🌲 gonna 🌼 go 🌱 tough 🌳 grass 🌷 now PS: I'm rebooting DMail (or something like it). If you want to be part of history, drop your email address here: combatdavey.substack.com Be good to yourself. If you enjoyed this post, click the little up arrow chevron thinger below the tags to help it rank in Bear's Discovery feed and maybe consider sharing it with a friend or on your socials.

"You see how this looks, right?" The true story of To Catch a Predator: the US show where the producers would catfish potential child abusers online, lure them into a house, then the host Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) comes out and reveals they are being filmed. I was aware of this show back in the day but hadn’t realised it had come under such ethical scrutiny. Perhaps it says a lot that something like this seems normal for America, where making entertainment out of horrible crimes is not…

As everyone knows, this week was a (an?) historic one for the State of Texas and for the United States as a whole—because this is the week when my wife Dana finally gave a 3-hour public lecture on OpenAI’s recent proof of the Unique Games Conjecture! Thanks so much to the nearly 200 people who joined us in person or via Zoom, and to the staff of UT Austin’s CS department for pulling the event together on short notice. Video will be up on YouTube as soon as we can manage it. But also, yes, there…

I just finished up reading a book that was way out of my wheelhouse; Butterick’s Practical Typography is an introduction to modern typographical practices. A colleague recommended I read it, and share what I thought about it. Online economics One of the more interesting elements of the book is the monetisation model it uses. Butterick argues that unless we pay for writing, we necessarily encourage other economic models. Advertising. Paywalls. Things that erode the vitality and quality of the…

Had a nice walk round the Finlas Wtewr loop on Monday, sparkling day. Notes & photos on the Finlas Loop walkmap

We're talking verbs here. 'Will you mind the children?' 'Remind me what your name is?' 'Do you mind?' [Ha! Seems less and less as A.I. vicariously offers to do it for us...] 'The mind' is given a lot of power and voice. But it isn't a thing. However, as a verb, it's a form of tending. 'Do you mind?' That's a question based on care. If I mine something it's very different. I am specifically looking for a noun, I'm extracting something I don't have or want/need more of. It's scarcity based. We…

In the late 80s/early 90s, there was a mailing list dedicated to the record label 4AD. It was called *drum roll* 4ad-l. Lots of fannish activity happened on the list — there were various fanzines (the one with the largest reach was probably Dewdrops) and there was even a CD of 4AD covers called Thurtene. I used to have a recurring dream about going home and looking in the drawers of my desk and finding letters intended for my 4AD fanzine, so that I could put the fanzine together and publish it…

The façade of the Virgin Dallas Hotel in the Dallas Design District, Texas. The post Urban Virgin appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. ***All eyes, of late, have been on the elections in the United States and what they might mean for the safety of the world.However, as Colin Jones recently pointed out on this very site; 50 years ago, this week, all eyes were on another president when Jimmy Carter narrowly defeated Gerald Ford to become the Deep South's first candidate to attain the post since the Civil War.Only two weeks…

We’re fixing to head down to Cape May for an overnight visit. I made a reservation at Peter Shields Inn & Restaurant; dinner is a 7:30, and we’re staying in Room 9. We’ll hit a winery (Cape May Winery, Hawk Haven, or Jessie Creek) and then walk around downtown. I’ve got two cameras packed (E-M10 Mark IV and E-PL5) along with my Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO and Panasonic Lumix G 25mm f/1.7 Aspherical Lens (37mm filters) lenses. The restaurant has a liquor license now, so we don’t…

For those of you reading via RSS, at some point tomorrow, BW will be moving to httpS, and it is...

A recent HBR article recommends foundation-first thinking that focuses on unit economics, even when that comes at the cost of growth. For decades, entrepreneurs have been told to prioritize growth above all else. But the authors’ research shows that this “growth first” logic often undermines long-term success. In their rush to reach scale, founders frequently lock in flawed business models with weak unit economics—a problem that becomes harder to fix as firms grow. The most successful ventures…

On July 2, 1964, just a few weeks after my seventeenth birthday, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to his press secretary Bill Moyers, that evening, he remarked, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come." Telling the same story on another occasion, Moyers amended this to, "We may have lost the South for your lifetime--and mine." If the second version is true, LBJ got it exactly right. Bill Moyers died last year--and this…

[This is a guest post by Francesco Fournier-Facio, Yara Kyrychenko, Jon Roozenbeek, and Julian Wykowski, cross-posted from the Proofs and Prompts blog. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] Today we launch Futures of Maths, a new, living platform that asks active research mathematicians about the most pressing questions around maths and AI. A string of solutions to famous maths problems, found with the help of AI, has provoked a great deal…

Reading the headlines, one thing that stands out is how everything is framed as a crisis. We have a dating crisis, a masculinity crisis, a creativity crisis in marketing, an identity crisis in Hollywood, and even a matcha crisis. It has gotten out of control. In 2026 alone, we’ve already had enough crises for a lifetime. Same for the overuse of “profoundly depressing”: Or: Maybe not representative but this is profoundly depressing https://t.co/UoPYTGzxuc — David A. Simon (@david__simon) October…

You can point many fingers at many targets to try and explain the reasons for the seismic political earthquake that Tuesday’s election turned into. Pundits and political pros are working overtime to do so. They can slow their roll. It’s easy. You only need one finger aimed at one target. Donald Trump. Yes, there’s the Iran War. The economy. Corruption. Data centers. ICE. Cruelty. Racism. Health care. Dismantling the rule of law. Tariffs. The dismantling of international relations. Elon Musk…

