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Land of Eem returns, and Hunter x Hunter too - W33 - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-18T01:51:05.000Z

A lot of things have happened this week, the rain has been calming down again, the plumber finally fixed the issues that caused my shower to floor, so rain is no longer annoying. Let’s see how things went from August 11 to 18, 2026!

🍦 My sister is visiting! She’s the reason we got burguers last week. I can’t bother to explain the timelines of which siblings visit when or whatever, it’s summer and people come and go. This week we just went out as a family to get some ice cream together and shopping around in the local places, just chilling more at home.
🕵 Should also say, a couple days ago… my sister’s boyfriend—who I had never met before—arrived to visit too. I have been keeping an eye on the guy to see if he’s worthy, or else…
🧹 Did a pretty torough cleaning of my bedroom once again! This time it’s sticking, I hope.
🌮 Even though we didn’t go out, my dad did order some Tacos al Pastor to enjoy at home! This has been really tasty and I always get extra tacos for lunch tomorrow, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
🥣 My mom has been buying these oatmeal packs that you just put on a bowl with hot water and maybe add some fruits to the mix and that has been my dinner for most of these past couple weeks. I must admit I don’t mind at all, the fruits are nice.
🎮 Ended up making another purchase for another Nintendo Switch Metroivania, this time it’s Nine Sols, which seems to be focused on having a pretty cool story and combat with parry mechanics. I hope I get good at it!
🎲 It happened! We returned to Land of Eem at last! One of the players from our first session was left behind, and a new one-time participant joined—the boyfriend—but most of the party was the same. We decided to do the adventure found in the Core Rulebook. I will definitely do another write-up about how it went.

An italiana (frappe), Nine Sols, a panel from HxH, Fire Emblem Awakening, my XTEINK X4 and an ongoing session of Land of Eem

Gaming

Fire Emblem Awakening - I am still in Chapter 19 of the story, that has a pretty steep level difference, but I actually managed to complete the Paralogue 13 with the Two Armies at last, after grinding for level ups in some challenge battles. I believe that, after another paralogue I unlocked (the 9th one), I will be able to progress on the story at last!
Donkey Kong ‘94 - I completed all of the Airplane levels, that was one of the most creative worlds so far, I enjoyed the puzzles with the air drag and the converyor belt platforms. I really had to see some things through a different perspective to get it. I finished all of it in a single sitting. I’m yet to do the next course.
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - I had a lot of fun getting a 6-player match of this going yesterday, it was super chaotic and actually challenging, with my sister’s boyfriend putting up quite the fight.
Outer Wilds I have been exploring more of the galaxy here, made an extremely important discovery and found some extra clues as to the mystery of it all…
Heavy Outer Wilds spoiler talk
- I found the cave shard and figured out "Quantum Entanglement" turning off my flashlight (I sadly got spoiled oops)
- I retroactively searched for the Lakebed Cave and found the original tutorial for Quantum Entanglement
- I avoided all the Ghost Matter and made it to the Eye Shrine in Sunless City too
- I went to the deepest level at the Sunless City leading to the High Energy Lab!

Reading

Started

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hogdson - Chapters 1-8. Since mentioning it on my post about book translations, my interest was enough I thought I’d give it a go. I am actually reading this in both Spanish and English based on my mood and the paragraph, going through both translations and switching when some description gets confusing.

The book itself is one of those “lost book” types, where two men find this old journal that belonged to some old man in his solitary house. This work inspired H.P. Lovecraft and the cosmic horror genre, and it took me on an dreadful interdimensional voyage in less than two chapters. I recommend listening to the soundtrack of videogames like Resident Evil as you let the pages get a hold of your mind.

Ongoing

Hunter X Hunter - Chapters 397-401. I finally returned to this awesome manga since I didn’t realize they have started to release new chapters at last. I have to admit though, the story is getting a bit convoluted and I had to backtrack a few chapters to remember what was going on. There’s a lot of characters doing a lot of things from multiple perspectives, genuinely like a dozen people protagonizing different parts of the plot. I enjoy seeing these characters again though, Kurapika is awesome.

Completed

Clarkesworld Magazine #211 by Neil Clarke - I finished reading all of the stories, and all of the non-fiction (interviews, essays and such) and thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s the only Sci-Fi magazine I’ve read, but I already enjoy the format. My review is already up on my website.

Around the Web

No actual descriptions this time around, I am a little late posting these! You should check out all the posts though.

Blog Posts

I Was Always a Paper Person - hurray!
I Quit Mastodon - it happens sometimes.
Workspace and workflow - I love the old school illustrations.
You Really Should Read The Expanse - I’ll do a post like this soon.
Going viral is kind of scary - Hacker News is yes.

YouTube

If Star Wars had a $10 Budget - Full Movie - yep it’s the full movie.
Hulk Hands: A Cultural Autopsy - I always wanted these as a kid.
So…Where Did the Double Jump Even Come From? - a question I didn’t know I had.
A new fan’s perspective on the NES Final Fantasy games - Laura played these before I did RIP.
Third places won’t save us. - cool interesting essay I guess.

This is day 20 of #100DaysToOffload and day 15 of #Blaugust2026

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Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 15 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-18T00:00:00.000Z

The fifteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:

In Episode 15, I chat with Zoe, the author of zoeloukia.bearblog.dev about, among other things, writing on personal websites, making art from whatever is around, zines, and more.

I hope you enjoy the episode!

Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.

The fifteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed Zoe zoeloukia.bearblog.dev

And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-17T11:34:24.000Z

In early February 2011 Egypt was in the middle of a political revolution. One morning, everyone's phones suddenly pinged with an alert.

