Recently updated blogs

While in Palo Alto for the holidays, I stumbled on a piece of public art I didn’t previously know about: the Linus Pauling Commemorative Ceramic Mural, created in 2000 by Ross Drago. It’s a set of individually decorated ceramic tiles, installed on a wall along the sidewalk on the north side of Oregon Expressway, near its corner with El Camino Real. It’s not an area that attracts much foot traffic. …

By C. D. Rose. Zsuzanna Gahse, Mountainish, tr. Katy Derbyshire (Prototype, 2024) Zsuzsanna Gahse’s Mountainish is a slim book with short, numbered sections rather than chapters, and whose blurb promises the reader ‘a multi-layered typology of all things mountainish.’ These days, on receiving such a book, a reader might easily anticipate what they’re in for: reflections on all manner of interesting ephemera; odd encounters with random strangers who’ll tell oblique …

Since I last wrote about WordPress, things have gone off the rails. This after a brief period when things were blissfully quiet. Matt Mullenweg stopped commenting for a while, though his company had launched WP Engine Tracker — a site for tracking WordPress-driven websites that moved away from WP Engine. I think this is a bit gauche, but it seems like fair marketing given everything that’s going on. It should …

For his design of the new public library in Heidenheim, Germany, Max Dudler started with a study of its integration within the urban fabric. The site chosen for the project was that of a former prison, which had long stood as a barrier between the historic town centre and its heterogeneous postwar expansion to the west. Consequently, the library was designed as a connection between the two neighbourhoods and the …

Forty-one is a nice birthday because it doesn’t feel like too much pressure. For forty I did a big eclipse thing that ended up amazing, this year I’m replicating what I did a few years ago and celebrating in New York, Houston, and San Francisco. My birthday today has already been lovely. Saw the amazing Broadway show Maybe Happy Ending (powered by WordPress!) thanks to a suggestion from my colleague …

We got ourselves three Black tennis champs in Australia this month1: Madison Keys2 in Adelaide, beating Jessica Pegula 6–3, 4–6, 6–1 Felix Auger-Aliassime in Adelaide, beating Sebastian Korda 6–3, 3–6, 6–1 Gaël Monfils in Auckland, beating Zizou Bergs 6–3, 6–4 For Monfils, it’s a special win as the title makes him the oldest winner of an ATP Tour singles title by 2 months. The previous record holder? Roger Federer, when …

If you look for Mars on Monday it just might be MIA.

While thinking of those affected by the Southern California wildfires and suggesting Operation USA as a good place to donate, we turn to the topic of today's post, cartoons appropriate for National Milk Day, an event originated in India and now set on January 11. We'll start with Toby The Pup.While perusing the Borden Dairy Products Commercial Archive on YouTube, we continue with a cartoon which is not a milk …

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A conceptual fashion space hidden in a Tashkent street market, joyful ceramic candleholders shaped like sardines and bananas, and a new collection of lamps inspired by the Triadic Ballet.

Edwin Ray, David Michael Johnson, Iona Fraser, Kim Healey, Rakesh Boury and Eloise Davies in The Creakers at the Southbank Centre, London. Picture: Pamela Raith Photography The Creakers Musical was reviewed at the Southbank Centre, London. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ‘Wow’ is not a word I have ever attributed to a musical aimed at children. Creakers is the first stage show I’ve seen which ticks …

In August 2019 my brother Richard and I made a trip to Scottsboro and visited among other places Unclaimed Baggage. Their web site will tell you the store's history and how the business works. You can read my two-part report of that visit to Scottsboro here and here. This past December 26, Dianne, my son Amos and daughter-in-law Kim made the trip to the popular attraction. Amos had also visited …

I don’t think 2024 was a great year for video games. Don’t get me wrong, the games themselves were great! But for the industry? For the medium? Ehh. For starters, AAA titles – arguably the releases that provide shape and form to a year of gaming – either arrived with no impact or failed to show up at all. Outside of Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Indiana Jones, …

Here’s a round-up of some news stories from the last two months of 2024, (mostly) not otherwise covered here on the Aperiodical. Maths Research At the start of December, John Carlos Baez shared on Mathstodon that the moving sofa problem may have been solved – the question of the largest possible shape you can fit around a 2D corner. For many years, a shape called Gerver’s sofa has been thought …

Receiver Coffee opened a new treehouse location, a labyrinth of levels set into the branches of a banyan forest located, oddly, in central Charlottetown.One afternoon, Tim Chaisson and I were sharing a coffee at the highest level of the forest-café when we both leaned back over the railing too far and fell over the edge.“Grab the vines, Tim, GRAB THE VINES!”, I yelled.We grabbed the vines, and we survived, unscathed.Safe …

Album of the Week, January 11, 2025 In the 1980s, before streaming services and the Internet, if you were a fan of an artist you often traded cassettes of that artist’s rarities—b-sides, bootleg recordings from live concerts, and maybe obscure appearances the artist made on other peoples’ albums. Today’s album falls solidly in the last category. I first heard the seriously off-kilter songs on today’s album thanks to a compilation …