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Most of the criticisms and rebuttals in this post are applicable to before 2024. By 2025, GLP-1 weight-loss drugs had become thoroughly mainstream and many skeptics have come around to the fact that these drugs are highly effective and that the side effects are manageable. But with the upcoming FDA approval of the potent triple-agonist Retatrutide, there has been renewed interest and skepticism, although less compared to pre-2024. A lot has changed since 2024. Eli Lilly’s...
An ideal winter warmer, hit UK comedy Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) makes its Australian premiere in sturdy form, with a terrific triple-threat local cast earning a cavalcade of laughs. Penned by Isobel McArthur, after Jane Austen, 2018 comedy Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) played the West End in 2021, winning the 2022 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play, and has already enjoyed three UK tours. Love for the timeless works of Austen shows no signs of...
The most frustrating aspect of regular expressions is that implementations vary. Features supported in one tool may not be supported at all in another tool, or they may be supported with slightly different syntax. I learned regular expressions in the context Perl, a maximalist regex environment. This led to frustration when features I expect to work are missing. One way around this is to use Perl analogs of other tools, but this is very non-standard. I want to be able to...
This week’s Decoder is probably my favorite episode so far. It is a really thoughtful conversation with Patreon CEO Jack Conte, discussing what’s changed for that company in the past five years. One of the really interesting bits is right up front when they discuss how the platforms have shifted from a subscriber-centric model to an interest-driven one. This shift has pushed Patreon to pivot from being a payments enabler to be more of a full stack platform for creators...
These Chocolate-Tipped Cream-Puff Pocky Sticks are a fun homemade take on the favorite Japanese sweet snack. Thin lengths of piped choux pastry make the sticks, which are baked and then coated in chocolate glaze. While I did actually measure my piping tip, I clearly piped my Pocky a bit on the thick side. In fact, some wise guy asked me if they were breadsticks. I tipped them with the matcha white chocolate coating and sprinkled on some tiny sugar pears. While my chubby...
Music took me through several life changing experiences. This article goes through the arch that culminated with one of the most exciting periods of my life1. The Sound of Lisbon First contact My first consequential contact with music was while working on a school project at a friend’s place. He was playing in a band at the time, and showed how to play the initial riff from Nirvana’s “Come as You Are”. My music culture was asymptotic to zero, so I had no idea what he was...
The first recording today is Pokemon: Battle Frontier – May’s Egg-cellent Adventure. The friends are visiting a place where they collect and look after pokemon eggs. Team Rocket find out, and hatch a plan which starts with them putting a very large egg on the outskirts of the house. It even has an R on it for Team Rocket, and it’s way bigger than any egg they’ve already got and yet nobody suspects a thing. Sure enough, Meowth is in the egg, and uses it to steal a load of...
that is what drives us to write. once thoughts and feelings become words, they start to make more sense.
The mysterious Harumi recorded his sole, eponymous LP in New York with producer Tom Wilson, whose CV included Bob Dylan, The Mothers Of Invention, The Velvet Underground and Simon & Garfunkel. Sometime around 1967 / 68, together, they cut 13 tracks for Verve. All of the songs fly their freak flag high, at full mast. Filled with swirling Ray Manzarek / The Doors-esque psyche organ, kaleidoscopic drum hits, acidic axe riffs and big bright mariachi brass – a la Arthur Lee &...
Opening scene is so lousy, but the colors are bright, I remember liking the first movie (and that’s all I remember about it) and there’s promise of a Pyramid Head monster (which is also what I’ve been calling the pileated woodpeckers buzzing around the cabin), so, keeping an open mind. Ivor Novello (Benediction) meets the lovely Mary (a horror regular, of various Saws and Purges). Flash-forward, she is dead because he’s such a bad driver (this is his defining character...
Tuesday, June 23, 2026 - 17:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Although the most significant romance that our Lister enjoyed during her Paris trip was with Mrs. Barlow, there are several other flirtations of various intensity that are documented in her journal. This section of the dissertation looks at her interactions with Mademoiselle de Sans. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #564k Orr 2006 A Sojourn in Paris - Melle de Sans About LHMP Full citation: Orr,...
