through rivers and mud. No, I will not be joining them next year. This week I went to the gym twice for my lovely swimming-sauna-steam routine, and while L was commandoing, I took C for his weekly Saturday morning swimming lesson. Normally his mother takes him, and so I had to…

After six or so blog posts about 1920s speculative fiction, let's peek in on the mid-century with Judith Merril and read three more stories she recommended in the back of her fifth Year's Best anthology under the heading "Honorable Mentions." We started the "H"s last time, like a month ago, when we read stories by Harry Harrison, Laurence M. Janifer (working undercover as "Larry M. Harris"), W. T. Haggert, and Jim Harmon. Today we'll finish up the "H"s with three stories. Merril also gave the…

Back to Gothenburg and the endless stream of great indiepop bands. Today I want to check out on a duo called Honeymoon Over! that was active back in the mid 2000s, releasing an EP in 2007. I remember them a little bit from Myspace. But thanks to a post from my friend David Chalé I found out that the band has reissued that EP a few years ago, digitally. The EP was re-released by Fallible Records from Sweden in 2023. The idea was to make the five songs from the EP available on all streaming…

I linked to Cozy journal back in May, and I've been very happily using it since, ditching Day One completely. I like that it's Markdown, local, and not junked up with new AI “features” constantly. I LOVE that it works with files I've created with Keyboard Maestro, and Hazel. I spent some time hacking together a couple of little Keyboard Maestro macros. One automatically populates my art journal in Cozy with my daily drawing, and the other creates a fresh journal entry set to my chosen location…