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At work, my team launched a new design guide last week. My colleague, Nikin, did most of the hard work putting it together with Eleventy static site generator, whilst I advised on accessibility and navigation structure. Public transport decided to fail at varying levels of disruption on multiple routes for my commutes to and from work last week. Both London Underground and Thameslink were cancelled or delayed significantly. That combined …

• A cooler Underground: TfL eyes more stations for its new cooling technology (Ian Visits) • Ashley Down Station – the first ever train: Video (JenOnTheMove) • Germany faces major challenges for its trains (MediaRail) • Europe’s answer to the Suez Canal breaks ground after 20-year delay (Euronews) • Singapore East-West Line MRT disruption: Faulty train left a trail of destruction (Straits Times) • Circle Line leads Lisboa metro expansion …

The military regime banned long hair, miniskirts, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Euripides, Russian-style toasts, strikes, Aristophanes, Ionesco, Sartre, Albee, Pinter, freedom of the press, sociology, Beckett, Dostoyevsky, modern music, pop music, new math and the letter Z, which means HE LIVES in ancient greek. Z ★★★★½ Comentar este post · Me gusta

(Continued from my previous posts.) I’ve now utilized the teleportation booths, visiting both an asteroid and an alien city. I haven’t found any way to extend my oxygen (or swap the helium that’s currently in the ship’s air with oxygen); with teleportation it may just be possible to go fast enough, but given I still have some puzzles to go I have my doubts. All amidst a flurry of bugs, …

A few years ago I shared my translations of poems by the Odesa-born Victor Mall (1901-1989), a former student of Kazimir Malevich who, after settling in Los Angeles, built a career as a graphic designer. Mall, it turns out, wasn’t the only visual artist among the Russophone Angelenos with a sideline in verse. In fact, an even more accomplished painter, the Kyiv-born Sergei Bongart (1918-1985), wrote poems that are, in …

I heard this morning that Richard Hamilton passed away yesterday early this morning. He was a renowned figure in geometric analysis, and a faculty member here at Columbia since 1998. In terms of mortality, the last year or two at the Columbia math department have been grim ones, as we’ve lost five senior faculty at relatively young ages: Igor Krichever at age 72, Henry Pinkham at age 74, Lars Nielsen …

I had two basketball sessions this week. I struggled to shoot the ball well in both, though I was able to make some shots and gradually felt more confident as the sessions progressed. I had planned to attend a third session later in the week but chose to stay at home instead. On Saturday, I travelled up to London to watch Brighton lose 4-2 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Trust …

What a remarkable work Glory is. A brilliant satrical novel about post-colonial struggles, the way that the hopes and dreams of liberation struggles can be diverted and destroyed, and how that despair can turn into revolution. But perhaps most remarkable is how NoViolet Bulawayo tells the story.George Orwell's famous political satire on the Russian Revolution, Animal Farm, tells the story using

The rationale of Laura D’Olimpio’s manifesto (as she calls it) for the compulsory aesthetic education for all school-aged students at all levels of education is simple and straightforward: “Aesthetic education is necessary due to its distinctive ability to offer, invite and invoke aesthetic experience. Such meaningful experiences, of flow, harmony, beauty, the sublime, shock, awe, wonder, etc., are integral to a flourishing life and, therefore, educators have a responsibility to …

Conferences can be hit-and-miss. It’s easy to go through the motions on autopilot and find the experience lacklustre. Earlier on this summer, I attended one that started out lacklustre, but then became memorable, and I realized there’s a lot one can do to influence the outcome. Adam, the lurking third autodidact, has spent a good portion of the last six years going to lots of conferences, and has made something …

Summer over in a flash, autumn wind and rain outside – perhaps cosy evenings will speed up both my reading and review-posting. I just finished AI Snake Oil by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, having long been a fan of the blog of the same name. The book is a really useful guide through the current hype. It distinguishes 3 kinds of AI: generative, predictive and content moderation AI – …

Wildsmith was one of the classic British quality men’s shoe brands, started already in 1847, but it was a long time since it had a prime. The original company was liquidated in the early 2000’s, and after two unsuccessful resurrections it’s now time for the third attempt. Wildsmith is a brand that was highly recognised in the first half of the 1900’s, and made really nice bespoke and RTW shoes. …

Thanks to help from a few people, the origin of these planes has been clarified, although perhaps not the name. The manufacturer can clearly be identified from the label of the box a No.2A came in. They were manufactured by The Thomas Machine Co. Ltd., in South Wales. They were then distributed by Welsh Industries (Bridgend) Ltd. in Glamorgan, also in South Wales. The markings on a plane box An …

I fell in love with Grimsby and Cleethorpes back in 2018 when I visited for Chasetown’s match at Clee Town – and I have returned every year since. The people, the chippy, the bottle shop, the brewery, the live music venues…what’s not to love? That said, I was concerned that my visits were becoming a bit samey – so this time I made it my mission to explore a bit …