~hedy's blogroll - BlogFlock

A different kind of ‘interpretation’ with 10 English songs - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-16T00:00:00.000Z

In these “interpretations” I typically pick a Greek song, translate its lyrics, and then do the philosophy I would have done anyway. Put differently, I am using music as a starting point for a comment that might turn into a discussion… A failing tactic, for sure, but I digress.

The reason I pick Greek songs is to introduce this type of music to an international audience. Though you should not assume that I have a vested interest in it. I care about art, which knows no borders.

So here are 10 songs covering a variety of styles that I enjoy. I keep it to 10 because I do not have enough lives to appreciate in full everything people do. Sorted alphabetically:

Boney M. - Rasputin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16y1AkoZkmQ (pretending I can pick one from Boney M.)
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc (good energy to keep you going)
Deep Purple - Soldier Of Fortune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjIL2BemqBY (a personal story while you are catching your breath)
Eagles - Hotel California https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09839DpTctU (I am almost conventional at this point)
GALA - Freed from desire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3l7fgvrEKM (Will Grigg’s on Fire!)
Peter Nalitch - Guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOzkN8dHnjk (the GOAT)
Placebo - Every You Every Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMaycNcPsHI (“carve your name into my arm”!!!)
Scooter - How Much Is The Fish? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbB3iGRHtqA (a fortune, mate—tough times)
System Of A Down - Toxicity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iywaBOMvYLI (because I do not understand half of Chop Suey, lol)
The Prodigy - Out Of Space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4eav7dFvc8 (just wake up your boring neighbours)

The gist of all this is that each person is multifaceted. Sometimes I do not want to listen to music at all. I enjoy the birds and the ambience of the mountains. At others I am keen on something more contemplative and at others still I will put on a dance song. As a matter of fact, while I am typing this out, Coco Jambo by Mr. President is playing from my archive, which is one helluva blast from the past!

In embracing our multifacetedness we free ourselves from the absurdities of ideological purity. Take any benign idea—love, beauty, peace—to an extreme and it becomes so inwardly corrupted it turns into its opposite.

In the expression of multifacetedness there is common sense. You allow each facet of yourself to thrive, because you are taking care to water all the plants. As such, you are creating an internal polyculture, which is resilient to disease. Diversity in harmony produces balance of the sort that is sustainable.

Balance can also be enforced through uniformity,, adherence to dogma, and brute force. This is the singlefacetedness of monoculture that delivers short-term results and longer-term malaise. In terms of everyday behaviour it runs counter to our nature at times, even when it is done in the name of it, and thus ends up being pretentious in substance and performative in style.

The human condition is diverse throughout. The individual is, in this regard, both mirror and amplifier of group dynamics, of social trends, and historical trajectories. By exposing ourselves to others, we allow our own self to flourish and to become more rounded.

How can you know, for example, if you actually like dancing if you have never done it in earnest? Maybe what you are missing is exposure to that person and/or situation that will tease out whatever remains hidden deep inside of you.

Intellectually, I am a philosopher. Though a more generic term is explorer. I will go anywhere the wind sails because (i) I am keen on learning as much as I can, (ii) I recognise I am not in complete control of the world and so accept my fate, and (iii) I have the courage to deal with whatever danger awaits.

The danger with the explorer’s conduct and with diversity more broadly is that it can become wasteful of its own vitality if it is stretched too thin. Concretely, if I explore too much without integrating any findings into my life, then I reach a point where I am pulled in all directions, unable to actually do anything from start to finish.

Similarly, diversity for the sake of diversity does not produce any good results. Polyculture at its extreme is so competitive for each plant that there can be no one or few species that yield enough fruit.

It again comes down to balance and common sense, to avoiding the absurdities of the extremes.

2026 Roll-037 - Baty.net

2026-09-15T20:12:20.000Z

Boathouse, Gaylord MI (2026)

This roll was taken at a friend's cottage near Grayling and in Grand Haven.

Adirondack chairs

Bourbon by the lake

Surfer and stumbling guy

Wave breaking on Grand Haven pier

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Tuesday, September 15, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-09-15T13:25:34.000Z

Boathouse door (2026)

STATUS: Considering a withdrawal from Mastodon
TODO: Hang out with my grandson
READING: "Thinking In Systems" by Donella Meadows
LISTENING: Various artists on cassette tape

I sat down here today thinking I wanted a bunch of separate blogs, again. Then I came to my senses, but I still don't know how to handle the small posts. Are they still Notes? Does it make sense to separate them? Does it matter?

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I Want Your Sex (2026) ★★★★ - Baty.net

2026-09-15T13:22:22.000Z

I have always had a thing for Olivia Wilde. I now have even more of a thing for Olivia Wilde.

