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Tipping is a hot issue these days. How much should you tip staff in a restaurant or hotel, or even other types of situation? Should you even tip at all? For service staff tips are a vital source of income, supplementing what might be a very low standard wage. Tips are welcomed as a sign of having done a good job, and it’s nice to show your appreciation. Image from …

By David Tuller, DrPH In October, I spent 10 days traveling around Ireland and giving a talk called “Bad Science, Bad Medicine: How Flawed Biopsychosocial Studies on ME, Long Covid, etc Harm Patients.” (I wrote about the trip here.) I came as a guest of the Irish ME/CFS Association, which had previously arranged similar tours … Trial By Error: Video of October Talk in Ireland on How “Biopsychosocial” Research on …

On 2025-Jan-03, I delivered a talk doing an overview of the Cloudflare Developer Platform in my home-city, Nicosia, Cyprus 🇨🇾. Thanks to Parsectix, specifically Pavlos, for organising the event (LinkedIn Event), and to all the folks that joined. It was awesome to see some familiar faces in the audience.😅 The talk covers an overview of the Cloudflare Developer platform, core services, and how to gradually integrate it with your existing …

Submitted by Juan, who says: I send the new version of the Renfe-Madrid Cercanías network. It seems to me that it has improved quite a lot the previous version. This previous version had crossroads, angles, etc. I would like to know your opinion about this new map. Transit Maps says: What a massive improvement this over previous official versions! [See our reviews for the 2022 and 2013 versions – Cam] …

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas… And I wanted to make a small box for my wife who does needle felting, to keep her needles organized. I had a small piece of ash gash lying around, and thought it could be utilized for something more noble than barbecuing bacon cheese sausages on the fire pan (as if that is not THE noble end for wood…). What was I …

I truly enjoyed this podcast episode with Icelandic president Halla Tómasdóttir. Halla joins Adam to discuss dealing with impostor syndrome, why leadership is worth the effort and how listening and asking questions can build trust with constituents and make you a stronger leader. The two also dig into the story behind Halla’s “scarf revolution,” Iceland’s history of solving problems with creativity and Halla’s approach to leading her campaign — and …

Chuck Eddy's fave single of 2024 - "The Spark" by Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew, from Knocknaheeny, Cork.The entire post-98 quarter-century-long enshittification of drum + bass redeemed at a stroke. It was all worth it.Kids + Breaks reminded me of this inevitablyThe rapping though - as an example of Very White Rapping + high energy dance beat (the breaks are not very breaksy, more bouncy - ultra-linear NRG surge) makes …

Novelist Andrew Michael Hurley has published what is basically a thirteen story collection, centered around a fictional border town between Yorkshire and Lancashire called Barrowbeck. This provides a thin skein that connects the stories, and the hint that the setting is something rather more significant enters into only a few of the tales. The first is set in the distant past, while the final story is set in 2041 in …

This illusion (from the Chicago museum of illusions, and duplicated, I believe, in other similar museums in other cities) “almost” appears to give a tiling of \(\mathbf{R}^3\) by regular dodecahedra, which for a number of reasons is not possible. (It … Continue reading →

A 2018 piece for Stanford Live on Bowie's death and the art of the eulogy. The night that the news went out that David Bowie had died, I was just finishing a book in which he was the central figure. On January 10th 2016, I was literally on the last pages of my glam rock history Shock and Awe when Twitter told me that this towering pop figure had fallen. …

From the Independent: Nigel Farage has launched a defence of Elon Musk’s incendiary social media attacks on Keir Starmer, claiming that “free speech is back” under the Tesla tycoon’s ownership of X (Twitter). The Reform UK leader said that “tough things get said” in public life after Mr Musk described safeguarding minister Jess Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” who should be in jail. Farage’s deputy Richard Tice adopted the …

A classic Italian shrimp risotto that uses saffron, some peas and lots of butter. It screams spring, even in winter. Shrimp Risotto is the latest post on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

I've literally just found this - below shot - looking for something else to post quickly before I go to work, and as it's 12th night/the last day of Christmas, today, I'd better post it! These were part of a donation from Peter Evans back in the late summer, and I've mentioned that several donations and a couple of toy fair lots have rather been forgotten or subsumed into the …

Join us on Monday 27 January 2025 for the event ‘Fragments of the Past: Holocaust Legacies and Commemoration’ and explore how the Holocaust has shaped memory, identity, and culture. Bringing together scholars, historians, and artists, this conference examines the Holocaust’s profound and enduring impact, as well as the varied methods...

Boris Dralyuk has tracked down a clip from a 1937 B-movie where Alexander Voloshin—whose Russian poetry Dralyuk has translated—speaks Ukrainian instead of (as usual) being silent and uncredited. In that post he links to the late 1920s experimental short The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra, very much worth your 14 minutes! I’ve learned a lot from The Russian Reader’s grim juxtapositions of translated bits of current Russian …