Recently updated blogs

Harry Mulisch, one of the most significant figures in Dutch literature, recently came to my attention through Michael Orthofer’s Complete Review. Described there as “unquestionably among the leading authors of the second half of the twentieth century,” his work was entirely new to me. His personal history—a Jewish mother and an Austrian father with ties to the Nazi regime—infuses The Discovery of Heaven with a profound engagement with post-war history …

The White Reindeer (1952) was the first film made by Finnish cinematographer Erik Blomberg. It is set amongst the bleakly beautiful snowbound landscape of Finnish Lapland and tells the story of a newly married young woman called Pirita who becomes lonely, frustrated and desperate for affection due to her husband often being away herding reindeer, which leads her to seek out a shaman who gives her a potion which will …

I need an exactitude on the Ganni beanie athleisure mums. Beachy blonde hair. Sweaty betty. Puffer jacket. Dog with a bit of poodle DNA in it. I’ve joined Bluesky but I have nothing to say 🤷🏻. I told Chaz I don’t have a sense of smell and he suggested that maybe it just isn’t alive yet? Went to see Sam and Lizzy this weekend and spent 24h being fed and …

DEXX, a platform that advertises itself as the "first memecoins trading terminal application", disclosed that it had been hacked when it posted a message on social media addressed to "Mr./Ms. Hacker", asking they return stolen funds in exchange for "destroy[ing] all information we currently have on the hack" and not pursuing further legal action.DEXX did not disclose how much was taken in the breach, but hundreds of victims have reported …

The weather has gone from freezing us to blowing us away. It’s been super windy and wet here in London all weekend. I caught up on a lot of things, did a lot of thinking and did a lot of tasks I’ve been putting off this week. Not bad. Repetition OTB Photo 365 The Ministry Of My Own Labour Terminal Access Dipping the Stacks Reading Music Remember Kids:RepetitionThis quote from …

I went to a sort of unconference, though I’m not sure what its formal categorization is if any. Back in the day when there were like 6 unconferences a week, open spaces, BarCamps, and so on in the Bay Area alone, it was semi hilarious to me to see the internecine battles over exactly what could and couldn’t be called “open” space. You can probably still find it somewhere, if …

Species / Count Canada Goose - 105 Gadwall - 2 Bufflehead - 2 Ruby-throated Hummingbird - 1 Great Blue Heron - 1 Black Vulture - 1 Bald Eagle - 1 Downy Woodpecker - 1 Carolina Chickadee - 1 White-breasted Nuthatch - 1 Carolina Wren - 1 Chipping Sparrow - 8 White-throated Sparrow - 16 Song Sparrow - 3 Swamp Sparrow - 2 Northern Cardinal - 1

I love music. I love playing music. I love making musical instruments and music software. I don’t have formal musical training. I’ve never taken lessons, and honestly, I’m a pretty bad musician. What I do excel at, though, is hoarding musical instruments. At this point, name any instrument, and there’s a decent chance I have it somewhere in my room. Some of these instruments never played anything better than “Twinkle, …

1. Who rules us? Google changed its rules on what kind of behaviour it regards as “spam” and, of course, the impact on some companies will be pretty negative. The behaviour it is targeting is so-called “parasite SEO”, where a publisher allows a third party to create content for part of its website in return for a large amount of money. Typically, this might be a subdomain or subsection which …

LOL. Login to your My Account etc. (This is Amazon, obvs.)

Mark Twain? Oscar Wilde? Thomas Love Peacock? Algernon Falconer? Richard Porson? An open book with three roses from Pixabay Question for Quote Investigator: The complexities of the German language inspired the following comical statement: Life is too short to learn German. This statement has been attributed to U.S. humorist Mark Twain, Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, English satirist Thomas Love Peacock, and English classical scholar Richard Porson. Would you please explore …

I found the answer to the annoying bureaucrats who ask what percentage of the work on a publication was done by each of its authors, in the writings of St Bernard. He said, Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so—but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it. Therefore we should not attribute part of the good work to grace and part to …

Some events can cast long shadows. The UK is still talking about the storm of 1987 (‘the worst night since the Blitz’), the winter of 1963, the storm floods of 1953, the London smog of 1952, the Great Storm of 26 November 1703. Other countries have their own stories. But one event in particular still…

the-lemonaut:ALTNew Solarpunk illustration, yay! The full thing was made for a thing, but also each half was also drawn for the Solarpunk (writing) Prompts podcast.This one features a maker/hackerspace. It’s a thing that has existed for a while but that few people seem to know about? I myself learned about the idea from a friend relatively recently. While I’ve never been to one myself, plenty of references were provided and …

A new print design: one part Riso, two parts screen printing. An experimental alternative version of the prints I shared recently. Normally this would be something I’d produce using a single process but I had a pile of red paper on hand and thought that might work if I printed one layer on the Riso (black) and screenprinted the other two (blue, white). I say this is experimental mostly because …