The Armed Forces asks Egypt's honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honour and our precious Egypt.

A series of messages arrived all ostensibly from the network provider Vodafone. All pro-regime and all with the undercurrent of violence.

Why did Vodafone send these messages? Earlier in the week, all Internet access was cut off now phones were blasting propaganda to the masses.

After the network went down, Vodafone issued a statement saying:

It has been clear to us that there were no legal or practical options open to Vodafone, or any of the mobile operators in Egypt, but to comply with the demands of the authorities.

Do you have to follow orders? Do you have to obey the law even when it is unjust? Should multinational corporations instruct local executives to be loyal to their parent company or the rulers of the country they live in?

After the messages came in - including promises that "The Armed Forces cares for your safety and well being and will not resort to using force against this great nation" - Vodafone Global, safely ensconced in the UK, put out another statement:

Under the emergency powers provisions of the Telecoms Act, the Egyptian authorities can instruct the mobile networks of Mobinil, Etisalat and Vodafone to send messages to the people of Egypt. They have used this since the start of the protests. These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and we do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content.

Vodafone Group has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable. We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator.

Statements - Vodafone Egypt

A few years later I was at a networking event chatting to a guy. We'd both previously worked for Vodafone. Me in the UK, he in Egypt. I asked him about the incident - he talked about how they built the SMS infrastructure, what they did to secure it, how they prevented spam, and how one day armed men arrived.

I suspect most of us have seen a movie where some flunky in an office refuses the baddies demands to open the safe, and then gets shot in the head. Perhaps you think that's a noble death? He lived with honour and refused to yield! But, in every movie I've seen, the guy's subordinate opens the safe anyway and gets to live.

But we're technologists, right? We can build fail safes and cryptographic proofs and simply build infrastructure that can't be abused.

And then the men with guns come and tell you what to do.

I've written before about Civic Hygiene - it's the idea that we should be mindful of the ways that our technologies could be misused. The term was coined back in 2010 by the technologist Bruice Schneier

It's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.

But what do we mean by that?

We don't want backdoors in security products - lest hackers break in or evil governments get elected. But we want a way to access our beloved ones' data after they die. It's important that we know that photos haven't been manipulated by propagandists and saboteurs. But we want to send funny memes about that politician we don't like. We don't want police stalking ex girlfriends' cars - but we want dangerous drivers prosecuted.

We want to be alerted about imminent threats, but don't want Governments to use that power for ill.

Way back in the early 2020s, I had a minor role in the UK Government's adoption of Common Alerting Protocol the technology which powers cell-broadcast emergency alerts.

Even back then, one of the discussions was around whether the utility of being able to send an unavoidable push notification was worth the risk that someone would send an inappropriate message. Fresh in everyone's minds was the false alarm saying missiles were heading to Hawaii.

Too many safeguards means that a genuine alert doesn't get sent in time. Too few safeguards and you can blame "Human Error" for any mistakes.

I don't know which safeguards are in place for the UK's system - and most details are exempt from Freedom of Information requests. But it is both easy and fun to speculate on how such a system might be designed.

The Government generates an alert. It specifies where and when the alert should be sent. It sends that message to the network operators via a secure and private channel. Perhaps they also do some out-of-band verification like having the network operator call a pre-determined phone number to check the message's validity.

At which point, the operator can choose to send the message or not.

Or can they?

In August 2026, the UK government instructed network operators to send this message:

Did the networks have to send that message? If they thought it wasn't serious enough, could they have refused? As far as I can tell, the law only talks about the fact that operators can disregard "spam" laws in order to send a mass message:

A relevant public communications provider (P) may, for the purpose of providing an emergency alert service, disregard the restrictions on the processing of data relating to users or subscribers set out in paragraph (2) if the conditions set out in paragraph (3) are met.

[…]

(3) The conditions are—

(a)P is notified by a relevant public authority that—

(i)an emergency within the meaning of section 1(1) of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 has occurred, is occurring or is about to occur;

Statutory Instrument 2015 No. 355

I'm no expert, but I can't see anything in the spectrum licence nor in the Wireless Telegraphy Act which compels operators to process these messages.

The usual British way is to ask people to play nicely and threaten them with regulation if they don't.

Could the networks have refused to send the message about wildfires - or indeed any other message? If your least favourite politician gets their hands on the emergency alert system and tries to abuse it, would you want the networks to stand up to them?

What if the network refuses to send the message because they're worried alerting people about a hurricane will lower the company's profits?

What if armed thugs are sent in and the choice is send the message or die?

I don't know what the answer is here. I think most people agree that it is broadly sensible to have a way to alert the population of emergencies. There's no mass media any more, we're not all listening to a single radio channel, or reading newspapers, or even on the same social media platforms. Sometimes there are emergencies and the Government has a duty to alert people to them.

How would you design a system that simultaneously achieved all these goals:

Rapid sending of messages
Careful checking of the content of messages
Ability to quickly target a specific geographic area
Inability to mistakenly send a test message
Requiring strong proof that the message is authentic before sending
Resilient enough to work after significant damage to infrastructure
That networks have the ability to vet and ignore
That networks are compelled to send
Which can only be used for good
And cannot be used for evil.

In truth, having experienced fire-starters, I'm not bothered about the contents of this latest message from the UK Government. Given the overstretched fire service and the imminent threat across most of the country, my personal opinion is that it is proportionate.

But it is easy to see why some people feel this might open the gateway to messages which, at best, are irrelevant and, at worst, are similar to the insidious propaganda which appeared on the phones of Egyptians:

To every mother-father-sister-brother, to every honest citizen. Preserve this country as the nation is forever.

