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Usually, when working with things that require configuration, such as databases, caches, and mailers, you have to define them in their respective configuration files beforehand. So, for instance, you need to define all the mailers for your application in the config/mail.php file like so. return [ 'mailers' => [ 'smtp' => [ 'transport' => 'smtp', 'host' => env('MAIL_HOST', 'smtp.mailgun.org'), 'port' => env('MAIL_PORT', 587), 'encryption' => env('MAIL_ENCRYPTION', 'tls'), 'username' => env('MAIL_USERNAME'), …

A quick question to the gallery assistant regarding where might be the best place to start the exhibition turned into a much appreciated five minute introduction to their favourite piece from the show. Turner Prize nominee (probably soon to be the winner) Delaine Le Bas’s, ’What We Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Us?’ was, we were told, once exhibited as just the oval shaped embroidery piece at the centre, but later …

When Alvydas Šlepikas’ book Mano vardas – Marytė (‘My name is Marytė’) was published in Lithuania in 2011, it caused a nationwide discussion. Beautifully written and based on historical facts, it was the most read novel in Lithuania in 2012. Since then this multi-award winning book has had numerous editions...

The birding walks are full, but there's still a little room left to lunch with Thom and Mark Comon, attend the Mastering Nikon JPEG presentation, or sign up for the Nikon Z50II Introduction talk. I'm warning you, if you're in LA and miss the in-person stuff, you're going to miss out on more than seeing what Thom's wearing this week. I said surprises would be in store (literally). I mean …

Two truths seem evident to me in the tabletop RPG hobby: There are many "right" answers to how we play tabletop RPGs – including which RPGs we play. There's rarely only one right answer to any aspect of this hobby. Instead, there are many right answers, each fitting different people, groups, playstyles, and other circumstances. It's hard to understand why other people would choose the right answer that isn't ours. …

Back to the Pilot Field, back for the Sussex Cup, and back for another meeting of Hastings United and Newhaven. Haven’t we been here before? Well, yes, but so much keeps changing, not least the visitors in their rather cool looking ‘new’ away kit. Very smart. And the football was smart too, as a much […]

18th November 2024 The new Republican presidency-congress in the United States as well as developments in other countries mean that in addition to the illiberalism we have had so far, there is more – perhaps worse – to come. So how should liberals respond? Here are three suggestions, humbly put forward. 1. Do not respond, if you can, to catastrophism. You are going to think how bad things can be, …

I’m not technical when it comes to singing and use lots of visual imagery in my teaching. But does it help or can it be confusing? I came across a great satirical article the other day: Singing Teacher Uses Another, Even Better Analogy. It was pointing out that some of the analogies used by singing teachers can, on the face of it, seem ridiculous. “The sound doesn’t come out of …

Hep As Was and Maybe Still IsFrom Mark Vieira’s book, Into the Dark: The Hidden World of Film Noir, 1941-1950, here is thought expressed by critic John T. McManus for PM magazine, circa October 12, 1944: “That ultra-aware modernism, “hep,” is a very handy word to have around for a picture like To Have and Have Not.” So what was it to be hep? Simplest definition suggests awareness of what …

The Almeida Theatre’s Angry and Young season has been one of the highlights of the year with a repertory and rather revelatory run of Look Back in Anger and Roots. To that, the venue now adds a selection of rehearsed readings that pick up on some of the themes and concepts prevalent in the main […]

The answer is traverse. It's always traverse. I recently came across a Stack Overflow question about collecting and handling sum types (AKA discriminated unions or, in this case, result types). While the question was tagged functional-programming, the overall structure of the code was so imperative, with so much interleaved I/O, that it hardly qualified as functional architecture. Instead, I gave an answer which involved a minimal change to the code. …

I haven't posted a video here for a while, but within the research being carried out for a future project, this popped up. Simple enough fare, but oozing with atmosphere and just a bundle of modelling inspiration and detail.

A cartoon coded in CSS from comiCSS.

I have been wanting to read Joe Hill’s N0S4R2 (or N0S4A2 in the US) for so long! I got this second hand in a library sale…maybe last year. Definitely not this year as I’m 11 months into a book buying ban. Possibly 2022! I put this book off for a couple of reasons; 1. I… Continue reading Trying to Find a Scary Book

Having read Jason's entire output, I've found that his most interesting comics are those that follow his current cultural influences into ridiculous flights of fancy. The Left Bank Gang (imagining the Lost Generation writers as cartoonists) and Goodnight, Hem (imagining Ernest Hemingway as a sort of real-life action hero) are two of his best, but I've also enjoyed the way he's managed to insert the immortal Musketeer Athos into a …