Recently updated blogs

Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the University as We or They?”. Unsurprisingly given my reference to “higher-ups”, my answer was “They”. …

In the forgotten age of the Mystical Kingdom, nestled beyond the reach of time, a serene land flourished under the protection of The Gleam. This ethereal force bathed the world in golden light, its brilliance illuminating even the darkest corners of human hearts. People lived in harmony, unaware of the shadows stirring beneath their feet.Yet deep in the bowels of the earth, beneath the pastoral hills, a dark art festered—necrosorcery, …

The readableContentGuide(docs) API was (and still is) such a quintessential quality of life fix for UIKit developers. With the rise of # h u g e iPad devices emerging with iOS 9, the need to reasonably size views primarily meant for reading became important. As such, Cupertino & Friends© gifted us a straightforward way to do just that: private func setupTableView() { tableView = UITableView(frame: .zero, style: .grouped) tableView.dataSource = …

The Pentium as a Navajo weaving (\(\mathbb{M}\)), a 1994 rug by Marilou Schultz in the the National Gallery of Art designed from an image of the Intel Pentium integrated circuit. On matching algorithms to solve single rows, columns, and boxes of sudoku puzzles (\(\mathbb{M}\)). As mentioned in my first blog post, 19 years ago. The 2024 arXiv accessibility forum (\(\mathbb{M}\)). Planar point sets with forbidden four-point patterns and few distinct …

Solar powered.

I've written a number of pieces on this blog about various Alabama maps; one of these days I may put together a post that's a list of those posts. At any rate, here we are again.Son Amos and I were recently going through some of the endless stuff around our house and came across this map of Hoover. We both agreed these kinds of graphic maps are pretty neat.This map …

This movie, like the characters that live in its frame, has got sand. Grit. Guts. This movie seduces your spouse and then winks at you and you find you can’t hold a grudge. Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is one of the grizzly director’s great masterpieces but only became so long after it was released. The studio cut all the life out of it but it was …

Continuing with a bit of a flying saucer theme today is The Boy Who Discovered The Earth. It is a pleasant science fiction novel for kids about an alien boy who is left behind on Earth. He makes friends with the locals and learns about dogs, baseball, and the life of children on another planet. The only trick is they don't look like humans at the beginning but disguise themselves …

Yesterday, I was at State of the Browser in London. It was great to catch up with friends and make new ones, and the talks were once again very well curated. In this post, I'll share some notes from the day and the takeaways that stood out to me the most. The Barbican tube station Think about funding the web ecosystem Stephanie Stimac kicked us off with a brilliant talk …

I’ve recently got into a bit of a rabbit hole with FPV quadcopter drones.1 Specifically with a “mini-whoop” style drone, the Meteor 75 Pro. ...sneak preview of the end product!

From time to time, I collect some random sightings into an observations post. Mostly, the posts centre around Ottawa, but I'm happy to have a few images from Kingston, so this post will be an Eastern Ontario post. However, I do want to start with a bit of news from Ottawa.Farewell, 4977 You may have noticed, if you follow this organization on Facebook, that the Bytown Railway Society has found …

The history of Western encounters with ‘the other’ is a horrifying collection of oppression, colonisation, extermination; of seemingly intellectual debates about race and the superiority of one race over another; of inflammatory remarks, persecution, camps. Anyone who was not Western (specifically European) and Christian (mainly Catholic) was considered vermin, subhuman, a danger to public life. […]

For every promoter you will have several detractors so you must be ready to deal with them. Compliment your enemies to disarm or confuse them.

First principles are fundamental truths or building blocks — the essential basics of any given situation, problem or context. Think of them like mathematical axioms, natural laws or foundational truths that govern how something works. When you break something down to its foundational elements, you eliminate the noise and distractions of assumptions and analogies. You can see it more clearly for what it is. That clarity will lead you to …

Tiaa makes a big mistake in the cryo-hangar, Bryan Jognson is attacked by adrenochrome junkies, and the Doge is reborn. You can find the full text to read along to here. You can follow along the story here on Paragragh. Don’t forget to Subscribe to get the next installments in your inbox :) If you liked the song in the audio, you can find it here. To view this content …