Perhaps you can think of a way to design an alerting system which cannot be abused - but I can't.

Favicons to Go - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-08-17T11:11:08.000Z

The final thing I always do for a project is make the favicon and open graph image but finding a site not riddled with ads to generate these has always been a bit of a challenge. I've mostly been happy with RealFaviconGenerator although there's just too many options for my liking. I've long^[1] had a todo item to try and make my own version that runs entirely client-side and asks the bare minimum of questions. I've now made it and it's called Favicons to Go. Thanks to Zoe for helping me with the name.

I wanted to make it as easy as possible to go from "I made an icon" to getting all the files I need without too much fiddling with options. Having said that, the site does have options for filling the background of transparent icons, generating an open graph image by centering the uploaded icon, setting the app name (used when saving web apps to your home screen), as well as choosing theme and splashscreen colour. All of this is stored to local storage so you can have your own defaults. Download gives you a zip of the files to put into a project. All done client-side.

From the code side, the icons are rendered to hidden canvases, then converted to png on download. For the favicon, I had to adapt a node script to build it manually. Most of the uploading and local storage code was ripped from DoodleScan. The zip generation is done with fflate.

Try Favicons to Go here.

I remember looking at this idea during lockdown in 2020 ⤾

2026-08-17 11:29: I regularly get marketing emails off the back of this site. "Here's a free license... - Kev Quirk

2026-08-17T10:29:00.000Z

I regularly get marketing emails off the back of this site. "Here's a free license for our tool" or "can we put a link to our service in a post?" At least back then they were slightly human.

Now all I get are AI generated shitty emails with no personality whatsoever. Not bashing AI, I'm bashing the lazy marketeers.

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I gave Claude my Johnny.Decimal index (video) - Johnny.Decimal

2026-08-17T07:16:29.000Z

Claude now hooks into my index via my skills and a config file. Everything talks to everything very naturally – I barely have to say a word. I'm about to refresh these skills and I'm building an MCP server. More soon.

I’m Old Fashioned by Ben Paterson - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-17T00:00:00.000Z

Ruben and I are doing a writing challenge where we each gave each other three songs and we picked one to write about. From Ruben’s list, I chose “I’m Old Fashioned” by Ben Paterson. You can read about the song that Ruben chose from my list on his website.

The cover of the album on which Ben Paterson’s “I’m Old Fashioned” features, That Old Feeling is what first stood out to me before I started listening to the song. The cover depicts a pianist sitting with their back to the camera, playing a grand piano, in what I think is Washington Square Park in New York City. I visited Washington Square Park two years ago or so but when I was there I didn’t see many people. Whereas in the cover, the park is full: of people, of music. This makes me think about how a place can come alive at different times of day; how, even when a place is quiet, there may be music and life at different moments.

The song itself is delightful. Starting with a piano for the first ten seconds, Paterson then starts singing. The line “I’m old fashioned” sticks in my mind. I found myself singing the line in my head after I had heard the song. The lyrics take up only a small portion of the overall track, but the words all leave a strong impression. I found myself thinking about how I, too, am a bit old fashioned in Paterson’s definition: I love the moonlight and the sound of rain.

After the opening lyrics, there is an instrumental where the piano is the most prominent instrument until around 2:30, where the strings that had previously been in the background take over. At 4:00, a double bass (?) comes in, performing short solos and exchanging the stage with the piano. Then, toward the end of the song, the same lyrics that were sung at the beginning are sung again. I really enjoyed this structure of an opening instrumental, lyrics, a long instrumental, and then lyrics again. The song has a great rhythm throughout, to which I found myself bobbing my head many times.

I usually listen to pop music, and so Ben Paterson’s “I’m Old Fashioned” was a bit outside of my comfort zone. With that said, the song was terrific, and has me thinking about what other old fashioned things I do, and the things I have learned to do and know I should practice more. Indeed, from the title to the lyrics to the rhythm to the imagery on the cover, this song is full of things to analyse.

I’m Old Fashioned Ruben You can read about the song that Ruben chose from my list on his website

Finished reading The Palace Job - Molly White's activity feed

2026-08-16T15:13:56.000Z

Finished reading:

Rogues of the Republic series, book 1.

The Palace Job

by Patrick Weekes.

Published 2012. 438 pages.

Started July 17, 2026; completed August 16, 2026.

Who am I reading during Blaugust? - Joel's Log Files

2026-08-16T14:35:52.000Z

There is a huge list of people participating for Blaugust and you can go to Andreas’ website if you want a full OPML file to simply import to your RSS Reader.

Personally, I haven’t added too many new people to my feed, but there have been a few which I’ll share!

Fyr.io - Matt seems like a pretty cool guy! he is not super active or posting daily, but he’s definitely posting plenty of interesting things. The one post that caught my eye this month is the one about patient gaming.
Kelson Vibber - This guy with a cool name has plenty of thoughts on tech and life, similar to mine. His post on planned obsolescence vibed with me. He also reads lots of sci-fi, many works I don’t even know of too!
WC Robinson - This is a pretty big website with lots of posts and when I saw their series about the games that shaped them I guess I just had to add them to my RSS feed. Good taste!

Admittedly, I am not following a lot of new people here, and I haven’t even reached out to all of these yet. I hope they see this post though and I’ll probably send it to them too.

