Recently updated blogs

Well, dear readers, after 11+ years and almost 700 blogs, it's time to say goodbye. Many of you will know that Cochrane UK closes at the end of March 2024, with the loss of NIHR funding, and Evidently Cochrane is one of the casualties of this. The post Goodbye Evidently Cochrane appeared first on Evidently Cochrane.

In the Chinese Zodiac, this is the Year of the Dragon, beginning on February 10, 2024. The Dragon symbolizes power, nobility, honor, wealth, and success. Those born under this sign are said to possess intelligence, confidence, tenacity, and courage; they can also be, at times, temperamental and impulsive. Famous people born in the Year of the Dragon include John Lennon, Bruce Lee, Martin Luther King Jr., Adele, Stanley Kubrick, Robert …

Busy was the Chinese Communist Party in the first few days after it brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators on June 4, 1989. It produced a series of horrifying photos and a photo book to justify its brutal suppression. The post The Truth about the Beijing Turmoil appeared first on Iconic Photos.

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 …

How does Magic content get made? Just like how human babies get made, it isn't cheap. Rich's new column takes a high level look. The post An Overview of the Economics of Magic Content in 2024 appeared first on Hipsters of the Coast.

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 …

An 1851 San Francisco paper described a city of immigrants… I found a lovely line in an 1851 San Francisco newspaper that celebrates the diversity of Gold Rush San Francisco—a boom town whose residents included “Hindoos” (South Asians), “Mussulmans” (Muslims), and people “from the fairy lands of Persia and Arabia”: “In our streets, the fair European jostles with the swarthy Kanaka or the darker Hindoo; the pious Mussulman says his …

An update to this blog is severely overdue, it appears. I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had last posted.There's been no big leap forward since the autumn but there have been developments in a number of directions.Rolling stock acquisition continues steadily.The most recent arrivals are a suitably ragbag selection of carriages to represent the final few years of steam haulage on the Cambrian, made up of …

I spent a lot of time in TV studios in my yoof. My dad was a sound engineer, and I took any opportunity I could to bunk off school or use the holidays to go and hang out on whatever he was working on. I’d generally be left alone, because my dad had an actual job to do, so I’d raid the vending machines, chat to bored camera operators, or …

Ever since the double-whammy of ‘having kids’ and ‘global pandemic’, I haven’t been going to board game nights at game stores that much. To regain some of my exposure to new game releases, I tend to watch ‘Top 10’ lists for the last year. This year, I decided to compile all of the top 10 lists I could find to create a global list. This took way more time than …

Twelve years ago I published my first article on this site, and it's still alive (is it?). Writing # I haven't published anything in the last year. Last year I thought I will come back to writing again, but it didn't happen. Maybe I will get back to writing again here, but I just don't know. Social # I'm also not really active anymore on social media. I do browse …

Making space to work out at home When we moved to out house almost two years ago from one one-bed London flat, I was really excited to have more space to do some home workouts. Living in a small flat, with a toddler through lockdowns was hard, but we made it work. It was where I recorded all of my YouTube workouts that have now had many thousands of plays. …

The third of my year-in-reading columns has gone up over at Dorian's blog: the best stuff I read in 2023.

Imagine you’re on the hunt for a new sweater and decide to visit a local clothing store. Upon arrival, you engage with Tom, an enthusiastic new employee who began working there last week. You inquire about the sweater selection, and he’s eager to help, providing prompt responses. As this unfolds, Clarice, the store owner, approaches. With genuine concern, she inquires if everything is okay. You affirm that it is, expressing …

Let us posit a simplification, which will hopefully seem less arbitrary and less reductive as we further describe it. The simplification is this: that the two poles of concern, when it comes to what we call “art,” are the production of pleasure and the production of models. This is a bit what Gabriel Duquette has touched upon in calling “maps” and “chords” the building blocks of a work. The maps …