Recently updated blogs

This month I have been really enjoying reading non-fiction, which isn’t usually my preferred genre, so I thought I would join in with non-fiction November. Which is basically reading non-fiction during November. I had lofty goals as usual but I managed to finish two non-fiction books…including my new favourite non-fiction book which I tabbed the… Continue reading Scottish Fiction and Non-Fiction November (and snow!)

Most may not be aware of C.M. Eddy Jr. (1896-1967) and his wife Muriel E. Eddy (1896-1978). Both were part of the “Lovecraft Circle,” meeting H.P. Lovecraft in 1923 and all lived in Providence, RI. Both were long-time writers, though that didn’t become their careers. Eddy was a writer of detective stories, songwriting, and ghost […]

In the Capital Improvement Plan approved by the board in November, Caltrain listed a 10+ year, $600 million program to upgrade its platforms to provide level boarding. Now that Caltrain is running all-electric trains between San Francisco and San Jose Tamien, it is possible to get started on this valuable program that will cut dwell time at stations, saving nearly as much time for passengers as the $2 billion electrification …

In this week’s issue of The Savvy Diabetic: FDA Petition to Approve Sotagliflozin Dexcom & Oura Late Eating Alters BG Levels PharmaSens NEW Insulin Pumps FDA Approves Medtronic InPen Smart Insulin Pen PBMs sue FTC over Insulin Litigation YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Help Impact the FDA’s Decision to Improve Glucose Control in People with Type 1 Diabetes Who are Also Living with Chronic Kidney Disease with an Oral Medication. …

My daughter loves the music of Wicked. Because I talked her into going to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice so to repay her I said I would go see Wicked with her. No offense but I feel that Ariana Grande is annoying and not htat great of an actress, but Wicked changed that for it! The movie was absoluting amazing and one of the best movies I have seen in years! Wicked …

How do you take a classic and often revived comedy, beloved of professional and amateur dramatic companies, where almost everyone in the audience will know some of the lines and find something new to say about it? For Max Webster, directing this very high profile version of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the […]

The 1800s saw a major change in the presentation of novels: the widespread introduction of illustrations. In the run up to Christmas we explore how this phenomenon started and exploded, and the culmination in the “Christmas Gift Book”. In the early 1800s, novels were largely published either unillustrated or with just a frontispiece, these often being a stock decorative illustration with little connection to content of the tale. Growth in …

The orange flavor of Tic Tac Orange Mints unfolds like the experience of eating an orange out of hand. Flavor chemists want you to think of the real thing even if the candy doesn't have the same form factor as orange fruit. The result? Candy plays pretend, and our brain consciously plays right along with it because candy tastes good, inspires memories and is fun to eat. Mass-produced candy

The Medici of Bruges, Tommaso Portinari actually worked as a banker for the Medici family while living in this historic Flemish city. Yet his greatest legacy was the group of talented artists he patronised in the 15th century, like Flemish Primitive painters Hugo van der Goes and Hans Memling. Portinari never got to see the Hotel Portinari, at the gateway to Old Bruges, but the hotel honours his legacy by …

There's a big ideological blindspot in political debate. To see it, consider two quite different recent texts: Conservatism in Crisis (pdf) co-authored by Kemi Badenoch and many others; and Sam Freedman's Failed State. Let's take Conservatism in Crisis first. The authors complain of the "rise of a new bureaucratic class" wherein "increasing numbers of middle-class jobs relate more to government rules than goods and services bought and sold in the …

Lesley Wheeler’s “Rhapsodomancy” appears in her forthcoming poetry collection Mycocosmic. The title is an invented word that riffs on bibliomancy, randomly opening a book and stabbing a passage with your finger to tell the future. The 22-line poem (published online at the ASP Bulletin) also riffs on the tarot deck, one line for each card of the Major Arcana. But for me, the poem is a comics script. I’ve been …

As a lover of all things vintage and archival, there are few things that excite me more than a project that plumbs the historical trove of a company or design movement and resurfaces its forgotten gems; it’s the same thrill I get shopping a flea market or antique mall and discovering something incredible that had previously gone unnoticed or been cast aside. Which is why I felt a pang of …

Patreon Thanks to my supporters on Patreon.com/KnifeSteelNerds. Thanks to your support we can do studies like this. Come join us on Patreon if you want support knife steel research too. Video I also have a video covering this same material: Cold Forging and Rolling I already have a separate article about the mechanisms behind cold forging and rolling, so I will not recap much of that here: Cold Forging of …

San Diego, November 2024.

Verso Fiction: uncompromisingly intelligent and beautiful books, with an international focus. See all our fiction here. The Destructive Force of Romantic Love: read an excerpt from Vigdis Hjorth's new novel, If Only. "I want to read about women who can’t make things": read an excerpt from Hannah Regal's debut novel, The Last Sane Woman. Roughage: read a short story from India Ennenga on the Verso Blog. 2024 Highlights [book-strip index="1" …