Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the Wednesday Hodgepodge once again. Here goes. 1. Fall arrives this week in the northern hemisphere. Does it look/feel like fall where you live?What’s something you love to do this time of year that makes you feel its officially fall? It doesn’t look or feel like fall here yet. The temps are still in the lower 20s Celsius and a temperature of 25°C (which is called summerlike here) is in the forecast for next week. I do think I heard some staff say that some…

There's a quote I saw somewhere on the internet around 2012 and I used to repeat to myself whenever I was preparing to give a talk at a university. I can't remember who said it, or even the exact wording. I've searched for it more times that I care to admit, but it either disappeared from the internet, or my Google-fu (is that an anachronism already?) is rusty. The closest I can get is something like: “Sharing knowledge is more important than protecting your ego.” It stuck with me for two…

It has been AGES and that wasn’t my intention. Life has been busy and tiring of late, with a real mix of good and not-so-good things. Accompanying me through it all have – of course – been audiobooks. This is a wander through seven audiobooks that I have listened to this year and not written about… And, why not, I’ve ranked them from worst to best. 7. My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy It’s lowest on my list of seven, but I still enjoyed it. This is a novel about a young woman…

One of the projects I’m engaged in is a rigorous exploration of my own theory-informed facilitation and hosting practice. I have been keeping extensive field notes of my work, in a hand written journal, that contains observations about myself and the group I’m working with in real time. It is an effort to refine my practice along the lines of the triangle I’ve been working on, to notice deeply the ways in which Structure, Interactions and Design coalesce into a container. It is also becoming a…

Taleen Mardirossian’s The Mother Tongue of All Secrets (The Sunday Long Read, September 12, 2026) is well worth your while; I’ll post a few excerpts so you can see why I wanted to share it: In the last months of her life, my grandmother started mentioning an unfamiliar name: Tony. At first, the name appeared in brief inquiries, like I wonder how Tony is or I wonder where Tony is. I didn’t think much of it. She was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, and names had been slipping off her tongue for…

Brunette River, pre-run: Signs of fall. The first run of fall was stinky. I don’t mean performance-wise, because even though I felt lethargic starting out, I finished with a respectable pace of 5:57/km and an excellent BPM of 143. No, it’s because the air had a distinct smell of smoke from…somewhere. Combine that with the usual equally distinct sewer odour near the start of the river trail and it was an olfactory assault right from the start. I’m not sure if this affected my performance (the…

After a brief break in the year 1980, let's return to the interwar period and read three stories from the July 1926 issue of Weird Tales, which has a cover that looks like one of my recurring pre-adolescent daydreams. (I mean the guy shooting a gigantic reptile--the rosy cheeked brunette resembles elements of my postpubescent daydreams.) We'll read a story by E. Hoffmann Price, one by Clare Winger Harris, and a collab between August Derleth and Mark Schorer. I'll be reading these tales in a…

The amount of side quests I go on lately is getting a bit worrisome. One thing I recently started using Endirillia for is controlling Home Assistant. I added support for notifications when the washing machine or dryer are done to not just get Delta notifications. But what actually threw me off while adding stuff to automatons this week was adding two Govee LED bars behind the TV. I do not really care for RGB. But Govee has a good enough, consistent way to have a warm white with different…

Last year’s Weapons was quite a shock in every respect so much is expected of director Zach Cregger’s follow up especially as it stars Austin Abrams, a standout in the previous film as drug addict James. Here, he is also tasked with leading the film as the camera never leaves him for the entire run time, something he achieves with aplomb. As for Zach Cregger he has again found a way to make the ordinary seem scary and the extraordinary seem terrifying; all with jump scares aplenty. Regardless…

I actually played Cyberpunk 2077 at release on the PS4. It was hastily removed from the PlayStation Store after it became apparent just how broken the game was. The game would crash, people would fall through the floor, assets wouldn’t load, cars would randomly veer off the road, along with countless other problems. It didn’t bother me, in fact I found the whole thing hilarious. I guess it helped that I didn’t actually buy the game, I got my copy via a rental service, Boomerang Rentals. I…

Some of you mentioned the flatpak-builder approach is way too complicated. Indeed it is. All you need to do with the developer sysext on GNOME OS is to: foundry init && foundry build

I happened by a page that listed cashback rewards for a particular credit card the other day, and at the bottom I found this fine print:To earn the rate in each category, eligible purchases must be made with merchants assigned to that category. Categories are assigned based on merchant category codes (MCC) set by Mastercard. The payment networks assign each merchant to one MCC, even if they offer a variety of products and services. For example, gas stations, grocery stores and drug stores all…

I didn’t have much time to write anything recently as life kept me busy with all the work and life drama that is happening around me. Last week I saw that Matthew Rhys won a couple of awards, one for The Widow’s Bay and another one for The Beast in Me.

Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) and her Mexican husband Luis (Alejandro Edda) love ballroom dancing. They live in Tokyo where they dance in competitions. Haru takes them very seriously. Luis takes a more relaxed approach. Everything seems to be going well for the couple until Luis suddenly dies. A stricken Haru mires herself in grief. Her dance partner is gone. She refuses to leave the house. Such is the setup for director Josef Kubota Wladyka's Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, a showy blend of fantasy,…

I would benefit the most from journaling when I have no desire to do it. When I am content with myself, I experience no resistance while writing down my thoughts. They can flow easily and there is nothing uncomfortable about it. The habit is easier to uphold, but less reflection is taking place. I don't have to reflect deeply about my circumstances when everything is going well. When I am in a crisis, I have a harder time expressing myself on paper. Not that I can't write stuff down when my…

We’ve had rain, Which was nice, not a lot and it hasn’t done much other than promote grass growth and instigate the resurrection of my runner beans. Ok, the river has a fresher feel, is a sensible temperature and water quality has partially improved, but levels won’t be affected until the middle of next month. Dig down six inches and the earth is like dust. No significant recharge of the aquifers will begin for a few weeks and then it needs to rain until February/ March. It sounds a bit doom…

Ring Generalship, or How to Win a Fight You Never Appear to Be HavingSomewhere in the third round, a fighter who has landed fewer punches wins the round. The crowd boos. The crowd is wrong. Boxing judges score on four things, and only three of them are visible to a man holding a beer. Clean punching, effective aggression and defense all announce themselves. The fourth, ring generalship, is the art of deciding where the fight happens, at what range, and at what speed. It is scored on almost…

So one of the things about providing content to this site is that it is often sourced from material at my store, rather than comics in my own personal collection. I’ll be processing comics, something will catch my eye, and the next thing you know a post like this shows up. Before I had my own shop, when I was the manager at the previous place of employment, I often found inspiration in the many comics I’d process and handle there as well. And, occasionally, I’d take advantage of the store…

The new Fall/Winter 2026 Nevada Magazine arrived the other day. It’s a bi-monthly free subscription and considered a Visitor’s Guide, but for residents like us, it’s a great resource for finding new places to discover in the state, especially those within day-trip range. We’ve visited several suggested towns and sights, and we were looking for yet another. The current issue featured an article on Goodsprings, Nevada, a living ghost town less than an hour’s ride south from home. It sounded like…

I was listening to the episode “Make Your Own Thing” from the Off Protocol podcast where Jim Ray interviews John Gruber. They cover a variety of topics, including Gruber’s thoughts on the dilution of personal brand by publishing through “chain” platforms like Substack (I quite enjoyed the metaphor of a personal website where you publish your stuff to that of a chef/restaurant, but that’s a separate post). Around ~1:13:00, Gruber quotes Walt Disney who said, “We don't make movies to make money,…

Charlie recently gave a talk at Chain React about the future of mobile app development. I like his talks because they still sound like him: loose, opinionated, slightly nerdy. He’s an unusual CEO, a decent human, and a huge nerd. At one po…

Tenement Trail 2026 could easily be the best yet. Headliners Brogeal are riding that 'word of mouth' wave that even the best marketing teams can't buy, while old Glasgow favourites Baby Strange are set to reunite for the 10th anniversary of their debut album Want It Need It.I love how the area around The Barrowland Ballroom has developed over time. It's still got that gritty edge, but there are now super cool pubs and additional music and arts venues that have created a fantastic vibe and buzz.…

by guest bloggers Bruce Boyden (Marquette Law) & Zahr Said (Santa Clara Law) On June 9, the Ninth Circuit granted rehearing en banc in Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg, agreeing to reconsider the test for infringement first adopted in Sid & Marty Krofft v. McDonald’s back in 1977. At the time, we had just begun work on a joint project looking at copyright infringement doctrine generally, but we immediately pivoted to writing an amicus brief. Why ruin three perfectly good summer weeks in this way? This…

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Discover the breathtaking landscapes of Japan in over 550 real-world cars and become a racing Legend in Forza Horizon’s biggest open world driving adventure yet. Japan awaits! youtube • video ID: oZkvQ9I_iKQclick image to load player First I wanted to say that I was considering to start this title for a while, but waited until I knew I had the spare time to play it. I was also thinking of getting a one-month Game Pass discount so I’d try it, but with all the changes Moneysoft brought to it,…

Wise Child by Monica Furlong, 1987. Juniper is an unusual woman in the community where she lives. Wise Child knows that she originally came from Cornwall, and now, she lives alone and unmarried. People also know that she practices magic and doesn’t go to church. Yet, although people are a little suspicious about her for that, they still call on her for help when someone is very ill because she is an excellent healer and can frequently help when others can’t. Wise Child (a nickname given to her…

A series of names emerged in turn, as I seguéd awake from the last REM sleep dream of earlier this morning... [ day {and post} in progress... ] [ I asked them to make me an image about the thread; some Turner, a bit of Monet. Yes, it's derivative but in a reasonably tasteful way; and besides, I prompted it specifically in that direction in the first place. ]

Sometime in the early teens, I went to this lunch that was for a guy that was the head of a summer camp I used to go to, and I bumped into a couple people. You know, when you're at one of these things where people have common interests, and you kind of gravitate to people that seem like you'd be friends with. One of these guys, he's just randomly like, “Hey, I'm in this songwriting group. You should do it.” And my response was, “OK.” And that's the moment I got seriously into writing. And it's…

At the beginning of this year, as soon as it came out for the West, I've tried out the Hobonichi App to do some light journaling without ever stopping writing on paper. This is something that's suggested by the Hobonichi staff as well as one of its use cases: write down some lines to recall it better when you have to write it down, or just save pictures and tidbits of information that are usually roaming aimlessly in your phone. Unfortunately, this has made my phone much more untidy because I…

My comment on The best engineers I know are almost invisible online – LinkedIn “I’ve seen a decent amount of both. Great engineers who are also prolific content creators, great engineers who are silent, and middling engineers in both categories. Although, it’s hard to maintain the Dunning-Kruger effect when you’re regularly sharing engineering ideas online.” The author continues to argue that invisible engineers should consider building an online presence to survive in today’s job market. I…