Recently updated blogs

In 1880s Berkeley, a turbaned figure known only as “Old James” wandered alone through the hills, his turban and trance-like manner catching the attention of locals. Described in a newspaper as “a sort of mystic,” the “Hindu” (South Asian) immigrant worked as a milker for Pat Curran’s dairy farm, which encompassed hundreds of acres of what is today Tilden Park in Berkeley, California. His White employers and neighbors said his …

Day 1 of #IndieWebCamp #Berlin 2024¹ was very well attended!* 20 participants, more than 3x the previous one in 2022, and second highest (2019 had 22).* 18 introduced themselves² and their personal sites or aspirations for oneCollectively we proposed and facilitated 11 breakout sessions³ on many timely #indieweb topics covering #syndication, #inclusion, #longevity, #federation / #fediverse, how to best use #Mastodon with your personal site, #privacy and #security concerns of …

Taking a bit of an internet break. Back soon. Coffee, going outside, listening to music.

It began as a quiet rebellion, a slow erosion of faith, but soon the whispers gained momentum, reverberating through the lands like the rumble of distant thunder. Mortal flesh weakened, unable to withstand the strain of resisting the unholy power brewing in the depths. The people, driven by desperation and rage, sought answers that transcended the flesh – an escape from the limits of mortality.Then, as if heralding the final …

Now, I expect everyone is going to be gearing up to resist authoritarianism, to protect themselves, to stand up for the scapegoats Trumpism will be attacking. But protecting your mental health is important too. Depression, despair, and a sense of doom are counter-productive, and sometimes you have to recharge your spirit. One way is re-reading good books, and I thought I’d share some of my favorites. That is, the criterion …

Well, my friends. That election certainly didn’t go the way we wanted, did it. If you’re anything like me, you’ve gone through a range of emotions these last four days. I was numb for two days and that numbness has started to give away to rage, distress, defiance, and dread. I’m deeply angry at the rightwing propaganda network that has so many Americans marinating day in and day out in …

I know, I know; these days, everyone and their five-legged, three-eyed dog is writing a piece about AI. I can’t promise that this one will be more insightful or educational than any of the others, but I can promise that it will invoke humanity’s undimmable hubris, the atomic bomb, mad cow disease, and, to keep us on brand, books.Read more →

Goya at the Legion Centennial.

This is an update to an earlier blog post I wrote on rules and OSR games, which was published in the zine Mixed Success, which you should also check out. Playing four sessions of Thor Olavsrud & Luke Crane’s Torchbearer had me thinking about how we engage with the rules of the games we play. Torchbearer is a machine that produces a story of grotty dungeon exploration. Its rules are …

Genre: ThrashCountry: ChileYear: 20241. The Search Won't Fall​2. Long Distance (The What's To Come)3. Helpless World4. 44 Minds5. The Blind Divine6. Absolüt7. All The Powers8. Full Paranoia9. Margarita10. Bulldog11. Critical Defiance3rd album by Critical Defiance. Once again this is firmly rooted in the old school, but with a subtle modern touch. Once again they don't disappoint. Lots of speed and heaviness, drums that make the whole room shake, razor-sharp, incisive …

This week, my neighborhood had a few power outages. Bad news for the uptime of my self-hosted sites! 😅 After the power came back and my server started, Gunicorn services failed with the following error: [2024-11-08 19:13:18 +0000] [1806] [INFO] Starting gunicorn 23.0.0 Error: Already running on PID 1401 (or pid file 'gunicorn.pid' is stale) Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Failed with result 'exit-code'. Gunicorn usually deletes the PID file …

I’ve talked in a previous post about my love for the show GameCenter CX, a Japanese show where comedian Shinya Arino is tasked with beating a retro game by a certain time limit. The show is an hour long, and the main challenge is broken up by a couple of shorter segments throughout. The recurring … Continue reading "My Top 5 Game Center CX Segments"

As someone who’s always looking for ways to make more eco-conscious choices, I’ve recently made a big change in our home cleaning routine. After diving into the world of refillable…

Golf video games are one of my passions, ever since World Class Leader Board and Microprose Golf on Atari ST. These days my favourite golf games are still the old ones. In particular I have a soft spot for T&E SOFT’s New 3D Golf Simulation series with its blue skies, bright colours, and FM synth tunes. This series has a long history so I thought I’d do my best to …

Here’s a list of blog-shaped things to read, and keep reading, from Liz Henry, one of those people I’ve “known” online for what seems like forever, and I very much approve of the notion of information garden parties, seeing as how I’m very much for reasons feeling the scroll fatigue and leaning into and falling back on the notion of just saying what I can to those of a mind …