This weekend, I took Ella to her cousin's birthday party at Laser Storm on McKnight Road north of Pittsburgh. The small structure is now dwarfed by much larger, newer chain stores, but entering the doors transported me to the same amazing world my cousins and I would visit as tweens. Behold its majesty: Just look at these wall paintings: Outside of the laser tag arena is the arcade area, equipped with many of the classics. For my money, things like this need to be protected at all costs. Sure,…

The second part of a series about bare-metal programming for x86 PC-type computers, using Linux for development.

Hear that? That’s the sound of the Kickstarter for the new Microscope escaping into the wild. I talk about this in the Kickstarter, but I think in this age of AI it has never been more important to sit down and make things together. I can’t wait to see what you create with this with new edition of Microscope.

I've played Léon Phal on here before; this is his latest, which just came out a few weeks ago. Like his last album, it's a very fun blend of jazz, downtempo electronica, house. Excellent start to the day and excellent mood.

I love the current state of software development. I care about solving people’s problems, and coding agents make more of the things I want to build feel worth attempting. There is a particular pleasure in getting rid of an awkward workaround that somebody has been putting up with for years. I don’t find that pleasure diminished by having written less of the code myself. Curiositry’s Vibecoding isn’t as fun as writing code by hand describes a different experience. They enjoy making things too,…

André Aciman’s Homo Irrealis leaves a strange feeling lingering long after I put down the book. The irrealis aspect of his essays comes across as an aggressive and rather depressing form of nostalgia, where the temporal context is heavily skewed towards the past. André describes it as follows: imagine a heartfelt moment with your lover, perhaps on a special occasion. Instead of savouring the moment, you imagine yourself well into the future, looking back at this moment with nostalgic feelings.…

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson as teenagers It’s funny how much things change, and yet, also don’t. This shirt made me smile immediately, as does the thought of seeing these two again, along with Anika, this weekend in Seattle with Luke — and then again the following week closer to home in San Jose. Despite the underlying sadness of missing The Professor 1, everything else about seeing these two together, doing the thing they love the most is a balm for all the nonsense that engulfs much of my…

This very customized Volkswagen Beetle with a Sunroof may be circa 1962. It keeps its classic lines while adding many features. One is the dark chocolate metallic paint.Low to the groundThe windshield opens out.Hood and front detailsA closer look at the windshield and how it is held in place. The windshield wipers are removed to allow the glass to swing forward. The side mirrors are mounted way in front.Just as low from the left sideThe view of the left side shows just how low this Bug is at…

What is the sound of one hand clapping? Does the pope sh*t in the woods? Is it art if no one knows you're doing it, or you haven't shown it to anyone? These are my Tuesday thoughts as I'm in full-bore marketing mode. I will say the most helpful thing I've been able to do musically is describe what I do quickly. This is especially useful for a DJ. No one wants to hire anybody who can't describe what they do. They already know you're wishy-washy, 'cause you've told them you're a musician or DJ.…

Some tales are as old as time. Corruption in power, rooting for the underdog that’s willing to take on the Big Bad, these are the stories people have loved for centuries — and it’s certainly an influence on author Jocelyn Cullity’s newest novel, The Nurse at Baker Hospital. JOCELYN CULLITY: While researching Norman Baker—the 1930s radio personality, political populist, and promoter of fraudulent cancer cures who operated the infamous Baker Hospital at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs,…

Over the past few years, I've embarked on a journey towards more privacy. This has ranged from migrating away from Gmail to removing data about me online and more. (I've also moved my 2FA codes off Authy along the way.) One bugbear remained: our doorbell. I quickly realised I'd made a huge mistake. I bought a smart home product from Ring, a company Amazon bought in 2018. I'd purchased it a while ago, primarily to answer the door remotely whilst travelling. As I didn't want to wastefully throw…

I can't tell you how quiet it was standing just here. Suspiciously quiet.30 words · 1 image

I just read Anil Dash’s post about some internet jargon. And, I first thought “yeah well, that’s the algorithm game”. But then, it became — once more — apparent to me, what it actually means. And Anil nails it quite well with this: “One of the things that’s most concerning to me is that an […]

today, i had a meeting at work (really, more of a co-programming session). there was something nice and calming about the pace of it - you troubleshoot things that do not work in a dimly lit room. i think it is because i did not feel "othered". i did not feel defined by my nationality, or gender, or anything else - me and my colleague were focused on a task. i wonder if i like to work so much, because it helps me alleviate the feeling of not fitting in / being isolated. it is nice to do a task…

It has been some time since I've compared front pages of the New York Times from eighty years apart. The eighty year cycle is key to the whole Strauss-Howe framework for history, as you know--but because we haven't gone through and successfully resolved a great crisis in 2026, as we had in 1946, this comparison illuminates the enormous differences between that time and ours. Yesterday's front page, which I will get to in due course, seemed such an acute portrayal of where we now that I was…

