Recently updated blogs

Photo by Bob Hines/NASA – flickr.com, Public Domain A misconception has been circulating in news and on social media for weeks that the NASA astronauts who flew the Boeing Starliner -named Calypso- to the International Space Station are “stranded in space”. It’s easy to make comparisons with airline passengers stranded mid-itinerary in unfamiliar airport terminals. But it’s wrong. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams. – Image: NASA 1. Not Like …

A reader writes: I’ve been following you for about five years now. Am retiring next summer and setting off in May 26 for a ride to Bali. I currently live in Bolton so it was Bolton to Bali but I’m moving when I retire to Lincoln where my son is based in the RAF. So I’ve rebranded – Lincoln to Lombok! My question is about malaria. What’s needed in terms …

A cartoon coded in CSS from comiCSS.

#1 Nota di Viaggio (Rites de Passage) The opening is pure Italian apothecary chic – a veritable cacophony of brackish herbs, aged citrus, and homemade toothpaste underscored by a streak of medicated foot powder and ye olde throat pastilles. Not unpleasant per se, but a jumbled up wall of smell that I associate with many of the openings of Italian artisanal perfumery, like Mem and Noun from Bogue, Lafeogrigio or …

Here’s a round-up of some activities from a busy August. Building noiseboxes At the beginning of the August, a friend asked if I would build them a noisebox for an upcoming film project they were composing for. Whilst I was aware of these instruments, I had never attempted to build one before, so I was honoured to have my friend’s faith placed in my ability to produce something that might …

I recently read an article by Samantha Edmonds, The Shattered Novel: Rules of Fragmented Fiction. I’ve always been tantalised by the idea of writing a novel made of fragments, something that might even accrete from the sort of microfictions I write. For me, fragmented fiction does a better job of describing the world that we live in than the traditional novel. Social media is the most popular form of narrative …

♫ G Song, Terry Riley

Every year on the 24th October I've written a reflection on the last year of my independent consulting. This would have been my 10th issue, but is instead a special issue, for reasons that will become apparent.

Paul Graham’s Founder Mode essay, based on a recent talk from AirBnB founder Brian Chesky, has been getting quite a lot of attention over the past few days. It has prompted many a quote tweet, and founders, such as Bryan Cantrill of Oxide Computer, have started contributing their own thoughts to what founder mode means to them. Having held positions of influence at a few companies, but never having been …

I found myself in great agreement with the advice in this crisp essay on why you should quit your job, particularly a good job, and encourage productive leisure. Quit Your Job

I figured out this pattern today for testing an HTML table dynamically added to a page by JavaScript, using Playwright Python: table_js = """ function tableToJson() { return Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("table")).map((table) => { return { headers: Array.from(table.querySelectorAll("th")).map((th) => th.textContent.trim(), ), rows: Array.from(table.querySelectorAll("tr")) .slice(1) .map((tr) => { return Array.from(tr.querySelectorAll("td")).map((cell) => cell.textContent.trim(), ); }), }; }); } """ def test_search(ds_server, page): page.goto(ds_server + "/-/search?q=cleo") # Should show search results, after fetching them page.wait_for_selector("table") tables …

August was the final month of summer break, so I managed to sneak a couple books in before school started up. North! Or Be Eaten - Andrew Peterson Book two in the Wingfeather Saga, I read this aloud over several weeks to the middle girls before bed. The Wingfeather family is on the run from the Fangs and have to make their way through Dugtown, which is full of more …

I have a new piece out on Gandhi for Aeon. It’s free to read here:https://aeon.co/essays/on-the-varna-system-gandhis-plan-to-empower-the-workers

This is a big quote from the book A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. I thought it was interesting so I’m saving it here. Context: A long time before, robots gained consciousness and wanted to live on their own. So humans and robots parted ways, and humans promised to leave the robots alone. Robots also chose to let themselves die (break down) instead of repairing themselves. Dex is …

I screened this documentary out of a misplaced sense of duty. After all, the filmmaking team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory made a number of exceptional films over many years’ time, and Ivory is still going strong at age 95. Attention must be paid, and good work celebrated. Stephen Soucy has done just that, but he’s given us a good deal more. Only an insider would be able to …