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Interpretation of “Palm trees” by Vasilis Papakonstantinou - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-15T00:00:00.000Z

For the present article, I have picked a seemingly bizarre song from the vast corpus of Vasilis Papakonstantinou: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv28XE7tGJo.

Palm trees is written and composed by Apostolos Boulasikis. All of the songs I have heard from Apostolos are surreal in the images they evoke and profound in the interpretations they withstand. This one is no exception.

Below are the lyrics, my faithful translation of them, and some philosophy.

Also check the other interpretations I have written related to Vasilis Papakonstantinou:

I need (2025-09-01)
Minor adulterations (2025-03-01)
Sophie (The wild crowd) (2023-03-22)
Porto Rico (2022-07-28)
Trench coat (2022-07-09)

Φοινικιές

Ερμηνεία:  Βασίλης Παπακωνσταντίνου
Στίχοι:    Απόστολος Μπουλασίκης
Μουσική:   Απόστολος Μπουλασίκης


Να φεύγεις, να φεύγεις, να φεύγεις 
ώσπου να βρεις τις ακτές 
που χρόνια, τα χρόνια στολίζουν 
με σημαιάκια του χτες

Οι αιώνες 
ξεβαμμένες, αρχαίες εικόνες 
Μεγαλεία 
σκονισμένα σε ράφια βιβλία 

Μα εσύ πρέπει πάντα να φεύγεις 
να βρίσκεις τις φοινικιές 
που κάθε τους λόγχη σου δείχνει 
μια απ'τις παλιές σου μορφές 

Γόνος νόθος του θεού του ήλιου 
Καπετάνιος σε πλωτό του Νείλου 
Αλχημίστας κι ιερέας δικαστής 
Νέγρος ταξιτζής μέσα στο Χάρλεμ 
Αριβίστας ζιγκολό στο Σάλεμ 
Καζανόβας και Λατίνος εραστής 

Λαδωμένος παλαιστής του Σούμο 
Πακιστανός μούτσος σ'ένα τσούρμο 
που βυθίζεται ανοιχτά των Αντιλλών 
Γελαστός παλιάτσος και ακροβάτης 
Μες το Σόχο ζόρικος προστάτης 
Γόης εξαθλιωμένων γυναικών 

Όλα γυρίζουν, ξαναγυρίζουν 
λειώνουν, τελειώνουν 
και ξαναρχίζουνε 

Ίωνας φιλόσοφος και ρήτωρ 
Στη Σεβίλλη ταύρος επιβήτωρ 
Που πεθαίνει στου τορέρο το σπαθί 
Δολοφόνος ενός πρώην τσάρου 
Φύλακας ενός σβησμένου φάρου 
Αμανές σε Οθωμανικό τζαμί 

Στα βουνά της Αφρικής αντάρτης 
Ήρωας πολεμιστής σακάτης 
τα παράσημα του βγάζει στο σφυρί 
Μάγος του Αμαζονίου, μάντης 
Κολασμένος συγγραφέας, Δάντης 
Σαμουράι πέρα στην Ανατολή. 

Όλα γυρίζουν, ξαναγυρίζουν 
λειώνουν τελειώνουν 
και ξαναρχίζουνε 

Κι όμως πρέπει πάντα να φεύγεις 
να βρίσκεις τις φοινικιές 
Φλεγόμενες βάτους που λένε 
σαν τις σειρήνες ψευτιές 

Να φεύγεις, να φεύγεις, να φεύγεις 
ν'ακολουθείς τις φωνές 
στους δρόμους που πάντα φωτίζουν 
φλεγόμενες οι φοινικιές

Palm trees

Singer:   Vasilis Papakonstantinou
Lyrics:   Apostolos Boulasikis
Music:    Apostolos Boulasikis


To leave, to leave, to leave
until you find the shores
which years, the years adorn
with small flags of yesterday

The centuries
worn out, ancient icons
Grandeurs
dusty books on shelves

But you must always be leaving
to be finding the palm trees
whose every spear shows you
one of your old forms

Illegitimate offspring of the sun god
Captain of a riverboat on the Nile
Alchemist and priest-judge
Black taxi driver in Harlem
Arrivist gigolo in Salem
Casanova and Latin lover

Oiled up sumo wrestler
Pakistani sailor in a crew
that sinks off the Antilles
Smiling clown and acrobat
In Soho a tough guardian
Charmer of immiserated women

All goes round, and round again
they melt, they end
and they restart

Ionian philosopher and rhetorician
At Seville a bull rider
who dies by torero's sword
Assassin of a former tsar
Keeper of an extinguished lighthouse
Amanes at an Ottoman mosque

Rebel at the mountains of Africa
Hero crippled fighter
who auctions his decorations
Magician of the Amazon, seer
Damned author, Dante
Samurai far to the East

All goes round, and round again
they melt, they end
and they restart

And still you should always be leaving
to be finding the palm trees
Burning bushes who tell lies
like the sirens

To leave, to leave, to leave
to follow the voices
to the paths that are luminated
by burning palm trees

The titular palm trees symbolise the end of a journey. They represent the exotic life one finds away from their homeland or the realm of the knowable more broadly. “Exotic” in its root as “exo” (έξω), which is outside, thus strictly foreign, unknown yet conceivable as unknown, otherworldly.

