So Mayer Under Review:Alston Moor. Anne Charnock. Gold SF, September 2026.Woman, Wolf, Carbon Capture. Noelle Catharine Allan. Black Lawrence Press, September 2026. It feels strange to proffer character-led summaries of these two narratives; as their titles make clear, they focus to a significant extent on displacing the human from the center of the story. Anne Charnock’s Alston Moor has several point of view characters of different ages and genders across two time periods, but one living…

The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; . . . I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life. Charles Lamb (1779-1834)

Yes, exactly — it’s “Green Birds”! Ordering this fabric sample has really helped me with my decision as to whether to buy this fabric to use as curtains here, Svenskt tenn. Thanks! A lot! (This is what the fabric looks like if you’re not only interested in the birds’ legs. Perhaps they assumed that I was a bird leg man.) I’m also impressed with the “protect textiles from direct sunlight” warning here… super reassuring when we’re talking about a textile meant to be used as curtains. Besides…

You can reduce token usage in Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor by guarding what your agent reads, not what it writes. I analyzed 1,674 of my own agent sessions across RocketSim, RocketTrace, and my other Swift apps: only 0.6% of my tokens were the agent’s replies. The rest was the agent re-reading the same context … → The post How to reduce token usage in Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor appeared first on SwiftLee.

One thing I find notable about S3 today is that, while it used to drop in price reasonably often, there hasn't been a price drop in a full decade: 2006-03-14 $0.150/GB-month 2010-11-01 $0.140/GB-month 2012-02-01 $0.125/GB-month 2012-12-01 $0.095/GB-month 2014-02-01 $0.085/GB-month 2014-04-01 $0.030/GB-month 2016-12-01 $0.023/GB-month Today it's still $0.023/GB-month. — Simon Willison I actually can't believe it hasn't gone up in the last couple of months.

Entropy Arbitrage Newsletter Wikipedia Recipes Mini-Server, Part 34 Kabang! Digression on the Sound Logo Making Music KDE for People Library Updates Next I hesitated to choose Freedom from Hunger Day , because it largely celebrates an organization that has since become an arm of a Silicon Valley-friendly techno-solutionist non-profit. However, the name doesn’t actually say that it refers to the specific Freedom from Hunger organization—which, in all fairness, distributed tens of millions of…

Self-Portrait with Magic Scene by Pieter van Laer, 1635Honestly, a really great painting- a meme before memesWith love, and in the style of the original post over at Among Cats and Books. And yes, yes insert the usual caveats for personal preference ect. ect. And if you're curious about my other thoughts on magic, check out my Practical Magic series.Vancian Magic Is Based Because Magic Just Fucking WorksDungeons and fucking dragons has Vancian magic and its been a joy and wonder in this game…

Fear tastes real The crush of nerves Deep in our chest Meets the salt in our mouths And bile in our gut To colour our world Sweat beads As we think of stepping outside That zone we’ve marked comfort Our mind screaming Outside that wall danger lies We twist inwards And throw rocks at all who approach For they are already foe An outstretched hand a fist Generosity a trap As we seek our own For our salvation Our world growing ever smaller We forget the call to be Strong and courageous For now is…

An essay version of the video is below. You can subscribe to the audio-only podcast feed over on Apple’s Podcast app and other apps if audio is more your speed. It’s also available as a raw podcast feed if you want to subscribe to it directly in the podcast app of your choice. For fans of video, there’s both the YouTube channel and the TikTok account. Overview # The “parasocial” illusion that’s created by social media platforms helps deceive and misguide you, the audience. Video # Audio # Why…

The following is excerpted from Chapter 11 of “Shaker Inspiration,” in which author Christian Becksvoort presents six of the many Shaker reproductions he’s made in his long career. Other design chapters include measured drawings for his own designs and a baker’s dozen of Shaker classics. Plus he shares his construction methods, thoughts on design and craftsmanship, shop and business advice, and more. Tailor Counter. 33″ H x 60″ W x2 7-7/8″ D (83.3cm x 152cm x 70.7cm).This piece is a great…

🏃‍♂️ First run after 4 days of inactivity due to sickness. Happy to be back out again.

Recently I was listening to an interview with astronaut Reid Wiseman who said something that I’ve long held as a personal philosophy of sorts, but was never able to articulate so well: He told the interviewer about the importance of active following. Think of active following as the counterpart to situational leadership: Where situational leadership is the idea that leadership can change moment to moment based on competence and context, active followership is the other side of this formula that…

Bitch, turn it off while you fix it.

Hail Conjurer: Abyss & EkstasisOut 23rd September on Into Endless Chaos Records / Crypt of the Wizard Over several albums, Finland’s Hail Conjurer have been offering curiously deconstructive takes on black metal, pivoting on doom metal pacing, depressive moods, and dominant yet oddly fragile synth tones offering an eerily mournful counterpoint to the distorted backdrop. In this context, ‘Abyss & Ekstasis’ could be read as a change in direction. One that dispenses with these experimental…

📷 244/365 - Growing together.

