Jonathan Livingston Seagull ✶

I read a first edition of this wonderful book about the freedom of flight and of thought.

By Richard Bach, with black and white photographs, some on transparent paper, by Russell Munson.

Warmly recommended.

♫ Piano Place Hold in Am ✶

While first learning to play piano I was pressing keys without paying conscious attention to my fingers, letting the sounds flow and listening, testing Logic’s basic recording functions, and this came out, “wrong” notes and all.

An ambient audio track recorded by a creek was then layered on top with an audio pitch experiment mistakenly added in the end.

My first published song, available Tuesday, 2025 June 17, as audio waves of music transmitted from all major music websites for streaming or downloading.

Saturday, 7 June 2025

Gravity waves in the sky ✶

Beautiful photograph by Miguel Claro of a sky phenomenon also known as airglow.

Goodbye, Bill Atkinson ✶

Thank you for helping make the digital tools I use almost every day.

Yogurt recipe

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Yogurt photo by Simon Griffee.
  1. Put some ice in the bottom of a cast iron pot such as a Le Creuset to cool it for a minute or two, then remove the ice and pour 2 liters (around 8 cups) of milk in the pot.
  2. Place the pot on a stove and heat the milk to 85º C (185º F) using a cooking thermometer to measure the temperature of the milk regularly (5–10 mins). Then turn off the heat and wait until the temperature falls to 47º C (116º F), around 45 minutes.
  3. Add 4 tablespoons of plain, unsweetened yogurt you have from a previous batch or bought from a grocery store or given to you by a friend and mix with a wooden spoon.
  4. Loosely cover the pot with a plate (it shouldn’t fit perfectly, some room to breathe is necessary, so make sure there’s some space for air to enter), and put it somewhere warm, like inside a turned-off oven with only its light bulb on, leaving it there overnight so the bacteria can do its work to turn milk into yogurt.
  5. Put the pot in the fridge and wait one day before eating. Feel free to spoon the yogurt off the pot into jars for storage in the fridge.
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  . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚ ˚　　 *　　
　✦　 .　✶　.　✦　˚ 　✦˚　˚　　　　
    .　. 　˚　.　 ੈ  ✧̣̇ ˳ · ˖ ✦ .

Monday, 2 June 2025

Get weird and disappear ✶

One of my favorite new tech writers, Nik Suresh:

But other scripts, especially the ones that are too small to think about or too large to see, drive insane life decisions. When I was studying psychology, almost everyone, including me, picked the course because we weren’t sure what we wanted to do with our lives, but the script says finish high school and then take on ten of thousands of dollars in debt. That script is so large that it basically encompasses your whole upbringing. When you try to look at it, you see grey, and think “there is no elephant here, just a cement wall”.

Thursday, 29 May 2025

Andrea del Sarto ✶

From a poem about the Renaissance painter by Robert Browning:

Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!

Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Goodbye, Sebastião Salgado ✶

May more people appreciate life the way you did.

Thursday, 22 May 2025

Cartography design tutorials ✶

Daniel Huffman gets in the weeds with lots practical advice on map making.

See also Tom Patterson and Molly O’Halloran.

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

Protect my public media ✶

Public media is facing multiple serious threats. The Administration has proposed eliminating federal funding in its annual budget request, issued an Executive Order to block support for PBS and NPR, cancelled grants that support the creation of children’s educational programming, and plans to claw back funding approved by Congress.

Act now. Tell Congress to reject the rescissions package and stop the dismantling of public media.

Via 88.1 FM WYCE

Monday, 19 May 2025

We become what we behold ✶

We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

—Marshall McLuhan (misattributed)

Friday, 16 May 2025

Dissolution Speech ✶

From the read-again-regularly list.

Thursday, 8 May 2025

Snaking Electrical Wires

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Two or four winding wires snaking wanting to touch. A way to stop all wars by stopping them, tying them together and to a ceramic circle (in the middle of a round-shaped device? Fusion?)…

Whistling singing woman, Asian features, with daughter in a bar, staying for a month. Eyes, high-pitched sound in song makes emotion well up…

Car accident, told not to stand where person fell, by wall…

Wind strong over a curved, wing-shaped roof (a way to speed up wind, directing to turbines?)…

Mom with many visitors, confused…

Skin of salmon or fish falls on floor. Messy. Next to someone eating the flesh of the fish…

Man with pistol teaching to shoot, showing that the bullets are rocks, flicking them up and letting them fall down again on his palm…

“Ask Google” LLM interface by using a prompt or thought experiment involving water and gravity…

…from a dream.

˚　✦　.　　.  ˚　.　　. ✦　 
  . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　.  ˚ ˚　　 *　　
　✦　 .　✶　.　✦　˚ 　✦˚　˚　　　　
    .　. 　˚　.　 ੈ  ✧̣̇ ˳ · ˖ ✦ .

Wednesday, 7 May 2025

“Just so you know, I don’t know where we are” ✶

Jordana Cepelewicz writing about poet mathematician June Huh in Quanta magazine:

Moreover, as he later realized, “I wanted to be someone who writes great poetry,” he said. “I didn’t want to write great poetry.” Now he sees that version of himself as almost a complete stranger.

Thursday, 1 May 2025

Dawn of the Dead ✶

My favorite zombie film, from 2004. Here’s the trailer.

Monday, 28 April 2025

Aviassembly ✶

New plane building and flying game with a cartoon flat graphic style by Jelle Booij.

Could this be a contender for a roguelite flight sim?

I’ll be trying it soon and comparing it with KitHack Model Club.

Via M0rt75.

Sunday, 27 April 2025

A Dao of Web Design ✶

Written by John Allsopp 25 years ago, this is still my favorite text concerning web typography, even though it doesn’t have the word “typography” in it.

If you want to read the Tao Te Ching, referenced in the article, I can recommend Gia-Fu Feng’s and Jane English’s English translation.

This is in reply to Jeffrey Zeldman’s Web typography: a refresher and history.

Wild Geese ✶

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

By Mary Oliver.

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