Recently updated blogs

Over the past 20 years, I have featured these maps and images to rotate on my home page. They represent the growing depth and breadth of the collection.

I’m very pleased to feature a new post from Jill Stewart, the third of a three-part series. Jill is Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Greenwich and has worked in housing for over 30 years. She has written previously for Municipal Dreams about the earliest environmental health practitioners before 1914 and after the First World War and on the South Oxhey Estate. This is my review of …

The library at the academic institute where I work part-time recently had a massive chuck-out. Scanning the tomes strewn across the tables, I was struck by the high proportion of reference books - encyclopedias, dictionaries, guides, thesauruses, -ographies of various types. Quite a few of them seemed to be just lists bound between hard covers - an inventory of modernist sculptures made in the UK between 1945 and 1972 along …

[Web master's note: Northern California film critic Derrick Bang — the eldest, youngest and only son of this site's primary jazz guru, Ric Bang — has surveyed the holiday jazz scene for more than a quarter century (!). Check out previous columns by clicking on the CHRISTMAS label below.] In early November, this looked like another disappointing year for holiday jazz. With fewer than half a dozen albums to consider …

The 18th-century English novel “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” (better known by its nickname Tristram Shandy – first published in 1759) reached its complete form in 1767. It was released in 9 volumes. Volume IV of Tristram Shandy has a passage describing the celestial positions of the Sun and planets on a … Continue reading "Tristram Shandy’s sky" The post Tristram Shandy’s sky appeared first on Star …

After an incredible final that saw the return of their fierce Paso Doble and beautiful American Smooth the couple also performed an incredible Showdance to a Jennifer Lopez mega mix. The Judges awarded them their first 40 of the competition for their American Smooth, however their scores were just for guidance, the votes were down to you the viewers at home. After being awarded the coveted Glitterball Trophy Ellie said... …

The oceans have always been eyed up greedily by humankind. Transport by boat was crucial for emergence of empires and economies over the few hundred years, and remains so today. Shipping routes aren’t the only thing to be jostling for; what’s in (and under!) the oceans are crucial too, from oil to food. Our jobs are much easier nowadays with fossil fuel powered, enormous ships, not to mention highly accurate …

Hi there. Long time no see. I’m not really sure how to start this, so I guess we’ll just start. 2023 has been an interesting year full of… Life changes? Life adjustments? Life somethings. A few of these life somethings has been really cool, and what have made good blog posts, but maybe at the time I wasn’t sure how I wanted to talk about them, or which parts of …

The first time I ever presented publicly about cybernetics and sorcery was at the Ekstasis! seminars (“Magical Seminars for the Postmodern Mind”) hosted by the Illuminates of Thanateros in 2007. It was during my research for that presentation, “Re/Considering the Cybernetic Model of Magic,” that I first encountered conceptual blending theory via Jesper Sørensen’s A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Since then, the basic ideas of conceptual blending have contributed significantly …

Today I’d like to show you a small pen set that once belonged to my grandmother. For me it’s very special because of the stories […] Source

The Sodium extension in PHP 8.4 now supports `AEGIS-128L` and `AEGIS256` Authenticated Encryption ciphers. They are significantly faster than `AES-GCM` and `CHACHA20-POLY1305`. This article benchmarks them and explains how to securely encrypt and decrypt data using `AEGIS-128L` and `AEGIS256` on PHP.

Two giant clams near Eilat in the Northern Red Sea. To the left is the small giant clam, Tridacna maxima, and to the right is a mature individual of the rare endemic giant clam Tridacna squamosina, only found in the Northern Red Sea. You are what you eat, and clams are too. We’re made of atoms, which come in “flavors” called isotopes, relating back to the mass of the atoms …

The BL Labs team provided support to the Living with Machines team at critical points in the project. If you’re inspired to contribute to the future of BL Labs, now’s your chance! LwM Co-Investigator Maja Maricevic is recruiting for the British Library Labs Technical Lead, and has shared some information about the post. (And this […]

CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out various ways for infiltrators to ruin productivity of a company. Some of the advice is timeless, for instance the section about “General interference with Organizations and Production”:

“Shall we walk back the way we came?” There had been, as Constance reflected later, no possible argument against Xander’s suggestion — not that she felt disposed to argue with Xander. Lunch at the pub — a busy old place in the village next to the one in which they were staying — had been as long, cosy and convivial as either of the two might have wished. Under the …