Habitat maps Missing data As mentioned last week, I'm working towards doing a regional habitat map based on global data, to see if we can utilise Tessera's global reach to make up for local data-deficiencies. But in doing this I ended up doing a review what data we were using from GBIF, and found a couple of interesting points. The major one was that despite GBIF containing species occurrence data from many different sources, including Cornell's eBird repository which is often cited in the…

Why a call to subscribe is unfair and irritates me, and what I did instead on my own blog.

Dublin, Ireland Early morning tour bus departure so our choices were limited. Fortunately this little place was open around the corner from pickup. We each got a mocha and split a pain au chocolate. The pastry was flaky and delicious. The mochas were also quite good; a good chocolate flavor without being too sweet.

Today is the 226th anniversary of Oktoberfest, a holiday which began as a city-wide celebration of the marriage of a royal couple. Raise a glass! I wish I liked beer more.In an interesting juxtaposition of holidays, today is also the real Columbus Day and also the federal holiday. Oktoberfest and Christopher Columbus . . . surely a poem lurks there. Old world, new world, hmmmmm.On this day in 1492, the 10 week Atlantic journey of Columbus and his crew ended when a sailor saw land.Unfortunately,…

All You Need Is Love I think we can basically look at relationships in three ways: When you get more than you deserve, it’s called love. When you get exactly what you deserve, it’s called business. When you get less than you deserve, it’s called exploitation. When sincere people come to a spiritual movement, they give their lives. Of course, in one sense, what they receive is priceless, even if they are not paid or given anything material in return. But to feel that kind of gratitude without…

Hello! How are you handling the Pordenone comedown? I am mostly answering emails and drinking tea. But I just wanted to pop on here to let you know that the Queen is coming to Belfast. And so am I. The gorgeous new restoration of Queen Kelly (Erich von Stroheim) will screen at the fabulous Queens … Continue reading Queen Kelly in Belfast this month →

A games-leaning week of links from 5 to 11 October, pulled from what I shared over on social.omgmog.net. There’s been a lot of effort going into decomp and recomp projects lately. I’ve been spending a lot of time playing the gen1recomps, and now Halo is in the mix. I couldn’t have dreamed of this 25 years ago, and now it just works on my Mangmi Air X. I’ll probably be sharing more of these as I come across them. I’m currently trying out The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD.

Most of the singers who attend my workshops are in their 60s and 70s. Many of them having been coming to my singing events for years. The other day, somebody asked if I’d noticed whether they struggled more with learning songs as they got older. That day, I had some singers in my workshop who had been regularly attending for at least 17 years, so I was able to compare and contrast. In all honesty, I haven’t noticed any reduction in their ability to learn or remember songs or harmonies. in fact,…

Mohammed Abbas Mohsin, PhD in Public Law, Diplomatic advisor Photo credit: San Jose Public Library, via Wikimedia Commons Abstract This blog post presents a comparative legal analysis of the regulatory and judicial frameworks governing the balance between the fundamental right to freedom of expression and the state’s pressing interest in protecting children in the digital age. By examining recent landmark decisions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court of Justice of…

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…

We started a small marathon of Michel Ocelot’s movies, and this one was the first. Beautiful style, but I don’t have much to add. Rating: 🙂Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

Well, that was quite unexpected! I loved the four interpretations, and the plot twist is effective. Rating: 🫢Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

WOW! This movie is a tiny masterpiece in its little universe! I have to recommend it to anyone! Rating: 🚀Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

Very cute, beautiful style. The plot is what it is, but it touches the right strings. Rating: ☺️Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

Very Gondry-ish indeed! Everything is perfect, even if it gets a little boring in the last part. Rating: 🙃Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

I don’t even know how to define this movie. Absurd, funny, and lovely. Rating: 😃Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!