The best bit of this post is hidden in the hashtags…

Q: More and more, I am hearing people say “not trying to” when they mean “trying not to.” I just saw a woman on YouTube who said, “I wasn’t trying to take any chances.” What’s your take on this? A: The phrase “not trying to” means lacking the intention or desire to do something, while “trying not to” means actively making an effort to avoid doing something. Both usages are legitimate. Yes, people sometimes use “not trying to” in the sense of “trying not to,” but the meaning is usually clear in…

Do you assume that workload automation = loss of jobs? If so, I want to share my experiences as an automation specialist many years ago. The technology has changed, but the approach still holds. There were two projects in particular I want to talk about to show how automation can be done. In project #1, … Continue reading On the best way to do workload automation

Star Wars: Empire at War manages to combine one of my favourite universes with one of my favourite genres and it does it surprisingly well. Compared to the other RTS titles I’ve revisited this month, which I guess you could call more traditional, Empire at War is pretty unique. Instead of single maps with regular base building to pump out units, it blends that classic real-time combat with a… Source

Large photo uploads can be slow, but resizing and compressing images in the browser can freeze the page if the work runs on the main thread. This article shows how to use a Web Worker to process images before uploading them without interrupting the app. Read more

I was so confused when they stopped showing up in the comments section. I thought a change had broken something. But no, it was me. I am a silly billy.

A few thoughts on kids in the comments, New Order’s Brotherhood, and brilliant closing tracks. The kids are all right. NPR recently shared a story about comments that were appearing underneath its podcasts. In isolation, they didn’t make much sense, but they did seem to be talking to one another. At first blush, staffers assumed they were bots and set out to clean up the comment sections. But then they asked a Gen Z coworker for their take, and her response will shock you… Just kidding—we’re…

A 582nd Helicopter Group MH-139 Grey Wolf takes off near Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, Feb. 19, 2026. The 582 HG supports USSTRATCOM’s strategic deterrence mission by enabling airborne security and rapid response capabilities for missile wings across Air Force Global Strike Command. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Nicholas Rowe) Air Force Global Strike Command announced that the MH-139A Grey Wolf officially achieved Initial Operational Capability on August 10, ushering in a new era of…

Rob Smith - Salt StarFor a minute there, Black Dirt Studio was the center of the heady universe, with classic records from Jack Rose, Steve Gunn, Rangda, Michael Chapman, Elkhorn and many, many more recorded there. The studio’s head honcho Jason Meagher closed up shop a few years back, but Black Dirt continues to loom. Case in point, the terrific new solo record from Rob Smith, which has its origins in sessions stretching back to pre-pandemic days, But Smith recently put the finishing touches…

Fact: Tri-Lug Barrels are the oldest, easiest, and one of the best ways to quickly mount a suppressor. However, the attachment style is also limited in what it can do and, sadly, is overlooked. Where did Tri-Lug or 3-Lug come from? In Oberndorf, Germany, in the early 1960s, Helmut Baureuter, Manfred Guhring, Tilo Moller, and Georg Seidl cooked up probably the most mature sub gun of the 20th Century– the Heckler & Koch MP5. Recycling a roller-locked action first used on legendary machine guns in…

This is the world-famous and instantly recognizable Household Cavalry Regiment, a unit which dates back to 1660, if not earlier. The HCR is made up of The Life Guards and The Blues & Royals, divided into the Household Cavalry Regiment and the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment. For reference, the last time the HCR rode horses during wartime was when patrolling British Palestine in 1940, just prior to becoming mechanized. Their last horse-mounted cavalry charge was the famed “Moonlight Charge”…

James Perkins had just killed his goats. Forty-seven in all. But for the two bulls, every one had been born right there on his property, and even though he was a rancher and they were stock, he loved them – as he would later tell me – as much as anyone loves their pet. The day I met him he was digging a hole in his pasture to bury them. I had gone to his property to interview him for an article in the local paper in Brennan, Texas: The Brennan Eagle. More of a community bulletin really, but my…

This is one of those days that demonstrates the accuracy of NBC's claim to be "The Full Color Network." CBS boasts of only two prime time colorcasts (My Three Sons and Gilligan's Island), while ABC's curious choice is O.K. Crackerby, co-creator Cleveland Amory's failed sitcom (17 episodes), starring Burl Ives. Who knows why—it would take someone like Dick Tracy to find out, and hopefully that's a big-enough hint to you regarding something contained in today's listings, which, as you might have…

2026 is another year of short stories. In this weekly series, I track my short story writing, from idea and draft to submission. This is the week of Sept 20 – Sept 28. Stats Stories Finished: 3 Submissions Currently Out: 8 Submissions Total: 35 Rejections: 29 Acceptances: 0 Submissions and Responses After a flurry the past couple weeks, no new submissions or responses this week. Goals Last week’s goals: Start Magpie revisions Continue idea writing The Critters critiques are in for The Magpie. I…

I've been whinging about wanting to move away from Firefox for nearly a year now. It started with Mozilla's announcement about their AI strategy and my initial thoughts. Then they doubled-down and it raised my heckles even more. Then I had a long old whinge about how fucked they seem to be. I took Vivaldi for a spin, but I couldn't get used to it. It just tries to do too much, and has way too much going on with the UI, and dark/light theme switching still doesn't work despite it apparently…