Of course, I am also keeping an eye on some of the friends I have already. Such as:

Syl, who continues to share her awesome thoughts on gaming and other shenanigans like music and gaming, as well as life updates I enjoy to read.
OrbitalMartian is taking a slower approach, but has plenty of variety regarding tech, software and random life shenanigans.
Ariadne, who keeps sharing her notes on productiviy and tech, plus plenty of music and book recommendations, who end up in my backlog.
Sam from The Tangent Space is a favorite of mine, sharing his history with gaming, weekly digest updates and the like, very good stuff!
Jedda, despite the difficult moments on her life, has taken this event as a personal challenge, and she is doing fantastically.
Naty, a great friend who is passionate about a lot of things and documenting her journey learning about blogging and the indieweb!

There’s plenty others I follow, but I’m running out of time today. So here’s another short list with a few more!

Enough already, go read those if you don’t have enough with my own posts ;)

This is day 19 of #100DaysToOffload and 14 of #Blaugust2026

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2026-08-16 14:35: Working great 👍🏻 - Kev Quirk

2026-08-16T13:35:00.000Z

Working great 👍🏻

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2026-08-16 14:22: Last November I replaced my oldest son's PC with an £88 iMac that was so... - Kev Quirk

2026-08-16T13:22:00.000Z

Last November I replaced my oldest son's PC with an £88 iMac that was so successful that I'm now doing the same thing again for my youngest son!

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Thoughts on visiting the Edinburgh Fringe as a newbie - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-16T11:34:21.000Z

This was my first ever time at The Fringe™. Here are some scattered thoughts looking at the good, the bad, and the annoying aspects of this madly extravagant exhibition of talent. We saw 23 shows together, and one separate show each. There were more hits than misses, but the frustration of wasting your time on a bad show is rather heavy when there are literally hundreds of other shows on offer.

Price

Everything is too expensive. We found student accommodation which was a "mere" £220 per night. I guess that wasn't too exorbitant considering the gouging going on elsewhere - and it did come with a decent breakfast. It was about a 20 minute walk from the Royal Mile, with several performance venues on the way.

The 46 tickets we bought cost us £550 in total - which included a few donations at Free Fringe shows. So an average ticket of £12, which isn't too bad, I guess. You can certainly do things cheaper by only going to free shows and running away when they ask you to pay - but that's a dick move.

£20 for a single hour of stand-up feels like kind of a rip off at times - especially with the mandatory £1.50 booking fee for every ticket. Some shows are a bit cheaper, and Monday/Tuesday has 2-for-1 offers. But it's easy for a couple to spend well over a hundred quid per day seeing 3 or 4 shows.

Festival food and drink prices are inflated - but there's no shortage of supermarkets if you want a meal deal. Restaurants were usual city centre prices. The bars at festival venues were fully taking advantage of their captive audience, but the pubs aren't much cheaper.

The App

In theory, the app / website is good. In reality they're both a bit frustrating to use. Every time I ticked the box saying "remember my credit card details" and every time it forgot them. Both app and website frequently timed out, failed to add tickets to baskets, and were a bit shonky. The one thing this needs to do is reliably take my money and give it to performers - but it felt like a battle every time.

We missed one show because we couldn't buy a ticket in the app despite being in the queue. The door staff didn't have the ability to sell us a ticket (although some venues can) and directed us to a box office which was dealing with a bunch of people who were bemused that they couldn't pay in dollars.

Inexplicably, the app doesn't have the ability to see show reviews, even though they're present on the website.

There's a good "Nearby Now" feature which is handy when you're exhausted and don't want to trek far. By contrast, there's no easy way to see what's on near the next venue you're going to.

Searching for shows often returns events which are cancelled or sold out.

I wish it were possible to see which shows had undersold and were starting soon. I loved taking a punt on an unknown act who only had half-a-dozen people in the room. Sadly there's no way to grab last-minute deals.

This isn't helped by the total collapse of mobile signal in Edinburgh centre. I tried with a variety of SIMs but frequently only got a trickle of data.

What To See

The FOMO is real! Every show's poster makes it look amazing. The earnest performers desperately handing out leaflets for their own shows are so enthusiastic. Everyone you speak to in a queue has a "must see" which is probably sold out.

We mostly avoided seeing big names. They'll be on telly soon enough or tour down in London. I don't think that act who was big in the 1990s needs my coin as much as some up-and-comer.

You could easily fill a week seeing nothing but Shakespeare in a variety of styles. Or just watch middle-aged white guys have mental breakdowns on stage because they're on their 3rd divorce. Or, as it turns out, fill your boots with Heated Rivalry shows.

We did the tasting menu and had a little bit of everything. It was mostly pretty good with only a few duds.

Reviews

Even the worst show we saw had a couple of people who declared it the funniest thing ever five stars lol. You can't account for someone else's taste.

I enjoyed writing my reviews - and I hope they were useful to others - but you're mostly on your own when it comes to what's good. I suppose if you wait until later in the festival there will be more of a consensus about what to see.

My philosophy is to take a punt on basically anything that doesn't look too abhorrent. Even if it is shit, there's be something else along in a minute which will be better.

Distance

You'll get your 10k steps in before lunchtime - Edinburgh is a delightfully walkable city. With a bit of planning you can walk a straight line from show-to-show. We didn't plan and traipsed back and forth like the little lost tourists we were.

Venues are mostly well sign-posted. Again, the app is a bit crap at pointing them out, but it'll open your mapping app to navigate you there.

Many of the venues are in historic buildings, so don't expect lifts or escalators. Stairs all the way, baby!

Harry Potter

Edinburgh seems like an inclusive and trans-friendly city. Half the acts on the Fringe proudly stated their LGBT+ credentials and most venues we went to had gender neutral loos.

And then every other shop proudly boasts it is 100% definitely where JKR got the inspiration for Harry Potter. Tourists are schelpped between "Diagon Alley" and probably-the-cafe-where-she-wrote while slurping down dayglo butterbeers.

