I have a small project where I needed to label commits as either “maintenance” or “new development”. The obvious way to do it is with a cheap but relatively capable LLM, like GPT 5.6 Luna. I tested it on a small set of commits and manually verified its labelling, and it emitted the same label as I would have for the entire test set. That was good enough for me to roll out on a wider scale. If we have Simon Willison’s llm CLI tool installed (and you should – it’s great!), we can call it in a…

Started reading: The Art of Gathering How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker 📚

Well, I know a bit about folk art ,but I know absolutely nothing about Hex signs. In fact, the first article I found about them said “yes, Hex signs are still used and professional Hex sign artists still paint them. Well,there is no such thing as a “professional” folk artist. By definition, folk artists are amateurs so I smell a barn rat. I think we have to label them craft. Or “tourist art” might be more appropriate. As for their significance and function (other than decoration) I have no…

In May 544, General Belisarius and a mere 4000 men were camped along the Adriatic coast, sent by Emperor Justinian I to counter the Gothic army of Totila that was reclaiming territory that the Byzantines had taken from the Ostrogoths during the first part of the Gothic Wars. Totila himself was marching on Rome, ready to besiege the one major city that had resisted him before now.There is evidence that Totila had reached out to Constantinople to suggest a healthy relationship between the two.…

Spend enough time with LLMs and you start noticing certain patterns. Maybe you’re working on a codebase and you want to upgrade a dependency or language version, redesign some component, or add new features. You ask the LLM how to do it, and it gives you a brief description and then finishes with “Do you want me to start?”. Sometimes it doesn’t even bother responding, it just edits the code for you. You ask it for the commands to look up DNS records for a domain, and it responds with the DNS…

💊💊 2/5 Magic Pills - I found this one too confusing & didn't have as good a time with it. The post The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick appeared first on The Wallflower Digest.

Currently listening to: End Times Fascism. By Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Here is my progress on storygraph. NOTE: The irony of listening to a book like this on Audiable (an app owned by Amazon) is not lost on me. If anyone has recommendations for alternate audiobook platforms I would be most grateful.

I had a wonderful time at a conference this past weekend hosted by the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. The conference was titled “The Digital, The Archaeological, and the Ethical” and it touched broadly on all three things. I came away with quite a few impressions and thoughts. 1. Narrative and Storytelling. One of the most important things that came out of the conference was an extended conversation about the role of narrative and storytelling in archaeological practices. On the…

The Internet used to have places. That sounds a little strange, because the Internet still has addresses, domains, servers, and sites. Technically, the places are still there. But the ordinary experience of being online has changed. A lot of what people now call the Internet happens inside a few large systems where everything is flattened into feeds, profiles, timelines, recommendations, and search results. Older online spaces had more edges. A BBS had a name, a phone number, a sysop, message…

“Listen deeply enough to be changed by what you hear.” - Hal Saunders.Hello friends! The cold front finally arrived, and it feels like such a blessing after one of the hottest Septembers on record. North winds are expected to continue, and I think I might have to break out a light jacket later this week. Fall feels good!Here are my photo choices for today:September 14, 2026 - starting to see the pinks of fall.Bluebirds in the mist.Baby cardinal!Preening out that baby fluff.Oooh, osprey, come…

I imported a new supply of beard oil from my current favourite source, Fires Of Freyja in North Carolina USA. HEKS, I didn’t order – they threw it in for free! Such lovely people. OPERATIONS: notebooks, all day. Development and script layouts.STATUS: Eyestrain! Hence notebooks – I need a day of less screens.READING: TENTACLES LONGER THAN NIGHT, Eugene Thacker (UK) (US+) MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free…

Maddy Prior & June Tabor - Peel Session, September 23, 1975Head over to Aquarium Drunkard to read Emily Hilliard’s appreciation of one of the best albums ever — Silly Sisters by Maddy Prior and June Tabor, which hits its 50th anniversary this year. Just a perfect record, with Maddy and June hitting those laser-beam harmonies on beautiful traditional numbers, backed by a murderer’s row of britfolk geniuses, from Martin Carthy to Danny Thompson to Nic Jones. “[T]their close harmonies produce some…

Everyone has a story to tell about a new layer of complicated procedure, often involving paperwork, to accomplish something that ought to be simple. It might be another layer of approval for a purchase, or for travel, using grant money; it might be a new login protection or a new university-required piece of malware software […]

Today is a very busy teaching day, so I just have time to post a quick note to say that the Autumnal Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere) takes place in the early hours of tomorrow morning, Wednesday 23rd September 2026, at 01:05 Irish Time (00:05 UTC). I don’t intend to be awake then, so I’m posting this now. Of course the Equinox will be later today rather than tomorrow for some of you, depending on your time zone. Of course for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere it will be the Spring…

I’ve dug what Pennsylvania-based Auto-Ordnance has done in the past with their WWII-themed M1911A1s, for instance, with their Black Sheep Squadron salute back in 2024. A functional work of art, underneath the custom Cerakote finish, the Black Sheep 1911 is still an Auto-Ordnance Stainless 1911 in .45 ACP. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com) Also, note the “belly” of the gun is left in “the white” to emulate the aluminum body of an F4U Corsair. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com) Well, the company is back…

