It's that time again for my weekly update, which includes a short collection of noteworthy finds, posts that inspire, as well as a few reflections from the past week or two. I'll aim to land these in your inbox by the weekend, in time to pair with your morning coffee (or your preferred cup of inspiration).The Latest Drippings ☕️Destroy Any Website. I have spent way too much time on this retro pixel-art stickman game this past week, but it's just so much darn fun. The idea is simple and…

There are not many computer file formats I would trust to still be readable fifty years from now, but plain text is one of them. That may sound like faint praise. A text file cannot embed a spreadsheet, preserve elaborate page layouts, run a presentation, or provide many of the conveniences we expect from modern applications. What it does instead is store text in one of the simplest and most widely understood forms in computing, and that simplicity is a large part of why it has lasted. Almost…

Gary Waters: Illustration of woman reading book near clouds As for craft: I had arrived on campus as a sophomore in 1984 with a love for the music of T. S. Eliot, from his Practical Cats (1939) to “Prufrock,” but then I took a poetry writing class with Miroslav Holub, our Spring Visiting Writer. Holub was a major Czech poet and he was also a doctor — he introduced me to another doctor, an American one, and my poems would never be the same. Immersed in William Carlos Williams, I forsook fusty…

I visited Boneyard Arcade in Exeter with my son today, it’s an excellent video game arcade. I grew up near Newquay, by the seaside, and there used to be so many of these. I didn’t quite realise that it was because I was living in a holiday destination, I just thought it was completely normal. Over the years the video games faded away in those places as well, and all that was left is the coin pushers, grabber machines, and ticket prizes etc. I’ve been to a few of the modern barcades like Four…

I'm in Denmark! Well, just, I'm now at Copenhagen airport ready to begin the long trek home, with the final event at GOTO now done and going just perfectly. This week, there are two ShinyHunters arrests in the news: Pepijn in the Netherlands and then Saif in Jordon. It's an inevitable outcome, of course, and as I say this week, it was also the most likely one. Time will tell how many more join their ranks, but the seriousness of the crimes, the length of time they were perpetrated over, and the…

Corpus Parisinum 25 = Basil, Homiliae in Hexaemeron 8.4 (tr. Denis Searby): The people's lack of judgment has often put the worst man in office. πολλάκις γὰρ ἀκρισία δήµου τὸν χείριστον εἰς ἀρχὴν προεστήσατο.

I just mostly completed a massive refactor of the entire outer shell of my publishing server. A few days ago when I discovered it was necessary I was thinking to myself, oh no yet again Gemini has got me to a summit only to tell me that it all had to be completely redone. That has happened so many times. It wasn't at all obvious how it could be achieved but the LLM came up withe a pretty awesome plan, though it did take me several hours to figure out what it was on about. Anyway long story…

With the news that the BBC are tendering for a new series of Doctor Who, I thought I'd write down what I want from the show. This is, to be fair, pure fan-service wankery with zero chance of being made. I've based it on the oft-made observation that Hollywood is obsessed with remaking successful films rather than trying to remake unsuccessful ones. Do we really need another Spider-Man origin story? No. Do we need the umpteenth remake of "The Italian Job"? Boring! Why don't producers take a film…

I am a terrible multitasker. I thought I'd be able to alternate between writing and taking podcast notes, but when I'm in the writing zone (indeed in any zone), I find it very difficult to pull away and do something else. Even if I designate the something else towards the tail-end of the day. So today I will attempt to power through 6 episodes, half the season we recorded. Now, each episode is quite long; an hour or more in some cases, which means more video-watching than I can handle. Basic…

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Considerable work goes into making the cultural icon that is a Blackwing pencil. I had no idea the journey to making them crossed international boundaries between Japan and California, but given their impeccable quality, that really shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. Art & Design Giorgia Lupi’s opinion piece, In Defense of the Detour, so perfectly captures my own thoughts and feelings about the risks of AI on creative exploration. Do not skip the messy middle because that’s where the…

(1) No matter how hard you try, some people will misunderstand you and misjudge you. (2) Your good streak will come to an end. Problems and obstacles will follow. (3) No matter how careful your approach to prevention, you will make mistakes. Best to train yourself to focus on a constructive and corrective response when it happens.

Poem by Rudaki (c. 858-940/941), tr. Bernard Lewis in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 95: This is wine—if the merest driblet falls in the Nile, its scent makes the sober crocodile drunk without end. If the deer on the plain drinks but a single drop, he becomes a roaring lion, fearing no tiger. Related posts: Some Effects of Wine Praise of Dionysus Wine The Power of Wine Effects of Wine Effects of…

rejection is truly a blessing it reveals what won’t work polarization takes courage it attracts die-hard friends neutrality is boring everyone likes you no one dies for you

Overcast at dawn. A great-horned owl calls in the distance. A train horn at the Plummer Hollow crossing blows a major-key chord with a passing resemblance to the old Windows start-up music.

