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An interesting piece by Alfred Moore over at The Conversation talking about “Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names“. This hearkens back to a lot of thoughts I had about online identity back in the day – it’s interesting to see newer studies examining the space. The basic gist is that when comparing online discourse using real-life names, pseudonyms, or “durable pseudonyms”, …

Star-struck sisters coming to New York, struggling songwriter, backstage drama, misguided love -- it's all there, and more, in the 1929 film "The Broadway Melody." It's like a cliche incubator. It also has those awkward little touches we love in early talkies -- hammy acting, stilted silences and a musical soundtrack that makes it sound like the orchestra's in the bathroom.To the concrete canyons of Broadway, where there's a broken …

This feels significant. Check out this video. Hat tip: Rory Chitwood.

I've experimented a couple of times with generating candy heart messages using various kinds of machine learning algorithms. Originally, short messages were just about all the original text-generating neural networks could handle. Now we've come back around to approximately the same performance, yet with orders of magnitude more computational resources consumed. (although I don't have to photoshop the messages onto candies any more, so that's nice) Here's DALL-E3 generating candy …

The church that stands today as Blackburn Cathedral is a mix of Georgian and mid-Twentieth Century architecture. Welcoming those of faith and no faith alike, inside there is a wealth of artisan design and history that stretches back to Medieval and Tudor times. The site the cathedral stands on is an old one, and there […]

10th February 2024 This week Prospect posted something by me on the issue of a potential border poll in Northern Ireland. Please click (and read!) here. This post unpacks that Prospect post – a sort of “behind the scenes” perambulation of how that post came together – and a further discussion of the issues. * The starting point is that a potential referendum in Northern Ireland has been in the …

The brutalist former Bank of England headquarters on my walk to the Leeds office What did you enjoy? A workshop in London to look together at the shared roadmaps for work on the NHS App and other national digital channels in the NHS. We’re getting better at this quarterly planning rhythm and it really helps to keep product teams aligned and decision-makers on board. The Transformation Directorate’s leadership forum. We’re …

One of several highlights for me in January was visiting Salisbury cathedral, which I did on an impulse while travelling back from the Coastal Folly. My main frame of reference to the cathedral being those notorious Russian nerve agent assassins citing it as their reason for visiting England, something which to a Londoner had as much plausibility as as Putin’s claims that Ukraine’s Nazis started the war. I hadn’t taken …

My pal Zach has this ritual when we play D&D - before we start, he rolls the D20. Over and over and over again.

This is the 2024 edition of the Battery and Charger Buying Guide. This article is now in its 8th year. Previous versions of this article were written primarily for light painting, night, and astro photographers, looking at flashlight/torch and flash unit batteries. This article has been expanded to include NP-F, and camera batteries. The 2024 article will be useful for anyone using flashlights or photography lighting equipment, from enthusiasts to …

Martha Stewart in a January 2024 Instagram post on her second account. In 1994, Martha Stewart tiled the bottom of a swimming pool with cut-up credit cards in a mosaic of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” Not her most practical nor accessible home improvement project, Stewart did so for an advertisement for the American Express Optima True Grace credit card. Bizarre, comical, and self-deprecating, the advertisement evokes an upper-class sensibility through …

Introduction A kerfing plane is a specialised woodworking tool that has gained popularity among woodworkers for its unique functionality and precision. This tool was first introduced by Tom Fidgen in his book “Unplugged Workshop.” Purpose of a Kerfing Plane The primary purpose of a kerfing plane is to cut a kerf, or groove, around the perimeter of a board before re-sawing. This kerf serves as a guide for the saw …

The recent Beeper controversy briefly brought the “blue bubbles vs. green bubbles” topic back into the mainstream. Here’s a brief review for those of you who are (blessedly) unaware of this issue. Messages sent using the iMessage service appear in blue text bubbles within the Messages app. Messages sent using something other than the iMessage service (e.g., SMS, or (soon) RCS) appear in green text bubbles. The iMessage service and …

Here's something fun. If you sign up for my free mailing list, not only will you get updates when I post new comics (Issue #2 of Incredible Doom - Eternal September is about to drop!) but I'll send you a copy of a strange experiment I did a while back and didn't show anyone: A revised edition of my first graphic novel The Charis' Hiatus.This new edition, although mostly the …