Truly the duality of life!

Comfort

There's an ancient Edinburgh byelaw which prohibits cushions on seats. No chair may be wide enough to accommodate anything other than the skinniest arse. It also places a moratorium on legroom.

Ok, some of the venues were more comfortable than others, but prepare for a bit of backache.

Toilets are plentiful in most venues, and theres no shortage of pubs to pop in to if you need refreshment or relief.

Scotland isn't known for its heat, but some of the venues desperately need air-conditioning in their foyers and auditoriums. A few were handing out free water to the swealtering punters - but probably best to bring your own

Would I Come Here Again?

Yeah! I reckon so! Probably not next year, and probably with more of a plan about which "must sees" I wanted to see.

Staying closer to the centre is more expensive, but might have made it easier to see some if the shows later in the night.

There is so much talent, so much variety, and so much joy in the city that it becomes rather infectious.

If you can afford the train fare, hotel costs, tickets, booking fees, pints, chips and all the other people desperate to stick their hands into your wallet - then it is a great adventure.

Inspiration from physical artefacts - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-16T00:00:00.000Z

This evening I was on a wonderful call about websites where, at two points, I reached for books that were around me as a visual reference. One of the books was “Mini Louvre”, a gift given to me that contains images and information about various artworks in the Louvre. We ended up talking about how there should be more picture books for adults. This led me further to think about my use of Mini Louvre in the last week.

I was looking for inspiration for a blog post and I decided to flick through the Mini Louvre book. I didn’t go in with any aim in particular, rather I wanted to skim the pages and see what I could find. I do this sometimes with poetry books too. The way I decided on the poem “Repeat that, repeat” for the collaborative challenge I did with Ruben was that I opened some of my poetry books, flicked through, and chose one that was short and seemed approachable in terms of analysis. I loved the practice of flicking through the book and seeing what stood out, almost as if I was wandering aimlessly through a world of poetry – and, in the case of Mini Louvre, of imagery and art history.

This has me thinking about what a “reference” book means. I have thought for the longest time of reference books as being more text-heavy, and more technical. Dictionaries, style guides, compilations of quotations, domain-specific references, and more all fit into this. But for me, poetry anthologies have been useful for reference, and, further, inspiration. So too was Mini Louvre; my perusing didn’t lead to any particular work, but it did give me a moment with art where I noticed something that was relevant to an idea I had. In a way, I was doing research without really realising it.

Earlier this week, I was looking through an art magazine I had lying around, and a particular work of art in a photograph in an advert stood out to me. My interest in the piece took me down a rabbit hole that led to me learning about an art collection I didn’t know about, and was quite a fun adventure. I loved how flicking through a magazine led to something of an adventure.

I am wondering whether I should add a few more art books to my shelf for when I want to flick through and see different images. I find the web a bit overwhelming for this purpose, both in terms of imagery and poetry; there are so many things to look through, and it is so easy to scroll. Whereas in a book I can open the work at a random page, look at what I see, and sit with it without feeling the pressure of having to keep going as I do when I am perusing an online image gallery.

I have three books about art that aren’t textbooks: a book of Monet’s work, Mini Louvre, and a book made for the Art of Manga exhibition that the de Young Museum in San Francisco held. For the latter book, I didn’t go to the exhibition but it looked so cool that I knew I wanted to have a physical artefact I could read. The print quality is delightful, and I have greatly enjoyed looking through and reading it. The book hasn't inspired me in a specific way, but it did satisfy my curiosity, and I love that it is there on my shelf whenever I want to learn a bit more about manga design.

I have been thinking too how it would be nice to have more zines also for creative reference. I would love to make zines and think it would be helpful to see how more people do them, just as I surf the web and explore websites to see how other people are using the medium of the web. I have a few handwritten zines in my collection which I love but I am also curious if there are zines of typewriters, or zines that are all images, or zines that are collages.

I am curious: do you collect any physical artefacts – books, zines, maps, exhibition guides, or whatever is relevant to you – for future creative reference? If so, I would love to hear your stories! Feel free to email me with your thoughts.

Mini Louvre email me Art of Manga exhibition that the de Young Museum in San Francisco held

Some things I’ve been enjoying: August 2026 - localghost

2026-08-16T00:00:00.000Z

When was the last time I did one of these? Last year? Here's a collection of things I've enjoyed from the last 8 months, I suppose.

Video games

Satisfactory

I knew I shouldn’t buy this game after playing the demo, but I bought it anyway, and I’ve racked up over 100 hours on it so far. Please send help.

I bounced off Factorio as I found it quite overwhelming, but Satisfactory has a bit more exploration and silliness - the in-game AI (in the actual, sci-fi sense of the word) narrator is very GLaDOS. It’s got a variety of accessibility settings, so you can turn off combat and even replace spiders with something else.

The goal of the game is to save humanity (ostensibly, I haven’t actually finished it yet) by colonising a planet, destroying its landscape and mining it for all sorts of resources, in order to ship important components for “Project Assembly”. I can’t really articulate what it is about building numerous factories, miles of pipeline and train tracks that’s occupied me for so many hours. I showed my husband the spaghetti panic attack that is the mess of conveyors I’ve built going all over the place, and he was visibly uncomfortable. But maybe you’ll be one of those players who builds everything extremely neatly. That was never going to be me.

