We love new microbrands here at The Time Bum, so when a watchmaker approaches us to review their very first model, we take notice. Today, I have the debut release… The post Vesora Gantry Field appeared first on The Time Bum.

"I'm sorry, you're out of time, we have to move on. Senator, what's your response? You have three minutes." Watching a political debate these days feels useless. Candidates get two minutes to make their case, and their opponents get even less time to reply. I'm reminded of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, where he argues that what passes for debate on TV is nothing more than an audition or a performance review. It is only an opportunity to come up with catchy sound bites or to appear…

Sheets.works put together an excellent but — perhaps ironically — unbylined visualization with this simple premise: Billions of phones run on code looked after by a handful of people. We counted them from the code itself. I had no idea SQLite or sudo were maintained by such a small number of individuals and — like many other examples in this story — seemingly without the financial support of the companies relying on their work. Some of those are among the most valuable companies on the planet.…

This is David, your hobbyist web crawler, and you're reading the Weekly Filet, the newsletter for curious minds who love it when something makes them go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!». I'm here to help you make sense of what’s happening, and imagine what could be. It's great to have you.By the way, if you like the Weekly Filet – tell a friend about it. Copy the link and share it: weeklyfilet.com1. The undertowThis is the kind of article that I assume most women will read and be like…

A final bit of the Stafford haul, which I nearly forgot as they have been rattling around in the bottom of my bag, are these railway paychecks. According to Wikipedia, these would be issued on Thursday, and then swopped the next day for money and a payslip. Some numbers would be issued to an employee when they started work, and kept for life. These cost me a quid each from the North Staffordshire Railway Co. While I know they aren't rare, each one is much older than I am, and a fascinating…

This 1:144 scale Bristol Fighter was printed in FDM on my old Ender 3, and it's a bit nubbly as I didn't take enough care in removing all the zits before I started painting.The Bristol F2b had an inauspicious start, as on its first mission over the lines it suffered very badly from a massed attack by German scouts. The pilots tried to use standard two-seater tactics in such a case, and formed a defensive circle, and they lost a great many planes and crew as a result. Only when they learned that…

It's a big weekend for Bear Alley Books as we head into town for the Colchester Swap Meet. This is the fourth such get-together and I think I enjoy each one more than the last. There's always plenty of lively action at the tables as people dig through boxes looking for bargains and filling gaps in their collections, there are always some interesting guests — Barry Kitson is signing at this year's

Just in time for Halloween Hot Wheels has released a set of five Universal Monsters inspired vehicles in the Silver Series. These cars are a little more expensive than your average Hot Wheels, but cheaper than some of the more specialized vehicles. Hot Wheels often does Halloween inspired cars and if I lived in a neighborhood and had Trick 'r Treaters, I'd be inclined to buy a bunch and give them out as treats as they're really quite neat. One of the first cars I found is the Rip Rod decorated…

Good mail day! Ready to get started on a new jumper 😍

There you are holding a dozen eggs behind a guy slow-rolling a fat shopping cart stuffed with frozen pizzas, cases of soda, and piles of produce in plastic bags. But just as your eyes start skimming the tabloid headlines and you steady yourself for a long wait, he peeks back and notices your tiny purchase and offers you the next spot in line. AWESOME! Sign-up to receive new awesome things each day: Photo from: here The post #575 When the guy with a full cart of groceries lets you go ahead…

Here’s what’s happening in the thriving tech scene in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, October 12 through Sunday, October 18! This list includes both in-person and online events. Note that each item in the list includes: When the event will take place What the event is Where the event will take place Who is holding the event This week’s events Monday, October 12 Tuesday, October 13 Wednesday, October 14 Thursday, October 15 Friday, October 16 Saturday, October 17 Sunday,…

Mies van der Rohe, custom wall-mounted console, 1969, 4 x 84 x 18 in., walnut and granite, selling at Wright20 In other Things I Didn’t Know Existed Five Minutes Ago And Do Not Need But Now Very Much Need news, I suddenly need this Mies van der Rohe granite and walnut wall-mounted console from the IBM Building in Chicago. I can just imagine the 83-year-old architect now, in 1969, pushing aside the many staffers at his firm who have been working for three years on the many details of what would…

It's not just that they're going to do a public execution. It's that they're going to do a public execution and livestream it. This is 100% real. If you want to read the full piece in the New York Times (gift link, you're welcome) go ahead, but here's the white meat: Pentagon officials said on Thursday that the Army officer convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting would be executed in public, a practice that ended in the United States nearly a century ago and is most commonly carried out in a…

I have a confession. I believe that if you don’t drink your coffee black, one of two things is true: either the coffee isn’t very good (or wasn’t made properly), or you don’t actually like coffee. I hold this view quite firmly. I’m also aware it’s ridiculous and arrogant. I’ve been thinking about purists lately. People who are certain there’s a right way to do something, and that most people are doing it wrong. You find them everywhere. There are grammar purists, Markdown purists, and people…

While not listed as a horror flick, this one has all of the elements of one.It features a lot of big names, including Timothy Bottoms, Hunter Carson, and his real-life mother, Karen Black, Laraine Newman (SNL Coneheads), James Karen (playing very close to typecasting), Bud Cort, Eric Pierpoint (Alien Nation), and Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Deep Space Nine). Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Lifeforce - catch the cameo of the movie on TV), written…

The golden window of tech may have expired. In 2010, I came across a video of Mick Jagger being interviewed (text version here). It was for a re-release of Exile on Main Street with 10 new tracks. During the interview he says this: But I have a take on that — people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone! Then, there was a small…

