Despite Dancing with the Stars 35's yacht rock theme and surprising elimination, the dancers and quasi-celebs have become a family, as Marshal Knight writes in his recap here.

Hey, did you miss me? I've only published two blog posts in the past two months because I was busy writing 10+ blog posts detailing the Python Language Summit in 2026. If you are interested in the Python programming languages' technical direction (or you just really miss my writing) go over to the Python Insider and read those write-ups. I've been the blogger for the Python Language Summit for the past three years (2024, 2025, 2026). Before me, Alex Waygood was the blogger (2022, 2023), and he…

A funny thing happened at the last show that I was a vendor at. First of all, it was the worst of the shows that I’d done so far, attendance was low as it was at a college but during spring break, and it was the first show where I didn’t at least break even. But one person that came to our table noticed the Gritty 3D print I had made, and remarked on it and said that she was one of the people that helped design and create Gritty. My wife and I, being big fans of Gritty, were pretty excited. It…

Writing for the Washington Post, Cato's Scott Lincicome reviews polling data about Donald Trump's favorite economic and foreign policy cure-all, and finds that Americans don't care for tariffs.These responses show that many voters willing to support tariffs in the abstract oppose them when asked to pay less than they're actually paying today. Republicans are no exception: Their support dropped from 70 percent to just 39 percent when asked to pay $1,000 per year to fund their guy's signature…

I’m starting to think that there’s something to this whole “finding stray kittens their forever homes” thing. Turns out, I find it very fulfilling! It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see a kitten get adopted into a loving family, especially when I was part of that equation. For the past month, my neighbor has been fostering two stray kittens, and I have been more or less “sponsoring” them by taking them to the vet for all their wellness exams and working on finding homes for them. I…

Caring for my mom makes me increasingly grateful for a clear mind. Here on the cusp of fifty years old, I am in some senses at the height of my powers. What I have lost in physical ability has been compensated for by patience. What I have lost in mental agility has been compensated for by judgment. Watching her decline, I understand that my mental clarity is today’s grace: it is not mine by right, and will not last forever. It may be replaced in time by other graces and, knowing the love at the…

Feels good to geek out about Linux and Emacs and some computer science history. The more I learn, the more I enjoy learning. The next episode of Emacs Gems is being made one geek fact at a time 🤓

I might have forgiven the shitstorm that was Apple’s Tahoe macOS release. I never upgraded my laptop from Sequoia after seeing the accessibility disaster that was Liquid Glass. I was able to survive iOS 26 by enabling ‘Reduce Motion’ and ‘Increase Contrast’ in the system settings. I searched for something to change the offensive design so I could use my phone normally without distraction. These modes emphatically help my brain, and I can’t really explain why. It’s like seeing the difference…

Written by MichaelSo, let me start off this post with some behind the scenes info. See, while it looks like it’s just been a week or two I last posted, it’s been over a month since I wrote the last post. I was working ahead on my games while I had some free time, but my progress was thwarted by this game.It seems I can’t stay motivated for this title.Obviously, this will all be appropriate discussions in the final rating, whenever that comes, but this game so far lacks the charm of the previous…

Harsh Patel, writing on Medium about waiting to feel ready:Readiness is not a feeling at all. It is a decision.The rest of the post is the usual self-help stuff, put a hand on your chest, feel your heartbeat, you are allowed to begin scared. I very nearly closed the tab but that one line was enough of a takeaway because it describes every stupid thing I have ever done.I have never felt ready for any of my life. I was not ready to run a marathon the first time, I was definitely not ready to run…

Looking to hire a deliverability consultant to help investigate and fix your inbox woes? Jennifer Nespola Lantz can help. She and I previously worked closely together at Kickbox, working side-by-side to provide expert deliverability services consulting, solving the tough problems impeding your ability to get your email delivered reliably and to the inbox.I recommend Jen without hesitation. She has a fantastic depth of knowledge around deliverability best practices, email program auditing,…

Roseanna Pendlebury There are plenty of ways of talking about books that make me especially happy, and they all bear some baggage. I could say “trash”, which comes with a big side order of judgment about the worth of the literature; I could say “cosy” and then get into any number of arguments on the internet about whether cosy is legitimate, or what it even is. But there’s a way I prefer to think about this category of books, ones that I turn to when I want something to bring me a certain sort…

A 7th-century Sanskrit biography of the Indian emperor Harshavardhana written by his court poet Banabhatta contains the first literary mention of the game of chess. In it we read that the Indian emperor sent a gift to the Sassanian King Khosrow I. The gift was a game that contained pieces that have been translated in different ways: "royal figures of sculptors" or "fighting terracotta-warriors" or even "When this king [Har·a] reigns, the fight among kings is confined to terracotta…

Sticking with the Apple history theme, Designed in California is a new podcast from the team behind Upgrade that breaks down the last 50 years of Apple. If you’ve listened to any of the Rest of History podcasts it’s in the same style, part story, part chat, and a great listen. I backed the Kickstarter so had a drop of seven episodes to burn through. Some series I’ll listen weekly, but the most recent one on Apple’s Mac OS Crisis was so good I burned through all seven on two long walks. If…

Event Horizon is one of those movies that stays with you. This ’90s cult classic tells the story of a large spaceship that disappears, and when it reappears, something is terribly wrong. It’s a ghost story in space, and it works on nearly every level. The casting is excellent, anchored by Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne. Much like the crew of the Nostromo in Alien, they feel like a believable group of people thrown into an impossible situation. The Event Horizon itself also feels lived-in,…