Pokopia

Over the years I’ve dipped in and out of the Pokémon games franchise; from borrowing my friend’s Gameboy Mini to play Pokémon Blue (and keeping myself awake at night because I was scared of Missingno) through to playing Diamond on a Nintendo DS when I definitely should have been revising for my Writing Systems exam at university, I always enjoyed them, but never cared much about buying them as soon as they came out. However, the prospect of Animal Crossing x Minecraft (not that I’ve ever actually played Minecraft!) and the great reviews it was getting were too good to pass up, and I preordered Pokopia. Let me tell you: it was unbridled joy from start to finish. I certainly can’t be bothered to catch them all (never been that kind of person) but I’m looking forward to the DLC in November to give me an excuse to play it again.

If you liked Animal Crossing, you’ll love this; even if you didn’t love Animal Crossing, you’ll probably find something in this game. Maybe the endless terraforming, or hunting for new Pokémon, or the metroidvania-style skill unlocks that allow you to reach new areas (my video-game kryptonite).

Books

The Tainted Cup/A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

This was sold to me on the premise of “botanical technology”, and I was not disappointed. A fascinating fantasy world where mycelia and plants form the basis of science, technology and magic. A murder mystery, an eccentric investigator, and our protagonist - her assistant with a magically altered mind who can remember everything he’s ever seen.

There's a third book out, which I haven't read yet.

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir

Set in a universe of nine Houses ruled over by the Emperor Undying, and our protagonists from the Ninth House, two queer women - one an unwilling but hilarious cavalier, the other a powerful necromancer. The first book, Gideon the Ninth, sees them gather with other cavaliers and necromancers from the other Houses to take part in deadly trials to try and become powerful Lyctors, in the fight to save the universe. As the story unfolds further through the second book, Harrow the Ninth, we learn that all is not what it seems. (NB. I’ve seen these books described with “lesbian necromancers” as a selling point, but I feel like that might just be SEO because it’s really not the main point of the book and it’s not a romance. But it’s also not wrong?)

Though it took me a little time to get into the first book, by the end I was completely hooked. I’ve just finished the second, and I’ve got book 3 (Nona the Ninth) queued up to read next. If you like sci-fi with a lot of lore and worldbuilding, you’ll love it. Spaceships! Ghosts! Bone magic! A mysterious locked tomb! Endless twists!

I love the unhinged combination of flowery prose - and archaic words I had to look up - alongside, well, references to memes and occasionally coarse language. It manages to both take itself very seriously and also not seriously at all.

TV

Heated Rivalry

If you’d told me last year that one of my favourite shows of the year would be a) about ice hockey, something I know absolutely nothing about/have never watched and b) a gay sports romance, I would have many questions for you. But I’m no different from anyone else, and I’m not immune to whatever drugs this show magically transmits into your brain. I sat on the edge of my seat feeling all sorts of emotions in the club scene. All The Things She Said made it back into my frequent rotation (though, granted, it has been in my rotation for years, because it’s a banger, and did you know Trevor Horn wrote the English version??). My heart leapt into my mouth when Scott did that thing in Episode 5 and that Wolf Parade song blasted out at the emotional peak of the episode. And then the cottage. I swear I haven’t been so invested in fictional relationships since I was 15 and ran fanlistings for Green Wing characters.

But it’s not a trashy romantic series like you might expect: it’s actually a very good show, with great performances, and great showrunning. Don’t watch it on public transport.

ER

Appreciate I’m about 30 years late on this one, but we can’t always have our fingers on the pulse. I started watching this as Prime took Elementary off (temporarily, the latter seasons are back on now) which had been the show I’d watch while cooking, so I needed something to fill the void. It was a worldwide hit for a reason: it’s VERY good. Great actors, great storylines, and some great haircuts in the early seasons.

Like most shows of its time, there are some things that haven’t aged well, such as a lot of “women, am I right??" kind of comments, and unfortunately some transphobic jokes in the odd episode. I’m hoping that will stop in later series. But largely, it’s a good show.

I’ve been watching it alongside The Pitt - created by one of the ER creators - so I’m seeing some of the same episodic storylines play out in both, but I appreciate I’m supposed to have watched it 20-30 years ago and not remember it like it was yesterday because it was.

Which brings me to...

The Pitt

Listen. Your friend’s told you to watch it; your colleagues have told you to watch it; now I am telling you to watch it. It’s very good. There have been some moments that are a little heavy-handed with the PSAs, but otherwise, thoroughly recommend.

Interview with the Vampire

I only started watching this yesterday, actually, a recommendation a while ago from my husband - but with a sprained ankle and the desperate need to do literally anything other than play more Satisfactory, I got through quite a few episodes.

I've never actually read the book, and I watched the 1994 film a while back and can remember basically nothing, so I was going in without many expectations. Unlike the film, the romantic relationship between Louis and Lestat is a focal point instead of just an allusion, and Louis's experiences as a wealthy Black man in New Orleans in the early 20th century provide a very different setting to the story.

Gardening

It’s been well over a year since I redesigned my garden, and last autumn I started to make the design a reality. I’ve largely stuck to the shape and the layout of shrubs, though I’ve been a little more free with the placement of some of the perennials.
It was looking pretty nice up until the last two months where it hasn’t rained once. We’re now in a hosepipe ban, which means I have to lug watering cans back and forth, and choose which annuals to sacrifice. I planted a load of things at the end of May and sadly some of the newer plants haven’t made it.

The drought, and seeing what’s survived versus what hasn’t, has made me reconsider some of my plant choices. I chose plants that were suited to clay soil, in both full sun and part-sun/shade, but over the year I’ve identified that a) some beds get more sun than I’d thought, and b) clay soil doesn’t really make much difference if it’s dry as a bone. I’ll probably have to replace some of the plants I’d chosen with some more drought-tolerant ones. Salvias have been thriving, as has achillea and stipa tenuissima which I didn’t think would do particularly well on the clay. I've given up trying to grow hydrangeas in the front, and instead I'm going to try planting russian sage by the front wall instead.

