I have taken to sharing the more interesting longer pieces I have read each week. Today, two takes on urban life, animal and human, and an exciting disappointment.
The Week’s Links 04
Two takes on urban life, animal and human, and an exciting disappointment.
How Rome’s Urban Shepherds Adapt and Survive An aspect of Rome that most tourists never notice is how close to the city centre sheep may safely graze. I come across them on my bicycle and have often ...
🎬 Child's Play
I have never seen this before. And I had a lot of fun catching up. Chucky is pretty foul-mouthed, which surprised me. But it made sense. Chucky is really well made and pretty scary, too. Pair this with some 80s aesthetic and explosions and you have a pretty fun night.
👍 Recommended!
🎬 The House of the Devil
Generally the story and the sets, the characters and atmosphere are actually all quite promising and enjoyable. But the pacing is strange, where in the middle you think “woah, no it gets going” and then it doesn’t. And then the main protagonist’s manors suddenly change for a while. And then there’s this excessive (fake?!) grain. So I think I wish this would’ve been just a little more satisfying for me.
choice in the neue
Seeking character(s) —
Choice of sans, neue, serif
Glowing lettering.
How not to feed the world
“someday I hope to write an anthropological account of ecomodernism as a doomed millenarian religious-political movement of the West, where people abandoned rationality to pursue the mysteries and passions of their neo-religious commitment to getting food out of thin air, limitless energy, perpetual progress and other such cargo above the humdrum reality of embodied and locally-emplaced work.”
I’d read it, for sure.
Follow the Money on MAHA. It Doesn’t Lead to Our Kids
“measure progress the way an analyst would. Not by speeches, but by final rules, share prices and who profits.”
Sage advice.
Campaign: A Game of Memory and Observation for One Player or Less
Babies cry because they are born with all the knowledge in the world.
"Campaign" (originally: Burning Artemis) is the title of an unproduced Doctor Who novel, originally meant to feature in the BBC's Past Doctor Adventures range. The author, Jim Mortimore, self-published the story in 2000, with the proceeds going to charity. A revised PDF version of the book can be found here and read for free! The story features the first Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara.
Read more on the site…
flow, found
Flow found in the falling
Amber aurora of Day.
Gentle crisp sounds calling
Memories created, lay.
Fields of colour hold light
In skies and on ground
Memories ever held tight
Created in the round.
beyond tellerrand Speaker Archive
Same as for the talks archive counts for the speakers list. And don’t forget: many of them have spoken multiple times. Otherwise it would be even longer
beyond tellerrand Talk Archive
Bloody hell. It always impresses me again, what 15 years of beyond tellerrand mean content wise in talks. Look at this page!
What there is to see
A browning leaf fell from the tree with grace
“I had no idea leaves could be so tiny.”
A large yellow leaf fell into my embrace
“This is my dream – ever colourful and shiny.”
Stacks of leaves lie at the feet of their past
Layers of reds and yellows – veins of time
Ever maturing with life ever vast
From sunrise to evenfall – may Day shine.
Monthly roundup for October, including a new approach to quantifying one aspect of my self.
Monthly report: October 2026
Big changes in my kinda, sorta quantified self. Other than that, life goes on, and goes on well.
Highlights of the month:
Venice
A visit to Subiaco, always worthwhile
Many bicycle rides
Visits from friends
A/C and heat; finally cracked, on the promise of an efficient heat ...
Mystery Abides
#coffeeneuring2026 No. 6; 6.8 km round-trip
A total bust. As advertised previously, this was a repeat visit to establish some details about the Mystery Café so that I could contribute them to Open Street Map.
Alas, it was not to be.
The café was practically deserted. A ni...
Anticipation
Does the tree anticipate the sunrise,
or nonchalantly receive its growing light?
Is the sun why leaves turn yellow in autumn,
the colour coming from months of light,
and, anticipating darker nights, the tree becomes the sun
for as long as it can, before shedding
into the new silver season?
The hope-filled tree grows into where it is.
@jon where does Naples Berlin direct in 2027 score on the bullshit meter?
Webcrafting influences
On the 32-Bit Cafe forum, xixxii asked “what are your webcrafting influences?”. Herein, my thoughts on the question.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
A few years ago I took a tour of the United Nations Headquarters in New York. I love visiting Parliament and similar buildings, and part of the trip i...
Weeknotes W3
Today I got to see one of my favourite places in the world – a park I really like – in its full autumn colours. The paths were lined with autumn trees and scattered with yellows and oranges and reds. I heard crisp sounds with almost every step on certain straights of the wal...
in their season
The leaves are in their “flying season".
Coating the skies in colour, brilliantly.
The trees are in their “wintering season".
Branches bearing and silvering, beautifully.
The sunrises are in their “November season".
Pink comes later in the day, unpredictably.
Leaves, trees, sunrises and all, perpetually
Delighting day, cyclically.