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And that is a wrap for 2024. Merry Xmas and happy holidays to everyone! Thank you all for your kind support in what has been a tough year and hope you have enjoyed the archive this year. Having a well … Continue reading →

Image: The electrically heated table that we build in this manual. Photo: Marina Kálcheva. Model: Anita Filippova. Why build an electrically heated table? The table Step 1: Get a table Heating the table Step 2: Choose a heat source Step 3: Choose a thermostat Step 4: Wire everything together Step 5: Program the thermostat Insulating the table Step 6: Insulate the heat foil Step 7: Get a carpet Step 8: …

I’m not a Creep. I belong here. # If you’ve just joined us, welcome to my series: Wristwatch Roulette, where I furnish my forearm with two fancy finds a fortnight, from fan-favourite Ali Express, market of choice for my 2023 series Shenzhen Safari, and 2024 series Shenzhen Sojourn. Your Skin Makes Me Cry # Synoke: Face Pusher # There are four ways to press my face. And many ways to …

So the big news this week is that o3, OpenAI’s new language model, got 25% on FrontierMath. Let’s start by explaining what this means. What is o3? What is FrontierMath? A language model, as probably most people know, is one of these things like ChatGPT where you can ask it a question and it will write some sentences which are an attempt to give you an answer. There were language …

As usual, December has got away from me. I had meant to update this series with my latest Linux adventures, but haven’t had the time until now. I’ve made quite a few changes, so let’s dive in. Teething issues I continue to love Hyprland for its snappiness and flexibility, but I began to ran into a few rough edges. The most irritating thing was that Hyprland evidently did not enjoy …

Books, especially novels, often quote song lyrics – typically as an epigraph and sometimes in the body text. If, that is, the author or publisher can afford it. But what of novels that quote songs accidentally, or ‘accidentally’? This is the kind of thing I mean, in Joe R. Lansdale’s A Fine Dark Line: ‘I know,’ Buster said. ‘I heard it through the grapevine. Ain’t nothin’ happens in this town, …

I am finally finished with work for the year, and so this weekend I am finally able to finish some 2024 blog posts I had been working on, but never had time until now to complete! So for regular readers, you will get a bunch of posts all at once! Hope it makes up for being a bit too quiet this year because of my workload..Back when I bought an …

Every year I keep an obsessive, Soderberghian list of all the media I consume and this year I classified more of it as Mid than Fun or Good or Amazing so why even bother doing a bunch of year-end Best Of posts about it. Instead let’s just highlight a few Top Things from 2024 Cats who aren’t trying to kill each other It’s a long story but Tilly and Saru …

As I have mentioned here in the past, each day I read a poem in the morning and a poem in the evening. This was today's morning poem: Autumn EndsLost in vacant wonder at how the months flow away in silence,I sit alone in my idle hut, thinking endless thoughts.An old man's cares, like these leaves, are hard to sweep away.To the sound of their rustling I see autumn off …

Newly out in VAMP: Danison, Andy D., Wedel, Mathew J., Barta, Daniel E., Woodward, Holly N., Flora, Holley M., Lee, Andrew H., and Snively, Eric. 2024. Chimerism of specimens referred to Saurophaganax maximus reveals a new species of Allosaurus (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology 12:81-114. Oh man, there is soooo much to say about this paper, which is a free download here. The short, short version is that OMNH …

I thought I'd have a go at a blog post about the gouges and the other cutting tools I use when making my lino prints. Once again this is about my personal experience with different tools and about how I use them to create my own work. Others may prefer different tools and different ways of working. There's no definitive best tool or right way to use it. Finding the …

Happy Winter Solstice! In honor of Winter Solstice, I've made an updated list of popular flashlights. Today is the day you're most likely to need a flashlight in the northern hemisphere, and I have some good candidates here. The best flashlight There is no best flashlight, so this is an amalgamation of what enthusiasts have been buying and recommending to others lately along with the author's arbitrary preferences and biases. …

First commercial-scale fusion plant plans announced, to be built in the early 2030s Roger Penrose's biography Renaissance Philantrophy (and within, a link to recent research on wearable cortisol trackers!) Bringing Elon to a knife fight Google Willow, their new quantum chip Something I long suspected: Most of senescent cells are immune cells (hence immune rejuvenation should also solve cellular senescence) This year in biology: 2024; of particular interest is the …

New YouTube video covers:1. Pathways of light reflected on water, 2. Hotspot priming 3. Contre-jour lighting.4. The poetic traditions of glitter paths and moonpaths.

Eight years ago, I embarked on a journey to make sense of the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of full-stack web development. The result was FullStack Bulletin, a weekly newsletter designed to keep developers informed and inspired. With each issue, I aim to share a curated selection of articles, a recommended book, and a thought-provoking quote, all tailored for full-stack developers and those aspiring to join the field. In this article, to …