Although the great economist Maynard Keynes and his contemporaries never spoke about growth, it’s now the main priority for all politicians. They want the economic cake to grow rather than have to make painful and unpopular decisions about cutting public services or increasing redistribution. The politicians should thus be grateful for the epidemic of obesity and its related epidemic of type II diabetes as they are good for growth. I will explain why. Crucially I’m talking about growth measured…

A470: Poems for the Road / Cerddi'r Fforddby Sian Northey (editor), Ness Owen (editor)Genres: Poetry Pages: 114 Rating: Synopsis: Fifty poems by Welsh poets celebrating the A470. Originaly written in Welsh or English, every poem has been translated into the other language and set out side by side as we travel the length of the country. Coming in from outside Wales, the A470 isn’t such a feature, and since that was pretty much always my lot, somehow Ness Owen and Sian Northey’s earlier…

In my childhood, my parents would occasionally use some catch-phrase that became familiar yet I had no idea where it came from.As just one example, I remember they laughed about Fibber McGee's closet. Went right over my young head. I was born in the age of television and old radio shows were not on my radar. When I tuned into the radio, I wanted rock 'n roll music, not corny comedy or melodrama.Tune In Yesterday by John DunningA few years ago, I picked up this encyclopedic volume describing the…

I wanted to try and keep with Jes Goodwin sculpts for the majority of my Mordheim possessed warband. This is a little tricky as most of his fantasy miniatures are either armoured or elves, or both! The brethren have been causing me a few headaches (being low-rate humans with minimal armour and poor quality gear).I ended up starting with a couple of converted figures for this first pair of brethren, and I'm hoping they might provide a template for future additions.Read more »

“Posterity, who are to reap the blessings, will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.” —Abigail Adams

Spotted yesterday, on the promo screens in a major supermarket at the big mall near my studio: Obesity is an illness. It should be treated as such. This definitely-not-a-sotto-voce-advert-for-a-prescription-drug was brought to me, out of the kindness of their hearts, by Eli Lilly. Spotted elsewhere in the same supermarket: a Red Bull advent calendar. Twenty-four full-sized seasonal cans of sugary shit with which to celebrate each bright, be-winged December morning! Who exactly are we trying to…

Generally the story and the sets, the characters and atmosphere are actually all quite promising and enjoyable. But the pacing is strange, where in the middle you think “woah, no it gets going” and then it doesn’t. And then the main protagonist’s manors suddenly change for a while. And then there’s this excessive (fake?!) grain. So I think I wish this would’ve been just a little more satisfying for me.

Shuhari (ja: 守破離) is a Japanese concept that describes the stages of learning on the way to mastery. It’s usually translated as “follow the rules, break the rules, transcend the rules,” but I like to think of it as “adhere to the system, fuck the system, …now we have a new system.” The game industry right now feels like it’s well into the “break the rules” stage of Shuhari. People are recompiling games to run anywhere (even in your browser), and cease-and-desist letters are flying. When will…

I’ve been an avid Tarkov player for many years now. Ever since the 1.0 release the developers organise various in-game events, of which Halloween 2026 event is the most recent. The event started on the 29th of October 2026 and is basically a variant of zombie apocalypse. An unknown virus has escaped underground TerraGroup facility (The Lab) and is decimating Tarkov population, turning NPCs into blood-thirsty (or maybe brain-hungry?) monsters. Players receive a set of ephemeral, event-related…

In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical podcasts from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the podcast and asking them about what they do. We spoke to Hope Duncan, who’s the creator of the Unapologetic Mathematicians podcast, and is based at the University of Leeds. Podcast title: Unapologetic MathematiciansWebsite: rss.com/podcasts/unapologetic-mathematicians/Links: Spotify – Apple Podcasts – Amazon MusicAverage episode length: 45 Minutes Recommended episode:…

Lume is the kind of app that makes the iPhone Duo’s shape feel useful. A recipe needs room for ingredients and instructions, and a phone on a kitchen counter needs to be readable without being held all the time. Those are good reasons for a developer to think beyond a conventional portrait screen.What I like about João Franco’s approach is that the hardware helps explain the interface. The wide layout can act like an open cookbook. Partially folded, the phone can become a small cooking station.…

Was One of the Great Novels of the Enlightenment Written by a Man Who Thought He was a Werewolf?, by Tobias Grey, The Guardian The Olfactory History of Book Collecting, by Will Tullett, Literary Hub (Excerpt from Sniff: A History of Smells) The Pollycrisis, by David Wingrave, The Baffler I Need to Know How I Forgot I Wanted to Die, by Erica Dawson, Electric Lit