In an earlier article I solved a 3x3 system by elimination; here is the same system written with matrices and solved by row reduction on the augmented matrix. $$ \begin{cases} x + y + z = 6 \\ 2x - y + z = 3 \\ 3x + 2y - z = 4 \end{cases} $$The same information fits into one matrix equation \(A\mathbf{x} = \mathbf{b}\), where $$ A = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & 1 & 1 \\ 2 & -1 & 1 \\ 3 & 2 & -1 \end{pmatrix}, \quad \mathbf{x} = \begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \\ z \end{pmatrix}, \quad \mathbf{b} =…

I went to the Aberfoyle flea market looking for a few specific things that I did not find. There are two strategies to implement when you're antique shopping. You can thoughtfully follow either one. Both will fail you. You can go into a flea market with a mission. You are looking for that one thing....Read More

The basics: 60% layout 3.5 mm travel Web configurator, runs fine on a Mac with Chrome South-facing LEDs, with pretty good diffusion Five LEDs under the space bar, which I always like Clicky, not thocky Hard key stops No knob, no display, just the basics Four layers, plus Fn1 and Fn2, Mac and Windows modes Mid-tier gamer board pricing A much better instruction manual than most boards Less than a foot wide Keyboard with stock keycaps, Q key pulled off to show the backlighting, and ruler in front…

Vibrant Little Italy – New York, New York We are past the “Welcome to Little Italy” sign and in the heart of the neighborhood. The architecture is pretty much the same as Chinatown, but all the signs have changed. Some stores are proudly flying the Italian flag. That’s one of the fun things about New York: walk a few blocks and the entire character can change. While the architecture is unquestionably American, the differences in food and culture make it feel like you’ve warped from Asia to…

Tempest was a video game released on Atari, but that was before my time. I played the port on PlayStation. It’s a simple shooter game. Your blaster is on the edge of the map. You rotate around the map and shoot obstacles that are coming towards you. If an obstacle hits your blaster, the blaster jams up and you lose a life. For some reason, I forget about Tempest for a few years, and then I seek it out again. Recently I found a version for Nintendo Switch. I like the minimal design. Essentially…

This track was always one of my favorites to spin when I was club DJ back in the day. I always forget it’s not quite as old as I imagine it to be. From 1984, here’s “Coming Out Of Hiding” by Pamala Stanley. At this moment this song is my theme song.

Tonight, at the partyI was DJing, I had a friend give me a suggestion for the last song, and I kind of told her, in no uncertain terms, to get stuffed. She was a bit butthurt, and all that kind of stuff. But as I told her, I have enough experience to know how to end the set, and I’ve been ending sets with this one song lately, and it’s perfect for the boat, which we were on, on Lake Austin. Like, super beautiful and fun. Great vibes. I knew what to do. I told her to trust me. And I played…

“On a train, all things are possible.” –Paul Theroux Misaki Sata is close to finishing her secondary school and is actively studying for her post-secondary entrance exams. When she goes out for a break with her best friend, Yayoi Nakano, the pair part ways after Yayoi heads off to tend to some things. Misaki would […]

If you're interested in an enormous electric locomotive with an industrial appearance, two different oddball operating voltages, and a truly hideous loading gauge, you're in luck! Kennecott Copper 402, currently on display out in the desert at the Oquirrh Mountain Mining Museum in Tooele, Utah, has been put up for sale.KCC 402 is one of eight steeplecabs from that operator still in existence, but it's one of only two that are distinctive dual-voltage "Magna motors" built by GE in 1947 for…

The Auction (2025), as installed in STY, Nicole Eisenman’s 2025-26 show at 52 Walker One of the monumental paintings in STY, Nicole Eisenman’s show at 52 Walker last winter was The Auction (2025), in which an artist stood by in a crowded salesroom as a black-robed auctioneer and a sieg heiling bidder faced off over the artist’s work. It was acquired by MoMA. A couple of weeks ago, she told Julia Halperin that The Auction “was partly inspired by collectors’ threats to sell her work at a moment…

In 1998 I needed to convert PDF files to text for a search engine called Alkaline, without requiring separately installed libraries. So I wrote a C++ parser. Alkaline is another story. I recovered the source from a backup dated December 26, 1998. It reads PDF 1.0 through 1.2, follows object references and page trees, decompresses content with bundled zlib, and prints metadata, page text and bookmark titles. There are my own string, vector and hash-table libraries in there too. The encryption…

Hey there. Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. AI, burnout, lack of incentives…Developers are not okay (10min). And that seems to be a trend in the whole sector. #2. Here’s a good reason why vibecoding isn’t as fun as writing code by hand (7min). That’s if you code for fun. Do you? #3. Based on how much AI you use, here are 4 levels of programming (4min). Mine is mostly A1. #4. Bar codes are about to go extinct (8min). And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about…

Today I tried to add a couple of recently purchased books to my library database using my lccn2library script. It failed because the Library of Congress has either moved or deleted the files lccn2library relies on. Let’s say I was trying to add Applied Elasticity by Timoshenko and Lessells.1 If you go to the LoC’s MARC record for the book and click on the Download link, you’ll see a popup that looks like this: So it looks like you can click the MODS link to get the MODS file for the book.…

With a run-by fruiting, the spirit of Mrs. Doubtfire came to NBC's The Traitors: New Blood—except not that film's sense of pacing or storytelling, because this was one waste of an hour.