[1980]The supreme jittery janglers from New Jersey doin their trembling thin and dry repetitive thing. Their maniacal insistent instrumental build-ups, from silence to ominously slow burning evolving into frantically explosive, are legendary. These guys were tight.Those that know, know that every tune's a winner on their debut LP Crazy Rhythms. The outstanding Moscow Nights has all the tense jangles and suspenseful strums along with a sharp focused intense and twitchy percussive track. All done…

...a formal expansion of thought, in question/prompt form: What, exactly, is symbiosis? How is a symbiont reified or manifested? Who, then, is the dalang? Where is this all happening, taking place? Why?

Take a look at this recent piece from the Boston Review that Columbia mathematician Michael Harris wrote for the Boston Review, called Knowledge Collapse. I’m hoping to have him on my podcast soon to talk about it, but there’s no chance we will get to all of it, so here’s your chance to read it now and enjoy it fully.

Just some fanart I’ve been meaning to do for a while for a really great comic! 🔞

What happens when you’re an incredibly dedicated and successful athlete who doesn’t find success? What happens when you lose the lottery? In the Netflix show Final Draft, every participant is a former athlete who is pivoting into their next career. Some have an opportunity to walk away on their terms, while others are forced into it by an injury. When I watched these athletes participate, I’m reminded of how even hard work isn’t always enough. Life is not fair. And while I’m impressed by their…

From Stay Alive! Berlin 1939-1945, by Ian Buruma (Penguin, 2026), pp. 92-93: When German troops invaded Denmark and Norway in April [1940], “to save Scandinavia from British influence,” according to the Nazi press, victory came so quickly that the public was not especially alarmed. On the contrary. The SD reported, “The occupation of Denmark and Norway has made a huge impression on the entire German people, which rejoiced almost without exception.” It helped that Denmark was a major producer of…

Inspired by a conversation with a friend, I made a mini site that’s an interactive representation of my design bookshelves: I am hoping it becomes a fun reference to browse, or something just enjoyable to play with. I made the interface feel very differently on desktop and mobile, and I hope both are fun. (There’s also a simple list if not.) I wish, just like with a regular bookshelf, you could open any book and check it out – but that’s tricky for many reasons. (I did at least scan some of the…

Last year I co-founded the Foundation for Science and AI Research (SAIR) with a some private donors to create a non-profit organization that could support responsible uses of AI in mathematics and the other sciences, independent of the major AI companies. Initially, our resources were rather limited, and our main activities consisted primarily of podcasts, short events, and competitions. However, we have been slowly trying to expand in scale, ambition, and logistical capacity; for instance, we…

Developer: DOMINO CLUBYear: 2024Genre: Visual NovelSystem: Browser Screenshot of the first screen because this is a site for children and I can’t post anything later on Sometimes I go back to previous game jams run by DOMINO CLUB, the anonymous game dev collective, and look for games I haven’t played before. The latest one of those is pleasuredrome, a game made for the Bodies in Motion jam they did in 2024. This one is a short browser game that tells a story about a dystopian future where…

Septembers in Britain are always marked by the beginning of a sort of predictable seasonal change; school’s back, offices return to their usual post-summer bustle, and, just in time for the transition, the first colds of the year begin to appear, both as an annoying disease and temperature. And while naturopathy incentivises seasonal living. Today, I'd like to discuss what naturopathic thinking can actually offer in this context of helping your health and what it can't – from a realistic…

With the right icebreaker, even people who have known each other a long time can find a glimmer or two of newness. Icebreakers offer people an informal way to open up about themselves. They can put people into the right frame of mind for a productive retreat. They help shake off the chill of an early Monday morning meeting. Why are they often the first thing to come out of a packed meeting agenda? Some ideas why:"They're a waste of time." Icebreakers don't have to be throwaway questions. An…

A obsessive shrine to Superman appears in Superman for All Seasons #2 (DC, October 1998). ▲ Superman for All Seasons #2 (DC, October 1998) ▲ Superman for All Seasons #2 (DC, October 1998), cover From contributor Don Leibold.

Let’s just say Anna’s and my preferences when it comes to mattress hardness are slowly converging on a point in the future where the only sensible solution will be two different mattresses in her bed. I’m reading Stephen Fry’s Heroes at the moment, and just like Mythos, it’s a great way of finally getting all the details of the Greek myths without having to slog through the badly written originals. Sorry, not sorry. I especially love how he keeps connecting the myths to modern-day life, whether…

Cruise ships used to stop once a week at Kailua Kona, but these days they seem to be present three or four days a week. There’s no dock so the ships anchor offshore and ferry passengers ashore by boat. On Tuesday I saw the Norwegian Spirit heading in. In the photo, the Honokohau Small Boat Harbor is in the foreground illustrating the difference in size!

