Toby Atkin-Wright

1. How to weigh an octopus in only 8 wriggly steps

(tags:octopus weight video )

Onto another one, and this is one I couldn't remember at all, though I've read through the entire canon five or so times.

( spoilers )

Today's unplanned activity was deciding to finally get graphical adventure game Starship Titanic by Douglas Adams running on my Mac. I went with the low cost GOG version, and with a little jiggery pokery got it running nicely in my existing installation of ScummVM.

1. Iran's Bad Options

(tags:iran nuclearweapons )

2. The work to move the UK's electricity from where it's generated to where it's needed won't be finished until 2030.

(tags:electricity infrastructure uk thefuture planning )

3. England's Green Party comes out in favour of drug legalisation

(tags:legalisation drugs UK GreenParty )

1. How Germany outfitted half a million balconies with solar panels

(tags:solarpower germany )

2. UK families to save hundreds of pounds in major homebuying overhaul

(tags:housing uk regulation GoodNews )

3. Edinburgh's "Auld Hoose" pub is up for rent, if anyone fancies running one of my old favourite pubs

(tags:pubs edinburgh )

4. Australian experts review The Cass Review and find it full of 'stigma and misinformation'

(tags:LGBT transgender healthcare bigotry UK Australia )

5. Global solar power grows 31% as coal use drops

(tags:renewables coal electricity GoodNews )

Newly framed art print, waiting to go on the wall when Martin's back home again. A4 art print from Blockforest.co.uk. There are just a handful left of this limited edition design. Frame from Frames.co.uk in Manchester. The frame has a really nice wood grain effect cushion moulding, which to be fair you can't see so easily in this photo! I found they had a great range of frames to buy, and was able to get just what I wanted. I will also be ordering a poster frame from them later this week to finally put my large James Cauty Lord of the Rings art poster into.

I think it might be autumn.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. Scientists Reveal Biological Basis of Long Covid Brain Fog

(tags:Pandemic brain disease )

2. Fire destroys Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

(tags:Korea data epicfail backup )

3. Disastrous South Korean data centre fire is connected to North Korean hacking

(tags:NorthKorea korea hacking sabotage )

Another bunch of books finished since my last post.

( earlier books )
1. The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi
2. The Fiddle in Scottish Culture: Aspects of the Tradition by Katherine Campbell
3. Voices of Scottish Librarians: The Evolution of a Profession and its Response to Changing Times edited by Ian MacDougall
4. Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Volume 1: Terrorformer (graphic novel)
5. Some of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better by Polly Atkin
6. The Whisperwicks: The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees

Of the newly finished ones, The Lantern of Lost Memories was a novel idea, and explored a serious subject, but was rather unbalanced in its few main sections, and frustratingly left some key questions unanswered. It did feel reminiscent of, though not as good as, the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series of books. It certainly fits into that genre of Japanese fiction.

The fiddle history book was clearly a repackaged PhD thesis, and full of interesting content, but often lacking sufficient analysis, or otherwise unbalanced. Somewhat frustrating to be honest. Though not so much as how unobtainable the book is today, having been originally printed in a very limited print run, and going out of print rapidly. I was lucky to be able to borrow it from my local library in Angus, sent over from their Forfar store.

More successful for me was the collection of working memories from librarians working through twentieth and early twenty-first century Scotland. I was most interested in their accounts of their working lives, revealing changes in library practice over time, but there were many other pages to wade through of earlier childhood experiences. I cherry picked the most relevant portions for me.

The Doctor Who graphic novel was a Twelfth Doctor and Clara one. But very disappointing. Too much tell and not show, and hefty info dumps mid way through each story, about things I couldn't bring myself to care about. It was also plagued by repeatedly splitting into multiple POVs, with muddy artwork not differentiating them clearly enough.

Polly Atkin's book was good, and overall I rated it 4/5. But it felt overlong to me, and often padded with lengthy digressions, which made it hard for this chronically ill person to keep reading and following. Though it was very interesting to hear her story, not least as the sister of a friend.

