Every year in September we attend the Planned Parenthood book sale, which lasts ten days. This time we visited five times. My husband's special interests at the sale are architecture and books about history; also fiction, including mysteries and science fiction.Below are six of the books Glen purchased at the 2026 Planned Parenthood Book Sale.The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise (2024) by Olivia LaingThis book has a lovely cover. Since I enjoy gardening and especially the…

The most common theme in most of my golang libraries is - “I needed it for another larger project”. Queue a side quest and boom, new library. sandboxed is no different. sandboxed is a Go virtual filesystem for storing untrusted data as encrypted chunks. The original project driving the need for this is still too early; I’ll talk more about it when I have something substantial to share. I wanted the ability to download arbitrary binary data and protect the system from it. This might make a few…

Click here to book for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S TOURS . Commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Cable St today Max Levitas (1915-2018) by Phil Maxwell Max Levitas became an East End hero when he was arrested in 1934, at the age of nineteen years old, for writing anti-fascist slogans on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. “There were two of us, we did it at midnight and we wrote ‘All out on September 9th to fight Fascism,’ ‘Down with Fascism’ and ‘Fight Fascism,’ on Nelson’s Column…

while scrolling I came upon this kaki kimcheeFor 2 kaki (persimmon) : @ginahomecook1 tablespoon salted shrimp (strain shrimp and use only liquid)1 tablespoon minced garlic1 tablespoon gochugaru1/2 tablespoon shoyua little less than 1/2 tablespoon maesil (green plum syrup)Just peel your kaki Cut into 8 slicesToss everything togetherPlate and sprinkle sesame seedsNOTES: I

A bit of worry earlier in the week when I "discovered" there were no buses to today's destination. Luckily it occurred to me last night that that was highly unlikely so I checked again and got the correct information. And so I headed out on a sunny Saturday morning, in to town and then on a bus under the river and all the way to the Merseyside border in the middle of Wirral to commence the country part of today's plan at the Red Fox:It's a Brunning and Price so you know what to expect, this is…

Euclidean geometry dates back at least to Euclid (circa 300 BC), and so you might think it’s been pretty well picked over by now. And yet people still occasionally discover new plane geometry theorems. Some of these new theorems are complicated, asking question that the ancients would not have asked. But once in a while someone discovers a gem that the ancients could have appreciated but didn’t find. One example is Miquel’s pivot theorem [1]. The theorem was discovered in 1838, which relative…

The recordings from the recent Rails World 2026 are online. Here is the opening keynote. This, on the other hand, is the closing keynote. What a time in software engineering and this industry!

Memories of those years are hazy, at best. A chaotic slideshow of wanton debauchery, ragged at the edges. Police lights, smoky rooms, girls who knew too much. How I survived is still a mystery. My poor son, I see you on the cusp of those wild years. The world has changed; everything is recorded. A foul word, a bad decision, they can follow you forever now. The advice I offer, I can see that it doesn’t land. The vacant gaze betrays you. I’m an old man. What do I know? Your naiveté frightens me.…

Can a congenital pessimist reject the notion of an imminent apocalypse, a collapse of all that Western Civilization has accomplished? Sure, I can. I dislike fashionable doom-saying at least as much as blinkered, kneejerk optimism. Not everyone out there is a mindless nihilist, a lazy critic of all that is best in our species. I’m reminded of the late Terry Teachout calling himself (and H.L. Mencken) an “ebullient pessimist.” We have attained too much wisdom and aesthetic accomplishment to let…

Birthday morning cake, cats and presents - Happy Birthday Alastair!

Over two years have gone past since my diagnosis of long covid. Nearly four years have gone past since the infection I have never recovered from. Sometimes, I think an eternity has stretched. I struggle, now, to understand the life I had, the hikes I took, the bicycle trips I pootled on, the fields I slept in. I do not recognise this version of myself who could simply get up and go. Imagine being someone who could make a cup of tea on a whim? I miss me, sometimes. Who am I kidding? I miss my…

ALTALTI love this kiki bouba t-shirt art.

The Rio Grande cuts through the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, New Mexico, as seen from the 600 foot (180 m) tall Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The post Cutting Through the Gorge appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

StarringAnthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, and Olga MeredizDirectorJon M. ChuOverviewThe time has come.The story of Usnavi, a bodega owner who has mixed feelings about closing his store and retiring to the Dominican Republic or staying in Washington Heights.Review In the Heights Someday I hope to see the stage version of this, but the movie version is beautiful. The scale of the dance numbers is fantastic and the message is full of life and fun. Now say the name so no…

Until last week, it was common in Australia for a card surcharge to be added to retail transactions. This was declared on the POS terminal with a sticker, usually in the form of a percentage. The Reserve Bank has now outlawed the practice for payment systems under its remit. This is great news! From the Reserve Bank: The RBA has concluded that it is in the public interest to remove surcharging for all designated card networks (eftpos, Mastercard and Visa) from 1 October 2026. Designated card…

