Recently updated blogs

I've been editing The Threads That Weave for the last two months, with some minimum writing for Last Train Home. I have a small backlog of chapters drafted, but it will be a while before I actually publish any.And that's because I'm planning on switching focus to prior seasons of Last Train Home. I already have a cover, which I'll reveal in a few weeks. I'm currently debating on setting …

Luke Horton asked in a comment on a recent post: Given the chance to examine a titanosaur cadaver with your hypothetical army of anatomists, what would you look for first? *FACEPALM* How we’ve gone almost 17 years without posting about a hypothetical sauropod dissection is quite beyond my capacity. I am also contractually obligated to remind you that the TV show “Inside Nature’s Giants” shows dissections of a whale, elephant, …

Good morning my lovelies, I hope all is well in your little patch of the world? I'm sat here this morning in a large, comfy white bed (I'm in a hotel) with a cup of peppermint tea and my laptop, thinking how wonderful it is that we can access the world wide web so easily these days and stay connected. I have to tell you I've felt so happy to …

a keynote from CppNorth This one is about everything else that a team needs to accomplish, besides writing the code, in order to provide useful capabilities to people.

I want to thank literally everybody who has donated to the Ko-fi or joined the Patreon or gave me advice and suggestions as I transition back into “Author With A Day Job” after twenty-two years out of the workforce. I still haven’t got an interview anywhere that I’ve applied. Either I get form rejected a day after submitting my application, or no one returns my follow-up calls and emails. I …

For the past few years, I have lived around the corner from the Firemen’s Memorial in Manhattan. Every September 11, the neighborhood gets quiet. Streets are closed to traffic, and instead are filled with fire fighters in their formal uniforms, somberly marching to the monument, alongside a substantial police presence, mostly directing traffic but also respecting the moment. I have no direct connection to the firefighters; I’m just a neighbor, …

Axidraw is a remarkable machine designed to assist with many drawing and writing needs. Wit the right pens for Axidraw, you can tackle almost any task you traditionally do with a manual pen, such as plotting graphs and drafting patterns or artwork.

TokyoDev has launched [a new Japanese language blog](https://www.tokyodev.com/for-employers) focused on aiding Japanese companies in building English-speaking engineering teams. This is our first step towards our goal of helping these companies internationalize their engineering departments, which will allow them to take advantage of a much larger pool of eager applicants who have specialized knowledge or experience that they have trouble hiring for domestically. Although companies such as [Mercari](https://www.tokyodev.com/companies/mercari), [Money Forward](https://www.tokyodev.com/companies/moneyforward), [Smart …

My birthday is September 11. Yes, my 7th birthday sucked. But, today's my 30th birthday! To celebrate and/or be masochistic, here's 30 pieces of advice, that thirty-year-old me wishes I could've given to thirteen-year-old me. (These may or may not help you specifically; steal what's helpful, ditch the rest!) Below is a summary of all 30 tips! Click the ⤵ arrow to read more about a Tip. (~1 minute read …

Reprinted from my original post of 9/13/01. You can still visit the original, if you wish, but the stylesheet disappeared during a server migration, so it’s plain text only. 11 September My part of New York City is not burning. An hour has passed since the Twin Towers evaporated with 20,000 souls inside them. Up here, a few miles north of the hit, a surreal calm prevails. My part of …

Vaulting, an abstract of a leaf. ©2024 Daniel Sroka. Some leaves seem to stay in motion even after they’ve landed on the ground. When I found this leaf last fall, I was first struck by its intense color — a red so deep it was almost black. But then I noticed something else. The leaf was twisting around its core, like a pole vaulter preparing to clear the crossbar. So …

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Figured out why my RSS feed wasn't including any of the actual images from my blog. The fix requires completely changing how I handle images and manually going back and fixing all of my old posts. Yay! Web dev is so much fun, you guys!

In a recent post I explained some of the findings of our recent Framing Report for Chicago Transit Authority’s Bus Vision Project. It’s a detailed and image-rich exploration of how Chicago’s bus network functions, or sometimes doesn’t, and what it would take to improve its design. We focus especially on the problem of racial equity in Chicago, and the way this goal conflicts with the goal of ridership because of …

This morning I got stuck in the slow lane behind an old man when I was walking down the sidewalk on my way to a Zoom meeting at my neighbourhood coffee shop. Rather than speeding up and hurrying past him, thoughts on my meeting, I did the opposite: slowed down and walked behind him. Enjoying the moment. And hanging to the right side of the sidewalk in case others wanted …