For all I know, we could end up with a mild and rainy summer next year, in which case I could be regretting choosing drought-tolerant plants by next August. So much of gardening is just figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

My tomatoes didn’t like the extensive heat at all, and many of them got blossom end rot until I started watering them more aggressively. I used to be able to get away without watering them every single day, but in this weather I’ve had to. I’ve had a lovely crop of cucumbers and yellow courgettes, though.

Dog

I continue to greatly enjoy dog. Here's a picture of her passed out from ripping up cardboard.

Book Review: Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth ★★★⯪☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-15T11:34:42.000Z

I'm really not sure what to make of this book. It was recommended by my book club as something between tragedy and comedy. The characters are excruciatingly well written - if you (or your friends) shoplifted Impulse body-spray back in the 1990s, you'll be hit by a terrifying wave of nostalgia.

It reminds me of this excellent essay by Marie Le Conte about consent. What can a teenage girl consent to? What will fuck her up for years to come? What if she doesn't mind being a little fucked up?

The prose is amazing, the plotting perfectly paced, and the denouement satisfying - with lots of retrospectives "Oh! I get it now"s.

Despite the hectic and hilarious story, I still felt a little sordid reading it. There's a streak of sadness running through it, intertwined with some unbearably heartbreaking poetry.

It’s always raining and there’s nothing to do except dream and they don’t even give you much time to do that with all the coursework.

It is entertaining and fun - but you need a strong stomach and a casual disregard for the overall happiness of your protagonists.

One note - there are a few odd / broken styles in the ePub. Nothing too disruptive, but some passages have a slightly smaller font size for no discernable reason.

Severe Alert Issued By Me: This Blog Post - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-08-15T10:24:25.000Z

To start with, both my wife and I have alerts turned off because when they did a test in 2023 we had a one month old baby and didn't want her to be disturbed. Leaving it off because I assumed this would be abused, as I believe it has in this case, was just a bonus.

Yesterday the government used the emergency alert system to send an alert to warn people not to start fires because it's hot and dry everywhere. The full text of the alert was:

There is a very high risk of wildfires nationally. Residents, landowners and visitors should not undertake any activity that could start a fire, including disposable barbecues, firepits, garden incinerators or fireworks. Even a small flame can rapidly develop into a major wildfire placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk.

Follow official updates and report signs of fire immediately by calling 999. Search gov.uk/alerts for more information.

I posted about it then did some follow up posts but I don’t think I was able to capture what annoyed me so much about this properly so I’m trying again.

If you go to the alerts website linked it says "You may get alerts about any type of life threatening emergency". "Don't light fires please" is not a life threatening emergency.

Further down "When you get an alert, stop what you’re doing and follow the instructions in the alert." and if you're driving "find somewhere safe and legal to stop before reading the message". That is, these alerts are so important you should stop as soon as possible to read the information and "follow the instructions" which in this case are barely instructions.

If this was an alert for a tornado or earthquake the instructions of "find shelter" or similar would apply to basically everyone who got the alert. There is nothing actionable in the alert that was sent.

There are a lot of replies on Mastodon along the lines of "people are stupid they need reminding to not set fires during a drought and heatwave" and I totally agree that people, collectively, are stupid but this absolutely not what the emergency system is for and I'll be keeping mine turned off.

As an aside, I don't even need to have mine on because everyone posted about it immediately so even if it was a real emergency, I'd still find out pretty quickly so I guess the system works. Thanks gang.

Zines Resources - Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed

2026-08-15T06:43:00.000Z

When I posted about my zine I mentioned being surprised that there wasn't any tools for showing zines online like a web component or similar. Turns out there is, web search is just shit now.

Andy pointed me to Zine Machine which is a web-based viewer that uses print styles to switch between web and print layouts. Benji is doing something similar with their zine here.

Then there's Dirty Little Zine which is a web based zine maker.

I added some notes to my list about zine-related projects I wanted to try and one of them was a zine splitter. The idea was to take an image and split it into eight separate images for viewing online, or downloading.

Ragman beat me to it. He built Zine Cutter which works perfectly and has saved me a job.

Morning; walking; music - James' Coffee Blog

2026-08-15T00:00:00.000Z

My first feelings outside this morning were of the chilly, refreshing autumn air; one for which I have been yearning for many days. I feel at home in cooler climates. In the grass, a rabbit hops slowly; other rabbits gather, too. A bird flies in front of me as I walk; many kinds of birds sing, heard by each other and the trees and me. In the song, I wonder. Do birds have their own community? Their own rhythm? A robin – or maybe a chaffinch – perches on a low branch at the bottom of the hedge. I stand still to admire its colours for a moment.

As I walk I take in deep breaths to embrace the morning air. In, out. I take in the comfort of the cold after an unseasonably warm summer. The breeze feels like home. I look around and see a faint love heart shape made by the leaves on a tree nearby; another tree is starting to turn auburn; a mint green tree catches my eye. The sun peeks through the grey clouds and starts to shine through the fields; the light is welcoming. The day is beginning.

Later, I arrive at a coffee shop, taking a seat by the window that lets me watch the world go by // the flow of people and cars and suitcases and stories is fascinating. I lift my coffee cup of the first time today and see the ways of sun shine through the window onto the drink. Sun-kissed coffee. Passing by, people are dressed up for shows and wearing festival t-shirts – the Edinburgh Fringe is in full swing. Some people walk fast, with a spring in their steps, others saunter.