The song speaks of flight and makes an exhortation to that end. To leave one’s place, in the hope of finding the altogether different world that lies beyond their current reach. As such, Palm trees invites one to embark on an open-ended adventure in pursuit of an elusive goal.

This is not necessarily a boat trip to the other side of the ocean. One can perform such a journey while physically staying where they are. What matters is that they open their mind to fresh ideas and new possibilities. Practically speaking, though, one needs to abandon their immediate locale to undergo such a transformation. The reason is that people eventually stick to what they used to do because it grants some benefits within the given society.

Someone may be, for example, the cool edgy kid in high school. They gain a reputation to that end, which itself carries expectations. Others now see and want edginess. This person then has the incentive to continue to be edgy, to effectively play the role, rather than, say, pause and become more contemplative.

Travel will help break this loop. The person will have the freedom to become another as their preoccupations are no longer tied to the expectation of specific patterns and outcomes. Modern societies understand this and is why children switch schools after each level and eventually go to university, should they choose to. At each level there is a chance of rediscovering oneself anew, even if only marginally.

A journey in pursuit of the exotic is neverending, because there can be no discovery of the exotic as exotic. Once one enters the other world, they already are conditioned accordingly. They have become another in the process of (i) escaping from the confines of their comfort zone and then in (ii) reaching that world. That which once was distant has become proximate.

Such travels have no terminus. The exotic is not a specific entity, but the notional other of one’s lifeworld. If one moves from inside to a specific outside, then that becomes their new inside as the realm of the familiar and the proximate, which shall have its own outside, and so on.

As people, we change over time to take on certain qualities and leave others. What once was a defining feature now is not characteristic of who we are. There may still be traces, but more pronounced patterns have since taken form.

It thus does not matter where exactly one finds those palm trees, i.e. who they become exactly. The point is to develop a certain consistency such that they can be that person in earnest and feel they are performing their function well. This is described at length in the lyrics through the references to all the figures one can be. Each leaf of the palm tree points to a persona.

To what end? There is none. The journey is not better than staying exactly in place. Those who leave as well as those who stay still meet the same fate. It then comes down to what feels right or what the song describes as the path luminated by the palm trees: one can only follow what they discern.

For instance, I am the journeyman type who leaves home in pursuit of discovering myself by losing the self I was, as merchant on the silk road, pirate at the Horn of Africa, sellsword in one of the many European wars, all as the same person. I thrive in openendedness. This is what makes me a philosopher and a polymath, after all. It is exuberance that comes with the requisite courage to embark on the adventure, to not be deterred by the challenge, and to not be held back by any promise of comfort either.

The blue room - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-15T00:00:00.000Z

The blue room draws you in. It offers the refuge you seek. Its material construction diffuses all noise. You are neither disturbed nor distracted by what transpires in your midst. Such is the comfort it provides.

Days do not matter within its confines. What was, shall be. Time loses its meaning when all you can do is stare at those walls. Its passage is not paused though. Each day leaves its mark on the body. Every second is impressed on the skin to show you, whenever you muster the courage to look at the mirror, just how late you have been.

The blue room remembers your moments. Records it keeps to remind those passing by how long it has remained standing. In its space are stored memories of bygone days. It keeps track of your perfect score in a particular category: of dreams never to materialise. Those are your wants: the adventures you did not embark on. They are the characters you never became and the roles you did not assume. It stood there watching them go unnoticed by the travellers of this world.

You appear not, when all is a single colour, no matter how actively you try and how strongly you want it. There is no pattern to be discerned. When you speak, they wonder how is it that a building can have a voice. People are afraid of haunted places, after all. Instead of inferring that you might be there somewhere, they act in response to their deep-seated fears. You are irrelevant in your invisibility.

The blue room absorbs it all. It has inexhaustible patience. It wants you to remain in place. Only then can it perform its function of protecting you, of shielding you from whatever danger lurks in the corner. From your daily routine it will remove any sense of urgency. You shall not go anywhere. There is no need to. What you have is complete. It shall suffice for a lifetime.

Plans for tomorrow can be revised to become aspirations for the week after, which in turn will be rolled over to a future date that remains elusive. The hopes are distorted accordingly, with pragmatic considerations woven into their narrative. A few are enough to bring an abrupt end to the story that would otherwise develop. Not even there do you become another.

