Recently updated blogs

Air travel is bad for us. Yes, yes, I know we need planes to take us long distances, but look at the downside: not only the carbon footprint, but also the anxiety. I used to feel pretty relaxed about flying, then — one day on a short European flight — there was a spot of turbulence and I glimpsed the faces of the cabin crew. And they were certainly not …

A new edition of my book, The Business of Being a Writer, releases in April 2025. To mark the occasion, I’m offering a free, email-based course. Every Friday until my book releases, I’ll send you a key idea and exercise from the second edition on earning a living as a writer today. Here is part of what I have in store for you: A look at common misconceptions about earning …

Rez Ball (2024) • View trailerFour stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, teen drug/alcohol use, occasional profanity and crude referencesAvailable via: NetflixBy Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.13.24This continues to be a terrific year for inspirational sports sagas, and director Sydney Freeland’s heartfelt drama is another winner. Coaches Heather and Benny (Jessica Matten and Ernest Tsosie III, far right) watch thegame action, along with …

I have been a consistent enjoyer of the Catharina sour beers from Galway Bay, the only Irish brewery that makes them. The latest, Felina, has been around since the summer, and I think I anticipated enjoying it so much that I missed the right moment to open it. So on a chilly late September afternoon, I had to pretend it was early August. This is 5% ABV and the lightly …

The Suede Overshirt made-to-order programme Friday, October 11th 2024Tags: ShirtsLuca AvitabilePermanent stylerifugio Share Share this post Subscribe 15 Comments ||- Begin Content -|| The Suede Overshirt in tobacco has recently been restocked on PS, having sold out quickly back in the spring. But we’re also going to try a made-to-order programme, as the makers Rifugio are happy to make in small numbers. The idea is that readers will be able …

The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’ - by Matt Alt Read at Aeon

Garden centres and DIY stores used to be relatively straightforward affairs with demarcation between the rough-edged trade-only propositions and the softer consumer-focused retailers. They also operated predominantly from physical stores and maybe had a paper-based catalogue on the side but it was the same product assortment. Over the years things have become increasingly blurred between these two camps and almost all the players in the market have converged to target …

I turned my talks at OSME and JCGCG3 this summer into a paper: “Computational Complexities of Folding”, arXiv:2410.07666. It includes the following results: Flat-foldability of crease patterns can be tested in time polynomial in the pattern size, exponential in the treewidth of a certain arrangement graph, and factorial in the ply of the folded pattern. The exponential dependence on treewidth is necessary under the strong exponential time hypothesis. This is …

• Island Line services resume with completion of vital maintenance programme (Rail UK) • All change on the Overground (The Newsletter of Not Quite Everything) • The Purplewashing Paradox: Big Talk, Little Walk (The Accessible Link) • New York suburb plans to reconnect a Black neighborhood split by a 1950s interstate (Smart Cities Dive) • Exploring the RER E’s westbound extension (Fabric of Paris) • The Shinkansen’s legendary operation & …

[comics] Harvey Kurtzman: Seriously Funny … Drew Friedman fondly reminisces about Harvey Kurtzman. ‘Harvey would slowly unwind, sip beer, and reminisce about Bill Gaines and his days at EC, his continuing dislike of Al Feldstein, Will Elder’s wild practical jokes, his admiration for R. Crumb, his theories about the coke bottle design, current politics (at the time he admired Ronald Reagan) and his assistants at HELP!, Terry Gilliam and Gloria …

Summary from the back of the Melville House edition:One of the biggest bestsellers of all time, and one of the first and most influential spy novels of the twentieth century, this delightful romp is now back in print after fifty years.Taking place after the Russian Revolution shook Europe to its core, it tells the story of Lady Diana Wynham, who relishes trampling on the sensibilities of British Society, and her …

With programs that also include the New York premiere of MIKE by Dana Michel, concert performances by Kite and Charles Curtis, talks with Constantina Zavitsanos, Raven Chacon, and SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, and the start of the year-long Ephemeral Organ series—which explores choreography and bodily motion as technologies for transmitting memory, history, and Black lived experience—the 16th fall season continues EMPAC’s commitment to artists who are making challenging new work, and …

I stumbled across Sydenham Garden (Wynell Road SE23) last month for the first time, a community well being space with various mental health, dementia and other projects .The day I went it was participating in the Sydenham Artists Trail, including displaying some of the banners made at the garden for their participation in the 2024 Pride parade.I liked this banner mapping Lewisham Urban Oasis green spaces:

When the acclaimed cinema video-essay channel Every Frame a Painting made its comeback this past summer, its creators Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos took a close look at the “sustained two-shot,” which captures a stretch of dialogue between two characters without the interference of a cut. Though it’s become something of a rarity under today’s shoot-everything-and-figure-it-out-in-editing ethos, it was used often in classic Hollywood pictures. Take, for example, the work …

Over the years, Jonas Staal has created various works that enable the political empowerment of the individual through collective action. In Propaganda Station, he builds an information and meeting structure in the form of an inverted panopticon. There are ’cells’ in which various contemporary propaganda is presented (ultranationalist propaganda, financialisation propaganda, climate propaganda, etc.), that can be surveyed in a ‘reversed balance of power’, while at the centre there is …