Recently updated blogs

(L to R) Jennifer Pratt, Pat Parsley, Kim Downs, Drew RetzMy friend Eric Gutschmidt is fond of saying "You can't build a $100,000 house." That unpleasant reality underlay the lively discussion of housing issues Tuesday morning at the Gazette Business Breakfast in the Geonetric Building cafeteria. Various subjects fell into three major topic areas: supply, price, and neighborhood context.Supply Kim Downs, deputy city manager for the City of Marion, described …

The power of negative thinking: Combinatorial and geometric inequalities Two weeks ago, I participated (remotely) in the discrete geometry Oberwolfach meeting, and Ramon van Handel gave a beautiful lecture about the equality cases of Alexandrov-Fenchel inequalities which is among the most famous problems in convex geometry. In the top left, Ramon explains the AF-inequality and its equality cases for three dimensions. The extremal bodies, also depicted in the top right, …

I discussed my recent article, ‘The 2010s: a decade of revolutionaries without a revolution’, on the New Statesman podcast. Listen on Acast or iTunes.

An update on the Samsung moon controversy from a Samsung executive:There was a very nice video by Marques Brownlee last year on the moon picture. Everyone was like, ‘Is it fake? Is it not fake?’ There was a debate around what constitutes a real picture. And actually, there is no such thing as a real picture. As soon as you have sensors to capture something, you reproduce [what you’re seeing], …

Quick update on The Engineering Executive’s Primer. The book went to print yesterday, and physical copies will be available in March. Also, as of this moment, you can purchase the digital edition on Amazon, and read the full digital release on O’Reilly. (You can preorder physical copies on Amazon as well.)

I built this based on a picture in one of my books but it did not say what it was and I am not sure what it should be.Most of this model is scratch built. The large door in the high building is a commercial plastic door and the windows on the small building are commercial parts. The tar paper on the roofs is plain white paper sprayed gray. When …

Empire gown from Delineator, January 1893. Butterick pattern #4944. Sometimes a new fashion takes off and becomes dominant. Sometimes not! While browsing through a fashion and pattern magazine from 1893, I learned something new — which may interest vintage clothing collectors. This is a typical style from 1893: A typical fashion from January 1893, Delineator. A tightly fitted bodice, with huge Leg-o-Mutton sleeves contrasting with a tiny waist. The huge …

Looking back, some of my most enjoyable things I’ve done have been challenging projects: Working at Future Platforms to build one of the UK’s earliest dating apps. Completing my MA. Working as a ‘technical liaison’ on a project with an ambitiously short deadline in 2017. Being involved with the Cerne-to-CERN pilgrimage and setting up an online radio station for it. I see certain things in common here – all of …

Green kale is an attractive and nutritious vegetable, growing to a couple feet tall, useful in every kitchen garden. Towards the end of fall, the gardener should monitor overnight temperatures, although kale reputely is cold hardy and can tolerate occasional frost. This recent autumn, however, an overnight rainfall froze to heavy snow in the morning,...

Bauhaus & Art Deco & more I have been since I was a child fascinated with this minimal style in illustration, because I watched Mr. Magoo and other cartoons made at that time (50s, 60s, UPA mostly) and japanese anime. So I invite you to a short trip to Mid Century Modern Illustration (and design).MCM Definition: Mid-century modern (MCM) is a movement in interior design, product design, graphic design, architecture …

Mission completed. Ingenuity is left alone on Mars after damage to one of its blades renders it inoperable..

Photographer’s studios, like any business, have to innovate to survive. Over the years they have come up with all manner of gimmicks and offers to attract the weary eye. The photographer’s studio here offered a rudimentary superimposed, photo collage technique that could place a treasured photo of a loved one in the shot too. This photo dates from the 1940s, and shows a soldier, with a bone china complexion and …

How to add a cover image to Pelican based blog posts, so that when the article is shared on social media the image is shown in the preview.

The traditional four elements have never worked for me, so when I began the work of making my own system, it had to go. Instead, I started by looking at the landscape and trying to derive from that. It's quickly clear that fire is very different from the other three. When I go about, I see all around me - the sky and the land and the water - and …

Emile Gallé, vase with metal mount, 1895-1900. Nancy, France. Via Grassi Museum Leipzig