Recently updated blogs

I have Google Takeout setup to periodically export to GDrive as a series of 10Gb .zip files. I’ve been meaning to get these over to S3 for a bit in part for backup purposes, and in part because I wanted to futz with the photos. I’m quite confident I’m not the first person to want to do something like this. But we’ve reached an awkward and unfortunate moment in the …

It’s time for my annual update on crime statistics, following the September release of 2023 numbers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). We also have preliminary numbers on homicides in 2023 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data sources are listed at the end of this post along with my comments on data quality; see …

This is a guest post by David Quantick. Covers of the first U.S. editions of Daisy Ashford’s The Young Visiters and Ring Lardner’s The Young Immigrunts. “My parents are both married and ½ of them are very good looking.” This is the story of two very different writers, one an American comic writer of genius, playwright and sportswriter, the other a young English girl with terrible spelling. The American was …

A print from my generative series Astronomic Comics has been chosen to be in the Austin People’s Gallery! It is on display at City Hall until April of next year! I am honored have my work shown at a prestigious event like this. You can read more about The People’s Gallery here.

It is becoming harder and harder to tell whether information on the internet is created by humans or by computers. As more money and time is funnelled into new generative AI models, their output becomes better at blending in.Some words I associate with human works are: create, imagine, think, dream, inspire, connect, heart, brain, soul, love.I believe that computers cannot do or have any of those things. Computers are the …

Two of my favorite children's book authors have started a Substack called, aptly enough, Looking at Picture Books. Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett will be exploring how picture books work. This is a total dream collab for anyone interested in kids books. Fangirling hard on this one. Their first study is on Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Subscribe and do not miss! (You can follow me over there, too. …

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a federal court complaint against Adobe and two of its executives. The complaint alleges violations of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. These accusations stem from Adobe’s “annual paid monthly” subscription plan. The FTC argues Adobe traps customers with hidden fees and a difficult cancellation process. “Adobe trapped customers into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and many cancellation hurdles,” said Samuel Levine, …

i leaped, feeling the rush of wind against my bare back as i slid cleanly into the pool. another perfect dive. i let my head gently ease above the water, resting for a moment. then, suddenly, the water gripped my leg and yanked me down. i thrashed in the water, opening my eyes. all i could see was choppy waves and unrelentless ocean, pushing me with its full force. my …

I've a written a new book. It's a children's book and it's called A Riddle for a King. It's suitable for those aged between about eight and twelve, although it has been rigorously tested on children from six to thirteen (I test all my products on children and animals). The six-year-old had to have it read to him, but he loved it. The story is about a boy called Philo, …

“King County Metro Route 8 | NFI XDE60 | Madison St @ MLK Jr Way” by Han Zheng is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Transit access is frequently depicted with isochrone maps. Given a starting point, time of day, and time budget, determine all the places that can be reached within that budget using transit and walking. These maps are not a new concept, with examples dating to the late …

I’m really thrilled that our research article on government IT procurement was recently published in Canadian Public Administration. It’s a bit over two years since Prof. Amanda Clarke and I began this research project, and this article being published is in some ways the final milestone of that work. The article is open access, and you can read it online (or download the PDF version). Here’s the upshot: We reveal …

Dear readers,It is a rare thing for Art of the Title to publish an editor’s note but the time has come to provide an update. Many of you are likely unaware that, since 2018, Art of the Title has been a one-person operation managed by myself, Editor-in-Chief Lola Landekic. It has been my honour to be a member of the small Art of the Title team since 2011 when I …

This is a piece of advice that I found myself giving to many early career researchers, students, and colleagues supervising and advising those as well. For years, actually. A mathematician, the joke says, is a blind man, in a dark room, searching for a black cat that isn't there. I don't know about that, but I think we can still agree that a researcher, in most fields, is sailing a …

The swallows have departed. The tall, dry meadow grass rustles in the nearly empty air. Now and then a sparrow suddenly flutters up from beside the path, then flies off toward the trees surrounding the field. Ghostly white tufts of thistle seed float past, rising and falling. Swallows FlownWhence comes that small continuous silence Haunting the livelong day?This void, where a sweetness, so seldom heeded, Once ravished my heart away?As …

Ruby on Rails has built-in support for managing uploaded files with ActiveStorage, which both cleans up your application code and acts as an abstraction over different storage backends. Azure Storage is one of the supported backends, but configuring it securely can take a little figuring out. The most sensible way I’ve found to have it configured is with files stored having no public access, but allowing temporary access via signed …