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I write this review in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Milton's devastation of parts of Florida. Milton followed Helene, just a week or so earlier. Both hurricanes cut a swathe through parts of North America, leaving death and destruction in their paths. John Vaillant's recent book Fire Weather is subtitled a "true story from a hotter world" and the story of hurricanes Milton and Helene

The Geezers and friends enjoy a trip to Eastbourne

Design for Real Life is now available, for free, in its entirety, at dfrlbook.com. If you like what you read and want a personal copy, or just to support Sara and me, print-on-demand and ePub versions are also available from a number of sources. There are some countries where the book is not yet available, which we hope will be fixed soon. We’ll update the “Buy the book” page as …

Modrons have always been silly, but at least lower-ranking ones had lower challenge ratings. Planescape throws even that shred of logic out the window. The post Modron Hierarch Tactics appeared first on The Monsters Know What They’re Doing.

SWEYET(etc.) (DEMO!) by SHMIAM, SWEYET, SSSSSSS! A demo of a game focused on exploring dreamscapes with absurd yet deeply funny premises, all linked by the peculiar characters you encounter. It also features a fun blinking-based mechanic that alters the world around you, optionally using your webcam. A promising taste of things to come. Download on itch.io The post SWEYET appeared first on Weird Fucking Games.

Oddleaf debuts with an infectious and impressive album.

It's difficult to imagine a world full of people who have yet to form an opinion about Donald Trump. Few public figures have so rampantly flaunted themselves as the Queens, N.Y.-born 45th president. In The Apprentice, director Ali Abbasi tries to explain how Trump became what the filmmaker has called an icon of American culture. Abbasi returns to the 1970s and 80s, focusing on what the movie regards as Trump's …

Summer 2024 will live long in the memory after my visit to an extraordinary exhibition: George Biles: King of Signwriters. It was mounted in Bridport, Dorset, across three venues—The British Legion Hall, Bridport Arts Centre, and the Bridport Museum—with material drawn from numerous sources.In addition to signs from Palmers Brewery, there were theatrical backdrops from the local dramatic society, and a sampling of the vast collection of drawings, photographs, press …

(One of my summaries of the one-day Pycon NL conference in Utrecht, NL). Full title: Events in fintech: from state machines to event-sourced systems. He works at kiwi.com, a payment processor. They recently refactored their systems to be more event-based. Previously, they used state machines. A payment/customer/whatever can be in several well-defined states. Between states (but not necessarily between all states) there are transitions. Advantages of state machines: they're simple. …

Dark Intruder 1965 Dark Intruder is a 1965 television movie directed by Harvey Hart and written by Barré Lyndon. Set in 1960s San Francisco, the film follows a series of gruesome murders that leave the police struggling to solve the bizarre crimes that appear to be linked to dark occult rituals. They enlist the help … Continue reading A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Darkness Unleashed! The post …

Covering musical selections from Enola Gay, Midwife, Thom Yorke, The Jesus Lizard, Death Grips, The Cure, Lungfish, Japanese Breakfast, Washed Out, MIEN, Teen Mortgage, The Murlocs, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Chat Pile, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Angels of Light/Akron/Family, Opus Kink, and Fontaine D.C.

In Coming home, I wrote about my adaptation of the POSSE model (“publish on your site, syndicate elsewhere”). Alan Jacobs responds with a thoughtful counter-proposal: “POS, not POSSE. Skip the syndication.” Fair enough. In fact, POS is the strategy I employed for the better part of two years, when I (quietly) left Twitter but continued to blog and send the occasional newsletter. The decision to return to some kind of …

As a US-based flyer, when I think of the big Middle Eastern airlines I think of epic long-haul flights on 777s, A380s, and other big planes. But can those airlines deliver a great experience on smaller single-aisle aircraft? We got to find out on an A320 flight from Doha to Zanzibar on Qatar Airways, Skytrax’s best airline in the world for 2024. Over the course of the six-hour flight we …

What is it to desire or value something? Is it to feel a certain way? Is it instead to have a certain sort of representational architecture (a stored representation of "X is good" or a representation of X in one's "desire box")? Is it to have a certain type of neurological structure associated with reward and learning? I hold, instead, that to desire or value something is a matter or …

I’m certainly not above government criticism nor do I think lying for political gain is a new trick. I am bummed that a website needs to exist called Hurricane Rumor Response from FEMA in order to combat a barrage of lies accusing them of everything stealing donations to literally preventing aid. Hey, I’m not on the ground in these hurricane zones so what do I know? But do you really …