Recently updated blogs

mambo vipi from kenya!Last week at the Apple keynote event, the iPhone camera features that stood out the most to me were the new Camera Control button, upgraded 48-megapixel Ultra Wide sensor, improved audio recording features (wind reduction and Audio Mix), and Photographic Styles.When I finally landed in Nairobi (after more than 15 hours of flight delays), these were the features I was most excited to put to the test.Over …

A few side notes to John Gruber’s piece The Things They Carried, about the Sept. 9 Apple event It’s Glowtime I don’t read Daring Fireball as diligently as I used to do time ago. It has always been a Mac- and Apple-oriented blog, implying a natural built-in bias, but I always appreciated Gruber’s balance in most of his critiques and stances. And I always maintained that he was a big …

2023 This was the year of Downsize Abbey. We pack up and leave our old home.. The library of 4,000 books goes to a bookshop in Covina. We move to a temporary rental round the corner. Sadly, though I have been reading (and buying) of course, I seem to have fallen severely behind in my writing about reading, so with the news that it is now October – let me …

Image source: IMDB This post is for the 11th Annual Rule, Britannia Blogathon, a celebration of British cinema past and present hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts. When bored party girl Milfanwy Conway (Edana Romney) crosses paths with handsome and brooding artist Paul Mangin (Eric Portman), it’s gothic obsession at first sight. Rich and reserved, Paul lives in a secluded mansion decked out with priceless Renaissance paintings and statues. He …

Mihai Vălceleanu MiG-23MS, the worst MiG-23? In Hush-Kit’s video (see end of article) on the 10 worst Soviet aircraft, the MiG-23MS was lambasted as a piece of shit. Today, I’m NOT going to complain about how crappy the MiG-23MS was. Instead, I will tell you two things which it did better than the MiG-23M and […]

Nicolas Magand: Today, after nearly 20 years of loyalty to Safari, I’m considering switching to another default browser on my personal computer. I mean, why is it so hard to watch a YouTube video without hiccups, and why can I only choose from a selection of 4 search engines, including three Bing-based? … Apple needs to spend more resources on their browser, and find new ambitions for it now that …

A variation from yesterday. Still not sure why the samples aren't wrapping around, but there's something here...

I haven't left a horror film with a grin on my face in a long time. That was the case with The Substance, a freshly minted chunk of body horror that ends with so much unrestrained wildness, I found it impossible not to smile, even if I winced a bit. Director Coralie Fargeat delivers a boldly stylish movie that doesn't flinch when it comes to satirizing female obsession with looks …

Candidate nominations closed yesterday for next month's Victorian local council elections. While local governments don't directly fund or run public transport, their deliberations strongly affect the environment in which it operates. Here's just a few examples: * Pedestrian crossings so you can easily reach bus stops (unless they are on main roads)* Whether development decisions reinforce or discourage public transport usage* The extent to which parking policy supports or impedes …

DDoS Update The Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is ongoing. Even after I moved our load balancer to new hardware and a new IP address. This means that the attackers are not just targeting the IP address of the load balancer, but they are targeting “runestone.academy” by name. This is a much more serious attack and it is taking a lot of time to mitigate. I’ve learned a lot …

Hi Zettlers, What kind of (information) food are Cal Newport’s books? This is the question that I try to answer for myself. His term “ultra-processed content” is spot on for the process that both food and content processing share: It is about refining and combining key stimuli. Sugar, Fat, Salt, Protein — each are specific stimuli that in isolation are not particularly understandable (try eating pure sugar). However, cloaked in …

‘Using rocks from my garden, I built myself a plinth, scattered flour over the floor and turned the place into a desolate hinterland, like the surface of the moon. The result felt like a direct reflection of my emotions’Even before the pandemic, I struggled with feelings of isolation. I go through bouts of depression and needed to make something that reflected that. So, using rocks from my rock garden, I …

(Note: If you are seeing the above image in Safari or in any other non-HDR browser you are seeing a dark, dull, ugly conversion. If you are seeing it in Opera or Chrome on an HDR monitor you are seeing the real thing–a dramatic difference.) One of the most exciting technological developments in still photography is the (long overdue) advent of HDR. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and is …

When I teach the basics of probability in Intro Stats, I always emphasize absolute vs. risk. I am delighted to have a brand new example. Thanks to Sy Islam for sending it my way.Here is the headline from The New York Post:So, one murder is too many murders. A 60% increase feels very scary. Because relative risk is always the scary risk. Since this reporting is about something that is …

New York Review Books does it again. One of my all time favorite vintage children's books will be back in print next month. The Man Who Lost His Head by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. Bless this publishing house. Seriously. And check out my original post from way back in 2008.