Overcast and still. A gray squirrel stashes a husked walnut five feet off the ground in the crotch of a lilac stem—the first I’ve actually seen one do this, though I’ve noticed walnuts stashed in shrubs and assumed it was the work of squirrels. Or perhaps just this particular squirrel, unconvinced of the need for burial.

This morning, I saw Basic Apple Guy’s recent post about Apple Stores popping up in Apple Maps and I was reminded that we have some fancy Apple Maps features here in Memphis, too. I present to you downtown Memphis, looking east from the Mississippi River: Yes, we have a Bass Pro inside a pyramid. No, it doesn’t look like Apple’s rendering of it: Ramesses now stands at the University of Memphis, but that’s a story for another time. I was going to report to Apple that the sides of our pyramid are…

CW: descriptions of pregnancy common symptoms, including pain and bodily fluids. Current stage of pregnancy: week 19 GA; week 17 FA; 30 (!) cigarettes since the beginning of pregnancy. 15 days since last cig. SymptomsI'm at the end of the 19th week. Tomorrow baby will officially be upgraded to pear size. I'm tired. I feel like my sleep is really good but I wake up tired, I don't know why. Maybe it's the constant stuffed nose that makes my sleep not efficient. Nausea is back, as well as some…

I first came across Sara’s work while reviewing the ICP Documentary Practice program, where she was a Paul Fusco Fellow. With a background in craft design, art history, and social anthropology, and photographic training at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico, Sara brings these disciplines together in a practice rooted in place, memory, and inherited knowledge. Sara’s work has received international recognition, including a 2024 finalist nomination for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, and has been…

If I were in the market for a new planner, the layout of this Aura Estelle 2027 Weekly Horizontal B6 Magnet Planner would be ideal. If you work well with a Weekly layout, then this one might be for you, too. Big thanks to Tiki at Aura Estelle for handing this off to me at Stationery Fest. I have one to give away in the Brown color, so read the rules below and enter away! Aura Estelle 2027 Weekly Horizontal B6 Magnet Planner Giveaway

This: Now available in cupcakes! Oh, and while we're at it... BROADWAY OCTOPUS WANTS TO SING: [[jazz tentacles]] BOW-TIED OCTOPUS WANTS TO LIMBO: FATALISTIC OCTOPUS WANTS TO CARTWHEEL: "This will end in tears." And, uh, Derpy here just wants a hug: "Derp!"Thanks to Rebecca S., Kristin S., Diane H., April R., & Lesley M. for joining me in a rousing rendition of "Octopodes have EIGHT legs, bakers. EIIIIGHT!" And now... jazz tentacles!*****And from my other blog, Epbot:

2026-09-29Hello!I designed my Philadelphia street photography walk to hit two points, with wandering in between the endpoints in case the wind takes me somewhere. This was one of those points. Well, this and City Hall.I like giving myself a set point to go somewhere, otherwise I'll be wandering the city for hours and I'll miss my train home. Hell, I only caught the train with minutes to spare even with a set schedule!This was taken in the late afternoon, so most shops had closed their service.…

“One must see, simply see things the way they are, and not give oneself over to games of the mind. It is not common to see what is there. Naturally we look with our minds – with our interpretations, inferences, preconceptions, comparisons, expectations, and through all our previous experience. To see is a function of […] The post Futurists and Seeing 2026 first appeared on Hinesight....for Foresight.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Senate has a rapidly-closing time window to pass what it aptly calls "The Save America From California Act," thereby preventing some onerous climate regulations from that state from hamstringing the rest of the country:California's regulations have national scope since manufacturers typically design products to meet the state's standards. Other states can adopt California's standards, as many have its electric-vehicle mandate and quota regime. Cue the…

Worthy Read is an ongoing series here at the blog where I link out to a piece I think is worth your valuable time. Katie Baker / The Ringer: The internet lasts forever, the internet never forgets. And yet it is also a place in which I feel confronted with an almost unbearable volume of daily reminders of its decay: broken links, abandoned blogs, apps gone by, deleted tweets (miss you always, ah-well-nevertheless!), too-cutesy 404 messages, vanished Vines, videos whose copyright holders have…

I have a lot of books on my list of "need to read" volumes - many of them focused on the current state of evangelical thought & theology:Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Madewritten by Kristen Kobes du MezI actually wrote about her earlier book as a part of this blog post seriesIn Defense of Evangelicalism: A Response to Its Cultured Despiserswritten by Bonnie KristianWhat Hath Justice to Do with Righteousness?: Reclaiming the Intersection of…

👋🏻 It's time to call it. I'm calling it. Memory Card is done, or in the interest of sticking with the theme, the memory card is "full." No more data to save and I won't wipe old "saves." It is time to put a close on this chapter and move along. Despite being the obvious and right thing to do, my heart is heavy. When I fell out of the rhythm of making video essays, I fell out of the rhythm of writing this newsletter. While not uploading to YouTube is easy, not writing this newsletter was proving…

