It goes without saying that this week, we celebrate John Coltrane on his centennial. One thing that commentators have been noting is how diverse his output is during his solo career. Over about a decade, he produced albums that literally transformed free and avant-garde music and recordings that dug deep into hard bop, modal, and bluesy traditions. In some cases, such as Ballads (1963) critics alleged that Coltrane succumbed to pressure from record labels, in this case Impulse!, to produce…

You can say what you will about me, but I was correct on two things since my last post. I had a couple of rough days after my medical procedure on Friday Sep 18 and really did not feel like sitting down and writing in the first few days following it. There was nothing wrong, […]

I can really sympathise with this situation as it happened to me as well a few years ago. We hiked up the mountain and planned to come down with the cable car. But many hours later by the time we reached the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway at about 4pm, it was closed (due to high winds I think). The only way down, was down Platteklip George, and that is a very steep descent. If you are over 50 or so, it hammers your knees and ankles. We only got down by 8pm, long after it was dark. An…

This Monday Pressing Concerns features new albums from Buttchug 69 and Flower Show, a new EP from Name Names, and a reissued compilation from Poem Rocket. Check ’em out! If you’re looking for more new music, you can visit the site directory to see what else we’ve written about lately. If you’d like to support Rosy Overdrive, you can share this (or another) post, or donate here. Name Names – Waste in My Enrichment Area Release date: September 18thRecord label: Self-releasedGenre: Garage rock,…

I start a new full-time job today as Director of Software Engineering for one of the largest providers of insurance, lending, risk management, and marketing products for financial institutions in North America. What this company needs from its engineering leadership lines up startlingly well with the experience I’ve gained over the last ten years or so of my career. Partnering with my peers and the leaders above me, I think we can make a substantial difference here. My company’s headquarters is…

Your average frog loves a good meaty fly. But to this amphibian predator, a stationary fly might not register as something worth nabbing, if it is seen at all. “[A frog] will starve to death surrounded by food if it is not moving,” wrote the authors of a 1959 paper in Proceedings of the IRE [Institute of Radio Engineers]. Only when the fly takes off does the frog’s eye-brain messaging system kick on and suggest tongue action. The movement itself (actually, the resulting change in the intensity…

I went to a theatre performance the other day. It was basically one actor on stage for over two hours. It was coming to the end of its seven-week run, but it still felt as fresh as the first time it was performed. How do you manage to keep a performance alive after so many repetitions? Seeing the show for the first time, it felt like it was a brand new performance, just for me. I worked out that the actor must have done the show at least 40 times in the current run. That’s not including the…

Make truth and reality have a special place for you. Make them be your compass. Make genuine mistakes earn gentle corrections seventy times seven. Do that while staying firm in this course. Intentionally preserve lies and manipulations in their despicable status: aberrations. While you do that, demons, mistaken ideas and temptations to promote them will insist until you prove yourself stronger than them; that’s when they desist; maybe that’s why they exist. Call this what you want:…

Below we reproduce an email that was sent to all members of the Court of Common Council between 7pm and 8pm last night, 27 September 2026. It conveys the news that Tim Hailes has unexpectedly stepped away from the role of Lord Mayor only a couple of days before he was due to be “elected” to the post in a process so undemocratic it would embarrass even the Russian electoral commission: Urgent Update: Common Hall (Election of Lord Mayor)Official High ImportanceTC – Members Enquiries To TC –…

Disclosure Day 2026, Steven Spielberg My rating: Didn't like it An absolute nothing burger of a film. An ET movie in 2026 ought to try to do something new or different, but this one does nothing. It takes itself so seriously that it just feels silly. It’s even sillier how many shots there are of people reacting to how serious the things happening in the movie are, as if the movie is trying really hard to make you care, too. I didn’t.

As I often say, I like simplicity and predictability. My servers are generally built around that principle: the server itself (physical or virtual) is just a coordinator of containers. When it's based on FreeBSD, those containers take the form of jails and VMs. In case of disaster, restoring is simple, and I talked about it at EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels. But there's another operating system that I appreciate and have been using for quite some time, and it's perfect for this purpose: illumos.…

In the 1980s there was a conference held in Hawaii, its main objective being to come to a collective decision about how the moon had been formed. As Hawaii is not unknown for its desirability as a holiday destination, it wasn’t long before there was a queue of astronomers asking to attend the conference. It was in Hawaii that the giant impact hypothesis finally won out. The astronomer referred to as Bill throughout the video is William Hartmann. Alongside his colleague Don Davis, he is credited…

Flixy and Marty got drunk watching reruns of early Sex and the City and brought their weak bladders upstairs ten times in two hours between them. Scuff, buffet, creak, flick, piddle, flush, reverse. When I went down to make hot chocolate Flixy got all squirmy and overdone pointing out his pornographic socks. The socks have line drawings on (with dots) of breasts. I said they reminded me of Love Hearts sweets. Flixy gave me a greeting from Seraphina, on the Tits on Tour bus. 'She's very calm to…

Bosphore 1819 is an interactive version of a beautiful 1819 topographical map of the Bosphorus. The original Plan Topographique du Bosphore de Thrace ou Canal de Constantinople et de ses environs was surveyed by François Kauffer between 1776 and 1786, before being redrawn and expanded by Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage and published in 1819.The original map is wonderfully detailed, but navigating it isn't particularly easy - particularly if you can't speak or read French. Hundreds of villages,…

