Recently updated blogs

Yeah, we’re talking D&D again. Setup: The party is in a battle with lamias. They’ve gotten the drop on us with a clever disguise, so one of them has already taken the minute required to cast a geas on my character (Zebulon the dragonborn ranger, a desert nomad who longs to see the glaciers) to “defend us.” Short-sightedly, they’ve also summoned a bunch of mephits and pretended that they’re being …

For once, I have managed to continue on with the ongoing craft projects without starting any new ones for, ooh, must be nearly a couple of months now. Most of the crafting time has been devoted to the cross-stitch project I mentioned back in July. Despite a break for my holiday—because it’s too large to go in the luggage—I’ve got on quite a way with it. Here’s the progress to …

I must admit I was both curious and excited when I heard that Tecsun was replacing the discontinued S-2000 with an all-new S-2200X. Originally introduced in 2008 the S-2000 was sold under several names including the Tecsun S-2000, Grundig Satellit 750, Eton Satellit 750 and Eton Elite 750. Of all the Tecsun radios I have owned over the years (which is most of them) that radio was the quirkiest with …

Our cast of characters continues to explore Death Frost Doom (DFD), but the ending of last game session was perhaps one of my favorites. First - about Death Frost Doom. In the early OSR period (pre-2010), this stood out to me as an adventure that took D&D style gaming in a new direction. Once I started running a game with my old high school friends, I knew this was an …

I threw a party for my birthday not long ago, and on the cover you can see me eagerly awaiting the arrival of my first guests. The idea was to compile music for that first hour at a party - or any kind of festive gathering. There’s a lot of considerations to be taken. It’s basically background music for conversing, but it needs to be fun and hold a semi-danceable …

You step on your bathroom scales to find your body mass. The idea is that gravity acts on your mass to exert a force that depresses a platform. The depression of the platform depends on the force and, hence, on your body mass. So, to find your body mass, you need to measure the depression of the platform. Previously the platform would have been mounted on springs but now it …

Summer has been a bit of a washout, so I was feeling a need to make a happy, warm positive print. The idea was pretty simple. My studio and cottage is on the side of the Usk valley and the swallows, housemartins and swifts fly over and through the garden and between the flowers. The sunflower is a bit ambiguous, also being the sun itself. I wanted the Swallow to …

I’ve worked at three successful start-ups and one failure. I’ve also worked at post-IPO successes such as Borland, Netscape, and Apple, which means I’ve seen a lot of different founders who, if you measure success financially, were quite successful. My backstory aside and with deep respect, most founders fail. You’ve heard of the stories of sucessful founder because they’ve become famous (or infamous). However, the majority of start-ups fail. No …

Robots as earthly beings traversing the earth

HAG installation, by artist Beccy McCray The Green Man was a term invented by Julia Somerset (Lady Raglan) in 1939 for the various foliate head designs found in European churches between the 11th and the 16th centuries. Somewhere between 1939 and the present day the term was assimilated into paganism and an emerging identity was created for the Green Man. This may sound somewhat dismissive, but it’s not meant to …

Unsolicited humour in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

I don't know if there's anything that can be added to what Kelvin posted. I can only repeat it.

Real-world testing!

We aren't coming back just temporarily sharing posts the have been repeatedly requested by chagrined former readers. See the previous post for details and the address of a fresh blog. Hope you had a great Summer.

Looking back on the month, it was more eventful than Augusts are reputed to be. In the UK we are getting used to our new government. And, in some cases, violently testing its boundaries with some summer rioting. We’ve seen some dreadful street behaviour, frequently of a racist / anti-Muslim nature. Thankfully it hasn’t really impacted London, where racism is mercifully rare. The street protests closest to me were jubilant …