The blue room loves you. It tells you that it has desire for you alone. Special you feel when you are noticed, even if it is only by a structure. It has a life of its own. A logic that defies and then overrides your volition. It enters your mind as shapeshifter extraordinaire to become friend and lover whose name you keep forgetting.

The blue room questions your judgement. There is nowhere to go when all you can think of is informed by monotonous surroundings. The door is right there. Step outside whenever you want only to discover that you jump back in. Without a plan, you revert to your default condition, effectively working against the goal you never defined. As you do that, hope is lost. It feels you are standing while running.

The blue room is you. It extends to form a fine line which connects at the other end to become a circle. There is no outside, no inside, no before, no after. It is the everlasting and ubiquitous presence of a hue; the tyranny of one. You switch off the lights to not notice it anymore. Yet you know that it and you are the same.

Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 19 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-15T00:00:00.000Z

The nineteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out:

In Episode 19, I chat with Daniel, the author of melonking.net and maintainer of the Melonland community forum about, among other things, longevity on the web, the 'web revival', the creative potential of the web, 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.

Melonland community forum Daniel melonking.net The nineteenth episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out Wonders of Web Weaving also has an RSS feed

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026) ★★★★ - Baty.net

2026-09-14T09:01:04.000Z

I thought this was very funny.

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Game: Streets of Rage 4 - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z

Streets of Rage 4 is a game that hates you (spoilers below). I do not mean the general “you”, the one that keeps your defences down because of how impersonal it is. No! I mean you in particular who is reading this. I know your name, where you live, and have already talked to your parents about this. But before I explain why this game treats you scornfully, let me give you some context to better appreciate what the fuss is about.

Before gaming at home became the norm, and before 1GB of RAM had the price of a heart transplant, video games were played at arcades on machines that were operated with coins. You would insert a coin and get a go at the game. When you would lose or complete the game, the machine would ask for another coin. Simple and super effective! At the end of your session, you had the chance to input three characters, representing your name, which would be displayed on a leaderboard screen alongside your total points. Those waiting in line could thus learn who holds the high score.

Inputting those characters was an adventure unto itself. Unlike our fancy modern gadgets with full-sized keyboards, key chords timed in milliseconds, and layered combos, the arcade machines expected you to cycle from A to Z by tapping a button that was already hard to press. Picking a letter would lock it in and move you to the next selection. A mistake could not be undone. In a civilised world, that would not be a problem. You would take your sweet time to cycle all the way back from, say, R to P and then ever so carefully repeat the steps to inscribe “PRT” or something. But ours is a barbaric world, my friend!

The arcade is a social place. You are there together with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells . There are no gaming chairs to make you feel comfortable nor hidden lights distracting you from your solitude. You are typically standing close to the machine you intend you use, playing mind games on the guy whose turn it is to make an attempt at reaching the top of the leaderboard.

If your friend gets the high score, you do what besties are there for: punch the bastard ever so gently to make him mistype his name, of course. We do not want him to become overconfident, do we now? The Greeks have warned us of hubris and all that. But we also do not need to be savages, so we let him have it sometimes, i.e., if he is below our score.

Many of the games at the arcade were in the fighting or beat-em-up genres. Streets of Rage 4 pays homage to the latter. In terms of gameplay, it does an excellent job. For a while I felt that Capcom’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs got a remake. Though playing the game at home will never give you the same vibes as what you would experience at the arcade. Which is why this game hates you, amigo.

Streets of Rage 4 reminds you that you are at home. That is already a terrible fate. Then, you realise that you cannot punch your friend anymore. What a sad world we live in! It also features prominently a four-player co-op mode. No, not to make you invite people over for a game or two. Don’t be silly! It does it to highlight the fact that you have no friends.

Beside that, you will soon notice that everybody on the titular streets is maxed out in all possible ways. They have more muscles than those known to anatomists and more curves than those anticipated by that whole “curvature of spacetime” mumbo-jumbo that physicists dabble in.

Not only are they all cooler than you, they also have more free time than you ever will. You expend your vitality doing some unfulfilling job while they get to chill on the streets—and they even have coin-ops there to recreate the arcade experience!

Okay, I am not being serious. This is a fine game. I had a good time. As for the plot, it is a generic cartoon villain story of the bad guys wanting to control the world. The good guys are unmemorable vigilantes. I already forgot how they even look, which is fantastic.

For me, this is a strength of gaming. I do not want profound characterisation and interwoven backstories when the premise is that I run around kicking people in the stomach. This is the same point I made about Borderlands 3, namely, I like it when games do not take themselves too seriously. It makes for a fun and easygoing life.

