Recently updated blogs

My friend and Forge of Foes partner, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, wrote a great post called Embracing the Awesome (subscribe to his newsletter here!) extolling the virtues of letting characters automatically succeed at ability checks more often than we typically do. Letting characters auto-succeed sometimes is a useful way to keep the pace of your game moving forward and showcase the characters' role in the world. When should you let your …

You might already know how to use the --color option to highlight matched portions with GNU grep. In this post, you'll see how to use ANSI escape sequences to format matched portions with GNU sed and GNU awk. GNU grep🔗 Consider this sample input file: $ cat fruits.txt banana mango cherry pineapple grape fig apple dragonfruit papaya watermelon cashew tomato orange almond lime grapefruit walnut The output for grep --color …

I’m always on the hunt for new music and have really been loving the music of ShyGodwin. ShyGodwin is a grunge-metal duo from Philly. Their riffs are heavy, and their lyrics get stuck in my head for days. “New Enemies” is a great song to start off with: Their full discography is available on Bandcamp, and their website, shygodwin.com, is worth visiting too for some weird and retro vibes. The …

“Dark Wave,” hosted by Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Matt Sebastian, explores the darker side of classic alternative, including goth, post-punk and industrial.

• Global (non-US) Rapid Transit Projects planned to open in 2025 (TransportPolitic) • Matthew Somerville pulls Live Underground Train Tracker due to possible legal action (CLondoner92) • How Madrid built its Metro Cheaply (WorksInProgress) • Ambitious High-Speed Rail Plans in the Baltic (CityLab) • It’s Time to Start Removing Highways, for real this time (FastCompany) • Miami’s new Underline linear park partially opens: Bioswales, bike paths, & more (SmartCitiesDive) • …

They say even a broken clock is right twice a day. In the same way, the Sun is “right” four times a year; the analemma shows how. What time is it at noon? What a silly question! It’s 12pm noon, at noon, right? … Right? Actually, not really. Picture this: you take a photo of … Continue reading "Analemma answers the question: “What time is it at noon?”" The post …

Finished “Chained Echoes” yesterday, after 45 hours, off and on since August! It took some time to grow on me, but I loved the game in the end – what a fun twists-and-turnsy storyline 😄 I wrote up some further thoughts on Backloggd (external link) if you’re interested.

I do work on Wikipedia sometimes. Since I’ve been working for the Flickr Foundation, my life overlaps more with free content. Sometimes I try to combine work and play and add things to Wikimedia Commons, or to Wikipedia, or both. My username in the Wikipedia extended universe is Jessamyn, so it’s pretty easy to see what I’ve been up to. Here’s my wrap-up of 2024 Wikipedia stuff I did. – …

I have a ritual I do most every time I'm in Los Angeles. I make my way to the end of the Santa Monica Pier at sunset. The Pier is loud and filled with tourists; there's a ferris wheel and a roller coaster. It's not the type of place I'd normally seek out. But I go because the Pier is the end of Route 66, the fabled highway that originates …

A return to a five day working week this week. This brought with it the inevitable struggle to get into a working rhythm and I spent a lot of time second-guessing my own work. On Tuesday I played in Worthing D&D White's 65-123 away win against Horsham Hawks Black. I finished the game with 12 points, making four three-pointers which set a new season high in points for me. I …

THE FIRST BOOK length study of the work of Poison Girls will be published this November by PM Press. Written by the editor of this site Rich Cross, designed by Alex Dunn and edited by Erin Yanke, This is a Message to Persons Unknown: The Story of Poison Girls traces the history of the band “from their first gigs in Brighton, through their years of touring DIY venues across Britain …

Greetings in the New Year, Everything is ramping up around here now! Kaila started back to work last week and there was more than enough to fill her time. I’m so grateful to have her help now as things are getting busier and that will only increase going forward into spring. Her first days back found her sowing a massive amount of seeds into 128 count plug flats. There will …

In terms of metacognition, cognitive load and cognitive load theory is one of the biggest concerns of any English teacher. We might not dress it up with a fancy term, but we know that how much or how little we present of text can make or break a student’s understanding of a text. Too much of a text and you can overwhelm them with too much information. Too little text …

I have never been into the look of a Rolex or the unnecessarily busy dials on an Omega. But I was smitten by the appearance of the Grand Seiko SBGA211, also known as the Snowflake. I was also intrigued by the Spring Drive, which offers the mechanical complexity of an automatic with the accuracy and ease of use of a quartz watch. But alas the Snowflake was an exceptionally expensive …

Lying host Rachel Campos-Duffy is married to Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, Sean Duffy.