​I don’t know if this is new info or not. I don’t remember it from my reading.

This Walthers ex-Lifelike GP38-2 doesn’t know what it started. Purchased shortly after the F7s and Budd in this latest Canadian adventure the intention was to recreate not only my Dad’s Athearn blue box GP38-2 from childhood but also the examples he saw at Sutherland Yard, Saskatoon in the late 1990s…So a model heavily drenched in sentimentality… but actually working on her, reminding myself about the difference between an EMD and GMD built example, remembering the scratch-building and kit…

my baby hairs have grown long enough to be very sparse "natural" bangs, but i know these will never replace the beloved removable bangs

An internet pal suggested “ear horn” as the relic. I added in some Gum Gum People and here we are. I feel like I’m learning to draw again, but hopefully I’ll be happier with my output as the month progresses. If not, it’s bag of cookies time! Just kidding. I’ll force myself to have yogurt instead.

Here are two more Fokker Dr1 triplanes in 1:144 scale, this time printed in resin on my Mars 5.

September has been an extremely eventful month, especially the past weeks, and I’m sure it doesn’t stop here. The next two months will probably also be a bit chaotic. While I’m not yet ready to share all of it, let’s take a look at some of the things that happened in September. 🍄 Life Official Residency of the Portuguese Ambassador At the beginning of September, my Portuguese university and the Portuguese embassy organized an event for alumni in The Netherlands. The event was held at the…

“Chrome: her pretty child face smooth as steel, with eyes that would have been at home on the bottom of some deep Atlantic trench, cold gray eyes that lived under terrible pressure. They said she cooked her own cancers for people who crossed her, rococo custom variations that took years to kill you. They said a lot of things about Chrome, none of them at all reassuring.” Gibson, William. Burning Chrome. New York: Arbor House, 1986.

Martin Dolan, The Metropolitan Review: The world is ending, these novels seem to ask, but what can we learn from it? Today, more than half a decade after the peak of the pandemic, the answer may be “not much.” ~ Link: The Failure of the Pandemic Novel, by The Metropolitan Review

There's something timeless and comforting about a good rice pudding, and this Lemon Rice pudding brings a bright, modern twist to a classic favourite. It's everything a proper rice pudding should be - rich, toothsome, and deeply soothing - but lifted with the fresh zestiness of lemon for a flavor that feels both nostalgic and new.If you're looking for a cozy, fuss-free pudding that feels special without any extra effort, this lemon-kissed version is sure to become a new favourite. I guarantee.…

Last week TfL launched a consultation for the West London Orbital, a new Overground route connecting Hounslow and Hendon. It's an easy win, almost entirely following existing tracks and linking key growth hubs including Old Oak Common. If all goes well it could be operational by 2035, which is almost immediate in transport project terms, and seemingly with very few downsides. Except there is an issue for some of those who live nearby because three level crossings may need to be completely…

Some week soon, the weekend postings will get 100% back on track. This is not that weekend. We've had some some tech issues that took until very late to resolve. So, we'll combine the questions and letters into one post tomorrow. What we can do is give a second hint as to this week's headline theme. Donald Trump would be unable to solve it because it relies on a particular book, and he most certainly has not read the necessary book. Admittedly, he probably hasn't read any book. But definitely…

What felt clear just a moment ago, as true as the mirror in front of me, is slowly becoming foggy and fading out of existence. It grieves me, it held a promise of a a different outcome. It was always meant to just pass by, show what is possible.

The setting sun gives us a nice sunstar, while reflecting on the sand under the Hermosa Beach Pier. To the north are the Santa Monica mountains, Malibu, and Topanga. ハーモサ・ピアの下 沈みゆく夕日が美しいサンスターを放ちながら、ハーモサビーチピアの下の砂浜に映り込んでいる。北側にはサンタモニカ山脈、マリブ、トパンガが見える。

An end of week recap “I am no longer young, and still not half perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.” – Mary Oliver (Messenger) Another month, another beefy bundle of bookish links for your delectation. Today is World Card Making Day for the arty-types amongst us, then for those who enjoy a little fermented honey in their tipple, it is National Mead Day in the UK, Poland, Sweden and the USA. Finally,…

Desert Brat 2026-10-03

Power Cat 2026-10-03

I like philosophy. Not all of it is profound — there are two dozen treatises on the ontology of holes — but the field is accessible and can be eye-opening. Alas, the only flavor of philosophy that’s popular with techies is what I’d call edgelord utilitarianism — a collection of materialist, pseudo-mathematical beliefs favored by the SF Bay Area rationalist community. The system is a dependable source of unconscionable ethical stances, middling essays about AI, and little else.To me, philosophy…

