Recently updated blogs

Rereading Arthur Ransome's Great Northern led me to decide that it is perhaps the finest of the Swallows and Amazons stories. Yet when I read these books as a child I was not that found of it. Looking back I think that this is due to the tense final few chapters, when the Swallows, Amazons and Dick and Dorothy are pursued by multiple enemies as they seek to protect the …

Washington Post: Tax records reveal the lucrative world of covid misinformation #GiftArticle Via

The Fold shelf is a place for storing stationery, papers, tools but also a nice place for displaying art and ephemera. Online / in store in 3 colours and two sizes.

In his series of books (Banking Across Boundaries, Rentier Capitalism, The New Enclosure, Our Lives in Their Portfolios) Brett Christophers has provided a forensic analysis of the fundamental plumbing of the global and (especially) UK economy. For example, the first of these identified the statistical construct of ‘financial intermediation services indirectly measured’ (FISIM) as an artefact inflating the apparent contribution of the financial sector to the economy and thus enhancing …

The Family Breaks Up, Living in the Bronx, and Summers in the Catskills Arthur’s mother had relatives living in the United States when the family decided to leave Europe for America. Her brother, Joe Klarreich, came to the U.S. shortly before World War II in an attempt to earn enough money to bring his wife and baby girl overseas, so they could escape the holocaust. Alas, it was too late, …

HadestownLyric TheatreThere are musicals that touch your soul and for me that’s Hadestown. I first saw the show in 2018, where I went in completely blind and came out gob smacked and awed. Tonight after the official West End opening night, I feel equally awed as well as inspired, moved, astounded, heartbroken and overjoyed. There really aren’t adjectives to describe how heartfelt and special this show is. Not only is …

The game designer Paul Czege has just launched a new newsletter called ‘Say We Do’. I can’t tell you to go sign up on Substack or Ghost because it’s not that sort of newsletter – it’s a PDF. And if you want to read it, it’s a dollar on itch.io. Say We Do is a “Paul Czege Broadsheet”. It’s my thoughts about games as I’m making them. It’s things I …

My friend Russell started a new project, and it’s well worth sharing. It’s called Haudoo (pronounced: how do), and it’s a collection of short, no-nonsense books on how to do something. Russell is great at presentations, so it makes sense the first book is “How to do presentations”. Russell is recruiting other people to contribute content for other Haudoo books, such as how to write a blog post, or how …

As you’ve seen from the site, I’ve been really into the forthcoming Elephant Stone LP, which finally drops tomorrow! While we initially got into the band with their psychedelic sounds, Back Into the Dream seems to be offering a glimpse at a band working their way into other musical realms. For me, while I can certainly hear the psych nods in the mix, there’s something about this that feels more …

Finished reading: Dark Needs at Night’s Edge by Kresley Cole 📚 My favorite Immortals After Dark book so far. A burlesque dancer becomes a ballerina, ends up a ghost, and falls in love with a vampire who is trapped in the New Orleans Gothic manor that she haunts. 🌹👻🩰

The National Capital Planning Commission’s 100th anniversary is this year, and I was very chuffed that I was invited to present, alongside some distinguished planning professionals, at the kickoff of its centennial celebrations on January 23, 2024. This was a really cool event: The six of us each chose a document in NCPC’s digital library, and talked about it. (No technical difficulties befell anyone’s screen-sharing while on Zoom, and we …

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)Gina Rowlands plays Mabel Longhetti, a nice woman who's married to Nick (Peter Falk). According to the movie, she has a serious drinking problem, but it looks like more of a mental issue, as she's off-kilter whether she's been drinking or not. When she's been drinking, though, she's available for being picked up at a bar. Nick is about as nuts. He brings all

Random increases in attributes for no discernible reason were characteristic of this oddly "blessed" session--at least for a while. Aamanz the Caveman didn't get very far. I overestimated the strength of the caveman's stomach, and he died of poison after eating a rotting kobold corpse. But I did pretty well with the next character, Aanzim the Archaeologist (god: Quetzalcoatl). The archaeologist is modeled on Indiana Jones, starting each life with …

Yes, this is a clickbait title, but it’s also (mostly) true. If you’re not familiar with Tailwind (bless your heart), it’s a “utility-first CSS framework.” I’ve written about my disdain for Tailwind before, but today I wanted to share an article from someone else that I think make my points better than I did. I also want to share what I think is a better path forward. Let’s dig in! …

I got a cheap used copy of the book A Programmer's Guide to COMMON LISP by Deborah G. Tatar, Digital Press, 1987. Why did I read such an old book, published a few years after CLtL1 and well before ANSI finalized the Common Lisp standard? I'm always looking for good Lisp books. Since Medley is my primary Lisp environment, I'm particularly interested in books published when the system was originally …