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[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.]This is a water tower, or as the pros would say, an elevated storage tank. Pretty common here in the US, especially in flatter areas where there’s no nearby hillside to build a ground-level tank. I have a whole video about how these work. In the most basic sense, a water tower is a buffer between the ever-changing demands …

The most books I’ve read in a year was around a hundred, back when I discovered I could get ebooks from Edinburgh Libraries via Libby. I’ll beat that this year due to all the reading I’ve been doing for my own book about the history and rise of immersive art, but while my previous record had a healthy amount of fiction, 2024 has practically none. Here are some of the …

I went along to this year’s State Of The Browser conference on Saturday. It was great! Technically I wasn’t just an attendee. I was on the substitution bench. Dave asked if I’d be able to jump in and give my talk on declarative design should any of the speakers have to drop out. “No problem!”, I said. If everything went according to plan, I wouldn’t have to do anything. And …

Since the previous two blog posts are already quite lengthy as is, i am going to do the overall discussion in a separate post here. I discussed the situation of road rendering in OSM based maps in general already in earlier texts so here as a brief summary only: OSM-Carto uses – among dynamically rendered OSM data based maps in practical operation – the most sophisticated system of road display …

Many people will be familiar with Anna Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey, who was one of the most high-profile of the wave of hipster grifters during the 2010s. Today, she's beginning to pivot into some kind of reality TV/competition game show participant, playing on her celebrity, but back in 2016, she was just a person pitching strangers for her big idea that she was trying to get funded. The …

Convalescence: I take longer walks, restart my car, visit the seaside, and take a tram ride. Continue reading →

I've recently been on a great trip to the North East which combined catching up with the family, visiting a new football ground, and enjoying some excellent beer in a cornucopia of different pubs and bars....So here I was heading up to Newcastle first to meet the local branch of the family, then the next day I was off to see FC Halifax Town at a new ground in a …

PC There will eventually come a time when all permutations of the roguelite + X have been successfully achieved, and then we shall allow a new genre into the world. We’re not there yet, but the fantastic StormEdge gets us closer. The formula for this one is twin-stick RPG meets Slay The Spire, plus combo and dodge-based combat. If there’s one thing StormEdge gets wrong, it’s explaining itself clearly from …

I’ve been laid off twice in the past year and a half trying to navigate my professional career through the moderate success that has followed 11ty. I don’t feel as though I’ve been particularly successful at it, to be frank. What I have felt is largely expendable. I don’t blame any companies or individuals for those feelings—for me it’s representative of a larger problem with the incentives of open source …

The City of London is full of little details, symbols and historical remnants, many of which people miss. One I enjoy pointing out on my walking tours are these lampposts outside the Royal Exchange. They carry a unique set of symbols… The Bank Junction The junction outside the Royal Exchange is a real confluence of […] The post Have You Spotted This Overlooked Detail By Bank Station? appeared first on …

Strangers by Taichi Yamada, translated by Wayne P. Lammers Originally published 1987, English translation published 2003 Image Source: Open Library Hideo Harada is a recently divorced, 47 year old screenwriter. He lives in his office/apartment above a noisy, busy Tokyo thoroughfare. He’s estranged from his college-aged son, and he’s just learned that his colleague Mamiya is about to start dating his ex-wife. The whole situation has him feeling lonely, alienated, …

In part two of me being interviewed by Ville over at Mighty Finland (podcast in Finnish only), I made the statement that if the MoD suddenly called and handed me a bag of money to invest in the Finnish Navy, despite the usefulness of submarines I would not buy them, but rather their archenemy – the ASW-helicopter. While we briefly went over the options on the market – and I …

Bite-sized Bot Blasting Developer: Jaleco, Tose (they handled sound according to GDRI) Publisher: Jaleco Release Dates: December 21st, 1990 (Japan), July 1991 (North America), November 10th, 2016 (Retro-Bit Generations) Available On: Game Boy, Plug and Play (via the Retro-Bit Generations) Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up (Horizontal and Vertical), Mecha, Sci-fi Battle Unit Zeoth and I go way back. When I was a wee lad going to Funcoland on the regular to …

If it’s September, then I’m still basking in the afterglow of TCM’s Summer Under the Stars event. If you’re ever looking for something to watch and you want to review my recommendations and new-to-me picks, this will provide one-stop shopping, with every post from the August 2024 celebration! August 1: William Powell August 2: Ida Lupino August 3: John Wayne August 4: Julie Andrews August 5: Gordon MacRae August 6: …