With breakfast and coffee, I was ready to start my day.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

There is a long walk through the city that I have wanted to do for the longest while, up Blackford Hill. I used to walk there every weekend, revelling in the panoramic views of the city – views extending from the countryside to the sea, overlooking houses and church spires and more. It is a far walk – a few miles – and I have always convinced myself to do something else; to go to a bookshop, to go to the art gallery. But this morning, something made me think I should do the walk today.

I did the walk today, trying my best to remember the path I used to take – one that weaved throughout quiet neighbourhoods; one on which there was always a particular album to which I would listen. I wanted to follow the familiar, but also the new: to do a walk I have done, but to walk today; my memories of the walk are at least a year old.

Passing purple flowers and moments of humanity and bakeries and trees, and taking a few wrong turns here and there – there is one part of the walk where, even when I was well practiced, I was occasionally prone to reaching a dead end – I made my way up to the hill, the hill on which the last stretch is all grass, malleable grass, malleable in a way that makes me think how hard stone is; how much more grass there should be. What if our pavements were grass?

I looked up to what was the periphery of the sky when observed from the distance and was now beautiful grass, underfoot. There is one particular part of the walk, however, reaching the top, where there is a dip, and it looks like you might walk into the sky. But when you reach that point, the stone marker of the hill becomes visible. Down a bit, then up a steeper stretch, and you have made it. Reaching the top of the hill, I had to lean forward to stay balanced against the wind; a wind more intense now there was no protection from the buildings that surrounded me for most of my walk.

Atop the hill, a family speaking German take photos of themselves and the city. I think about how quiet it is up here, only the faint hum of cars and construction equipment and the occasional conversation audible. I look around at the landscape that first brought me here and made me want to keep coming back every weekend, and realise that it is just as awe-inspiring as ever: the views of Arthur’s Seat and all the rows of stone houses and the Castle and all the other buildings that make up the place we call Edinburgh are breathtaking.

I sit down on a bench and look out for miles: at the stadium and the sea and the hills and the churches and the castle, and imagine all the hopes and dreams there are around me.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Walking slowly, except for the steep points where I feel like I need to speed up such was the gradient of the decline, I admired the landscape from many angles before descending the hill, and making my way back into the city. Two miles or so later, I was back on the concrete streets, now filled with music. The Fringe was in full swing.

A pianist played on the Royal Mile, one of the many hearts of the city – cities are too big to have only one heart. His piano did not have a front cover, so we – the large crowd assembled – could see every hammer pressed. I could feel the emotion in every note as the hammers touched the strings. The music the piano made was bright, and beautiful.

“If you enjoyed this music, it’s all my own.”

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Shortly thereafter, in the park, a guitarist plays faintly in the distance. The sound is mostly inaudible, but a few notes carry across the multi-tiered park that is Princes Street Gardens. I had to get closer, to hear what songs were being played – to hear the lyrics and to feel the rhythm of the music. Approaching, I heard the tail end of Year 3000, sung in the artist’s own, melodious voice.

“One outfit, one guitar – that’s all you need, right.” “You can’t [inaudible] your mistakes, you’ve just got to write songs about them.” The artist’s interstitial messages between songs were full of wisdom, whether or not she realised it.

I was entranced, as I was with the pianist earlier, and another guitarist earlier in the week. The transition to the chorus was joyful – at first, a moment of anticipation, then I close my eyes and start trying to identify the strumming pattern, and then, here comes the chorus. I listen and keep listening, tapping along to the rhythm. Here comes the bridge. People around me are smiling. I am too. One person lightly sways to and fro to the music.

Her voice reminds me a little bit of Maisie Peters.

The backdrop of the guitarist was Princes Street Gardens, the National Gallery of Scotland, and Edinburgh Castle and yet, in the moments when I listened to her music, staying for several songs, all the architecture fell into the background as I held on to lyrics, watched how she played, and enjoyed the moment. The music made me lose track of the world, and yet also, as music does, made me feel more connected than ever. We grow with words, with melody.

Edinburgh Fringe: Target Audience ★★★★★ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-14T18:45:41.000Z

Easily the best show I've seen at the Fringe.

For plot-related reasons, a television company asks a literary genius to create a "pro-weapons sitcom".

It is a fast paced mix of the sitcoms 2012 and Episodes. The jokes come at a steady pace - some attack with the furiousity of bullets, others the the subtlety of a knife in the night.

All four of the cast are spectacular. Turning the sometimes-stock characters into powerful avatars. The amoral Zuckerbergian horror of data driven decision making is the perfect manure in which to grow comedy roses.

It stands well against any classic farce and I hope it tours until the end of the world.

A special shout out to the Pleasance Above for being the most comfortable venue in Edinburgh! Raked auditorium, cushioned seats, and air conditioning all make for a delightful theatrical experience.

Edinburgh Fringe: Stand-up Philosophy ★★★⯪☆ - Terence Eden’s Blog

2026-08-14T15:16:26.000Z

For a pay-what-you-want show this was decent. Three comedians doing sets on the theme of philosophy - followed by a Q&A where the audience poses philosophical conundrums to them.

It more-or-less works as a gimmick. Although an early afternoon crowd may have been more likely to ask questions anonymously.

I've never seen a Sikh doing an unnervingly accurate impression of Trump before. Daman Bamrah did a perfect routine which blended his philosophy with the perils of the bum-gun. An unexpected but hilarious combination.

Sid Singh's set trod a fairly standard path through reactions to racism, but his discussion at the end about the inherent problems involved in writing controversial material was excellent.

Tying it all together was Alex Farrow who perfectly brought together the various philosophical strands and proved why Albert Camus was a fan of Stewart Lee.

A great set of acts at a decent price.