I delay sending an email because to send an email may mean more email, more work, more time I don't have. Weeks go by. Months, in some cases. I finally write the email — set aside time to deal with the work — then crickets. No reply. Then comes a reply and we talk, then silence. Then another email conversation while the time I set aside passes. Now I wish I had emailed someone else. Someone more immediate.I sent a message the other night. The answer was simple. "Yes. I am available in two…

I picked up a small stone and performed some sleight of hand for the children. I then handed the stone to a girl, saying, "I'm giving this to you." Our playground is bestrewn with stones and pebbles. Any one of them would have served my purposes, but I'd selected this one. Now this girl had it. The other children gathered around her, requesting a turn with this "special" stone."It's funny how the nature of an object . . . is so changed by the way it has come into your hands, as a gift or a…

Rossano Brazzi as Renato de Rossi in Summertime (1955) Vitals Rossano Brazzi as Renato de Rossi, antique store owner Venice, Summer 1954 Film: Summertime Release Date: June 21, 1955 Director: David Lean Costume Designer: Rosi Gori (uncredited) WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background Prolific Italian actor and director Rossano Brazzi was born 110 years ago tomorrow on September 18, 1916. An on-screen fixture of Italian cinema since the late 1930s, Brazzi rose to global fame after three consecutive…

During last month’s Letterheads 2026: Sea Level, hosted by Amsterdam Signpainters, a woman approached me to say that I was partly responsible for her flying over from New York to attend. Her name is Maggie Jaris and I hope that her story here encourages other ‘newbies’ to sign up for their first Letterheads.My First LetterheadsBy Maggie JarisI learned about Letterheads right at the start of my sign painting journey. I was taking an online class with Liane Barker and someone asked how we could…

I’m raising money for St. Jude during the month of September, and as we keep hitting milestones, I keep adding items to give away to anyone and everyone who would like to enter.This giveaway is for a Fountain Telling Charleston Slim Fountain Pen in Metamorphoun with a Matte finish. This pen is fitted with a Medium Steel Bow #6 nib, etched with the Fountain Telling logo. Big thanks to Kristen at Fountain Telling for sending this pen to help with our fundraising this month! One note: this, and…

Session 329 was played on 7/19/26Morgana, wizard 10 (Rob)Borumar, Triton Thief 11 (Josh)Blotto, Goblin Fighter 8 (Lanse)Nick, Fighter 8 (Me)Koltic, Cleric 9 (Cindy)Aroon, Fighter 8 (NPC)Jameth, Fighter 8 (NPC)Lor’Koth, Dwarf 8 (NPC)Traveling down the mountain the party stumbles upon a family of ornery mountain goats. “It’s never just goats” Blotto warns… And he was right. While the party bypassed the grumpy goats without injury, shortly after the sounds of battle were heard around the bend. A…

[WARNING: Very mild adult humor ahead. Hide the children-folk!] John and I like to chat via Instant Messaging when we're across the house from each other. (Because AMERICA.) Below is our actual IM conversation from last night over today's cake: Me: Well, this earned a triple-take: [attaches photo]John: What is that??Me: You'll figure it out.John: Is it a number 1?Me: Noooo...John: Seriously, what the what?Me: Look closer.John: I literally have no idea. Me: *sigh* It's Thor's hammer, ok?[short…

2026-09-17Hello!I don't have much to say here. I ate some food to recharge in between my chaotic photography hunt for certain landmarks.The food wasn't all for myself, by the way(!) I was with some colleagues for the day and I'm glad they were able to contain my energy, if only a little. They know who they are.The food was delicious. I'm sure it's not healthy for me — even I know syrupy chicken is too sugary for the mortal human — but as a simple, easy food that was delivered less than two…

I’ve long-felt that No Way Out is one of the great overlooked spy films. Released in 1987, it was was early starring role for Kevin Costner.Costner is Tom Farrell, a Navy officer working in the Pentagon. He’s sleeping with Susan, who also happens to be sleeping with the Secretary of Defense.One night, the Secretary accidentally kills her during an argument about her other lover (who he doesn’t know is Farrell). He concocts a plan to find the other lover and frame him as “Yuri,” a rumored Soviet…

An hour after the last raindrops, wet leaves glisten as the sun glimmers through thin clouds. The sound of teeth chiseling through a walnut shell. The stems of bent stiltgrass in the meadow begin to redden.

In May 2026, I tried to start up a little online enclave where people with various political, religious, and philosophical inclinations could share and discuss ideas. Obviously, this was a response to the internet being polluted by LLMs, yes, but also to the persistent and worsening problem of too much low-quality information being distributed at hyper-speed and hyper-volume, which is very often presented in absolute terms. Nuance is hard to come by, everybody is pissed, and it feels like 80%…

I read a this post I found on bubbles.town about a guy who determined he was a better person without his phone. It got me thinking, how much do I use my phone? I think for a 60 year old man I might use it more than others my age, but I also think that I don't use it as much as some slightly younger. To be honest, I use it to text my adult boys, to call my mother, stay on top of my calendar, use Spotify at rehearsals so the guys that didn't listen to the songs we are working on can here how they…

Lady of Rain led her People down from the slopes of Only Mountain. To the south they walked the Child God leading whither she would not reveal. They found a forest quite vast and sprawling in a low place between hills. The trees grew closely roots snared careless feet, canopy muted the sun. They struggled southeast deeper and deeper Lady of Rain never wavered. Her footsteps were true. No roots hindered her. Even the trees stepped aside. Abruptly she stopped, a spot was chosen. Her temple would…

I see no reason not to lie.So, let’s be honest. I see no reason why anyone should deny their thoughts or their feelings.Sometimes, you need to scream.I see no reason why we don’t do this.We should be able to scream if we need to scream.We can shout when we need to shout.And yes, I know.I get it. I doI understand this might not be a good look, so-to-speak. I understand that there is no room for emotional thinking in a strategic workplace and I get it. . .I really do.We have to keep our head. We…

John Lampard Quoted, Josh Withers, quoting Chris Martin, quoting a post he saw on Twitter: Treat your body like a data centre. Consume as much water and literature as possible. Upset local city councils with your existence. Thanks for keeping RSS feeds alive. Reply by email Leave a comment by replying to this post on Mastodon.

