Blog
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F-Day plus 97
It's been 97 days now since we were flooded-out of our home, and repair and rebuild work hasn't really even begun. But it's getting closer, and I'm looking forward to later this year sitting back in my own house (and probably at the piano!).
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Wikipedia @ 25: Yousuf Karsh
Wikipedia is 25 years old this year, and in celebration of that I found my way via a Mercurial crater to the article about Yousuf Karsh, one of the most-important portrait photographers of the 20th century.
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Bloomscrolling & Agentic Intelligence
Aquarion's written about using agentic intelligence and the role of LLMs in various tasks. The conclusion's pretty solid, and I agree with it 90%+.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Necker Island
Today, thanks to Wikipedia, I learned a lot about a miniscule Hawaiian island with an interesting cultural and archaeological history... after I found my way there from a random page about a hip hop album!
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Wikipedia @ 25: Lake Baikal
Today's random Wikipedia article was about a kind of seal that lives only in Lake Baikal in Siberia, which turns out to be a really, really big lake. Like: it's got about a fifth of the world's fresh water in it; that's how big it is!
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Wikipedia @ 25: The Bugler of Algiers
Today's random Wikipedia article, which didn't make it into a full blog post or podcast episode like a few earlier ones did, was The Bugler of Algiers. This 1916 silent film, based on a novel called We Are The French, has no surviving copies and it's no longer even known what role some of the billed cast played in it! Among others, it starred Kingsley Benedict, who would later go on to feature in Fast and Furious! No... not that one... the 1927 silent comedy (which you can watch on YouTube... it's... about three times as long as it needs to be, IMHO).
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Rubberdogging
Rubberdogging, verb: attempting to invent a solution to a technical problem by explaining it out loud to a pet. From "rubberducking", the practice of doing so to an inanimate object, and "dog walking".
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Wikipedia @ 25: Yo-Yo
This year is Wikipedia's 25th birthday, and as part of the celebrations I learned who Marcus Koh is... but that wasn't remotely as interesting as learning about the long history of the yo-yo!
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Wikipedia @ 25: Presto Card
The Presto Card is Toronto and the surrounding area's equivalent of London's Oyster Card. I enjoyed learning about it, but I don't think it justifies a whole blog post of what-I-learned.
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Built In Obsolescence
Pagan Wanderer Lu's released a cover album of his own music, where the cover artist is... AI. Some of the songs have come out quite well, and it gives me cognitive dissonance to enjoy art while disliking what its process represents.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Rail transport in Indonesia
Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th birthday, and today I'm celebrating by discovering what the Argo Wilis is, along with a dive into a rabbithole about rail transport in Indonesia!
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CSS or BS
Keith Cirkel's made a game where you have to identify if something is a CSS property or a convincing fake. How's your CSS knowledge?
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Wikipedia @ 25: Wesley Merritt
Wikipedia is celebrating its 25th birthday, and somehow as a result I ended up reading about Wesley Merritt, who was the shortest-lived Governor-General of the Philippines!
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The first glimmer
Zach of The One and I wrote earlier this year about 'glimmers', which he describes as the opposite of 'triggers'. I love both the word and its concept, and I'm going to try to cultivate a better personal awareness of the glimmers in my life.
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Two Croissants
I woke up with this in my head and had to draw it.