Recently updated blogs

Perhaps I should be more emotional about this, but this will be my last blog post on Airbag. The time has come to make this domain more useful than where I share my thoughts and feelings about things and stuff. It has been a wonderful stage to practice writing in the English language (still needs a lot of work) and engaging with hundreds of people here on this site and …

Your browser does not support the audio element. Recording from a performance at Fruityspace venue in Beijing. Sun Yizhou: hard drives, mechanical devices. Axel Powrie: bass guitar, amplifier, ground loop. mixed and mastered by Sun Yizhou

I came up with a really slick trick to write E2E tests that deal with sending/receiving emails recently. This is the sort of thing that seems like it's probably usually sort of a nightmare — I wanted to write a test for registering a account on a website, where part of the flow was clicking on a validation link in a email. The slick trick is a test SMTP server …

I’ve been an insomniac my whole life. I remember taking long walks as a teenager around my neighborhood in the…

All Chromium-based apps such a Google Chrome, Obsidian have a built-in DNS client. I have set up NextDNS on my computer to block ads and trackers. The built-in DNS clients by pass the NextDNS, which I don’t want. On top of built-in DNS is switched on by default, there is no way to switch it off using the UI. In macOS, I found a way to switch it off using …

Black Crystal by @baumraum_treehouses located in the Catskill Mountains. Photographs by @mo More photos on @cabinporn.

Comments on Ryan Barrett’s plan to create a “bridge” between the Fediverse and Bluesky, with reference to defaults, consent & moderation. Kind of a geeky post coming up! I was going to put it as a comment on the article here, as it’s in response to that – but then I got an error message when I tried to post the comment, so I thought it might as well go …

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 …