Recently updated blogs

After only 20+ years in the making, FreeCAD hit the 1.0 mark today. The latest development cycle wasn’t easy, a lot of things happened along the way. Let’s talk about major changes in this release and then discuss how the community has been evolving. What’s new in 1.0 Toponaming FreeCAD used to have a whole bunch of topological naming issues that are mostly gone now. So if you reference geometry …

The days are shorter and you have to wrap up warm but nothing beats a crisp, bright walk surrounded by Autumn leaves. Add in some fascinating historic sights along the route and you have a winning combination! Below are six of my favourite Autumn London walks, giving you a bit of historic context and recommendations to visit along each route. You can view them all on a map here. Let …

Warning: This post contains themes of grief and loss. While searching through my Notes app yesterday, I came across a poem that I’d written 6ish years ago. I was in two minds of posting this, but I think it’s important to share the rawness of grief. It was written shortly after the passing of my brother and the birth of my first child. My world was a blur, and I …

shmup (n): Shortened form of “shoot-em-up;” a genre of 2D video games based on shooting down waves of enemies while dodging waves of projectiles. (Usually in an aircraft, usually scrolling in one direction, but not necessarily either.) Japanese synonym: STG (short for "shooting game"). Shmups are one of the most fundamental forms of action game; most of what I used to play on the Atari 2600 as a kid qualified …

James Gilchrist Swan was a remarkable individual. Born in 1818 he spend most of his life in the Pacific North West, now part of Washington state in the US. Having travelled widely before arrival there, he took on a number of roles for the US government and other interests, becoming an Indian Agent, a temporary representative of a railroad company, and other such frontier roles. He was also a

I’ve been following the US election results to do some calculations on the final numbers, and frustratingly they’re still not there yet; the latest figures show only 98.3% reported two weeks after polling day. Even a week after the election, though, it was clear that the result was much closer than most of the early indications had suggested, when it seemed that Harris was 3 to 4 points behind and …

I had planned to do this next part much earlier, but I had to travel to Prague again for work in late September and much of October. As an aside I did see an interesting train bbq on a walk to a local castle called Karlstejn on a weekend I had off while there - and what a cool idea for a train! I want it in the backyard of …

The Last Quarter Moon is Saturday November 23. In the evening Venus is in the "Handle" of the Teapot of Sagittarius. Mercury begins to sink back to the horizon. Saturn is in the north western sky. Jupiter is now visible in the evening sky along with Saturn and Venus. In the morning Mars and Jupiter continue to draw apart. Mars comes close to the Beehive cluster on the 28th.The Last …

My husband's Bentley ancestors moved from upstate New York to settle in Elkhart county, Indiana in the mid-1830s. William Tyler Bentley (1795-1873) and his wife Olivia Morgan Bentley (1799?-1838) had seven children before she died during a particularly severe winter in Indiana. William never remarried. About 1850, he went west to begin farming in Tulare County, California as it became a state. Many of his family members also went to …

Highlights I’m finding it easier to balance my time as a new father. I moped about two of my blog posts doing poorly, and then they did well. I experimented with a stacked diff workflow for software development and liked it except for git’s weaknesses. Goal grades At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals: Enjoy family time …

Greetings from the New Management! I'm currently up to my elbows in The Regicide Report (coming to you in 2026). In the meantime, I wrote a bundle of world building notes that won't ever make it into a novel because they're far too policy-oriented (translation: deathly boring to normal readers). After all, it's a civil service/politics satire series, and to give it some substance I had to work out what …

This is a personal collection, subject to change at any time. A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein, and Sara IshikawaA classic on architecture and urban design that you’ll find on many lists like this. What keeps it here for me — as a text that has shaped my technological worldview — is the very notion of describing problems and solutions or needs and constructions as patterns, and building …

Indie pop trio ENY explores the realms of electropop and guitar music with conviction and has a seriously majestic sound. Hailing from Hereford, the project is led by Sharon Kosobucka. Originally born in Poland, she has been in the UK for five years and is gracing the country with their punchy dream-like pop. Releasing new single ‘Die Like This’, ENY combine catchy melodies and powerful synths to draw you into …

A great escape Developers: Atari Games, Tengen (SAM Coupé version) Publishers: Atari Games, Domark (all the computer ports except SAM Coupé), Enigma Variations (SAM Coupé), Ocean (Amiga, C64, ZX Spectrum re-releases) Release Years: 1989 (Arcade), 1990 (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, SAM Coupé, ZX Spectrum), 1991 (Budget re-release for Atari ST), 1992 (Budget re-releases for Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) Available On: Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari …

At its core, MARTI is a bridge. It harmonizes with existing metadata standards like the Content Authenticity Initiative, Anthropic’s Responsible Scaling Policy, and the W3C’s PROV. It anticipates the needs of future standards, laws and practices, such as those proposed by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), The EU Artificial Intelligence Act, and Making Data FAIR.—Carrie Bickner As I study Carrie Bickner’s initial posts on the MARTI Framework she’s developing …