Note: this is the final part of my journey across Toronto on foot (Sept. 18, 2026). Read the pre-walk background here and what happened in the first half of the walk here before reading this post. It’s a week after I crossed half of Toronto on foot, and it’s time to tackle the second half. My body is fully healed for this more challenging part – according to Google Maps, it should theoretically be 2 hours longer than the previous walk (which took 9 hours). I’ll pick up where I left off (Union…

Note: This is my first day of crossing Toronto on foot. Sept. 11, 2026 . Start with the pre-walk background here and read what happened on the second day here. It’s the first day of my walk across the entire width of Toronto. I leave the apartment at 8:15am to a waiting taxi downstairs. It’ll take me to the starting point at Pearson International Airport. We go through a set of mid-sized city streets and onto Highway 401 which bisects the North end of the city from East to West. The ride takes…

Introduction Anyone who uses OpenTofu or Terraform extensively knows that “known after apply” entries can make a plan output frustratingly cluttered. These entries are normal during resource creation or after import, but they become distracting during unrelated updates. A little over a year ago, I began writing an OpenTofu/Terraform provider for Forgejo. It is the second provider I have written and I did not know all the tricks (I most certainly still do not!), but something clicked last month:…

Johan Agebjörn and Fred Ventura are back on these Vehlinggo pages with an exclusive song premiere that you will find quite easy to replay many times ahead of its Friday, Oct. 2, release. “My Only One,” from Agebjörn’s forthcoming album, Casablanca Nights 2: The Unveiled Chapter, finds Italo Disco legend Ventura and Italo Disco revivalist legend Agebjörn (one-half of Sally Shapiro) unleashing a beautiful, propulsive mid-tempo banger that makes me wish they’d do a full collab LP. Ventura’s…

I saw True Mountain Laurel at Trailside last night, and loved it. You should seek them out.The group is singer-songwriters Haley Blais and Sam Lynch, formidable talents in their own right, who turn out to have a synergy when they write music together and perform it: they’re witty, relaxed, talented players, and, despite a too-small-for-such-greatness crowd last night, they managed to weave a scene out of the evening.If you can’t see them live, find their debut album Angel So Bad. My favourite…

I sat down a few times this year and programmed some Raspberry Pi Picos I had lying around. While some prefer Arduinos for this type of programming, I prefer the Picos. For one thing, they are cheaper. For another, I am generally supportive of anything to do with Raspberry Pi products. Indeed, I use my … Continue reading Programming the Pi Pico and some lessons learned, 2026 edition

Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!” Warship Wednesday 30 September 2026:…

Filthy lucre. A designer's life.What do you charge for your work? How do you get paid? What's your rate? These are the questions I whisper to myself while exporting files and writing emails. The answer? Not enough, too late, and too low. I criminally undervalue my work. The perk and curse of having a full-time job—I treat Freelance Me like a miserable little homunculi. You will do the work for dirt cheap and you will like it. Massive caveat going in—today's article is for me. Follow along if…

Shareware was one of the more honest arrangements in personal computing. Try the program. If you like it, pay for it. Sometimes payment removed a nag screen. Sometimes it sent you a registration code, a printed manual, extra levels, more features, or a disk in the mail. Sometimes it simply supported the person who wrote the thing. The details varied, but the bargain was easy to understand. That simplicity was part of its strength. Shareware fit the world of BBS systems, user groups, computer…

I was probably eleven when my father started spinning plates. He’d been watching The Ed Sullivan Show and in between Petula Clark and Sergio Franchi, there was a man, all tuxed-up, spinning fifteen plates, five in the air on spindly sticks, five on the table, as he ran back and forth to keep everything going at once. The orchestra, trumpet-heavy, behind him, the audience’s rippled applause. Sometimes we lose our way. And sometimes we find another way. It may not be the best way; it may in fact…

There's a great addendum to Monday's listings that was brought to my attention by one of our readers, and for a moment I'd considered using it as the little coda to the listings, but upon further reflection I decided this might deserve a piece of its own. (It's also true that I didn't have anything else planned for the day, but we'll overlook that for now.)It concerns the 1962 movie The Notorious Landlady, which was shown on the CBS Thursday Night Movie. It's not a particularly controversial…

Note: this is the pre-depature post for my walk across Toronto. You can follow the first half of the walk here and read what happened in the second half here. I’ve lived in Toronto for the past 27 years. I love being “in the street” and have obsessively walked Toronto’s streets, back alleys, side alleys, front alleys and ravines like some sort of territorial dog. So when I got the idea to cross all of Toronto on foot, it just made sense! I’ve been inspired by Craig Mod’s TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO, an…

18 years later, Apple is taking a similar approach with macOS 27. Golden Gate aims to fix the missteps of last year’s Tahoe, promising an expansive set of improvements and “a more responsive and delightful experience”. Does it hold up? Here are just some of the bugs I’ve encountered in my daily use over the past couple of weeks. Source: macOS Golden Gate Is a Buggy Mess What a glorious collection this is!

📷 245/365 - The morning sun really tried.

Hey, Bear. At the younger age I always dreamed about playing games freely on my retirement, so the plan was to nake enough money before that, get into Northern(but not too much) woods and play the games. When I was buying my first laptop, back to I dunno, 2018, I learned everything about them at the market, so I could both carrying it to the job and playing Witcher 3 with okay fps. I got the beautiful Asus Zenbook of that year, with 1050Ti and just 1.8kg weight. I also bought the Witcher on…