Recently updated blogs

Over the years I’ve written several open source libraries. They’re mostly unglamorous and utilitarian, but a bunch of them obtained got a decent download count, so I thought it would be fun to try and get a grand total and show a ‘live’ download counter on my blog. This is how that looks like: My open source packages were downloaded roughly 138945563 times. Like most live counters, this number isn’t …

If we were to chart Roger Corman’s engagement with socio-political issues in his work upon some kind of hypothetical scale, then at the opposite end of it from the uncomfortably effective The Intruder, we would find ‘Gas-s-s-s!, or, It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It’ [henceforth ‘Gas’, just for the sake of our sanity], an inexplicable, rather hare-brained movie which, over fifty years later, is …

Patrice Lejeune and W. Patrick Edwards show off their creations, the "Treasure Box" series, 2008-2024. When the economic crash of 2008 happened, all our business plans for making expensive marquetry furniture changed. We needed to revise our approach to creating new and exiciting objects in order to follow the money which was still available in a dramatically changed market. Previously we had had little difficulty in selling objects that involved …

When you learn about the psychology of self, one obvious place to search for is personality psychology. Branch of psychology that studies personality and its variations. These show how individuals differ from each other. But before we continue, a small disclaimer. Personality tests are designed to put people into neat categories - this is not how people are in real life. These tests...

Last week was a hot and busy week. Some lovely catchups with Clare, Pip, Nick and Frank at Andu Ethiopian, Baguette King/Southwark Park and North Star. Day trip to Brighton Ruby, which was as lovely as ever. Nadia and Nicky opened with energy, good vibes and helpful thoughts I learnt enough about Ractors to know that if I’m using them I’m too far down the stack I know Simon loves …

Chris starts our new podcast episode (Mermaid 101) with this question (see title) and I answer ‘yes’. Mermaids (which have featured for over a decade on this site) are social supernatural beings who happen to live in the water rather than on land. They are essentially marine fairies. But there is an important difference in […]

In the world of commonly confused words, “fourth or forth” is a common quandary! Let’s explore the difference between the two spellings, because one little letter can make a world … The post Fourth or Forth? An Illustrated Lesson… appeared first on Drawings Of....

This review of a Nottingham restaurant is a break from the Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage. I occasionally wonder what Japanese people think of the Japanese food they encounter outside the Home Islands. There must inevitably be a mixture of curiosity, bewilderment, mirth, along with more outright negative sentiments too. But kept politely bottled up, of course. Everyday People in Nottingham doesn’t claim be a traditional ramen-ya, but it’s similar …

Every few years, I remember that the whole reason I started woodworking was that I needed to build bookshelves for my family. Some things don’t change. When we moved into this house a year ago, we had big plans to turn our front room into a proper home library, complete with a whole wall of built-in bookcases. But as of last month, most of our books were still in boxes. …

Read about my journey as a senior software engineer, looking at the importance of understanding people and managing time wisely.

I got this reggae compilation when it was released in 1979. It was then, and remains, the best double album compilation introduction to the richness, and sweetness, of Jamaician reggae. It was compiled by David Headley from the Trojan back catalogue. Some of these tracks have haunted me for decades, and there is not a clunker on the album. Listen to Little Roy's Hard Fighter and Bob Andy's You don't …

Crossness Pumping Station is one of those amazing places that are always worth revisiting. It looks pretty snazzy outside, but inside will consistently take your breath away. And it was designed to do so – even if its purpose was pumping sewage. Victorian London had a sewage problem. As the city and its population grew and grew, removing ‘night soil’ became more and more of a challenge. ‘Solutions’ included dumping …

Back in 2014 I published the first edition of my Rudy Van Gelder Collector’s Discography. That version focused on albums I was interested in collecting at the time and didn’t contain any albums recorded after 1965. In 2020 I gave the discography a minor update, adding some smaller independent labels as well as ... More→

DEBATE TRANSCRIPT: Jake Tapper: Welcome to the CNN Presidential Debate. I’m Jake Tapper. Dana Bash: And I’m Dana Bash. Let’s get started. Tapper: We’ll begin with the economy. President Biden, since you took office, inflation has slowed but prices remain high. What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump? Biden: Look at what Mr. Trump left me …

Excuse the corny title and associated video but I couldn’t resist it. What3Words’s accounts for 2023 have just been published and the cynics who have doubted W3W’s commercial model were confounded by the outstanding progress that the company has made in 2023. Here are a few highlights to save you reading through 45 pages. Revenues surged by 28% to break through the £1m barrier for the first time Employee numbers …