8-Bit Day 2026 - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z

Yesterday – September 13th – was the 256th day of the year. Tantek blogged about this in 2024 and in 2025 introduced a challenge to make a web page in under 256 bytes. After reading his announcement from yesterday his morning, I decided I would participate again.

Last year I made a minimal HTML home page using 253 bytes of HTML and 220 bytes of CSS. This year I made two pages, each of which only use a single HTML file with styles in a style tag. The single files are each under 256 bytes.

The first page I made this year was a poem about websites. I used CSS, in particular the color-scheme: light dark; rule, to make the colour of one of the words in the poem change depending on whether the page is viewed in light or dark mode. The page is 215 characters long.

The second page I made this year was an interactive web page to count the number of characters and words in a textarea. This took a fair bit of time to make because I had to use JavaScript to make the textarea work. The page is 254 characters long, and uses four HTML elements: two paragraphs, a textarea, and a script tag.

To save characters in the character and word count web page, I assigned the document value to a variable called d and the document.getElementById function to d.g. This syntax when I needed to retrieve elements or their values, or set new values for an element, I could do so in many fewer characters (although at the notable cost of readability). Of note, the word count splits at space characters, which means that of – day would be three words (of, –, day), even though it is two words. If anyone can suggest a way to make a more accurate word counter while staying under the character limit, I’d love to see your versions!

The constraints of 8-Bit Day have, in both years, encouraged me to make something I otherwise would not have. I didn’t start today thinking I was going to make a character and word counter in under 256 characters of code, but I am glad the day went this way.

minimal HTML home page interactive web page to count the number of characters and words in a textarea blogged about this in 2024 make a web page in under 256 bytes reading his announcement from yesterday his morning

My own little photo metadata management app - Baty.net

2026-09-13T18:51:35.000Z

My Exif Manager app (Linux)

After scanning a roll of film, I like to add camera make/model/lens exif data to the files. For years, I've done this via exiftool using the command line. It's not hard, but I thought I'd see if Claude Code could whip up something a little nicer to use. Turns out it could.

Launch the app, open a folder, choose from a pre-defined list of my cameras and lenses, and write the exif info to the files. It took Claude maybe 30 minutes from my prompt to a working app.

That's all I needed it to do, but I got a little fancy and added captioning, which many photo apps make more difficult than it should be.

Speaking of making things difficult, some apps (::cough Darktable::) don't deal well with metadata during export, so I have my app allow me to write the information to already-exported files based on file name. Let's say I have Darktable export a bunch of images to ~/Pictures/Export but those images lose their captions (it happens!). I tell my app where the exported files are and it matches file names and writes the metadata to those files.

The trouble with having an LLM at hand all the time is that now I want to work with it to build or extend little apps for everything. It's too easy, helpful, and fun to ignore.

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2026 Roll-036 (Olympus OM-1n) - Baty.net

2026-09-13T13:33:52.000Z

Shot a roll in the Olympus OM-1n with the Zuiko 85mm f/2.0. I find long lenses nearly as challenging as wide ones.

Adirondack chair on West Twin Lake

Lock on boat house door

Bryan's boat on the lift

Weeds on the shore at Bryan's cottage

Stairs on Bryan's dock

Alice's food and water dishes

Model wooden boat

Flowers on our deck wrapping around nearby lamp post

Kayaks

Portrait of Jack by Bryan Lewis

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Selfie: from the festival - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-13T00:00:00.000Z

Just a picture while I was working at the festival the other day.

Welcome to our festival - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-13T00:00:00.000Z

This is an entry from my journal.

I always enjoy working at the festival. I have in the past sold bread and related products, but this year I managed a toy store front that also featured κομποσχοίνια (komboschinia). A komboschini is a piece of rope with knots that you typically wear as a bracelet. Komboschinia have a religious significance, but people also use them as a fashion statement. I now have three on each wrist, for example, to turbocharge that religiosity.

Even though I am an introvert, I am a good dealer at noisy places. I am sufficiently talkative, have a loud voice, and take nothing seriously if I do not have to. A tourist thought this was a bazaar where she would haggle to get a discount. I shouted for everyone waiting in line to listen “I want my swimming pool madame; no discounts!”. Then I said “okay, take six and pay for five”

Another person wanted to have a picture with me after we did some good business together and had a positive vibe. I was all smiles until that point and turned dead serious all of a sudden: “a thousand euro for my image rights!” and then I laughed.

Those who know me well will attest to my sense of humour and lightheartedness. The others will have to wait to see what I have in store for them. I am much more careful online because cultural differences increase the likelihood of misunderstandings. For instance, I cannot do the whole trick of raising my hands and shouting “my friend” at a German as soon as I meet them because they will, quite understandably, get PTSD that the Greeks are back for more money. In such cases I am cautious. Though I will still throw some bait, in the form of pointed remarks, and if I notice that the person has caught it then I will not miss an opportunity to make them smile.