In modern days a plain pip install … warns to not to mess around with the System Installation. Recommendation is either use some virtual environment, or directly mention pipx (which is isolated venvs in the user folder). Installation depends on the OS, use homebrew, pkg or whatever and follow displayed hints for your shell. Things are straight forward for simple tools: pipx install black This creates some venv called “black” to install black in there: which black /Users/user/.local/bin/black ls…

One day last week was officially my favorite day of the year. It came early this year. Okay, let’s go back a step. I’m not a summer person. There are few things that make me happier than a cool, crisp autumn day. You know the type. You step outside, feel the nip in the air, and think to yourself, “I should put on another layer, maybe swap the shorts for pants.” That day, whenever it happens, is my favorite day of the year. This spooky neighbor helped decorate our back porch for the season. St.…

I just remembered how people enjoyed my art and my authorial oracle! someone asked if they could see more of my work anywhere. it brought happy tears to my eyes 😭🫶

Four days ago this little girl turned 23. She has been one of my chief inspirations since the day she was born.

Jason Cohen shares a blunt framework for separating the rare 10x opportunities from the many 0.1x tasks that quietly consume time. It is a strong piece on ruthless prioritization, delegation, and why most backlogs should be archived instead of endlessly maintained. Read more

I am excited to announce the release of my new Lappet Style Hood Workbook! In the past ten years, since its initial publication, my Lappet Style Winter Hood Pattern has been one of the most popular of my patterns. This style hood is so lovely, it deserved a full workbook. Now, you can see the […]

In defense of the girliest programming language. I was pleasantly surprised to find a blog post of mine quoted in this article. adactio.com/links/22780

Hi, I’m experimenting with short-form audio The sound at the 45-second mark is NOT my wife snickering, it is my cinnamon waffles popping up in the toaster, THANK YOU VERY MUCH I famously get a little antsy about my site names after a few years; I’m considering switching to ‘Bit And Run’, which I recently adopted for my Letterboxd. I dunno. Maybe it’s just the changing of the seasons. I love you all Live from frantically rubbing my head all over the gymnasium floor of a basketball team I hate, —…

Nobody clicks your share buttonsBy Derek HansonRead original post → I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site. I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay. We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a…

Being able to stitch together a bunch of little videos into 1 longer video is nice from time to time. Here's a 1 liner to do it.

Nobody clicks your share buttons By Derek Hanson Read original post → I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site. I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay. We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a…

"You're just saying that to be hurtful!" People Know???? ref: My Girlfriend Turned into a Worm You might be wondering how I know that you're awesome! Because I know you read this via RSS.

Lincoln in tunnelI had a 7:00 AM appointment at the dentist. That's one way to start the day, I guess. At least my teeth are clean. I may write more about it later, but I've been all-in with Bear recently and I can't tell you how calming it has been. It's the anti-Obsidian and that's a good thing. ✍️ Reply by email

The “Growth without Striving” chapter from What Works by Tara McMullin contains a recommended method for identifying which values are most important to you. Notes Identifying and defining our personal values is a vital step towards working out what’s meaningful and important to us. We may have had values imposed on us by our upbringing, or by the society and institutions we live and work in. McMullin suggests searching online for lists of values – it should be easy to find long lists of values…

Maybe I should go back to that spot where healing is supposed to take place. Or maybe the special dirt that I collected did not take. Maybe I need to grab another sample from the blessed Earth behind the church in old El Chimayo or pray more, like I did that afternoon in the old chapel where I watched an old woman weep and her son wheel her chair to the nearest candle.Maybe . . .Maybe the answers I sought were not the answers I prayed for. Or maybe my requests were denied for reasons that did…

“I want a word that means okay and not okay. More than that: a word that means devastated and stunned with joy. I want the word that says I feel it all, all at once.” - Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “For When People Ask”Hello friends! I can’t believe we’re already at the end of September! I’m starting to see a few more migrants each morning, like ospreys and gulls. I notice the birds I’m not hearing anymore, like orioles and even the big group of eastern kingbirds that seemed like they would stay…

Brief timeline: 1996 – Experimental IPv6 support lands in Linux kernel 2012 – World IPv6 Launch Day 2017 – IPv6 is ratified an official Internet Standard 2026 – jan.systems gets IPv6 support (major event) This website and all other services running under subdomains on my home server are now reachable over IPv6. I also set up autoconfigured IPv6 for my LAN devices for internet access. IPv6 readiness has been a TODO item for me for a very long time. Earlier attempts have been hindered by: my lack…

In the last year, I’ve published not one but two books on scientific writing: the new edition of The Scientist’s Guide to Writing just last month, and Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences (with the wonderful Bethann Garramon Merkle) last December. But (with Bethann’s help), I’ve noticed something very strange: “reverse outlines” are mentioned […]