Upside Down · The world is, I mean. Bottom-up. Maybe thatâs just me not understanding? It doesnât surprise me that there are people who are stupid and/or evil. The surprise is, the others not voting them out of office, passing legislation outlawing what theyâve been doing, and sending the ones who donât stop to prison ... [1 comment]
Six Summer Days of Music · I spent last week at a summer music camp put on by WCAMS, the West Coast Amateur Musicians Society, pronounced âWickamsâ. My goal in writing this is to influence a few readers in the direction of attending this sort of thing if thereâs one near you. You might be a candidate if you partake of some subset of: Loving music, getting old, being female, worrying about mental fitness, and having time available to invest as you please rather than as you must ... [3 comments]
Sports and Truth · This summer has been very sporting; in the course of a couple of weeks I attended a World Cup match and a minor-league baseball game. Took pictures and thought about enjoying this stuff ... [3 comments]
Mastodon, The Only Good Choice · Dear World: Now is a good time to get off social media thatâs going downhill. Where by âdownhillâ I mean any combination of less useful, less safe, or less fun. Itâs time for something better, and by âsomething betterâ I mean Mastodon. Which, Iâm here to say, offers a better social-media experience than the alternatives. Furthermore, the alternatives are fatally flawed ...
Automata, Built For Comfort or Speed · Itâs been a while. February was the last entry in this Quamina Diary; I never stopped working on it but there hasnât been much blogworthy. This piece offers a progress update for those whoâve been entertained by Quamina, and also a pleasing (well, to me anyhow) dip into finite-automata theory and practice. With numbers and graphs and a bluesman! ...
Long Links (AI-free) · Hey everyone, I know youâre overloaded because everything has become overly efficient. Long-form reading or writing or art or music, whoâs got time for that? Fortunately there are those who still do and hereâs some if it. I hope one or two of the link targets can chisel their way into your jammed schedule and bring with them joy or rage or another appropriate feeling. Todayâs curation has a lot of books and music and way more humor than usual. Also, a good electric wok ... [4 comments]
Long Links (AI) · The piece youâre now looking at exists because my latest âLong Linksâ curation of interesting not-lightweight material included quite a few focused on our dominant malaise, namely you-know-what, I mean itâs in the title. Plenty of people have had more than enough of this discourse and I thought Iâd spare them by moving these bits over here ... [5 comments]
XML and JSON in 2026 · The best thing about long-lived incumbent technologies like JSON and XML is that nobody really has to think about them much any more. Except for, I do occasionally, because while Iâm not the inventor of either, my nameâs on the front of both official specifications. Hey, itâs JSONâs 25th birthday, what a run! And what ever happened to XML? Letâs shake off the dust and have a look ... [15 comments]
Tab Trick · A person watching over my shoulder asked âHow are you switching around so fast?â and I realized that while most readers here know this trick, some may not, and itâs awfully useful ... [5 comments]
Declining America · Recently I got an invitation from an organization I respect, to a gathering of senior people, unconference format. Yes, itâs mostly about AI. No, it doesnât reek of boosterism. My guess is that the discussions would be relatively intelligent and unbeliever contributions would be welcome. I declined, because itâs in the USA ... [11 comments]
Life During Class Wartime · War is bad. Donât start one. But weâre already in a class war and weâre losing. Where by âweâ I mean most people; the winning side comprises, roughly, the richest 0.1% of the population, who are morphing into a hereditary aristocracy. [I mean that, see below.] So, what to do in a war one didnât choose? ... [6 comments]
Coreyâs Captives · Thatâs James S.A. Corey, which is to say Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, and their new series The Captiveâs War, an in-progress work comprising 2¼ or so novels. The Coreys are of course best-known for their deservedly wildly popular The Expanse series and the subsequent success of the streaming-video version. The new series isâ¦Â different. If youâre wondering whether or not you should wade in, the following is for you ...
Spring Evening · On impulse, Lauren and I went out for a short walkâââaround just a few blocksâââas the grey Spring afternoon shaded to dusk. On a second impulse, I grabbed the camera on the way out the door ...
Password Manager Angst · Our family has used 1Password for many years. Most recently 1Password 7, now at least three years out of date. We didnât want to upgrade to the latest version, went looking for alternatives, and have been exploring Bitwarden. The best choice isnât obvious; hereâs the story thus far ... [16 comments]
Long Links · This will be the 30th Long-Links outing. Iâm 100% sure that there does not live a human being who has looked at all those Links, but my logfiles say that quite a few of you, Dear Readers, at least take the time to open one occasionally. All aboard! ... [2 comments]
Nash Burns Saves the Day · What happened was, soon after New Yearâs, friends and colleagues in the UK and Germany started letting us know that their emails to us were bouncing. Our âtextuality.comâ family domain is a Google Workspace (or whatever they call it this year) for email and docs and so on. Its Web presence, including DNS, has for many years been handled by a local outfit Iâll call âCWHâ for some absurdly low monthly price, and has been trouble-free ... [1 comment]
Pure Sound Please · This last weekend we attended a concert entitled Lenten Reflection at Vancouverâs Catholic Holy Rosary Cathedral featuring the Belle Voci vocal group and the Cantare Super Orchestram early-music band. The music was fine and it was the most beautiful sound Iâve heard in a long time. Twenty-two months, to be precise (see below). And so I get to report on good music and yell at production people ... [1 comment]
Because Algospeak · Recently I read Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch and Algospeak by Adam Aleksic. The language we speak (and text) to each other is at the core of who and what we are, and the Internet is the strongest among the forces that channel and fertilize its growth. So thereâs scope for plenty of books on the subject. Both books educated and entertained, one made me angry ... [2 comments]
Kansas and AI · Block announced that itâs cutting 40% of its workforce. It didnât say it was replacing those people with GenAI. Not out loud. Jack Dorsey did say âI believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.â Wall Street loved it, bidding up the share price by 24%. Which reminded me of Kansas in 2010 ... [2 comments]
Crocuses of 2026 · Iâve run early-spring pictures of these little purple guys almost every year since this blogâs birth in early 2003. Except for last year. Because we moved and the new place didnât have any. Only now it does, and theyâre (just barely) up. [Update: Up and open, too.] ...