…I visited Vandalia, Illinois, for the first time and saw the Madonna of the Trail that was there. This is one of twelve identical monuments placed along the National Old Trails Road coast to coast in the late 1920s. The National Old Trails Road was an early auto trail that followed a number of existing historic trails, largely the National Road and the Santa Fe Trail, across the country. I was in Vandalia again in September and photographed the monument (on film, and the film is still inside…

Most Fridays, I share a handful of pieces that caught my eye at the intersection of technology, media, and society.Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe for free.How an obscure website became a force in America’s election information machineThere hasn’t been enough discussion about the proliferation of reference sites that are built not for humans but to influence chatbot answers. Take the Ballot Brief, which was designed to influence questions about the election:“In tests by The…

A Quick Reminder!

Taken on the 4th of October, 2026 Emperor Wu of Han Maoling Tomb and Mausoleum Museum City of Xianyang

New light, new air on the old gunk, the old tightness. Surprised and confused, new reactions the body barely recalls from a different life. A softer life.

Not a nice day. A cold, raw wind. Got up at 10am. Cleaned the moped. Did the chain and cleaned the plug. Not fit to do gardening. Went to pub.

A Dr. Strangelove-inspired image captures my excitement about what I can build with AI and my unease about what happens when we let it do more of our thinking.

Between 1994 and 2004 I published reports on freedom, privacy and preparedness. A small crowd read them, people with no intention of handing their ... Continue The post Welcome to safe family appeared first on Eatweeds.

Listen here: https://helenmccookerybook.bandcamp.com/

The Handle The handle on the main door of our motorhome broke. It’s a ‘known’ fault that the manufacturer has never fixed. It’s all over the forums and the Facebook Group I remain (begrudgingly) part of, as are instructions on how to fit a replacement handle. So it was with great confidence that I took my toolbox out to the motorhome and set about removing panels, removing fascias, popping screw covers off, and unscrewing screws until I had the old handle off and the new one ready to go in. I…

If your children are too young to enjoy Untappd, you could introduce them to Birds Around the World instead. With this map, rather than tracking all the beers they've drunk, they can collect all the different birds they've discovered! Get them started with binoculars and field guides rather than pints and beer goggles.Birds Around the World is an interactive 3D globe that allows children to explore the world's birdlife. Hundreds of bird species are represented on the globe, with each dot…

So a friend came over to give me my covid and flu shot. I was feeling strange all day beforehand. I'm not sure what's up but I'm guess that either I ate something bad or I'm having cold symptoms so mild they're not registering as a cold. Anyway, the two shots at once is known to make a guy sleepy and sleep I did. Almost ten hours, strange dreams that I won't repeat here and dehydrated but feeling mostly rested. Remember to get your shots done, guys! #covid #flu #health #vaccine #vaccination

Amulet of Thoth, the Egyptian god of science and knowledge, represented as an ibis, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago Do you have the “curse of knowledge”? If you’re reading the Last Word on Nothing—meaning, if you’re a curious, highly literate, super smart person (also beautiful)—you probably do. The curse of knowledge refers to this phenomenon: Once you know something, it’s easy to forget that you used to not know it, and that a lot of other people still don’t. The curse of knowledge…

On my last night in Essen I had a small Incident. (Nobody hurt.)

Gil Cohen and Amir Shpilka asked me to spread the word through my blog about the celebration for Ran Raz 60th birthday. RR60 @ Tel Aviv University – December 27-29, 2026 This conference (click for the site) brings together researchers working on central questions in computational complexity. The program will focus on several interconnected themes, including lower bounds, the role of randomness in computation, space-bounded computation, and quantum computation — areas in which Ran Raz has made…

Bud GayI'm A Long Gone Daddy(Hank Williams, Fred Rose Music, BMI)Nashville Records CD-1003Early seventiesRecord listed at RCS (no location) *This Nashville label (indeed located in Nashville, Tennessee) had few releases in the early seventies (including two singles by Bob Folsom and one by Bob Rash). Charlie Dick, the widower of country legend Patsy Cline, was it's owner, perhaps with the idea of giving a new life to the old Starday's subsidiary, still releasing albums, but no more singles. But…

"Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim" is a 2007 science fiction short story by Jason Sanford. It is about a man who collects first edition science fiction novels, and the two amazing people he meets along the way. Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell: "Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim" follows Bartholomew Higgins as he scours the country for first edition science fiction books. The story begins as he loses a valuable book in a "gasoline" accident, and then goes on to detail his relationship with…