Recently updated blogs

Spanish GardensI am delighted to announce the publication of my latest book Spanish Gardens. Spanish Gardens is a detailed record of my travels throughout the country as I visited the country as a relative newcomer. The book explores how Spain has evolved from the darker days after the civil war to its successful transition to democracy over fifty years ago, tracing those changes through its gardens - from the more …

Hello, happy to report that I have made another appearance on Paul Meier's fantastic podcast, "In a Manner Of Speaking"! Paul, Cameron and I discussed British and American accents in popular music, which is a topic that I've been interested in discussing for a long time. I hope you'll listen and enjoy the podcast; we had a tremendous time making it.

This week long event of scything across the Shropshire Hills included getting a lot of bracken cut plus a few meadows along the way. It culminated in a competition and BBQ. The results from the scything competition 18 entries on a 4x4m square NameClassBladeTimeQuality Peter BlackwellM*9502:438 Phil HoldenM Q*7505:268.5 Hannah HoldenF*7005:168 Ted WaldronM8503:395.5 Shane O’ReillyM V*8504:106 Jim McVittieM V 75*7504:507 Mike TowrieM7504:185.5 Andy HydeM V6007:158 John BowbrickM6007:497.5 Steve MarshM7505:014 Jayne …

I liked Clarke's previous novel, Piranesi (I reviewed it here on Jan. 12, 2022), so the idea of a new book by her attracted my attention. Disappointment after disappointment followed. First, I learned the book is only sixty-three pages: so, a novella at best. But then I got a copy. Nineteen of those pages are publishing matter, or illustrations without text. Eleven pages have only a small amount of text, …

Some idle thoughts for a Friday afternoon. I was just taking a look at Source.Plus a dataset of public domain images for training Foundation models. It’s a project of Spawning.ai which is working to build “data governance for generative AI”. I have some thoughts on the tools they’re building, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. It was this statement which caught my attention: “Through the Source.Plus platform, we …

In addition to the point barrier symbols i also re-designed and extended quite a few of the existing symbols in the style for human built structures of all kinds. Starting point was that i wanted to port back some of the changes in OSM-Carto that happened after i created the AC-Style. But i did not want to use these designs as is. Instead i wanted to re-evaluate the design decisions …

Eligible project teams are encouraged to submit proposals for the 2025 Mass Timber Competition: Building Sustainable Schools, funded by the Softwood Lumber Board (SLB) and the USDA Forest Service, with support from the Center for Green The post Entry period begins for 2025 Mass Timber Competition: Building Sustainable Schools appeared first on The Architect’s Newspaper.

I have not had as many chances to build websites lately because for a little over the past 100 days, I’ve been in a non-developer role at work. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I committed to filling the role and therefore I must give my best. However, I really would very much prefer to be building websites. And so, when my friend, Kathy Giori, reached out about …

Here is a round-up of all of my video essay work available for public consumption made in the last calendar year. The big project was An Aim Not Devoid of Merit, a look at the complete works of Steven Spielberg, created with Tucker Johnson. I added several titles to my ongoing series Other West, about offbeat westerns: John Frankenheimer's Andersonville, Jordan Peele's Nope, and Bruce Beresford's Black Robe. I released …

As a child in the early 1980s, Saturday morning television was a straight choice between two main contenders, each with its own dedicated and fiercely protective following. The first was ITV’s TISWAS, feared by parents across the land due to its anarchic and unpredictable format, and much throwing of custard pies and buckets of water. (For the record, this was my favourite!) The BBC’s offering was Noel Edmonds’ Multi-Coloured Swapshop. …

The electronic version of the latest issue of the Girls’ Angle Bulletin is now available on our website. We open with the second half of our interview with Boston University Professor of Mathematics Jennifer Balakrishnan. In the second part, she describes her collaborative work in algorithmic number theory. She refers to a beautiful article she wrote which we hope everyone reads: A Tale of Three Curves. She also discusses failure …

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve been able to get into the workshop, which has happened before, but it’s always a little hard to get back into the swing of things. Mostly I’ve been dragging my heels on getting back into doing design work, of which I have a bunch to do. It’s all felt quite overwhelming knowing where to start, but thankfully a conversation with a couple …

Already agree with me? Save the San Francisco Valencia center bike lane with this email in one tap! (and join me for public comment at the Nov 19th City Hall meeting! (The SFBC will also be there advocating for better biking & rolling in general) More info below. The moment I turn onto Valencia Street and enter the center running bike lane I suddenly feel at ease. The intensity of …

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever. The game isn't without flaw, but I …

UK economy grows in September After seeing two months of zero growth in both June and July, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published this month, showed that the economy grew by 0.2% in August (Figure 1). Figure 1: The ONS estimates that all sectors of the UK economy grew in August. Output in the Services sector grew by 0.1% in August following growth of 1% in July. …