You have to love this line of the Camp Lejeune-based 3/6 Marines in a slow-walk live-fire line while underway in the Caribbean. Official caption: Sighted In! U.S. Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3/6, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), conduct live-fire drills aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), while underway in the Caribbean Sea, Sep. 17, 2025, during Deployment 25-26. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of…

Some 30 years ago this week, the ultimate Prohibition-era anti-hero hit the screen in Walter “every film I’ve ever done has been a Western” Hill’s Last Man Standing, featuring Bruce Willis as dual-1911-equipped John Smith, passing through the off-map Texas town of Jericho. Twin shoulder holsters, 1911s, three-piece suits, and fedoras should be sold in sets John/Bruce duly becomes caught between two rival bootlegging gangs, Strazi and the Italians vs. Doyle and the Irish. The ensuing 1920s take…

During normal daylight hours, I work with and for other kinds of people. Specifically, I direct a statewide community engagement program that connects Oregonians—particularly those that have been excluded from public decision-making—to the decisions that affect them. …. I listened to some of the usual sparring about in-stream versus out-of-stream water use—people need water to drink, to make a living, to grow the food we eat. And also, the fish. The turtles. When it was my turn, the…

Sometimes progress in email marketing best practices feels like two steps forward, one step back. Over the weekend, three emails landed in my inbox that were technically legal under US law, but pretty out of touch with modern email marketing best practices. Upon investigation, I had some past connection to each sender: a long-forgotten service, a parent company, or something buried deep in the terms and conditions.Remember Highlights for Children and the classic "Goofus and Gallant" comic…

When the redesigned Mac Mini was announced I had hoped for it to be USB-C powered. But a Mac Nano (or Mac Neo) would be an even better fit for a USB-C powered Mac that could be used in all the ways you can use a Raspberry Pi. I bet they could beat the old Mac Mini pricing for a device like this, and ship it at $299-399. Source: Caleb Hailey This is a neat idea. The A20-Pro might just be the perfect low-power-always-on-computer without a screen (unless absolutely needed) that could run quite a…

Treat your body like a data centre. Consume as much water and literature as possible. Upset local city councils with your existence. – @chrismartin

Last Wednesday I drew a single-panel gag cartoon for the first time in years, and a topical one at that, and for the first time submitted it to Private Eye. I then spent the rest of the day trying not to read jokes about the town it references on Bluesky to see if someone else had stolen my thunder, and the rest of the week sweating on whether Lord Gnome & co. would publish it. They didn’t, so now I can post it here. (Their list of acceptances includes another Piddington Bear gag in issue 1684,…

Hiking in the Swiss Alps is a completely different experience for me than hiking in the green pastures I love elsewhere. One of my favourite landscapes here is glaciated terrain — mountains and valleys shaped by ice over millions of years, with dramatic slopes of rocky scree. It’s a shame the main mountain pass roads here have become so popular over the past 20–30 years — though as one of the motorists adding to the traffic, I can’t really complain. Twenty years ago there were plenty of…

Avoid creating and managing long-lived tokens by setting this up. You can have fine grained control over the rules too.

I mentioned that I was going to reproduce my article in The Land 37 here. Well, it’s coming right up below (it was published in The Land with the title ‘Rentiers Redux’). The article is essentially a review of Nick Bano’s book Against Landlords, albeit with some wider analysis and context. I’ll probably sketch in a bit more of that context, either in the comments section below or in a follow-up post. Meanwhile, to update another semi-regular feature of this blog, here’s my current/recent…

People Recent events meant that the Conservative leadership contest all but disappeared into a new black hole -- the only sign being that some other bald person is now pontificating in a blue tie. I was reminded of the only time I met a Conservative in person. I was at a small but perfectly formed Waterstones, and who should be there signing copies of his memoirs, but Michael Heseltine. I could tell it was him, because amid his agent, bookshop rep and security guard, not a soul was around.…

P. Cair. Masp. I 67097 v F, tr. Leslie S. B. MacCoull: I want always to dance, I want always to play the lyre. I strike up my lyre to praise the solemn festival with my words. The Bacchae have cast a spell on me. . . . When I drink wine, my cares go to sleep. What do I care for pains and groans, what do I care for troubles? I love a young soldier, a Herakles with longing eyes, a lion tamer; ever one to save our cities. ἀεὶ θέλω χορεύειν, ἀεὶ θέλω λυρίζμιν. γεραρὴν λόγοις ἑορτήν ἀνα[βάϊλλομαι…

I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be…

Last year I ran an experiment to test the ability of modern LLMs to correctly answer a relatively straightforward question. Every single one of them got it wrong. Some missed information, some made up false statements, none were right. Of course the fanbois variously claimed that I was holding it wrong, my prompts were shit, I should have chosen better defaults, and - my favourite - that it would be better next year. Well, next year is now. 365 days after the original experiment, let's see if…

Anyone who had put money on Bonta for Governor might want to visit their Polymarket account. It's generally bad for their political careers when crusading attorneys general humiliate themselves by completely folding on their biggest case. From the Hollywood Reporter.That’s All? Team Paramount Nabs Warner Bros. With Only Minor Concessions to StatesErik Hayden After all of that sound and fury, that’s it? “I don’t think these two companies should merge,” said California attorney general Rob Bonta…