Recently updated blogs

Riccardo Mori responding to John Gruber’s post about Apple’s “It’s Glowtime” event: Selective memory is amazing. Shall we talk about a few duds that happened under Tim Cook’s Apple? Like the 2013 ‘trash can’ Mac Pro? Like the impregnable 2014 Mac mini? Like the 2015 12-inch single-port retina MacBook? — A dud in itself containing yet another dud in the form of the infamous keyboard with butterfly mechanism, one of …

Check out As in guillotine... for more. This is my bi-weekly “newsletter” delivered straight to your inbox, with at least one guaranteed typo I’ll catch after hitting send! If email’s not your thing, don’t hesitate to switch to the RSS feed. I encourage you to click through the main links (there’s only five and they’re all interesting!), and if you enjoy something — send me (or them) an email, leave …

Engravings based on watercolour images made at the first British colony in North America.

Black Panther (1998) #28 [2001] W: Christopher Priest. A: Sal Velluto. Lots of regal guest stars–Velluto has a great time with Namor, even giving him a splash page. Has Wakanda really gone to war with both the United States and Atlantis or is someone conspiring against its king? Priest does a fantastic job with the 616 global politics. It’s a packed, busy issue and quite good comics. Black Panther (1998) …

I first read about Jerry Rayson in the book Enjoy the Experience, a survey of private press LPs in the United States. Supercollector Paul Major of New York wrote about Rayson's record The Weird Thing in Town:It's incredibly scarce, and Major's description of it naturally drove up demand, which is why Craig Moerer (RecordsByMail) wants $1500 for a copy on eBay, and Bananas Records wants $1200 for a copy on …

An August of ideas; the slow lift. Read here.

Today’s interview is with John Pollock, the director of the Legislative Information System Project Office for the United States Senate. John Pollock is a seasoned professional in legislative information technology, with a distinguished career spanning over three decades. After graduating from the University of Oregon, John began his publishing career at RAM Associates, Inc., where he pioneered converting federal regulatory data into CD-ROM formats and later transitioned these publications online. …

Some concepts are so fundamental & deeply ingrained in Western culture that it's hard to see them—including Cartesian dualism, free will, individualism, and linear time. But new science and other cultures offer other ways to think about these things. For example, here are some concepts:1. That thinking takes place in the brain.But scientists are helping us to understand embodied cognition, which suggests that thinking is distributed throughout the body and …

This is a highly-specified folding 6×9 camera that unfortunately takes 620 film. I spotted it amongst some exotica at a local camera fair. The price tag said £25 but that had been crossed out to say £15. Well, you have to look, don’t you? The seller was very honest and said he’d reduced the price because he’d found a fault, but couldn’t remember what it was. But the lens was …

The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched this, but it came up in a film club I’m a part of and so I couldn’t resist seeing it again. Something about the sincere message of this film told entirely though its deadpan 90s sardonic wit gets me every single time. It’s hilarious, relatable and …

The delegations negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza have met more than a dozen times, though it’s hard to point to anything that would be different had they not. Over the months the talks have taken a predictable form. Negotiators are convened. Unnamed officials say that, this time, they are optimistic about a deal – right up until the proceedings break down.

Recently, I started a new project. I react to the accessibility of more or less randomly picked websites.Before you get too excited, It's in German. I feel more comfortable recording live reactions to websites I have never seen in my native language. However, I may try it in English if there's demand. So far, I've recorded four videos: Wie barrierefrei ist gruene.at? Wie barrierefrei ist fpoe.at? Wie barrierefrei ist bierpartei.eu? …

Another view of the juvenile Osprey that has been feeding and resting at Milton Country Park since 5th September 2024. It is an unringed bird, so not a fledgling from the breeders at Rutland Water. It is, rather, most likely to have flown in from Scotland or Cumbria, a wild fledgling, heading to Gambia or a neighbouring country for the winter. Juvenile Osprey with piscine prey (large bream, Abramis brama) …

Recently, Drs Joshua Lynton-Jenkins, Joe James and Cecilia Tat visited the Accra Veterinary Laboratory (AVL) in Ghana to provide a training workshop on sequencing techniques used for identifying avian viruses. The visit was part of a wider International Biosecurity Program, aiming to upskill laboratories across West Africa in Avian influenza and Newcastle disease diagnosis. The avian influenza virus (AIV) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) are responsible for highly contagious respiratory …

When last we spoke, I was walking through my process for laying out and cutting angled, rectilinear mortises through a slab top to make low benches and other staked leg furniture without the need for large boring bits and round tenon cutters. At the end, I promised to discuss my process for cutting the tenons, […]