The Rifa cap has been removed, the motherboard cleaned and everything put back together. Had a brief scare when I plugged in the power supply and turned it on and the computer gave me a low note tone rather than a cheerful beep! Recalled that the IIe will go into a diagnostic routine when starting up without the keyboard attached. Plugged in the keyboard and got my cheerful beep! Did my banking this morning. Criminals are why we can't have nice things. It's basically very difficult to transfer…

Wallgate Railway Bridge This and more Northern Folk in Wigan in 2016https://northernfolkarchive.pagecord.com/wigan-20-november-2017

A bit late after catching up with work, but had a fantastic weekend up at PLAY Expo Blackpool after last going back in 2015 (!) when I was then running the Games That Weren’t stand. This was a really special occasion, as it marked the launch of Paul Drury’s The Arcade 1971-1999 from Bitmap Books, which he’s been working incredibly hard on with Sam Dyer for the past few years. It’s come out amazingly well! John Szczepaniak, Martyn Carroll and myself had the honour of being asked to contribute…

Two meals out. Tedious-and-irritating car maintenance. A bit of the blues. A megamow and a bonfire. A good walk. Last PT of 2026! Lots of sleeping. Too warm for October. I’m still sporting shorts. Woke to cloud down, drifting past the windows on Tuesday morning. A good day for being indoors, and admin. Weirdly warm outside. Lunch then procrastinated (avoiding preparing my talk for next week) by splitting and potting up the large Boston Fern in my office and the one on the sideboard in the…

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby“Welcome to a fresh new look Top of the Pops from our new studio in Elstree. To open our show tonight, Erasure.” [4] ERASURE: Love To Hate You. That uncredited voice over doesn’t have the impact it needs. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the sound quality so I’ll use the word muffled. I think it is being recorded in the studio where it has been played through speakers. This stops it booming like the wrath of god, which is what is needed. I guess the mix of studio…

I won’t bore you with more tales of woe, but I’m raring to get back in the saddle again. And it’s about time!

The weather this last few days has been notable. It’s not been hot exactly but it certainly hasn’t been October-typical. I did put a thick jumper on the other day but then today I was in a t-shirt. It’s that transitional thing where a snapshot is misleading and a trend will be clear in hindsight, but it’s still quite odd. Today there was no wind. The trees were still and the clouds (pictured) were static. I watched them for a good 10 minutes and nothing moved. Psychotherapy was good today.…

Here's a brief peek ahead at what's coming to Turner Classic Movies in November!Burt Lancaster will be the November Star of the Month, with his films screening on Tuesday evenings.The TCM Spotlight theme will be band leaders.The November Noir Alley films will star off with a repeat of the Halloween Val Lewton triple bill on November 1st: THE LEOPARD MAN (1943), THE SEVENTH VICTIME (1943), and CAT PEOPLE (1952).Over the following four weekends the Noir Alley films will be BREAKDOWN (1952),…

I've read over a hundred writing craft books. The "how to write good" books. The subtitle here is "and I still don't know wtf I'm doing." I'm not going to say, "So you don't have to." I'm going to say, "And you probably should too." Maybe not a hundred. That's a bit excessive. Craft books generally fall into two camps. There are hugely popular authors like Stephen King and Margaret Atwood. These books are often a memoir-style, "what I think about when I think about writing" vibe. These people…

I've been a fan of CodePen for many, many years, and it's one of the few services I spend money on to help support. A few months back, they released an entirely new version that dramatically improved the service (CodePen 2.0) and it just made me more happy I was a supporter. Just a few days ago they announced more changes including a full API. I thought it would be fun to add a display of my recent pens. Yes, I thought that would be fun, because that's the kind of nerd I am. Adding Dynamic…

The latest Curious British Telly video takes a look at one of my favourite subjects: pirate television. Few people are aware that it was possible, even less know that it actually happened in Britain in the 1980s.I've written about the subject a few times in the past, but now it's time for a video on this little known subject. In particular, the video focuses on Network 21, the most ambitious of Britain's pirate television stations. They appeared in 1986 and weren't around for long, but they…

l-r Mei Mac and Isabella Wei in The Hungry Ghost at Bush Theatre. Photo: Corinne Cumming You should always listen to your mum; that’s the lesson from the spooky rom-com The Hungry Ghost, which is Mei Leng Yew’s debut play. British Chinese ‘Girl’ (Mei Mac) is excited and nervous to be moving in with her Scottish girlfriend, Naomi, except she hasn’t told her parents. In a rush to leave, she ignores her mum’s plea to take extra care as it’s the first night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, and in so…

I walk along a dull road... and discover a beautiful beach. Shhh, it's a Secret Beach. Continue reading →