A very short post this week. I missed the links post this week. I hadn't read my feeds in a week and been pretty depressed and tired between work and trying to find more work. Still unemployed as of the end of the month. I'll be fine financially October and probably November, but will have to put off any extra expenses for a while longer. I am considering getting my security guard license to see if I can at least get gig work that way. It's not that expensive and doesn't take very long to do…

Last year I did a review comparison of lots of different planners papers following the Tomoe River issues in Hobonichi and other planners in 2025. Since then, several planner companies have changed or updated their paper selections. Owl Paper Co. is one of the companies that has switched from Tomoe River paper to a very unique 80gsm Delphina Paper. As far as I can tell, Owl Paper Co. is the only planner/journal company using Delphina 80gsm paper. I’m excited to give it a try. Since the paper is…

This is a rhythm game for the Nintendo Switch. Other than maybe five minutes of the original Game Boy Advance game 20 years ago I don’t think I’ve played any game in this series before. This must be made by some of the same people who make the WarioWare games, the graphical style is so similar and the gameplay has some obvious parallels. There is a lot of charm and joy in this game, it’s bright and colourful, and the music is infectious.

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of a motoring icon with... a rock Golem? Today I take a look at the August 2026 LEGO® Speed Champions set 77263 BMW M3 (E30). Read on for my review of the model and MOCs inspired by some of its parts.Continue reading »

On the 8-hour drive back to campus, I had Edward go through his classes and tell me about each one. He said he was saving the best for last. I was not expecting the best, in the first semester of his senior year, to be “Intro to Music.” It sounds like a perfect example of IT’S THE PROFESSOR—although also Edward IS interested in music, and he can tell immediately if a song is…I don’t know how anyone knows this, so I am not sure I am thinking of reasonable examples, but like, if a song is in 3-4…

For years, there were just two image formats available on the Web: JPEG and GIF. One for lossy images (e.g. photos), one for lossless (e.g. icons). Then came PNG. It was lossless, meant to replace GIF. It added transparency and better compression, which lead to smaller size, but dropped animation. (Yes, there was APNG, but it was never properly supported anywhere) And those three were everywhere for decade or more. There were multiple attempts to improve compression even further. For example,…

Most people who say a book bores them are lying. Not on purpose. They're lying to themselves. Boredom doesn't really exist the way people think it does. It's not a property of a book. It's the absence of stimulation, and only idle people feel it. Someone busy with the rest of their life doesn't stop mid-day and announce they're bored. They don't have the space for it. Boredom shows up when there's nothing pulling your attention forward, and people blame the book for it instead of themselves. If…

I am now pixel [X:55 Y:45] at Pixel_Area!

I am now pixel [X:55 Y:45] at Pixel_Area!

I am now pixel [X:55 Y:45] at Pixel_Area!

We are in the midst of a preference cascade about existential risk from AI. A preference cascade is, alas, the best method we have to change the debate. The avalanche has started. There is still time for the pebbles to vote. For now. Mike Solana gave the correct view of why Coxon’s post went viral, which is that enough Americans finally have enough context on AI to care, and there were enough big accounts that were happy to amplify the Tweet quickly to get it initial attention. That is all you…

Well this is interesting. Not exactly sure where these are being manufactured, but they’re distributed by Nestle USA. I’ve always wondered why Maggi noodles really weren’t here; I mean the 2 Minute Noodles from India aren’t too hard to find, but nothing to speak of other than that. Hopefully this is the beginning of an onslaught of different varieties! Let’s give it a looksie. Maggi Chinese Spicy Garlic Noodles – United States Detail of the packaging (click to enlarge). Looks to be meat free…

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.A man of disputable wisdom once said that "YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT." This has since become a bit of a meme…

Note: Eighteen years ago, Kevin Kelly wrote an essay titled “Better Than Free.” In this essay he focused on the ease of making and sharing copies of things with the advent of digitality and the internet. It stood to reason, he argued, that when the price of making copies drops to zero, the price of […] Source

Sorry, sorry, I've fallen out of the habit of blogging, again. That's the problem with being a part-time dev, there's always something that can get in the way... Eggnob But there's been progress! Restart Best's UI now shows each level, with the number of lives you had on your best run. This ended up being an almighty hack. The EH500's not built to support arbitrary images, and it has a pre-built structure about what constitutes a level, and what's torn down and brought up on entry & exit to…