The latest M4 iPad Pro is easily the most exciting thing Apple has released this year so far. Yes, it’s even more exciting than the Vision Pro. But why, you ask? What, just because it’s smaller and lighter than the Pro from two years ago? The big reason why is the new, pretty OLE … | Continue reading
The summer movie season is here—and, before we dive into what’s in store for 2024, let’s turn the clock back 40 years to one of the best summers of all time: 1984. *Jumps in Time Machine* Read more... | Continue reading
On Friday, Earth was hit by the strongest geomagnetic storm in 20 years. Intense solar activity sent bursts of radiation toward Earth, causing fluctuations in the upper atmosphere that led to disruptions in the power grid and radio blackouts, among other technologies and infrastr … | Continue reading
Doctor Who is one of the most malleable shows on Earth. Its heroes change every few years, its titular one literally transforms into someone new. Every week a different time, a different space, a different tone—and a new chance to deliver a story that’s also wildly malleable in q … | Continue reading
Over the past few years I’ve published assessments of the hydrogen strategies of multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, the EU, and the Canadian province of Ontario, among others. News of the German chancellor coming, cap i … | Continue reading
An immense geomagnetic storm caused auroras as far south as Florida for the first time in 21 years after the sun unleashed a wave of solar flares and at least seven coronal mass ejections at Earth. | Continue reading
Between Friday (May 10) and Sunday (May 12), people across the world were treated to stunning aurora displays as Earth's magnetic field experienced its biggest disturbance since October 2003. The supercharged storm also messed with satellites and caused power grid irregularities. | Continue reading
Around 280 million years ago, a huge river flowed through Gwondana. It carried tree trunks from the north in an enormous flood after an ice age. The trees were covered under thick mud and became petrified over time Today, Damaraland is an arid semi-desert, and erosion has reveale … | Continue reading
I just completed this large comb-back chair in ash and elm and am selling it via a silent auction (details below). The chair is set up for dining and keyboarding, with its back tilted at 13° and the seat tilted at 2°. This chair is probably the tallest comb-back I’ve made in year … | Continue reading
Ahmed Best—the man who brought Jar Jar Binks to life and then faced decades of horrifying harassment for it—shouldn’t have needed a Star Wars redemption arc, but he arguably has had one of a sort in the last few years, beyond a renaissance of prequels re-examination, in the form … | Continue reading
Today we had the big family reunion I’ve been waiting for all these years. My mom’s older sister came with her husband, as did my mom’s uncle (my grandma’s little brother). My late uncle’s wife and daughter (my cousin) kindly joined us too. I mentioned how much I wanted to see my … | Continue reading
The only device I carried to Europe during our month away was my iPhone SE, a far cry from the days when work necessitated packing a phone, a laptop, a mouse, and an ergonomic keyboard. This is the first blog post I’ve written with a real keyboard since early April; this has been … | Continue reading
Ancient zircon crystals hold chemical clues that of freshwater may have existed on Earth soon after it formed. | Continue reading
Some thoughts on developer experience. Years ago, I was introduced to a concept called developer ergonomics. Despite the name, it's not about good chairs, standing desks, or multiple monitors. Rather, the concept was related to how easy it'd be for a developer to achieve a certai … | Continue reading
by Tim Sommers Here’s the gist of it. I think a recent declaration on animal consciousness, being signed by a growing number of philosophers and scientists, is largely correct about nonhuman animals possessing consciousness, but misleading. It insinuates that animal consciousness … | Continue reading
Like a lot of countries on the African continent, Ethiopia has an exceptionally low motorisation rate. Ethiopia has a population of 126 million people, but the total number of vehicles registered in Ethiopia is around 1.2 million. Most of these vehicles are over 20 years old. Acc … | Continue reading
I don't know if there's a proper name for this pattern of thinking, so I'll just call it Post Brain. Post Brain is when you go about your day constantly scanning for anything you can turn in to content, or what would make a great "post". I had a bad, bad case of Post Brain for a … | Continue reading
Import unsupported camera RAW files into Apple Photos Many years ago, I decided to migrate my photo library from Apple's now-defunct Aperture to Photos, so I could take advantage of Apple's iCloud Photo Library (don't worry, I still have three full complete local backups, plus a … | Continue reading
Intense storms, made worse by the El Niño weather cycle, have brought much-needed water to the state. Footage shows world's largest water drain reawaken after lake refills following years-long drought: 'We're all very happy' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
Over the past 10 years, we've watched The James Brand introduce one sleek, timeless knife and tool after another, fast-developing into a modern icon of minimalist design. The Chapter was the knife that started it all, and now it's gotten a top-to-bottom redesign, filling out a si … | Continue reading
I took one of the most significant steps of my adult this week, the most transformative since getting married to Maria. I stopped seeing my longtime and much-beloved therapist, who has been working with me for more than 20 years to control my impulses and my anxiety. My fears hav … | Continue reading
S’bu Zikode and Richard Pithouse in the Boston Review: Richard Pithouse: Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990, suddenly opening up the field of political possibility after a long and exhausting stalemate between the progressive forces, which were largely organize … | Continue reading
Katrina Gulliver in JSTOR Daily: In the years following American independence, many questions would be asked, in different spheres, of what it meant to be a citizen, and what it meant to be an American. New England schoolmaster John Jenkins focused on penmanship as the key to bui … | Continue reading
In his reply to a young art student, Maxfield Parrish said: "I do wish you could study under Howard Pyle: indeed you would enjoy it. I did myself for two years. He is so full enthusiasm there is plenty to spare and you get a lot that is left over. He does everything the same way: … | Continue reading