Readeck is a great tool Readeck is a self-hosted open source read-it-later webapplication. Readeck calls itself "Your Own Content Hub". Save the story, cut the clutter Readeck helps you keep all that web content you’ll want to revisit in an hour, tomorrow, or in 20 years. Readeck uses the slogan "Save the story, cut the clutter". Which is totally true. When you save an URL in Readeck, it is cleared of bloat. When you open a saved URL you get to see it like in the reader-mode of your browser. As…

It was a busy week, but I did get a little listening done. I started with some Jimmy Forest and his 1959 semi-Classic All the Gin is Gone which marked Grant Green’s debut and pairs Forest and Green with Harold Mabern on piano and Elvin Jones on drums. There’s nothing spectacular or breathtaking about this album. In fact, it’s not even as spirited as Forest’s classic “Night Train,” but it’s still great music. Plus, Forest was Sonny Liston’s favorite artist (apparently). I’ve also enjoyed Wadada…

This is the report on new and revised entries at online philosophy resources, new reviews of philosophy books, new podcast episodes, recently published open access philosophy books, and more. . (If we missed something, let us know.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy New: ∅ Revised: The Cambridge Platonists by Sarah Hutton. Aristotle’s Categories by Paul Studtmann. Samuel Alexander by Emily A. E. Thomas. Metaphysical Explanation by Andrew Brenner, Anna-Sofia Maurin, Alexander Skiles, Robin…

I need to say up front that I do not have all the answers here. Rather, this is a blogpost on a topic which I have been mulling for a while, and which I thought was interesting enough to document, even at this nascent stage. The nub of my pondering is this: if a client comes to me, a solicitor in England and Wales, to what extent must I explain environmental and climate risks? The Law Society’s guidance on the impact of climate change on solicitors The Law Society has published a guide to the…

8711/21630I hadn't touched clay since last November until this weekend. Ernie had been using air-dry clay at school and wanted to do more at home, so I bought a bag online and we had a play I showed them how to make a pinch pot and my efforts were as rough as fuck. Phoebe then made a really lovely beaker to keep pencils in, which was far better than mine.As with everything I do, I am not the best at it even in my own house.

There are quite a few ugly buildings in my town that I'd like to demolish. Now I have the chance to actually knock them down (if only virtually) with World Strike.World Strike is a fun new open-world, real-time multiplayer tank game where the arena is literally the entire planet - and every single building can be reduced to rubble. So if you’ve ever looked at a building and thought, "This would benefit from some high-explosive ordnance," then World Strike is the browser game you've been waiting…

Next up for the Mordheim Possessed are a pair of dark souls - more sinister hooded characters with covered faces!Read more »

Hey there! I was on vacation last week, but the blog still kept on updating. Now I’m back home (thus concludes the “personal life update” portion of this blog post), and I’m bringing you new albums from Old Joy, Railcard, Summer Sleeves, and CuVa Bimö here in Pressing Concerns. Read ’em below. If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate…

I got out my Olympus OM-2n just after Labor Day because it’s so great to shoot. I have a terrific, almost-pancake 40mm f/2 Zuiko Auto-S lens for it, so I mounted it. I discovered that the last time I’d used it, I’d left batteries in and the camera on. Oops. I loaded some T-Max 400 and in winding and firing to reach the first frame, the mirror stuck up. $#!+. ChatGPT to the rescue. I use it for troubleshooting now, as it seems to actually know things. And it discovered straightaway that the…

Our website, JustALittleFurther.com, turns 14 today. Back in 2012, while we were sailing Australia’s east coast, our niece, Gentry, set it all up and became our webmistress. We wrote the blogs, sent them to her, and she posted them… every day.We thought it was appropriate to launch our new website adventure on Columbus Day in 2012. Our very first blog was about the great explorer. It marked the start of something that has brought us a lot of enjoyment, and hopefully our readers as well. Check…

Dominion, Edinburgh. Blue hour.

When noted Albanian author Lekë Cukali arrives in Sarajevo for a writer’s residency, he is met by an elegant but odd woman, his programme contact, who accompanies him to the flat where he is to stay for the next month. It is a little dated, but serviceable if they can find him a proper desk … Continue reading "Surely somebody knows something: Sarajevo Saga by Stefan Çapaliku"

Much has been said about the DHH keynote that he gave at RailsWorld. To me, it was the voice of a person in an existential crisis, but also a very jaded one. “Look how I don’t care anymore, and you should not care either” is not a great message when you are the headline speaker at the conference - let’s call it CareConf - that you have, yourself, lobbied for. The message from the supreme leader was clear: we vibe-rewrote HEY in a more performant way, it worked great, we neither need nor care…

Should tech labels depend on consensus or decree? On 29 September 2026 Donald Trump issued an executive order directing US federal agencies to use Super Intelligence in place of Artificial Intelligence, defining the new term to cover the same technologies as the old one and calling those who refused to comply “THE ENEMY”. Ten days later I spoke to tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker about the issues surrounding the attempted rebranding. Chris’s article for Fast Company is here……