Recently updated blogs

This 2-minute podcast created by Google NotebookLM AI is worth listening to for it’s brilliant imititation and creatitivity. The NotebookLM hosts realizing they are AI and spiraling out is a twist I did not see coming

Welcome Visitors and New Subscribers. Link to YouTube short video. This Lincoln Town Car looks mysterious to me, like it’s waiting to pick someone up for some weird errand.I want to paint it faithfully, but change the lighting to make it look like a moody and mysterious street scene that evokes the mood of film noir. More about this strategy at my Substack.

It's only one month now until the release of the audiobook version of my book Pull to Open, which tells the story of the creation of Doctor Who in 1963. And here's a little bit of pre-publicity for it, in the form of BBC Audiobooks' Doctor Who catalogue for this autumn. Published on the Penguin website, as Penguin Random House are the company who release BBC Audiobooks titles.It's nice to …

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Amy Stuber’s story collection Sad Grownups is a stunning debut filled with marvelously complex characters. Morgan Talty wrote of the book: “If emotions …

This week’s blog nearly writes itself. It’s been a trip full of adventures, and I’ve only been away a week. Within five minutes of leaving home, I’d scraped the side of the car. I stopped at the nearest pillar box to post a letter. The side road narrows at one point, and I’d odged over to let another car past. Crunch crumple! I’d scraped the car against the front corner …

Hetzner has Object Storage in beta now. I got access to it, but one thing is holding me back from using it: A fixed price (5,95 € per month per bucket), even if there is nothing stored in there or way less than the included 1 TB. Why not bill based on actual usage, like most other services are doing it nowadays? I guess I will keep using Scaleway Object …

Rest in Peace, Robert Coover. You don't need to read Robert Coover's 1966 novel *Origin of the Brunists* to be astonished by 2014's *Brunist Day of Wrath* but you DO need to read *Brunist Day of Wrath,* the most American novel I've ever read, it's fourth read this coming 25 summer, might need to push up. I also recommend *Gerald's Party*, *John's Wife*, *Universal Baseball Association*, and of course *Public …

Pnårp experienced parasitological overimaginative verisimilitude, formication followed by disinsection, and concluded with a torrent of shrieking and hooting.

This is going to be a packed month. For Thanksgiving weekend, I am going on a camping trip with friends to do some trail repair near Temagami. Then, from the 24th to 27th, I am photographing a diplomatic conference in Montreal. Both will require a fair bit of packing and preparation, and I expect a … Continue reading "Two October trips"

When we see big dollar amounts, it is difficult to figure out exactly what they mean. . . . Let’s say that you and three of your pals received degrees in Whatever Studies. Immediately thereafter the four of you were presented with the opportunity to get jobs at Consolidated Acme. Now having a degree in Whatever Studies isn’t the sort of thing that opens a whole lot of doors. It …

On the 3rd full day of WPATH 2024, there was one session that I wanted to write up in slightly more detail, as it is very relevant to those working with or supporting trans children and young people. (My original WPATH 2024 blog is available here). The session was titled “New long-term research on adolescent gender-affirming medical care”, with 5 presenters, three from the US, and two from the Netherlands. …

Package a constant value, but make it look like a functor. An article for object-oriented programmers. This article is an instalment in an article series about functors. In previous articles, you've learned about useful functors such as Maybe and Either. You've also seen at least one less-than useful functor: The Identity functor. In this article, you'll learn about another (practically) useless functor called Const. You can skip this article if …

Our route from Castine to Niagara Falls Leaving Castine was the endpoint of our East Coast travels. Now it was time to head west. We had planned all summer to visit some Canadian cruising friends in Ontario and wouldn’t you know, Niagara Falls was kind of on the way.Our first day’s destination was Montpelier, Vermont’s state capital. We had an ulterior motive for our route. We wanted to stop at …

We held a YC event a couple of months ago where Brian Chesky from Airbnb gave a passionate talk about his experience running Airbnb over the last 17 years. He believed that as Airbnb hired more professional managers, he lost a close connection with the details of the end product and the company suffered as a result.It clearly touched a nerve with a lot of people present. It was uncomfortable …