As my AI policy points out, I do revise my posts with AI, but until now, I’ve resorted to post-draft LLM passes that take a bunch of SKILL.md files and either fix outright typos and misspellings or add editorial blockquotes to my drafts. The entire process feels needlessly technical in the sense that doing it inside vim or VS Code (typically as I bring stuff together for a final draft) detracts–or, rather, distracts me–from the writing experience too much, and sometimes automated replacements…

Disclaimer: This post was indirectly inspired by a similar (and very enjoyable) post by the amazing Stefano, but it was germinating in my brain long before I realized the thematic similarities. I've been programming in UNIX shell (mainly ksh, then bash, and now a bit more POSIX shell) for about a quarter century, now. It's really my favorite environment. First, let's get some common objections out the way. No serious programmer writes in shell! They use Python, I mean C, I mean assembly, I mean…

MIT Technology Review recently presented coverage on how kids feel about AI. What surprised us most was how much young people might be able to teach adults about AI, and how clearly the kids who use it could name what they will and won’t hand over. They’re not as worried that it will take their jobs as they are that it might harm society. And with increasing access to tools that could in theory do their thinking, their talking, or even their friend-­making for them, it sounds as if most want to…

In this blog, I used to write whatever that comes into my mind. I was never afraid of the blank page with a lonely blinking cursor. Then I started to draft the blog in my mind or in my notebooks. As soon as I start up the blog editor, I immediately know what I want to write. There are many nights that I would stare at the blank page not knowing what to write. The more I stare at the blank page, the harder it is to start writing. I don't know when it started, but I developed the phobia of…

Am 28. Oktober findet in Lausanne in der Schweiz die jährliche Konferenz der Swiss Data Alliance (SDA) statt. Die Swiss Data Alliance ist ein unabhängiger Think-Tank, der den Dialog über Daten und Digitalisierung zwischen Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Verwaltung fördern will. Die Konferenz findet statt unter dem Titel Swiss Data Space Forum 2026: Unlocking Data for AI. Am 27. Oktober, gibt es zusätzlich einen Masterclass für Data Stewards mit Stefaan Verhulst vom Governance Lab der New York…

I've been on a quest lately to reclaim my sanity at work. The latest advancement is a bot that auto-approves and merges low risk PRs with no oversight 😈 https://twitter.com/Swizec/status/2093478262639046864 Back in July I wrote that code review is the bottleneck to your velocity. If you can't get your code verified and deployed, you're just building a large backlog of work-in-progress, which slows you down further as you keep all that context in mind for every new feature. Continue reading →

What I'm...Working on My running mechanics Course issues in our online content packages Getting caught up at my job Contemplating Mindful running Reading Run for Your Life Practicing Meditation Drinking Rosso Cafe: I'm experimenting with syrups now 7 Brew Playing Melvor Idle Watching Bluekandy VODs Feeling Overwhelmed, tired Occupied by tasks taking me away from the things I want to do Current Roles Husband Cat dad Aspiring professional performer Class Act Adult Acting Class Student AKA Improv…

The following are my notes on discrete-time Fourier series (DTFS), as well as the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT). These topics serve as an important theoretical underpinning to the digital processing of signals by computers using the DFT (which will be covered in a future post). For discrete-time signals, we use the square bracket notation to denote samples: is the n-th sample of signal . We’ll say that a discrete-time (just discrete from this point on, for brevity) signal is periodic…

Vouchers are supposed to make shopping cheaper, right? Apparently, the shopkeeper in the following puzzle didn’t know. By the way, the puzzle is from Mathematical Puzzles and Curiosities, my book with Ivo David and Yogev Shpilman. Puzzle. A shop sells vouchers with price tags of 1, 2, 3, … dollars. There is exactly one voucher of each price. Buying the voucher tagged N makes your very next voucher cost N times its own price tag. Each multiplier applies only to the next purchase; the multipliers…

This freestanding fender extends from Skagway, Alaska’s Broadway Dock to protect the adjacent small-boat harbor. The post Curved appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

A really pleasing burst of green coming through this window.10 words · 1 image

I’ll be submitting a physical zine to FediZineFest 2026! Check out the list of artists.

Book 32 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year! My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there. I bought Cassandra Khaw’s The Library at Hellebore (2026) at the recent Belmont Literary Festival, where I was able to meet the author and get the book signed. She noted, almost as a warning, that the book has a lot of gore. She was not exaggerating; someone explodes on page one of the novel! This is a book of dark…

No shade, but neither Munch’s nor Lassnig’s work did much for me. I did, however, enjoy the piece of chocolate cake and strolling through the exhibition with Anna. I love that going to museums is a regular part of our relationship, and I love living somewhere with enough museums and exhibitions that there’s pretty much always something new for us to see. Even if, occasionally, the cake ends up being the highlight.

