Recently updated blogs

24 September 2024 Over at Bluesky, the German writer and historian Helene von Bismarck, an acute observer of British politics, posted this interesting question: “One question I have been asking myself for many years about UK politics: Why does it – regardless of who is in government – appear to be this hard to solve problems & get things done? Schools, the NHS, defence procurement, etc. Lack of money, you …

Daniel Davis Wood interviews Nathan Knapp. Nathan Knapp’s début novel, Daybook, is fiendishly difficult to encapsulate: it’s a novel of philosophical and moral depth, of stylistic ambition and assuredness, of biting humour, self-exposure, and extraordinary emotional intelligence. It’s a very contemporary novel, moving from the ethics of livestreamed interactive pornography to the effects of Covid-19 lockdowns on love between intimate partners, and it packs in much more than you’d expect …

Guest blogger Dr Fraser Dickinson uses the events surrounding Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke, between May and July 1641, to illustrate the interaction between the paradigms of ‘history from above’ and ‘history from below.’ The past is often viewed as being either ‘history from above’ (the ‘great man theory’ of history), or ‘history from below’ (the Marxist emphasis on economic and social forces). Of course, any astute practitioner knows …

How do we prepare for death? Whether it is our own or a loved one’s, most of us in the Western world have no idea what to expect at the end or who to talk to about what physically will happen, and, in lives where we are used to feeling informed and in control, that is terrifying. With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix, published in 2017, seeks to …

It’s the autumn equinox and so we reach that time in the year when the darkness begins to take over from the light. I find the dark winter nights increasingly difficult so I have to try instead to celebrate what is good at this time of year. Harvesting is continuing, slowly but surely. We have, at last, had a few ripe tomatoes, pictured here with a sprinkling of garlic chive …

As foretold by prophecy, you the people have once again declared DNA Lounge to be "Best Nightclub", and Hubba Hubba Revue to be "Best Burlesque" in the 2024 Best of the Bay! Also "Best Pizza" runner-up for DNA Pizza, and "Best Dance Party" runner-up for Death Guild. Thank you again for your support! We've got a busy week coming up... We've got midget wrestling (seats are nearly sold out), a …

BlueSCSI Wi-Fi Desk Accessory 1.2 has been released: wifi_da-1.2.sit (StuffIt 3 archive) SHA256: 984935cc5e3e25102849cd41c52764cb08060d183d48cfb49f9da3eead49aea8SHA1: 980b17f58babb839977b7d714f8556a82bf33c7e Changes in this version: Added an "(Other Network)" option to the SSID list to manually enter a hidden SSID

Aioloceras besairiei (Collingnon, 1949) A stunning example of the internal suturing with calcite infill in this sliced Aioloceras besairiei (Collingnon, 1949) ammonite from the Upper Cretaceous (Lower Albian) Boeny region of Madagascar. This island country is 400 kilometres off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean and a wonderful place to explore off the beaten track.

MARIE: A TRUE STORY (1985), also known simply as MARIE, was released on Blu-ray last month by the Warner Archive Collection.Sissy Spacek plays the title role in this real-life story. As the movie begins, Marie Ragghianti leaves an abusive marriage to Dave (Vincent Irizarry) and takes her three young children to live with her mother (Collin Wilcox Paxton).Marie juggles college with a job and after graduation asks a former school …

Well, a lot has happened, hasn’t it, since we last discussed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his falconry records only a couple of weeks ago. See “RFK Jr.’s Falconry Records Still Secret—For Now” (Sept. 6, 2024). Having dropped out of the presidential race (obviously because of the falconry scandal), Kennedy has endorsed Trump and started working on his campaign. Not coincidentally, Kennedy is fighting to get his name off the …

Thandii “It Only Takes 2” Thandii are funk minimalists in the tradition of ESG and Liquid Liquid, though I think their grooves come out feeling less tightly wound and neurotic. “It Only Takes 2” in particular strikes me as being like if Swim-era Caribou made an 80s freestyle song. The stark arrangement keeps your ear focused on the most functional elements of the groove, but it also implies a sweaty, …

Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn), Claude Monet; oil on canvas, roughly 28 x 40 in. (66 x 28 cm); in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which offers both zoomable and downloadable images on their site. Here’s a question for you: in this painting by Monet — one of several in his series of paintings of haystacks — are the color relationships intense and vibrant or …

“Your time’s your own, and don’t you forget it, my girl: for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you can do what you bloody well choose,” Eva Wotton reminds herself at the start of Argument with the East Wind (1986), the last of Joan O’Donovan’s three novels about older single women trying to find the place in the world that fits them. “So what was she going to …

One of the things I think we all struggle with is keeping up to date with changes in web development. You might hear about a super cool new CSS feature or JavaScript API, but it’s never supported by all the browsers when you hear about it, right? So you think “I’ll have to make sure check in on that again later” and quickly forget about it. Then some time down …

Previous: First Amend This! An IDOC Newsletter, Aug. ’24 Welcome to the September issue of First Amend This! This publication provides an insider look at issues affecting the Idaho Department of Correction community. If you wish to assist this effort, share the link, copy and paste, or print and send this issue to another. Loved … Continue reading "First Amend This! An IDOC Newsletter, Sept. ’24" The post First Amend …