David and our oldest son, Brennan, have been talking about ‘bagging a peak’ for a few weeks. Brennan flew out from Richmond last week, and the two guys headed to Death Valley National Park to hike up to Telescope Peak, Death Valley’s high point. It was a father-son excursion, and I was left behind in Las Vegas. Oh, my… whatever will I do with 2-1/2 days of ‘me’ time? Let me start the list!First, the things I won’t do… cooking, laundry, cleaning. Don’t get me wrong. David does his share of house…

A short entry for a Commodore 64 early preview/prototype build of Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo, which was being produced by Ash and Dave for Hi-Tec Software back in 1991. This seems to be a test build of one of the levels which may have been sent to the publisher to show progress back in the day, or to a magazine for preview screenshots. There is currently no sound implemented, no cut scenes and there could be minor differences compared to the final release (especially last minute bugs). If you…

I started a small experiment: writing a very basic kernel in Swift, and running on QEMU. The goal is obviously not to replace Linux or any other popular kernel, but just to have fun and understand what is required to make a program run without an operating system underneath it. Actually I made a similar experiment years before with arOS 10 years ago. For the moment, the kernel does only one thing: it prints a message through QEMU and then waits forever, which is enough for a first deep dive.…

So how's the online shopping experience going, now that AI has made boring old fixing bugs obsolete?

Last month I was featured on the People and Blogs site! If you are interested in reading an almost-interview with me (I just answered some questions and sent them back via email) then head on over to Zachary's site and take a look. I talk a little bit about myself, my websites, how I go about writing, and my tech setup. Nothing too deep, but you may find it interesting. While you are there, though, be sure to checkout the list of other bloggers who have been featured on that site. There are…

Every September 28th, thanks to a brutal fratricide over a thousand years ago, the Czech Republic gives itself a day off. The victim of that crime was Wenceslaus, ruler of Bohemia from 921 to maybe 935 AD; the chief perpetrator was his own dear brother Boleslaus. A life of Christian dogoodery and an untimely death together earned Wenceslaus sainthood and lasting fame. It reached an all-new audience with the publication in 1853 of English hymnwriter John Mason Neale’s lyrics for the carol Good…

Personal notes for week 40 of 2026

KJ Charles is a new author for me. It seems she has written more than 30 books, most of which are historical romance or fantasy romance, but I’ve never come across them until now and probably wouldn’t have been drawn to them anyway. One of her recent novels, All of Us Murderers, looked and sounded like more of a Gothic mystery and something I might enjoy. The book is set in Edwardian England and begins with Zebedee Wyckham arriving at Lackaday House, the home of his cousin Wynn. Zeb has met…

Earl Grey is a much better vehicle for sweets than coffee.There, I said it.

Over the weekend I had quite a few questions about my new course Landscape Sketching Fundamentals, and I’m here to answer them. If you want to learn landscape sketching with watercolor, I think this is just the right course for you. Sure, take a look at my work, and at the introduction to see if this is ... Read more Source

Mainz. According to Wikipedia, Mainz is considered a media city due to its "strong media presence." Furthermore, Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, was born there. It may only be a matter of moments before the Wikipedia entry is updated with an equally historic detail:Kirby Konf 2026 Last weekend, the Kirby community met for the first time. In Mainz. I'm just reloading the post… still no update… After the announcement a few months ago, I bought my ticket faster than the average…

Recently I wanted to play Splatoon on PC using a gyro-based game controller rather than the large and awkward Wii U gamepad. Additionally I needed a replacement for my assortment of controllers in various states of jank and wear. After asking around on Fedi, I ended up ordering an 8BitDo Ultimate 2C BT controller. This decision set me down a rabbit hole of firmware research and hardware modding.

Do hard shit. Not the kind you pick off a list and post about afterwards, seriously hard fucking shit that moves you. It should never be fun. There should be no bragging on Instagram and no tales of excellence in the pub. If you can turn it into a story then it wasn't hard enough.I know this one well, I have built whole stories around my own hard things and my ego has loved every one of them. That is the problem with choosing it. You pick the thing, you pick the date, you get ready for it, and…

More shiny links from around the web. For even more, try last weeks set found here or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Bloggie-nominated. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request. Bastardica shares A foundry for bastard web fonts. Store Brand Danger shares Domain Play Starts When Players Start Caring Kind of Old Games asks What if stronghold construction *is* the adventure? Pages Brittle with Sun and Salt posts Lord Problems Snakebite posts Systems…

This is N scale and I made it. Crafted with love and attention from a Kaslo Shops kit, finished as an example that spent years on the Slocan lake turn, just a stones throw from Kaslo itself…The model represents an example of a wooden van re-skinned with plywood extending its life, lasting until the late 80s. Neatly 3D printed with a quality nickel silver etch. Trucks, couplings and decals left to the modeller… classic.I like making things.I like the process, the research, the purchase, the…

A descent into Tove Jansson’s most disquieting apocalyptic vision “Kristian lay on his mattress listening as Emily barricaded them in and he couldn’t stop thinking that she was enjoying herself – almost enjoying herself.” – Tove Jansson (Shopping) In this post I should like to offer something a little different from the usual Tove Trove fare. I am going to discuss one of Tove Jansson’s short stories as a stand‑alone entity rather than delve into the full collection from which it has been taken…