The temple exterior on a gloomy afternoon in 2016. Shengji Temple stands below the modest Yunlong Mountain (雲龍山) in Zhongzheng District, Keelung, and primarily venerates a red-faced incarnation of Sun Wukong (孫悟空), the Monkey King from the Chinese classic Journey to the West (西遊記). The temple was founded in 1959 by Guo Yushui (郭玉水), a practitioner of Chinese medicine whose family had kept the Sun Wukong image as an heirloom for generations. In the early post-war years fires regularly swept…

I am discouraged and disheartened by how much negativity still gets more clicks and interactions than positivity, even on Bear. The trending list is full of naysayers, warnings, dire laments, and gripes. Folks, leave that energy on the big platforms. Let the corporations have that energy. Don't give into the doom and gloom that social media has been propagating for years, and try to leave it at the door. We don't need to transfer that mood here if we don't want to! This isn't to say that some…

From Stay Alive! Berlin 1939-1945, by Ian Buruma (Penguin, 2026), pp. 102-103, 108: Berliners, like all denizens of big cities, often pride themselves on their urban wit, the humor of which is not always apparent to people from the outside—which is part of the fun, of course. The new reality of nightly bombing raids inspired some examples of the famous Berlin wit. A printed invitation did the rounds to a basement party put on by a Berlin cabaret, promising an all-night program with a musical…

Yesterday, while working, I put on some random video on YouTube and it ended up being about this 90's JRPG that wasn't released outside of Japan called Linda³. And, man, what a weird little game. For starters, it has 3 modes of play that work kinda like difficulty selectors, but each mode has its own independent story. The game has a somewhat biblical theme of "collecting two of each animal and putting them in the ark", but it's permeated by this sort of open-world with "environmental…

Gordon posted that he received an AI email the other day. Hey, me too: Figure 1: The email from "Emily (AI agent, iLands)". What an annoying email to receive. Just the new wave of spam, this time powered by pedantic LLMs. Hopefully the next iteration can actually understand context and realize I don't need someone to give me a "close reading" of my work. Imagine paying $25 to reiterate that I have poor writing skills. I already know that, I don't need to pay to hear it.

Banjo, guitar, drums, trees, n' mountains. Chris and I met halfway between our homes to jam. We met at a tiny campsite, where we hoped the lack of amenities would mean no neighbors. It worked. We were the only campers at the site, which meant we could make some noise! Time to bum-ditty 🤘🏻 Couple a banjo dorks # We brought tons of instruments, played them until it got dark. Was Awesome. We caught a couple early jams on video. (Chris tell me the name): Fire On The Mountain: Shoes & Stockings:…

It’s been a tough week in the Whittlesea-Clark household. One of our cats, didn’t come down for dinner on Wednesday, and hasn’t been seen since. She is a self-imposed indoor cat since she was hit by a car almost exactly 5 years ago to the week. Maybe there’s something about the change of the seasons. The accident left her hours from death, pelvis cracked and pressing on a major nerve, leaving her paralysed and unable to return home. Someone found her just in time, and we got her to a specialist…

In a recent post, Jim Nielsen used the term “bulldozing of an interface”: I’ve found this to be true a lot as of late. Lots of tiny details that were meticulously crafted over years with specific rationales tied to real-world use cases, all completely bulldozed in a giant refactor. I liked that term and a description, but I didn’t expect I’ll put it to use so soon. Unfortunately, mere months after praising CleanShot’s settings, the new version 5 update bulldozed them into something much worse.…

go fix can rewrite calls into your dependencies too, if the library author opts in with a //go:fix inline directive.

I wrote this post for a prompt given during our local Indieweb club meeting: “Write about non-negotiables in your personal space.” My MacBook Pro is my digital personal space on which I spend hours every day. Absence of some particular tools and capabilities is a deal breaker for me now, even if I switch to a different laptop or OS. First, I require a tiling window manager to use anything at all on my laptop. I don’t want to bother with moving windows around, fixing overlaps, changing their…

Today's apples are small and medium sized, round with no ribbing but flattened so they don't roll. What looks like ribs in the photo are small bruises. ¶ The blush lies streaky red over a green that sometimes leans towards yellow, and the resulting variation in saturation of blush over variable shades makes for a variegated surface, sometimes dull red-green, sometimes orange, or yellow or green.

At the start of August, after watching, waiting, and resisting, I dutifully started to seek medical help for my condition. Naturally, I was ready to be done as soon as possible. Not so fast! I had to wait. Six weeks. There were necessary appointments in the meantime. Then, a few days ago, I finally saw the surgeon. More progress, but not done yet. My appointment with the surgeon was very straightforward. I explained the situation. He examined me. Then he told me we’ll do surgery; his office…

About a year or so ago, I built myself a short scale bass, inspired (aesthetically) by the Kay EB-100 that I had previously restored. I play this bass pretty much daily: it’s set-up with flat-wound strings and I love its smooth richness of tone. However, having recently restored the Westone Thunder Bass which has a long-scale and round-wound strings and spent some time playing it, I have found whole new range of tonal possibilities, which contrast and complement the short scale. So, whilst…

Hello fellow bloggers, I'm long overdue an update! There are many easter eggs in the works right now, which may or may not include adopting your own desktop cat for your blog ;) So..

But the latest major-case tale in the Murphy-Brennan franchise's library isn't exactly GOOD, either…should you watch it?