The synth pop artist stops by to talk about his latest EP, his creative process, and the vibrant scene in southern Oregon. San Gabriel. Photo: Kassy Balli Good morning! Today we’re talking with synth pop artist San Gabriel. Retail jobs are an incredible incubator for side projects. Some people use the downtime to catch up on schoolwork. Others may work on a side hustle. James Bookert used that time to work on his music. Initially, something to do in between tours became San Gabriel, a fully…

Obsidian is likely the most popular Markdown note-taking app in the world. It’s so unusual and different from the previous companies I covered here that even the CEO doesn’t know how many users they have – they simply don’t track it. But Obsidian estimated to have three to four million users in early 2025. It’s completely free and earns money on additional but replaceable features like cloud sync and publishing. Before Obsidian, Erica Xu and Shida Li built Dynalist, an outliner app and an…

The long road to EPUB support

Disassembly with a regulatory hint

★★★★: An absolute delight. Much like previous Hazelight titles, the gameplay is varied, co-operative, and inventive. I liked the asymmetry of it all- each player has their own overlapping puzzles and abilities. And nothing overstays its welcome.The story is... well there's a story! But it never got in the way and helped explain the variety of locales well enough. There are some truly impressive sequences too, and plenty of cute jokes, nods, and allusions to other games.Great with a partner. And…

Become poor before the world teaches you poverty by force. not poor in the sense of neglecting what God has given you, refusing necessary things or pretending every comfort is evil, but poor in the number of worldly things you are willing to sin in order to keep. A Christian should be very concerned about anything that can make obedience suddenly negotiable. The world has plenty to offer. It can offer money, pleasure, sex, admiration, status, entertainment, belonging, beautiful things, an…

A care package from Zoharum has arrived. I have shipped out four different pieces of work this week, pulled a couple of very long days, and I’m not done yet.

i move mountains in my mind.i wake up,the world hasn’t caught up.i can’t adjust for a minute, can’t go back to sleep.can’t come up with words to describe what i’m feeling… alright, a mistake happened. i move on. no more changing the world.hard work is for those with both the mind and the mouth. i look in the mirror.i like the girl i see.not the best i’ve seen, but i like her enoughto take her out on a stroll in lace,her lips red, maybe brush past a hand or two. it’s a world deep as the…

In the wake of Jacob Coxon’s resignation, and the resulting preference cascade, things have escalated quickly. The mainstream media picked it up. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei came out and said We Must Pace the Frontier, promising to take the unilateral first step of embedded investigators. OpenAI pledged to also take that step, and now both companies and Google are collaborating on safety. The people took notice, raising both the salience that AI might kill everyone and roughly doubling people’s…

Let's look at how Emperor Justinian managed to stop the Nika Riots and save Constantinople. We saw yesterday how the Blue and Green factions were angered over the treatment of some of their own people, and how, during an attempt by Justinian to placate them with a chariot race erupted into rioting.Now, previous emperors had sometimes canceled chariot races to avoid bringing people together and getting their adrenalin and testosterone built up, but Justinian took a different approach. He thought…

Some 40 years ago, in the darkest stretch of the Cold War, Exercise Northern Wedding ’86 was a massive, three-week NATO maritime and amphibious exercise conducted from late August to mid-September 1986, involving 150 ships, 35,000 troops, and 500 aircraft from 10 Western nations. The NARA has hundreds of pics from the exercise, and they really show off the might of the Western fleets at the time, including at least three carriers (Nimitz, America, and Ark Royal), the newly recommissioned…

Spotted aboard the 6,200-ton Italian Thaon di Revel-class patrol frigate Giovanni Delle Bande Nere (P 434) at sea on her way back from RIMPAC: Beretta Mx4 Storm 9mm SMGs. Beretta introduced the 12-inch-barreled, 1,000 rpm Mx4 in 2003 for consideration in military/LE contracts to fill the place in the company’s catalog left when the PM12 burp gun and its semi-auto PM12-S2 brother were curtailed. Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (better known for his car designs including the Maserati MC12 and the…

My brother Juan Pablo has a Supernote Manta and it’s pretty cool. I tried my hand doing a drawing. There’s a short lag but, to me, it’s noticeable. Not a deal-breaker, I think I can get used to it. The friction is good, I didn’t pay much attention at the time. We were talking before about an old wooden chess set we have, my brother was remarking on the craftmanship of the Knight across sets.

In Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro announcement, they almost mentioned in passing that the “Dynamic Island” is now 25% smaller and can now hold 3 live activities. Great leading with the user benefit there, Apple. However, it got me curious how did they achieve it? Apple’s functionalities often combine industrial, mechanical, electrical, optical designs with software innovations that get manufactured at scale. When you dig deep, there are often very few companies that perform those kind of core…

I’m tired It’s Tuesday. I have six agents running across three repositories. One is migrating a database schema. Two are writing tests for a feature I specified before lunch. One is refactoring something I asked about on Monday and had forgotten. Two are waiting for me to answer a question. I am not writing any code. I haven’t for months. I read, approve, redirect, answer. Then switch. Then switch again. Every one of them finishes with the same offer: shall I do the next thing? It’s never a bad…