Today is the feast day of Saint Francis. For those of you who want a more spiritual meditation, head to these posts on my theology blog, one without photos, and one with photos. For those of you wondering why we should care about a medieval saint or for those of you wanting to celebrate his life with your creativity, read on.Francis continues to speak to so many of us, and for so many reasons. Let's look at the various reasons and how they might inspire us in our creative lives.--Francis is…

I’ve been overdue for a password audit. Both LastPass and Chrome have been nagging me about a growing pile of passwords that need updating, and looking at the full list is overwhelming. But, if I do five a weekend, it’ll be solved in a few weeks. Same thing with ironing. Three weeks of clothes in one pile feels like a lot. One week’s worth at a time is much simpler. It’s a lesson I apparently need reminding of on a loop: when in doubt, break it down. Small bits of progress add up quickly.

Why You Can’t Trust AI Chatbots for Science & How to Spot Ai Science Slop — Double-whammy from Lab Muffin, chemistry PhD and science communicator, who writes a lot about beauty products. The secret lives of men who read romance books: ‘My life is full of love, so I’m drawn to them’ — So happy these readers have explored beyond normative literary genres and liked it. I’m now very interested in whether male romance authors mostly write under a female pen-name, and how their books might differ, if…

I made it to Kosezela Lumber in the AM and bought a 7 foot, 8/4 board of poplar. I didn't want 8/4 but the pickings were on the slim side. There was some 6/4 stock but it was only canary wood and teak. I took the scenic route back to the barn which took almost 2 hours. Been years since I have just driven around aimlessly. After lunch I wandered down to the shop to play with the poplar board.8/4 poplar 7 feet long and 6 inches wideThis is rough sawn and at that it was 2 1/4" thick. I got a 7…

A beautiful fall day with blue skies, bright sunshine, cool temperatures, and the beginning of fall color change in maples and oaks made for a wonderful walk along the trails of Northville River Park. Opened only a few months ago in June 2026, the downtown park replaces a longtime privately owned horse race course. And highlights the Rouge River, once buried underground in a culvert for over 60 years. When I was growing up in the west metro Detroit area, I had no idea the Rouge River was…

There are already plenty of custom firmware options for Linux handhelds. That is especially true once you get into Anbernic territory, where the choice between stock software, muOS, KNULLI, ROCKNIX, MinUI and everything else can become almost as involved as choosing the handheld itself. Slot, the new custom firmware K-Wall has been building for the Anbernic RG SP, isn't really interested in competing with any of them on the usual terms. It doesn't want to support more systems, expose more…

You get the best geometric views from old fashioned stairs with wells. Fans of Escher and Piranesi, unite.

Sunday Asides #115 It's October. The beginning of Q4. How we feeling? The sequel to A Different World is coming back for a second season! Now I guess I can finish this first season, because I really figured it would be one-and-done. (You know how Netflix does.) The current season of American Horror Story just premiered on FX last week. I was gonna try and catch up this weekend, but how are there already SIX episodes out? And the season ends before the end of the month! They said wrap this…

When I got into machine learning it was all about making the world a better place. I worked for Microsoft and had access to projects and the smart people behind them that all were for the benefit of humans. Batch analysis of MRI scan data to allow doctors to detect cancer growths faster. Analysis of satellite imagery to predict storms and floods and limit their impact. Analysis of soil and satellite imagery to predict the outcome of crops. Smart glasses for the visually impaired, that read out…

If your software has a web interface but no API, your customers will automate the web interface. I know, because I’ve done it. First for Sportlink, the member administration system Dutch football clubs have to use. And today, again, for another system our club runs on. Neither vendor offers an API for the data we need. Both now have a headless browser logging in to their app several times a day, clicking through screens and pulling data out. That’s not a complaint about my code. It’s a question…

This week was yet again uneventful, although it had a long weekend. I spent time vibe coding two projects this week. My goal now is to add some side-projects to my portfolio. On Wednesday and Thursday, I polished / refined the case study content in my portfolio. Over the long weekend, I first resumed work on one of my side projects from back in May. (The Creative Practice inspiration page.) What I did this time is to have ONE inspirational piece show up per day. Again, here is the live version.…

Eastern horizon on the evening of Sunday, October 4 as seen from Adelaide at 20:47 ACDST, 90 minutes after sunset (click to embiggen). Saturn is the brightest object above the eastern horizon. Saturn is at opposition, when it is biggest and brightest as seen from Earth, on the 4th and is visible the entire night. But is best for telescopic observation from around midnight on, and its rings are widening.The inset shows the telescopic view of Saturn at this time. Elsewhere in Australia will see a…

Incredibly frustrating drawing day today. I really struggled to manage anything, it was as though I'd forgotten everything and nothing worked. Ugh.

In this page, I am taking notes of tools and practices that might be relevant to my writing workflow for my XPUB Thesis. These are merely random notes, check Academic writing with Pandoc for the complete workflow I used to write my bachelor’s thesis