Most of what I do either is directly for teasing people or has such a component. Sometimes I do it in a playful and exaggerated manner. At others I am subtle. The latter kind is what I typically do on my website: I challenge the reader to drop what was theretofore an idea that they took seriously. And there is a version of this which takes the form of a provocation. You do not see me laughing while I am saying out loud the most witty formulation I came up with, but if you knew me you would know this part as well. It is not your fault, of course, just the nature of the medium.

At any rate, the festival is my kind of place. The majority of people who show up are the average folk. They belong to the working class, dress with unbranded clothes, have no pretences to greatness, and are straightforward. The snobs will skip such events because they dismiss the plebs as uncultured and crude. They cannot stand out in the crowd, which annoys them greatly. For me not having their smug face there is wonderful news because I do not have to make them feel uncomfortable myself.

For example, I was walking my dogs and one of them took a moment to pee on a tire. Dogs do this all the time. I did not give it any thought until some posh dude called me out asking why did I allow my dog to do that to his car. I looked at him without uttering a word, then checked the car, and said “wash it, you have money”. Implicit in my comment was a common challenge I present: if you come to me to play the game you purport to be good at, then I will make sure you live up to your own rules or realise that it is better to be easygoing. Either way, you win.

To find entry level snobs, you can just go to any random cafeteria these days. They have all become high class. It used to be that coffee was the cheapest drink for the worker to start the day with a positive “good morning”. Now the places have cookie jars and cheesecakes on the front. Their menu is full of augmented drinks. A cup is adorned with creams, syrups, and make-belief all so that they can charge you a small fortune.

Water is extra, of course. Soon the authorities will outlaw that thing. It makes business sense to channel it all to the AI puppet masters. This way, jaded programmers can have the illusion of continuous productivity when an agent surfaces what grep and/or find would have discovered without draining a lake in the process.

Until recently it was 1 euro for a shot of Cyprus coffee (sorry, Turks, we rebranded it because we are petty bastards). Now that amount of money does not even get you a polite look. And say you buy a coffee, they will be pushy about you leaving as quickly as possible. “Would you like something else?” is the most ominous question you can get in this situation. If you respond negatively, they tell you that they will go fetch the bill. Basically, they make it clear that you are an impediment to the boss’ profiteering. Such are their instructions.

At the festival I meet the people who are otherwise invisible. They go to work, then back home. This is their budget. It is the same for me. I basically do not exist as a social animal most of the year. I even work from home for my coaching, which means that I can go for weeks without having an extended chat face-to-face. As for possibly coaching from cafeterias, that is terrible business because of how expensive they are relative to how much I charge. Plus, it would be inconvenient in practice.

Festivals are a reminder that the common folk exist, yet they only come to life when that time of the year arrives. Such is the stupid society we tolerate.

Autumn - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-13T00:00:00.000Z

The joy of the cool morning air and the seeing singing birds fly between trees. There is a light haze in the air this morning, the haze of an autumn morning. My cheeks are chilly right now — probably pink too. Light shines through the windows and casts a long glow on the floor inside and the leaves outside — the crisp green glow of the sunlit plants. The day is so beautiful.

There are more trees changing colour — the sight of the trees in the sky outside the coffee shop was breathtaking. Everywhere I look morning welcomes me into this Sunday — the air is as cool as I love. I am listening to Lorde’s music, which takes me back to her concert a few weeks ago — the energy of the light in the darkness, the impact of the unity of voices, the joy and passion and depths of the songs. I was a writer in the dark and a writer in the light that day — every second a new experience, every second new observations that were and became a story.

The feeling of wanting to hold onto every note of a song — to hold onto every part of a moment.

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Just as the sky was clear enough last night to see the stars, so too was the sky clear this morning, except for the light haze that graced the day. I went for a walk and visited a coffee shop, one of my favourite ways to start a morning. At one point on my walk, I noticed the leaves on one particular weeping branch on a tree were turning orange and red. With every passing week I notice the changes in the seasons to a greater extent. As I write, I look out onto a tree in the distance that has been changing colour for the last week; its orange colours standing out amid the sea of green on the horizon.

While sitting in the coffee shop, I read a blog post and noticed the author, a writerly friend half-way across the world, had mentioned me and my most recent post on autumn. My writing on an autumn leaf here in Scotland carried its way to another world where I think it will be around Spring now. Moments like this are what make the web special.

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Writing this post, I carry with me the music that I listened to on my journey, and look forward to playing the next song.