Saw Wildwood last night in the theater with the fam. We all really liked it. To get this out of the way: I’m biased because I’m a Portlander, and this movie, made by Portland-based studio LAIKA, is heavy-handed with the Portland and Oregon references. That’s fun for us. 😁 That said, and trying to be objective, I still think it was a super cool movie and well worth anyone’s time. The plot was creative, the trajectory was good, the visuals were stunning. It’s a stop-motion film, and it’s…

Azeroth, an untamed frontier begging to be explored. Step into World of Warcraft: Forever and quest through an iconic world reimagined with new and expanded zones, new gameplay enhancements, upgraded graphics, and more. Why did we decide to call it “Forever”? Because it takes forever to do any fucking thing in it. — WoW Game Director or something I never was a fan of the WoW Classic experience, mostly because I started to play late this game (in 2019) and never played the “original untainted…

Slop is nothing new. For decades, we’ve been taught to avoid clichés and jargon in our work. AI just made the list of slop-coded words a bit longer.You might be surprised by the words and terms other generations questioned that we perceive as normal (and human).While scanning my grandparents’ records, I recently discovered a program from my grandma’s 50th high school reunion in 1983. I wanted to share two insightful pages with you.A list of “50 Things Unheard of 50 Years Ago,” which is just…

Youths converge on the neighborhood store near the pool… I spent much of my pool-time Thursday morning surrounded by a clan of unruly Scots and Rasia, a pleasant Finn I had met last year, discussing Airwaves (and drinking) strategies. A 90-minute flight makes Airwaves more of wild week-end than planned vacation, and the description of the Scot’s hostel (“Hadn’t been updated since the war…”)

Here's a pittance. It's what I've got available, I'm so sorry Something something if leaves were currency etc etc Moving when you live with as many cats as I do while also having a full-time non-cat job takes a really, really long time, dude. The whole garage tree roof thing slowed us down considerably, health has played into it a fair amount and on the whole it's not going even half as quick as I wanted it to. I'm really not beating myself up over it though!! We'll get to the desert when we…

Junited was all about sharing each other's posts. JulyReply got us replying to them. AuguStory gave us the chance to tell the story of our blogs. Now in November it's time to actually get to know each other, so say hello to Knowember. The idea is simple: one page to let others know a bit more about yourself. But isn’t that what about pages are for, you ask? Yes, but for Knowember it’s the same set of questions for everyone. Why? Because it can be quite hard to write about yourself from a blank…

“There is no way back.” – Juan Atkins (1962 – 2026) Remix Sunday 178 Zipped Up. (101mb zip) pw: palmsout Swick & King Doudou – “No Messin Around” ft. Jammz & Geoblu (Carli Remix) Tinashe – “Melatonin” (L-Vis 1990 Refix ft. THOG & Chanel Jolé) Sonu Nigam & Kavita Krishnamurthy – “Satrangi Re” (Bianca Maieli Baile Edit) petrus.wav, Novin Yarp, Kevo – “NA ONDA DA BOLHA” (RD DA DZ7 Remix) Amaarae – “Sad Girlz” (Douvelle19 Edit) Destiny’s Child – “Say My Name” (Debba’s Spring Bloomer Edit) EMADEUS…

This party was supposed to happen more than a month earlier, but we had to postpone it because Anna got sick. That didn't change the fact that it was a huge success. Everyone had a great time, and I loved that Anna and some of my friends got a chance to get to know each other. That being said, I think somebody infected me with something at the party, because a couple of days later, I got sick myself. But that's the price of spending time with people, I guess. Still better than being alone and…

"British attitudes relating to Jewish people and Israel show two broad trends. Anti-Jewish attitudes are typically less prevalent and have remained more stable, whereas anti-Israel sentiments are more prevalent and have been increasing" This is page 30 of Sir David Bell's antisemitism report. You may notice it is shockingly absent from the reporting. To start I want to clarify that the British Government does not actually care about anti semitism beyond its usefulness as a political tool.…

Ratanga Junction – While Your Heart Flickers On It Today, a few unexpected turns in the realm where electronica and jazz meet. I’m skeptical of music that casts jazz in new lights. As someone whose childhood was soundtracked largely by 50s and 60s bop, I have a hard to enjoying any modern jazz — especially when it lacks the textural qualities of old recordings, and pretends skillful playing is enough alone to communicate emotion. But the skeptic in me also needs to recognize that part of what…

The Steam Machine is good hardware. It works remarkably well as an appliance, not a fussy PC. Gaming is great on it. It just feels like a gaming console. And compared to PS5 or Xbox, Steam has access to a huge variety of interesting little games, the whole indie gaming scene. The important thing is that the Steam Machine just works. I’d feel entirely comfortable giving an ordinary person one to use, there’s no need for any Linux hackery. I’ve been using Linux in earnest for awhile now,…

tag(s): #overblown-minor-annoyances #emacs At work I have instances of Claude running in different repositories, many times for the same overarching task. For example: "load info from flat file in DB1, run transformation and store in DB2, update output step to include new data, enable output feed for a client". These happen in 3 or 4 different repos, depending on specifics. But the branch names are all the same, since they tie to the same user story. I have a keymap for agent-shell commands, in…

We played the twenty-seventh session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.The roster for this session was as follows:Llombaerth, CG elf thief 4 (Adam)Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)Brazile, halfling hound master, his dog, Ripper, and the party's two war dogs, Dewey, and Phooey (NPC)Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)Last we played, the party…