Love this thing. Every place should have one. The dinosaur bits are all casts, the clams and rocks and whatnot are real. Photo from my visit to the BYU Museum of Paleontology in the summer of 2024, on the way up to Wyoming from California. I didn’t get anything from the machine, but I did buy a cast, this little femur of a baby apatosaur. It was an agreeable travel companion, and I have it right here with me in my home office. Good times. Everyone should visit the BYU Museum of Paleontology,…

It was Pub Friday again two days ago, and seeing as I’d been such a dutiful husband, and sorted out — or "partially" sorted out, to be more accurate, the disorganised kitchen in our extension (the “old kitchen”, as it’s now been designated), I felt fully justified the following morning, in abandoning Mrs PBT’s to finish the job. Spoiler alert: she didn’t finish it. I’ll be doing that next week, because despite my wife's protestations to the contrary, I remain the tidiest and most organised of…

The long hot summer of 2026 continues here at Pordenone. The first day of festivities for the 45th Pordenone Silent Film Festival dawned with a blaze of sunshine, a bustling market and an abundance of good vibes in northern Italy. And we closed with the glow of the Spanish sun. Now, to my mind, it … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 1 →

Quoted Defending Thermopylae 〜 Newsletter Leaf Journal CCC by N.A. Ferrell (The Newsletter Leaf Journal) The 300th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal comes to you with links to numerous new NLJ and ECS articles, 15 links with quotes and commentary from around the web, and other news and notes in a milestone mailing. I mailed the 300th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal earlier this afternoon. I launched the newsletter back in July 2020 as a companion to The New Leaf Journal. While it…

Before Rem was Asmoth alone. He grew tired of nothingness and fell asleep, inspired to dream. The first thing Asmoth dreamed was the Troll, Oldie. But it was lonely so Asmoth dreamed it a friend named Sing-Song. Things were quiet so Asmoth gave Sing-Song a voice but the voice was droning so Asmoth gave Oldie a drum. The song and rhythm awoke the Cthonic Wyrm and the Heavenly Roc who, both bearing wings, fought for supremacy of the Sky. The Wyrm was driven into the Underworld, and its digging…

I did my first live author event a week ago: The Mercer County Library System’s second annual Book Festival! As you can see from my enthusiastic punctuation, it was cool, and you can see at least one picture of me looking like I’m having a good time on the MCLS Instagram. I wrote some thoughts about the event and its place in my fragile psyche in my newsletter, but if you haven’t read them already, I’m gonna make you click. (Have you considered signing up for my newsletter? You get a free book…

Mood: Aggressively dorky and entirely unbothered. There is a singular word I would love to ban from everywhere. It has transformed from a nice and descriptive literary word into shorthand internet speak. There is always a certain attitude that follows this word. Everyone that uses the phrase, "that's cringe," hates humans and hates authentic expression, but that hatred of authentic expression can never hold a candle to my hatred of people that use that word like a weapon. I can hear the sneer…

What is Draft Omen I like drafting on MTG Arena, but I am not great at remembering which commons are actually good in a new set. So I built Draft Omen, a desktop app that sits next to Arena while you draft and tells you which cards in the pack are worth taking. It reads Arena’s local Player.log, works out which pack and pick you are on, and ranks the cards in front of you. When the draft is over, it suggests a 40-card deck from your pool. You can still take whatever card you want. The app only…

. “‘I haven’t made any work in a long time. I think of myself more as a former artist. But I used to do many different things. I didn’t think of it like this at the time, but since you’re asking me now I think that was the point, to do as many different things as possible.’ Right away I felt this is something we could use in our movement. If we had permission. If this person were to join us.” I'm currently serializing my novel-in-progress Failure Finds its Happy End on my Patreon. It is a novel…

That Wanaka Tree. Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash. I’ve fallen in love with New Zealand. On Friday, October 16, I’ll be joining a group of New Zealand investors, fund managers, bankers, and tax and immigration advisors who are coming to Boulder for an Active Investor Plus roadshow lunch from noon to 2:30. Icehouse Ventures, Invest New Zealand, ASB Bank, Private Capital Group, and several others will talk about the program, where the investment opportunities are, and what it’s actually like to…

It was 65 years ago today, on October 3, 1961, that The Dick Van Dyke Show debuted on CBS. Among many other things, The Dick Van Dyke Show is well known for its opening, in which Dick Van Dyke trips over an ottoman or some variant thereof. As fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show well know, this was not the original opening of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Instead, the original opening featured photos of the characters and still shots of scenes to a jazzier version of the theme written by Earle Hagen. The…

Nnormal Kjerag 1.0 was the first trail running shoe made by the shoe brand Nnormal, launched by Kilian Jornet and the company Camper in 2022. This particular model has been my main racing shoe since 2023, and I've used it for trail and mountain races ranging from 2 to 100 kilometers. This post will be a short review of the shoe – or perhaps more of a "this is how the shoe looks after three years" situation report. Below are pictures of how my oldest pairs of Kjerag looks at the moment. Notice…