A reader asks why I so often write about poetry but am not a poet myself. “Have you ever written poems?” he asks. “Do you write them secretly and keep them to yourself?” I wrote a lot of it around age sixteen, like many delusional, love-struck teenagers. I’m glad I disposed of that stuff a lifetime ago. I was no Rimbaud. I had a brief relapse about twenty years ago under the cover of “light verse.” It too was embarrassing junk. Like most poets, I have no gift for it. I have always assumed a…

Saturday 3rd October 2026 I spent last weekend in Cornwall. I’d booked first class tickets with GWR over a month earlier, on 11th August, travelling on the 13:03 from Paddington to Plymouth on Friday afternoon, returning on the 12:57 from Truro to Paddington on Sunday afternoon. The train operating the outward journey is one of the few where GWR offers a Pullman style dining service and I decided to partake and treat myself. You can use GWR’s website to reserve a seat in the ‘restaurant’…

I’ve adapted my Special Theory of Autonomous Agent Reliability (STAAR) to predict the reliability of social media* posts about “AI”. In STAAR, the reliability of a single step – a single model interaction – is given as: R = 1 – (1 – C)(1 – P) Where C is the probability the model’s output is correct, and P is the probability that any errors are caught before they propagate and compound. So the reliability of N steps in a workflow is Rᴺ. (It’s essentially Lusser’s Law of system reliability…

Finished American Pastoral this morning. Is the Swede a Job like figure? Nothing but bad things happen to him – except he wilts in the end. And who in the world is Rita Cohen, really? And did any of the particulars of the story actually happen, or was Jerry the brother just putting on Zuckerman and coloring events?

I live around people who fill me with deep despair. Watching people look at human life and suffering as a means to end or laughing/minimizing it. I cannot help but look at them as monsters who dare wear the face of a human even though I see none behind an obvious fake mask that they do not even buy themselves. People are capable of horror and causing pain beyond what our nightmares can conjure up and then so much worse. My heart constantly feels numb in these times as I see the worst people can…

in which there seems a non-zero chance that I become the first person to have a grand mal seizure while playing Mewgenics1 Okay I’ve tried for two weeks to write a whole post about this, but I get kind of overwhelmed and upset and lost in the details so here: two Fridays yon, I did the Big Ol’ Shimmy-Shake, fractured my T6, T8, and T9 vertebrae, and was hospitalized (in the same people-fixery from before) with an epilepsy diagnosis. Of note during my stay were the following: Surprisingly decent…

CERI JORDAN “Rough Justice.” First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2001. Reprinted in The Shamus Winners: America’s Best Private Eye Stories, Volume II: 1992-2009, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Perfect Crime Books, 2010). Here’s am award winning PI story which I’m willing to wager (but not too much) which you’ve never heard of, neither the author nor the story itself. I’m also will to shake your hand if you have. I came across it Robert Randisi’s collection of PWA…

This movie is a little outside my time frame, but it is a foundational movie for my ideas of Jackson. I used to have this poster on my wall for a while, and I later gave it to a friend. Long story short, I wanted to give him one of The Omen, but this worked. Fear No Evil (1981)Andrew Williams (Stefan Arngrim), an eighteen-year-old high-schooler of some brilliance but also of a withdrawn nature. His classmates make life difficult for him, his father is afraid of him, and he has put himself at…

Yes, another video from the Groudle Glen Railway. What else would you want to watch?

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant […]

The Book of Wizard Craft by Janice Eaton Kilby, Deborah Morgenthal, and Terry Taylor, 2001. One of the things I thought was interesting about this book was that it was published at the height of the popularity of Harry Potter, and many of the things in this book are clearly meant to appeal to Harry Potter fans, referencing activities and pieces of folklore included in the Harry Potter books. My mother gave this to me when it was new because I liked the Harry Potter books, and because my…

Now in ferry bar drinking beer. Fingers feel caloused. Listening to Megadeth to drown out the noise of the other people in the bar. It’s been a characteristically bumpy first day. I wasn’t thinking about cycling to Mannheim until 4 days ago. It had crossed my mind. I cycled last year - to the small un-conference. Why not do it again? There’s something appealing in it. The tickets were sold out. I begged the organiser. I’m on the list. I’ve booked my hotel. I have 6 days to cycle around 900km to…