Saturday, September 12, 2026 - Baty.net

2026-09-12T11:54:00.000Z

Drinks with Eggleston

A couple days at a cottage was good for me. Never opened the laptop once.

But then, I come home home, fire up the computer, and immediately regret it.

I may just stop talking about the software and services I use, lest I'm suddenly labeled a supporter of fascism because one of them turns out to be built by an asshole or is friends with an asshole or once shared a quote by said asshole.

Or maybe I'll quit the whole fucking show.

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The courage of the polymaths - Protesilaos Stavrou: Master feed with all updates

2026-09-12T00:00:00.000Z

Writing for Aeon magazine in an essay titled Penchants of the polymaths, Mariam Sabri informs us about four geniuses of the Muslim world.

This semester, my students are learning about four polymaths who shaped Islamic science: al-Biruni, Alhazen, Avicenna and al-Khwarizmi. Their circumstances could hardly have been more different: one wrote his way out of scarcity; one was held under house arrest for a decade; one distilled an era’s medical knowledge into a text that ruled European universities for 500 years; and the last worked at the largest research institution of his age. But each shared the same underlying instinct: to move freely between mathematics, medicine, astronomy, philosophy and poetry, testing one discipline’s assumptions against another’s. My classroom is in Pakistan, where students arrive eager to talk about disruption and employability, but rarely about breadth. I want them to see, through these four lives, that this kind of expansiveness isn’t a luxury for stable times; it has produced some of the most enduring breakthroughs in the history of science.

I wish Mariam good luck in inspiring a new generation of students to follow in the footsteps of those remarkable thinkers.

What I would add to Mariam’s account is the word “courage”, which is a necessary quality of character in keeping culture open to the possibility of genius.

The polymath has courage in that they are prepared to move outside the comfort zone of any given specialisation. They have the audacity to draw linkages that others do not discern, not as a matter of superior intellect but as a result of trying in earnest. By “polymath” I apply the term in its original meaning, the one who has knowledge of many things, without implying that such a person is necessarily a genius.

I write from a position of experience as a polymath myself. My skills are well below those of the aforementioned geniuses. I have not achieved anything remarkable in any of the fields I have delved into and have no formal qualifications to even make a remotely plausible case in my favour. Nobody references me now and none will remember me in 500 years. I do, nonetheless, embody the courage and concomitant exuberance that no promise of comfort can constrain and, as such, will go wherever I want to learn whatever my condition renders possible.

I synthesise street smart with book smart. I know of politics in theory as well as day-to-day practice. I have pierced into the psyche of humans in sport and the classroom, in company and competition, in solitude and in festivities, through hardship and opulence, in the hinterlands as well as the centres of power. I combine prose with poetry, rigour with beauty, intellectuality with physical prowess, a tendency for collectivity with the reality of a lone wolf, a study of human with an understanding of programming, an intuition on colour with a conception of pattern as such into theology and religiosity.

What is common in this multitude is the virtue to give everything an honest try by bringing to it the full power of my undivided attention. It is to not seek excuses for inaction. I never say “I cannot” when what that would really mean is “I do not want to”.

My initiative is neither informed nor conditioned by the opinion of others. They default to the kind of naysaying that confines a person to a tiny room with no sight of the open vistas. Whereas I am not satisfied with the comfy chair. I will hike to the top of the mountain and dive in cold waters. I proceed with the belief that I can learn anything I set my mind to and can perform admirably in it. Such is my conviction that I am not afraid of the challenge.

This is not a matter of genius, which is beyond human design. It is about attitude, which can be studied and greatly altered by continuous effort with the appropriate method, even if it also has a biological basis.

Genius is rare. I am not that person. I was not a child prodigy and am not a late bloomer either. Though I can tell from history that genius occurs more frequently and is clustered together in cultures that are defined by openness. Those are the societies who are young in age and spirit, freed from the burdens of institutionalist pretence and attendant etiquette, and who exhibit that unmistakable zest which drives forward their inquiry into the world.

Boundaries naturally occur in all fields of endeavour. There is a need to maintain a trail of paper by which to track outcomes. It is then followed up by the want to streamline processes, replicate results, and create a baseline of expectations. The bureaucrat emerges organically as an intermediary among those whose job it is to think things through and/or make stuff happen. The bureaucrat starts out as the custodian of records and eventually turns into the enforcer of norms.

Scholars who had achieved something noteworthy at a certain point in their career, and who lack the courage to press on with their inquiry, wish to cling on to their holdings. They effectively set up barriers to entry by weaponising bureaucracy in the name of standards, with which they limit their competition and thus retain their privileged status.