This blog is moving to another domain Please update your feeds. Its a story of a warrior—born Saxon but adducted and raised by Danes—and his struggle for survival during the reign of King Alfred the great around year 850. From the first episode I was hooked. It was as if I were watching real life Game Of Thrones. The story loosely follows a historical fiction book The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. So it taught me a lot about Saxon history with slight taste of moral...
Les habitudes nous permettons à être efficace et à agir sans considérant les détailles chaque fois. Néanmoins, les habitudes doivent changer marginalement ou profondément pour notre développement vertueuse continuel. En ce sujet là, j’ai commencé à lire et à écrire en Français. Le grand plan est de pratiquer la langue jusqu’au point de compétence. J’ai appris Français à l’école et j’ai l’utilisais par mon travail avec les touristes et après au Parlement Européenne. Grèce...
This blog is moving to another domain Please update your feeds. A follow-up movie and finale of the series The Last Kingdom, which I finished a day after watching the series. The story follows the story of the grandsons of Alfred the great, and their rivalry to become the king of united England. Uthred the warrior, now an old man, is again dragged in the war. Its one time watch, especially for those who loved the series. So I recommend it with 3stars. Do not want to see...
There was a lasting moment last weekend after my wife’s performance in Hope Summer Rep’s production of Always Patsy Cline. The memory of the occasion will last even though there’s only a few dark and blurry photographs of the moments immedieatly after. A bevy of family members had come into town for the show from several points on the compass. They included or grandchildren, eager to see Grandma T on stage. After the show the family fan club waited for my wife to appear...
the work of the musician is not the work of the machine
One aspect of strategy that’s been largely lost in the tech industry in recent years is how to compete against platforms, since the major tech companies have gotten so big that markets are no longer competitive. However, the AI market is still early enough, and users and society are still angry enough, that the Big AI companies can lose. But for them to lose, everybody else in the ecosystem has to carry out the nearly-lost art of platform strategy. Tech companies (and even...
Deux-Chevaux de luxe Beautiful example of French ingenuity. Quote of the Day ”Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” Thomas Mann Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Wagner | Tristan und Isolde, Act III: Liebestod| Karajan and the Berliner Phil Link As Groucho Marx might have observed, I don’t like the look of Wagner, but I sure like the noise he makes. Long Read of the Day 3 Lessons on Writing from Joan Didion’s Notes This essay by Jillian Hess will...
heatwaving streets deserted like the winter witching pavements squirm in repouring skin flinch at contact nettles bleached ultraviolet augmented or diminished it's just a matter of lightness tension, isn't it? other things said hard to tell from extremities (guitar) Yesterday :: Tuesday, 23rd June 2026
according to flynn skidmore, you can’t change through self-criticism. this idea strongly resonated with what i already had in mind, and i want to share his explanation of it: when we criticize ourselves, our nervous system perceives it as a threat. it triggers a survival response: fight, flight, or freeze. in this state, the brain is no longer focused on growth, but on safety. that’s why we often fall back into old habits, even when we genuinely want to change. the system...
The famous wave at Nazare, Portugal on a light day. The wave is generated from the complex motion of water travelling up a very deep underwater canyon nearly to shore where it rises and meets strong currents coming in many directions. It produces some of the biggest waves in the world. Not easy to surf. It’s not my title. It’s the title of a book/treatise by Mark Downham, who publishes very long treatises on issues of philosophy, organization, and complexity. This one...
“the coyote is similar than the prairie dog.” “WG loves me because i talk to him so much.” “i wanna muo muo your hand.” “blueblerries.” “mama, did you get your reperiod?"
My son read this book first. He liked it, with reservations. (More about that later.) The subject interested me, so I decided to read it also. It is science fiction, about life on a colonized planet, where half of the planet is perpetually cold and in the dark, and the other half is always in the light and hot. This summary is from the back of the edition I read:Humanity clings to life on January–a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side,...
Were you looking for honorable leadership and a clean fair tournament to bring the world together? We’re sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle Welcome to the World Cup 2026 (ready or not). It actually started many days ago. Fútbol / Football (or soccer, as the countries that don’t really play it insist on calling it). Like it or not, it is the worldwide main course of sports for an entire month. Or, in the terms of an adolescent, your entire life. This is the...