Recently updated blogs

–This article also appears in the January-February issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. The plot: Under the cover of darkness, a crew of armed soldiers rows across the Hudson River, enters New York City, kidnaps the king of England’s son and delivers him to Congress as a prisoner. The mastermind: Matthias Ogden, a Continental Army officer serving under George Washington during the Revolutionary War. The target: Prince William, the …

In December, we took a nearly 3-week trip to Brazil. I thought I’d give some highlights, especially because it was family-oriented and (mostly) not touristic. Last year my brother-in-law Wattson died in a horrible traffic accident. Rather than try to fly there quickly at that time, we came for a much more agreeable event: the wedding of his daughter Isabelle, to a guy named Luigi, in Natal. We then went …

Hornby have today announced the first part of their forthcoming 00 gauge range for 2025. Hornby have advised that their announcements will focus on items that will be delivered within 12 months, so as last year there is a possibility of further announcements to come during the year. There is also likely to be a separate TT-120 update later . The headline news for Southern Region (and some Eastern Region) …

Ah, here we are again. Same deal, a few tunes off youtube and a burning desire for everyone in Spotify’s management to die horribly. A Frankie Knuckles creation, Soulful house at it’s best. Juan Atkins on the mixing duties here, and, well, it’s not that good? There were better versions but both lads are disgustingly handsome so we’ll overlook this. Not to be confused with Cry Sisko – Afro-dizzi-act. You …

The above is a typical specimen of Cliff Hanger, the British comics character who enjoyed a four-year stint in Fleetway Publications' Buster from 1983 to 1987 with a strip that was part comic, part adventure gamebook. Trust me, I'm just as surprised as you that it's taken me over eight years to write about this.When readers first encountered Cliff in June 1983, he was watching his favourite television show, Now …

My wife and I visited Portugal in May 2022. I recounted how we spent time in Porto and then Lisbon, and traveled between the two cities by train. Now let's talk about trams in Portugal. First, Porto.

We explore how the Met Office responded to an accessibility report. We also trialled tandem testing and highlighted the lessons we learnt in understanding mobile apps.

Made by Brad Smith between 2006 and 2010 this is an interpretation of Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon' made for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. For the Floyd purists I suspect this might be a difficult listen but for those of you with an affection for electronic music, game music or just the slightly barmy then this'll make your day because it's all those things.You can find out …

Happy Holidays! For many years I have posted the books that the Genea-Santa has put under my Christmas Tree. This year was a big haul of new books to read! I hope that now that Christmas and Three Kings have passed, I can start to read the Christmas books I received this holiday season. I hope you enjoy this blog post, and that you find a book or two you …

Meet the Glide from Glidance: an autonomous rolling robot that guides blind users while keeping them out of trouble. It can help them navigate around obstacles and hazards. It has stereo depth cameras to map its environment. It can locate doors, stairs, and elevators too. At CES 2025, Glidance unveiled the world’s first self-guided mobility aid for people who are blind or have low vision. With cameras and sensors, it …

I bet you’ve had this experience. There’s something you’re not particularly good at; you mention that fact; and someone responds by telling with “Oh, but you can do it if you try”. It’s always someone with the very best of intentions, believing that they’re being encouraging and supportive. But it’s also always someone who’s quite […]

Is there something one can put into the water in a humidifier to kill off things that might otherwise grow in it that is, nevertheless, safe for humans to breathe?I ask not because I have a humidifier, but because I have something just like a humidifier, only considerably worse.I have an active water-based cooling system that operates on the same principle as a swamp cooler, chilling the water by blowing …

The following guest post from curator and amateur radio enthusiast Kay Savetz is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age. Read more essays online or download the full report now. A selection of cassette tapes from the “Ham Radio & More” radio show digitized by DLARC. Amateur Radio has been a hobby for well over 100 years. For as long …

(1968) Directed by Hajime Satô; Written by Kyûzô Kobayashi and Susumu Takaku; Starring: Teruo Yoshida, Tomomi Satô, Hideo Kô, Masaya Takahashi, Nobuo Kaneko, Eizô Kitamura, Yûko Kusunoki, Kazuo Katô and Kathy Horan; Available on DVD (included in the Criterion Eclipse set, “When Horror Came to Shochiku”) Rating: ***½ “There’s a theory that aliens actually exist… That somewhere, in this vast universe, there are creatures far more advanced than human beings. …

More than 8 years ago I created bibgetter, a tool that fitted perfectly in my workflow of dealing with bibliographies in LaTeX, which is a combination of citing arXiv preprints, papers with MathSciNet entries, and a few other things. I imagine that your workflow might be very different, and maybe you are looking for something like mathbib instead. So, about bibgetter. After the MathSciNet update a few years back it …