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New Year, New Projects!I am taking this spring term off from teaching, partly to re-energize my batteries which have been rather low on account that I've been going full speed (🚌) since 2018; the pandemic didn't help because teaching increased around that time (not that I am complaining, the cosmos provided something I needed at the time). Another reason for the break is partly to work on a new course …

While waiting for a hot chocolate the sun was out blasting us with warmth on a chilly day. Nice break from the snow flurries. Note tags: halifax, BlackAndWhite, iphone, waiting, winter

The images coming out of Los Angeles this morning are heartbreaking. From the BBC: We don’t yet have concrete answers as to what started the LA fires, it is too early to tell and first responders are still focused on evacuating and tackling the blazes. But, officials have pointed to high winds and drought in the area, which has made vegetation very dry and easy to burn. An important factor …

A new report in The Atlantic focuses on the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) in contemporary Christianity and its growing influence in the political culture of the United States. Stephanie McCrummen writes: “A shift is under way, one that scholars have been tracking for years and that has become startlingly visible with the rise of Trumpism. At this point, tens of millions of believers—about 40 percent of American Christians, including Catholics, …

How can I feel I have arrived home in something that is in many ways so ­foreign to me? And yet beneath the surface it is not foreign at all, but a reversion to the sacred order of things. I sit in a monastery chapel before dawn. There is snow on the ground outside. The priest murmurs the liturgy by the light of the lampadas, the dark silhouettes of two …

In this edition: News: Two deaths dubiously linked to Bigfoot hunting Cryptid Media See This – Out There: Crimes of the Paranormal Cryptid Media Skip This – Lost Monster Files Update on naming taboo cryptids AI cryptid carnival Google Earth cryptids Hood cryptids meme Hello and welcome to the 2nd Pop Cryptid Spectator – my chronicle of observing the changing appearance of and attitudes towards “cryptids” in popular culture. My …

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18XX. This has been a year of 18XX games. Things started slowly in the Spring, but then 18 India hit us by a storm. I ended up playing various 18XX titles over 20 times this year; that’s more than a third of my all-time 18XX plays since 2006. Forest Shuffle. I still played a ton of Forest Shuffle on BGA. I’ve played the game over 200 times this year. If …

2024 was a transitional year for me. I spent the first half of this year working at Shopify, and in the latter half I went freelance again. Being a freelancer is great in terms of freedom, so I am able to branch out a bit more now. Top Shopify web performance content # Most of my top content was really the posts I wrote on performance.shopify.com. Luckily, the folks still …

I recently kicked off a 99designs contest for a new logo: https://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-brand-ai-engineering-podcast-help-define-industry-1307842/

Over the last few years, I've become very interested in modular synthesis. I've played instruments since I was a child, and as a programmer, the composability of a modular synthesizer has always been very attractive to me. One early form of synthesis technology that has fascinated me for years is the Trautonium. When I first heard recordings of the instrument, its rich harmonic textures and gliding tones captured my imagination. …

If you’ve been captivated by the starling murmurations this winter, you may be wondering how many birds are in those vast swirling flocks. There’s no easy way to count them on the wing, but you if you can get a decent photo with the bulk of them in the frame, there’s a simple technique to get a rough estimate that will give you a good idea of numbers A grid …

Guaraldi’s full score for 1974’s It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown will be available for purchase on on March 21. The album can be pre-ordered on CD or black vinyl at Amazon and the MVD Shop, as well as other online retailers and your favorite brick-and-mortar record store. (As always, it also will be available digitally.)A full press release from Lee Mendelson Film Productions remains pending, as is any information …

So you’ve decided to leave London. You’re leaving because the millionaires are being priced out by billionaires. You’re leaving because every high street is boxy, bland, and identical. You’re leaving because the Tories are in charge. You’re leaving because the weather is shit. You’re leaving because it’s the enemy of all human life. You’re leaving because those… Source

I wrote Interpinkie, a basic Finger client in Interlisp that runs on the Medley environment. This is the main window of the program: It was a fun challenge considering I couldn't use Medley's TCP/IP stack. I always wanted to do some network programming with Medley. But the bitrot of its TCP/IP stack left it in a non working state since before the Medley Interlisp project, and the revival effort hasn't …