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In 1982, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone popularised the gamebook genre in the United Kingdom with the first Fighting Fantasy adventure, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain -- a book authored by having Livingstone literally write the first half and Jackson the second. Jackson was responsible for the game's final puzzle, and strives to protect the book against cheaters by devising a puzzle where you have to use the numbers associated …

We must rediscover the idea of the metaphor which is real. — First and Last Notebooks Gravity and Grace (tr. Crawford): – Any attempt to gain this deliverance by means of my own energy would be like the efforts of a cow which pulls at its hobble and so falls onto its knees. – Man only escapes from the laws of this world in lightning flashes. – Whoever endures a …

I've said it before; the most exciting thing in fishing for me is a pike run. Sometimes you've been watching the float all day when suddenly it comes to life - then sails away - when it does it could signal a two pounder or it could be twenty. Not much over two in this case!

One week at number one on 20th March 1982Thanks to this blog, Gary Bushell has been on my mind a lot lately. While attempting the daily chores such as emptying the dishwasher, hanging out the laundry or walking the dog, my thoughts have often wandered and allowed his bearded visage to emerge in mind’s eye, stoical and almost impossible to read.It’s not the first time in my life I’ve been …

If you live in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin or Nevada, you’re lucky. You can still register online this week to vote in the Presidential election. vote411.org/register The post Sunday Secret appeared first on PostSecret.

A brand new experience for me: finishing first in a race. Assumed audience: People interested in endurance running (or endurance sports more generally), or who just like to hear what I am up to as a runner. Here is a story you ve heard from me recently: Today, I ran a race! Specifically, the half marathon event at the Longview Marathon and Half Marathon. Here is another story you have …

Voting is now open for BC’s election, which concludes in one week on Sat Oct 19. I’ve done voting guides for Vancouver and Canada in the past, but I’ve never done a BC one since the decision here has traditionally been simple. There has long been two viable parties: one on the left, and one on the right. This continues, with no centrist party on the ticket and the Green …

A tanuki statue welcomes travelers to Temple 40. On entering Ehime prefecture, an ohenro is used to the journey. She is able to see things as they are, which reflects the entry to enlightenment. The fantastic, romanticized delusion of … 🐞 Read more about it ➞ ➞ ➞

Today’s post is something quite different to the norm – instead of sharing painted models, I’m sharing some Character Cards for Zombicide 2nd Edition importing the survivors from Flying Frog’s Last Night On Earth. Some time ago, I found Zombicide character sheets for the LNOE core box characters and Marouda and I have been using those for a year or so, but I’ve personally just never been completely satisfied with …

One day with Ableton Move and I’m hooked. It’s way more capable, versatile and intuitive than it looks and suits my workflow (sofa, studio or outdoors) perfectly. I think carefully before buying new gear, and I researched Move’s scope for two days (I think YouToobers are revealing its abilities better than Ableton’s own material does). I made a long list of I/O and setup scenarios to test and so far, …

I just came across this video on the DECtalk, an early and famous speech-to-text synthesizer. (It was used by Stephen Hawking, among many other things.) And then I wondered if I could use it on my modern, decidedly-not-Windows-NT computer. And the answer is: yes! Huzzah! I found two versions of the DECtalk software. The first one appears to be a bit more modern. Here’s where you can find it, at …

wow the passage of time!! it really is passing!! i have beeminder watching my RSS feed so i usually remember on friday that i haven't been posting. however since i've posted two more alphabet superset posts i have messed up my rhythm. I guess i could crank it up so it's expecting two posts a week but that feels ludicrous for some reason? I might do (and change the goal …

This week in Modern Plain Text Computing we put together some of the things we’ve been learning about cleaning and tidying data. Here’s a somewhat sobering example using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which is how the NTSA tracks information about road accidents in the United States. Our data file shows counts of pedestrians aged <16 killed in road accidents on each day of the month in the …

The point of a blog is to catalog writing. I've switched platforms a couple of times and I decided it was time to get archives front and center again. With this small update, there's now a link to posts by year on the right (you might need to do a refresh to get the addition). This is an easy way to jump from one spot to another and will help …

It’s super late at night on Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. I shouldn’t be thinking about weird internet drama, but here we are. Since I last wrote about the ongoing WordPress situation: Matt Mullenweg promoted a “fork” of WordPress that wasn’t actually a fork. He then hijacked one of the most prominent plugins in the WordPress development world. The first point is pretty minor, but highlights the depths of strangeness at …