The first Whisperwicks novel was a children's book, telling the story of a child drawn into a mysterious steampunk-like world of magic and quests, and much danger. Felt very Harry Potter like, but original in its approach. I could certainly see me reading the sequel.

Just had to ask what was going on.

Sophia told me "There's a spider in the bathroom"
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Sharing this for fellow Doctor Who, Discovery of Witches, or Born With Teeth play fans. Or anyone keen on literary history or who likes historical objects or the sixteenth century.

1. Here Is Your Periodic Reminder that Stars Move

(tags:space time )

2. Anti trans school guidance causes children to not use school toilets leading to worse physical and mental health.

(tags:children bigotry lgbt school scotland uk transgender )

3. What Did People Do Before Smartphones? (I carried a book at all times)

(tags:phones history boredom )

4. Common mistakes when drawing the moon

(tags:moon drawing video )

1. OpenAI's H1 2025: $4.3b in income, $13.5b in loss

(tags:ai business doom )

2. Features of autism can affect age of diagnosis — and so can genes

(tags:genetics autism age )

3. UK plummets down rankings for LGBTQ+ rights (from 1st place a decade ago to 22nd place today)

(tags:uk bigotry rights lgbt OhForFucksSake )

Onto this story, after last time’s pivotal one. Going into major spoilers ... ( Beware! )

1. Do not charge your phone in the bath.

(tags:phones electricity baths water )

2. Solar leads EU electricity generation as renewables hit 54%

(tags:europe renewables solarpower )

3. A plurality of Brits see Reform, their policies, and their voters as racist

(tags:racism politics UK )

4. Progressive Era America put 200,000 poor kids on trains to send them West. Now we know what affected whether they thrived.

(tags:sociology children family USA )

5. "I built ChatGPT with Minecraft redstone!"

(tags:ai minecraft )

6. Sora 2 and the end of copyright as we know it

(tags:copyright ai )

1. Law firm that dropped trans man agrees to pay damages and costs

(tags:transgender bigotry law uk )

2. Do Trigger Warnings Work?

(tags:mentalhealth psychology triggerwarnings viaPatrickHadfield )

3. What effects does rent control actually have?

(tags:regulation rent doom housing )

4. The dawn of the post-literate society

(tags:society literacy doom )

Here's the screenshot from my Kindle, showing the main books I will be reading on there this month, with utterly gargantuan font etc. Some are already under way. Others like Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu are lined up for my book club later. My main novel read at the moment is Katabasis by RF Kuang, a dark academia book about a journey into Hell to rescue an academic advisor. Am really enjoying it. Last night I started my annual pre-Halloween reread of Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, which is a gothic horror delight. And I am going to try to read just a chapter a day this time! Liza Picard's Restoration London is a reread. Though she wasn't a formally trained historian I am in awe of her approach to the historical sources and questions. The Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design was a birthday present from Martin. Just getting into it now. And I continue my reread of the original Sherlock Holmes short stories, now well into the Return collection.

Looking forward to my annual October reread of A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. A gothic delight. It's designed to be read a chapter a day throughout October, though I usually guzzle it up more quickly. May try to pace myself better this year. Here is a good article about it.

1. Labour to make life harder for immigrants

(tags:labour migration OhForFucksSake )

2. List of wars involving the United Kingdom (Guess how many!)

(tags:war uk history )

3. Draft of Tony Blair's Gaza plan outlines a regime run by affluent foreigners with Palestinian executives at the bottom

(tags:Gaza tonyblair OhForFucksSake )

Reviewing my planned structure for another academic journal paper, and laughing at the "SO WHAT?" I've typed prominently near the proposed conclusions. My late history PhD supervisor Charles McKean always asked that question often repeatedly. I'll have to make sure it's addressed earlier too!

And as I start to properly write this new academic journal paper about a German accordion player + tuner/repairer travelling extensively around mid/late 19th century Scotland (even to Orkney!), I wish I had a TARDIS and could go back in time and see one of his well-appreciated local performances!