Recently updated blogs

It happened again when I was bleeding out in a hospital in Conroe, Texas. We had flown in from Colorado to visit my parents the day after Christmas. My husband and my dad didn’t get along so well, but my mom had begged, pleaded, and then bribed us to come, paying for the plane tickets and a rental car because she was dying to meet Leila, our toddler. Because of …

I’m extremely delighted to announce that I have a new book on the way, which will be published in the UK on May 15th and in a North American edition in Spring 2026. Regular readers of my blog posts here will know that I live above the Prespa lakes, and it’s this place that sits … Continue reading Lifelines: new book announcement!

If all you want is weed to smoke in a bong the economics of home grown in a tent vs. store bought in a legal state doesn't favor home grown. As an example on 12/23/2024 I bought 1/2 oz of top shelf Cannabis (THC 31% on the label, tested to 28% by my test equipment) for $140 USD. I'm a daily bong toker, often wake and bake for pain relief …

I'm making some attempts at painting the terrain. As I've mentioned before getting the colours right could be tricky because all I'm working from are my own travel photos, photos I've found on line, and memories from hikes on the Mt. Lowe trail. Then there are the colour shifts introduced by printing the reference photos on paper, or viewing them on a screen. Unlike the Loonar Module I don't have …

Knowing things is hard, even about the past. Over the years I have compiled pithy names for some of the reasons why this is. This week I decided to share them in the style of Andrew Gelman’s Handy Statistical Lexicon or Samuel Johnson’s dictionary. Right now many entries are blank or just link to other people’s websites and articles. If I ever turn these into a book, I will expand …

It's time for all Coffee Geeks to become fans of super automatics. Not for ourselves, but for the sake and benefit of capsule coffee users. The post Bean to Cup Machines: Nespresso Killers! appeared first on CoffeeGeek.

Hello friends! It has been a VERY long time since I’ve shown my face around these parts. But with the start of the new year, it is time to shake the dust off, pull my brain back together and get back to the business of canning and making connections with all of you. Enter the Community Canning Challenge! Twice in the past, I’ve hosted year-long challenges in which I would …

Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time we’ve got thistle glasses, more Kölsch, and an accidental cult beer. For a generation of British craft beer drinkers, this news carries some emotional resonance: Magic Rock Brewing is appointing administrators. It’s a brewery you could use to tell the whole story of the UK craft beer boom: family money, a talented brewer; launching …

From Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll, Jr. (Harper Select, 2023), Kindle pp. 126-129: Lt. Col. Thomas Green, now the Hawaiian Department’s judge advocate, moves into Iolani Palace the day after Pearl Harbor. The man who wrote the rules governing the military administration is on hand to direct martial law operations. At …

On my recent post about Things and other task management apps, Tom Atkins pointed out that Todoist recently satisfied both of my particular requirements: repeat tasks a period after their completion date and (in the paid version) have both “when” and “deadline” dates. It also has a Kanban board view of lists, which I’d either missed when I gave the app a try a few months ago, or had forgotten. …

Welcome to the first update of 2025 from the It’s Saturday morning once again so here’s another quick update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. For the new year we have started Volume 8. Since the last update of 2024 we have published four new papers which brings the total so far published by OJAp up to 239. In chronological order of publication, the four papers published this …

In a lush, wooded pocket in Rouen, France, a meditation space rests on the forest floor. Designed by Linfeng Zhou of Vancouver-based LFZ Studio, “Le Monde dans un Gland,” or “The World in an Acorn,” invites visitors into its shell to have a seat and reflect. Diamond-shaped, interlocking panels of marine plywood nest together to create the scaled cupule of the nut, which allows light to pierce through and cast …

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25? The week at Retraction Watch featured: Meet Retraction Watch’s two new journalists Elsevier denies AI use in response to evolution journal board resignations Biotech company agrees to pay $4 million to settle data falsification allegations Science paper by Toronto lab retracted The 14 universities with publication metrics researchers say are too good to be true Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers …

Walking Lucie on a cold, clear late afternoon, the temperature hasn't risen above plus one all day and there's no doubt that tonight it will drop to minus four or five. Fishing plans have been suspended because every waterway in the Fens has a coating of ice. The was one piece of clear water I noticed the day before, it was under a tree, and I could see fish moving …

The Death Korps Veteran Kill Team was just the beginning. After a long wait, the new plastic Death Korps of Krieg range is finally here, kicking off with the army set. In our review, we'll be discussing the build options for all the new kits, including the new Death Riders and Combat Engineers. We'll also be taking a look at high-res sprue images and the new 10th Edition Warhammer 40,000 …