Bubbles
Latest Posts
Grief is such a strange, unpredictable thing. My daughter Rana took her life at the end of 2021 at age 36. She’s had five birthdays since then, each July 23. But for whatever reason this one, when she would have turned 41, hit me harder...
My Mom, Daisy Schwartz Burk (1919-1981), was born a few minutes after her twin sister, Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001). Their mother made most of their clothes and usually dressed them alike, as shown in this photo taken at their elementary...
I absolutely loved Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, particularly the first book, Ancillary Justice which blew me away when I first read it. Since then I’ve enjoyed the other books she’s written in the same universe, dealing with the...
After writing the last post, I felt a part was missing. What I wanted to underscore from the start - and somehow lost while explaining the background - was how interesting it is to be moving toward the line of understanding. How...
The current wave of wildfires across Europe is not simply a natural disaster, it is also exposing a deeper mess, the failure of our information systems. Instead of explaining why Europe is burning, significant sections of the corporate...
It’s about time. I’ve been running adapted versions of Proxmox on ARM for a few years now–first Pimox on a Raspberry Pi 4, and later on RK3588 boards–and ARM servers have been around for at least as long, so the fact that official...
I am fuming. Apple have today demonstrated they’re no better than any other big tech company with their enshittification. This morning I had a notification that iOS 18.7.8 was available, so I carefully checked the update, as Apple are...
This seems to be the only post I make, so although I don't particularly enjoy writing it I will write it. Truth be told I've been kind of in a mood. Hope it passes soon! Dubliners, by James Joyce. For reasons unclear, likely just...
Emacs has a built-in way to save and restore sessions: the desktop.el library. As the Emacs manual says, putting this in the init file enables automatic save and restore of sessions: (desktop-save-mode 1) But, I wanted a different...
1943 mystery/thriller, fifth in the Miss Silver series. Laura Fane is newly of age, and in London to take charge of her inheritance. She meets a smashing young man, and all seems promising; but her distant cousin and social butterfly...
After starting this year’s Women in Translation Month journey in a near-future Japan, today sees us staying in that country, but taking a leap into the past. We’re heading back a hundred years or so to catch up with a woman leading a...
Duncan Rawlinson created this image using artificial intelligence and contemporary digital techniques. A flow of red descends through a narrow canyon bordered by textured green walls. Midway down, an orange anvil-shaped form juts into...
When a Roman emperor updated the alphabet – and basically nobody listened to him. A common response to my profuse public pontifications about the history of the alphabet is ‘could we add new letters?’ With the phonemically faulty state...
OBI-WAN KENOBI (Utapau) The Vintage Collection 3 3/4-Inch Walmart Exclusive 2-Pack Item No.: No. G3191 Manufacturer: Hasbro Number: #398 Includes: Cloak, lightsaber, hilt, alternat hand Action Feature: n/a Retail: $39.99 Availability:...