Over time, bureaucracy turns intellectuality into a pay-to-win scheme. It confers social status and creates a sense of classism where the way one talks communicates more about their perceived intellectual acumen than what they actually say. At scale, this shadow play manifests into a glorified popularity contest, more superficially sophisticated than high-schoolers figuring out who is the coolest among them, though not much different in function: the celebrated experts get the lion’s share of the money while the rest learn to be happy with leftovers.

Bureaucratisation evolves along with the fracturing of intellectuality into increasingly narrower fields of specialisation. The bureaucrat thrives in this environment as the driving force of the want for interdisciplinarity, by becoming the interlocutor among the relevant specialisations. The specialist, in turn, benefits from the resulting obscurity. There is practically nobody who can check on the tangible value of their contributions. This is a state of comfort, which can be alluring, at which point complacency kicks in and the system as a whole enters its state of decline.

Courage is both contagious and dangerous. When one speaks their mind fearlessly, others are emboldened to do the same. Once a few do this, the movement grows into a power impulse that emanates from the mind to affect conduct, institution, and artefact alike.

The potency of courage consists in its unpredictability. The courageous person will not accept to be constrained and is thus inconvenient to any established order that finds comfort in stasis.

What teachers such as Mariam Sabri can do is instil a sense of alertness in their students. Encourage them to continue where they would otherwise stop. Celebrate their every attempt at formulating a question and congratulate them for their eagerness to develop an independent thought. Push them to go where their curiosity leads and be there for them when they need a tutelary figure to help them channel their vitality into a force of creativity.

This, however, demands that the teacher be not pedantic and obsessed with adherence to formality. The teacher must, in effect, have that spark of alertness to push back, even in subtle ways, against the overreach of the bureaucratariat.

Do it right and the next genius might show up soon after to remind humanity that the most predictable is the least animate.

the painting - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-12T00:00:00.000Z

the silence of the painting; the music of the painting.

Perspective - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-12T00:00:00.000Z

The perspective of the painting; the painting of perspective; the perspective of the viewing. The contrasts of the colours between canvases. The contrasts of light between rooms.

I have seen Turner’s Sunrise several times this summer, and every time I see something new. Today, walking in, I immediately noticed a change in pace from the outdoors. Whereas I had spent the day walking busy streets, I was now in a place where there was both space and relative silence. My mind started to slow down. I did, too.

I am fascinated by how environments, especially art galleries, influence how we behave. Does the spacing between paintings in an art gallery influence our ability to focus on an individual piece? Do we walk slower in galleries because there is so much to draw our attention and we feel like we don’t want to miss anything? Why is it so easy to spend so long in an art gallery? Why, of all places, do I almost never feel the need to check the time when I am in a gallery?

On recent visits to the painting, I thought about the fog and the haze. Today, colours stood out more. The greys and the blue greys of the painting were fascinating. I thought about the periphery of the painting, and how, over minutes and over weeks, my attention ebbs between the castle in the centre and the fog and the grass around the edges. I then thought about the background. Is that a second hill? I have never thought about it before. I briefly imagine the second hill as a representation of the castle in the past – now even more faint, but still present.

I then notice that there isn’t a clear demarcation between the castle and the land on which it stands. Where does the castle end and Nature begin? I then start to think more abstractly. Where does the Earth end and the sky begin? I notice how the grasses in the foreground blends into the water. The fog blends into the background. The painting is both evocative but also enigmatic. Is it evocative because it is enigmatic? There is surely more to it. The colours are what first drew me to Turner’s Sunrise.

I take two steps back and feel as I did last time: the painting became even more ethereal and enchanting. I thought about perspectives: how moving a little bit – through space, through time – can change the impression I have in the moment of a work. I wonder what I will see next week.

Of Day - James' Coffee Blog

2026-09-12T00:00:00.000Z

Herein, vignettes of today.

Silver-tipped trees, reddening leaves hanging over fences. Trees swishing like bristles of a brush, painting the day, or waving away the clouds. Morning — listening to music that makes me happy.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Two hearts drawn on a wall on the corner. It feels like a gift both to day and to everyone who passes by — the small details that make all the difference; the intersection of design and architecture — of what we build and how we collectively make it our own.

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In my mind I can transport myself to the depths of summer and feel the air of today cool me like I wished to be cooled back then.

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How architecture can remind us of places, traditions, times. Seeing a theatre in the Classical style shine white in the daylight. The shallow flowerbeds in the centre on the first floor add dashes of green, which complement the building well — Nature and architecture together.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

The way the light shining through bright stained glass casts itself colourfully onto the white pillars that serve as the foundation of the church. I have never seen light shine this way before.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

I feel the trees are barometers of the seasons, while also being of the seasons themselves. Of walking past particular trees and remembering them in spring and when the bells rang loud and noticing now a few leaves grown from once-pink buds are turning red.

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The joy of there being someone near me who, too, is studying an artwork in close detail.