A few years ago, I wrote some code to post Untappd check-ins to Mastodon. I've recently updated it to also post a photo of the beer you're enjoying. First up, you'll need a file called config.py to hold all your API keys: instance = "https://mastodon.social" access_token = "…" wr … | Continue reading
I’ve apologized and I’ve waxed somewhat poetic and through it all, I’ve tried to be completely honest about my hand in the plot to drive my mother insane. Oh, she did get me back for some of my shenanigans, although it may have taken a few years… but her curse worked. Worked very … | Continue reading
I have been attending the film Cannes Film Festival for almost twenty years, and over that time, I’ve heard some pretty mad things. I used to keep a loose list of the funniest and most revealing comments, as a part of my lessons to film students and to share with readers of my fi … | Continue reading
"Within a mere 200 years of human influence, we've managed to completely overhaul patterns shaped by 120 million years of ant evolution." Scientists raise concerns about phenomenon observed in non-native ant species across the globe: 'It's deeply disconcerting' first appeared on … | Continue reading
Years ago, Anker made a name for itself in the United States selling small consumer battery devices like phone power banks, laptop batteries, and chargers. Unlike some other brands from the 2010s that are no longer with us, Anker’s quality stood out from the crowd and the company … | Continue reading
Lameazoid Link List for Saturday 2024-05-11 11-May-2024 – Lord Of The Rings Gollum Fan Film Banned By Warner Bros. After 15 Years Online Brief Summary: “The news about Warner Bros., Peter Jackson, and Andy Serkis making a new Lord of the Rings movie too” | Continue reading
Roger Corman, producer and writer of indie and B-movies like Death Race 2000 and Sharktopus, passed away on May 9, per Variety. He was 98 years old, and said to have passed surrounded by his family. Read more... | Continue reading
A few years back I got so bored of taking attendance for my choir that I wrote a Slack integration to do it for me (I got us on Slack in 2014). That evolved from a dodgy Python app triggered by slash commands into into a neat little Typescript suite called Choirbot that triggers … | Continue reading
I fixed my TV two years ago. But, I wasn’t a magician, and since, maybe, 8-9 months, the TV has been turned off. The same issue came back, and after many tries to update the firmware, or reset it, the Sony logo is the only thing I can see. Then, it keeps rebooting like a Microsof … | Continue reading
Parul Sehgal at The New Yorker: Butler is soft-spoken and gallant, often sheathed in a trim black blazer or a leather jacket, but, given the slightest encouragement, they turn goofy and sly, almost gratefully. When they were twelve years old, they identified two plausible profess … | Continue reading
Marion Turner at the LRB: Scholars of medieval literature and history have been thinking about the idea of the ‘global Middle Ages’ for twenty years or more. Books such as Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 1250-1350 (1989) laid the groundwork that h … | Continue reading
I had Tor support in GoBlog for over three years now, but I decided to disable it on my blog (and the GoBlog blog) for now. Several times, Tor randomly started using a lot of memory on my VPS and even crashed my block one or two times. It could have been the Go library used to in … | Continue reading
Greek philosopher Plato played a huge role in shaping Western thought, particularly around politics, and even though he died more than 2,300 years ago, his “Republic” is still one of the most studied books at top US colleges. Despite Plato’s wide and lasting influence, though, th … | Continue reading
Over the last few months, news has slowly come tricking out about 28 Years Later, which fans of the first two movies have been wanting for a long time. We know Danny Boyle’s back in the director’s chair with returning writer Alex Garland, and that Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnso … | Continue reading
Welcome back to another week that was—from jumping in hot with Battlestar Galactica’s return to streaming, to our first look at our brand new Superman, and celebrating 25 years of Lego Star Wars, a lot’s been going on. And that’s before you get to the impending arrival of Furiosa … | Continue reading
Currently Apple’s iPad playlist on YouTube has 4 videos. Let me say that again. Apple’s YouTube playlist for iPad has FOUR videos and one of those is for the “all-new iPad Mini” from two years ago. THAT. IS. RIDICULOUS. Apple, make an effort to demonstrate how an iPad can be a us … | Continue reading
Emily Willingham in Scientific American: The chorus of the theme song for the movie Fame, performed by the late actress Irene Cara, includes the line “I’m gonna live forever.” Cara was, of course, singing about the posthumous longevity that fame can confer. But a literal expressi … | Continue reading
Genes inherited from Denisovans, extinct human relatives, may help Papua New Guineans in the lowlands fight off infection, while mutations to red blood cells may help highlanders live at altitude. | Continue reading
I wrote my first public blog post on 2004-05-111. I immediately followed it up with a brief review of my BlackBerry2. I kept up the blogging for a few months, then it trickled off. I preferred posting on Usenet and other primitive forms of social media. But, by 2007, I was back t … | Continue reading
Listened to Above Board | Justin Jackson and Paul Jarvis chat about starting and maintaining a SaaS Post details Old friends Justin and Paul catch up for the first time in years and catch each other up on the state of Transistor and Fathom. They cover lots of lessons for new and … | Continue reading
Born 1914 in Cincinnati, American actor Lee Bowman made his film debut in I Met Him in Paris (1937) for Paramount. He worked at that studio for a while, then RKO, before moving to MGM. The lack of leading men in World War II was a boost to Bowman’s career and he co-starred with R … | Continue reading
Researchers discovered that over half had sizable methane plumes, which sometimes lasted for months or years. Recent study finds 'garbage lasagnas' forming in open landfills across US release staggering amount of air pollution: 'Decades of trash that's sitting under the landfill' … | Continue reading
"Just keeping it simple and natural!" Homeowner shares 'beautiful' progress photos 4 years after removing lawn: 'One of the best I've seen' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
From Lucy Pham, a collection of abandoned blogs — exactly what it says on the tin. This reminds me of a really wonderful piece of net art from probably fifteen years ago — maybe more — which was a series of quotes from people apologizing for not posting in a while, or something s … | Continue reading