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Here we are at Catcott Crossing again, for back in olden times very few of the level crossing cottages had running water. So to avoid drinking water from puddles, catching rain, drinking bog water or simply drinking, cooking and washing in cider, fresh water was regularly delivered in milk churns and delivered by passing engine crews. Pete and Dud wait for arthritic Arthur to swap an empty churn for a …

Random reading brought me to Salammbo. It’s possibly not a book I would have chosen for myself, but chance has its way. LibraryThing’s Folly feature then lived up to its promise, pulling from just two shelves of my alphabetically arranged library: a Bernhard, a Beckett, and a Belben. I reread fifty pages of Molloy before putting it aside, wanting something new. The Belben and Bernhard, both minor, didn’t hold my …

This week managed to be a bit better than the last one, though I am still going to the hospital on a daily basis (still 100% attendance so far for 2025). The situation has stabilized for a bit, and I even have someone taking turns with me spending the night, so I don't have to sleep there all the time. It's not ideal, and we're still not sure how long …

stumbling over my own feelings, without meaning to.but not actually that much stumbling. just a little. it's maybe more about the extent, or range of my feelings. and my not always, or - my just - really leaving them be. space. on account of the world being big enough.also i don't have that many feelings. or rather, not directed at many things. *this is night i am writing this at …

It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are 113 memes, pictures, and cartoons floating around the internet that I found interesting or relevant this week. Share and enjoy! The post Sunday picdump for January 12, 2024 appeared first on The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

Four weeks at number one from w/e 19th February 1983Winter 1983 for me was a period of upheaval. The health of my grandfather had worsened, and a family decision was made to move out of suburban East London and deeper into Essex, to a house large enough to take everyone in. Moving to a new town meant I had to go to a new school, (struggle to) make new friends, …

Psyche presents a reflection on Nietzsche and the shaping of the self in an essay titled “When Nietzsche said ‘become who you are’, this is what he meant.” As the author of the piece notes: “Contrary to popular belief, Nietzsche was not a nihilist set on destroying human values. In fact, the unifying purpose behind … Continue reading "Nietzsche on becoming who you are"

A central problem in combinatorics, probability theory, and analysis is to understand the spectrum of random d-regular graphs G with vertices. The following paper marks a huge leap in our understanding of this problem. Ramanujan Property and Edge Universality of Random Regular Graphs, by Jiaoyang Huang, Theo Mckenzie, and Horng-Tzer Yau. Abstract: We consider the normalized adjacency matrix of a random -regular graph on vertices with any fixed degree and …

Super excited that the international edition of Dancing Queen from Matagot has been announced. It will be available in English and French, 21 June 2025.

The post Sunday Secrets appeared first on PostSecret.

Herring Gull next to the Thames by HMS Belfast this week

Occasionally, I try a perfume for the first time and feel an immediate rush of excitement. It smells so wonderful, so perfect, that I think I’ve discovered a new favorite. But then, on subsequent tries, I can never recreate that initial feeling. The magic seems to vanish, leaving me wondering if I imagined it all. […]

Mesmerizing, delicate and seemingly impossible — this lovely luminescent denizen of the sea has been living in our oceans for more than half a billion years. Jellyfish are found all over the world, from surface waters to our deepest seas — and they are old. They are some of the oldest animals in the fossil record.Jellyfish are not fish at all. These gossamer wonders evolved millions of years

In the land of my father, as I recall, there was a pink Ganesha Scotch-taped to the back of the door. I pushed the door open, one hand parallel to the face of the idol, into the twisted light of a blue winter morning and saw him waiting for me there, on the stone steps. He did not have the comic humility of a playful divinity; he did not doff …