As the 🎃Ritual🎃 approaches its climax, be sure to cloak your realm in sufficiently spooky boops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=henyMRqMBws #chiptune #music #halloween

do The Youths these days still know about Pokemon Crystal Vietnamese? So called because it was discovered in a market in Vietnam, it's a romhack translation from Japanese to English (presumably before the real English version released), except it seems to […] [Original post on infosec.exchange]

the timesheet software my employer uses is unspeakably awful, and remarkably, not because of AI nonsense being shoved in – I'm pretty sure it hasn't actually been maintained in any way since roughly 2005. Of its many lacks of obvious expected functionality and inscrutable bugs, I think my […]

I find it funny that the middle and high school kids “mevrouw” me when I have Odin with me, and only when I have Odin with me

something that really surprised me about the Netherlands is that mayors are not elected by the local citizens, but appointed by the national government anyway, the Amsterdam news did a piece on how the youths have decided that Mamdani should be mayor of Amsterdam too

So, my previous apartment – it was in Leiden, on a narrow medieval street, and the buildings were all quite old so they weren't all built to the same standard floor-height, and the windows were all huge. As a result, I could look out my window and have a crystal clear view of the floor of the […]

It is a strange feeling, how quickly and easily I can open Google Maps and zoom out from my house in Amsterdam, scroll a bit across the Atlantic, zoom back in on the Appalachians and find the three little rectangles that represent my late grandparents' house, workshed and barn on a dirt road in […]

you: trying to figure out how the first anvil was forged without an anvil me: wondering how Ludwig Ernst Hans Burmester made the first French curve without a French curve but more importantly, why are they called French curves if the inventor was German

A young boy that I suspect was probably a Ukrainian refugee came up and asked in English if he could pet Odin "because this is my favorite breed of dog," and then clearly began arguing with his mother in their native language that see, it's fine, he's ready […] [Original post on infosec.exchange]

Wait, wait, hold up a second. I just found out that lemons are not a natural fruit but a deliberately cultivated hybrid between citron and a bitter orange. Guys! Life didn't give us lemons we made them ourselves!

If you'd like a small little thing to try for #NewSkillNovember , how about this tutorial for how to sew-bind a small book https://www.baum-kuchen.net/blogs/analogue-stories/how-to-make-a-simple-hand-sewn-book-a-c

How To Make A Simple Hand-sewn Book // A.C.

In the spirit of back-to-school season, I thought I’d share a guide to sewing a simple book. This is a skill I picked up in a bookbinding class and have used ever since to give my DIY comics, zines and sketch collections an extra special touch. There’s an entire beautiful world of bookbinding arts and techniques to explore; I especially love the look of coptic stitch, though it takes a lot of time and care. But even someone who has no other sewing experience or skill (read: me, I’m someone) can do the technique I’m sharing today. 1) Gather your materials: - The paper you’re going to sew together into a book. Keep it between 2-8 sheets for simplicity’s sake. You can use the same paper throughout, or mix and match. Keep in mind, paper of extreme weights—either very delicate or very thick—may be harder to sew neatly. For my zines, I choose lightweight paper for the guts of the book and a heavier, different-colored sheet for the cover. - Waxed linen thread. The wax helps it pass more smoothly through your paper as you’re sewing. - A needle. The eye should be a size that your thread can fit through comfortably. - An awl. - A surface you can punch holes in without fear. I use an outdated insurance pamphlet and a piece of cardboard. - (Optional) A stick of beeswax, in case your thread isn’t waxed or needs extra help.- (Optional) A bone folder, to make your folds more crisp.- A pencil.- Scissors.- A scrap sheet of paper for making a template. I use regular computer paper for this. Instructions for making this are below. 2) Make a template. This will tell you where to poke the holes in your book paper for the thread to go through. - Cut a strip from your scrap sheet. It should be the same height as your book is going to be, and 1-2” wide.- Fold the strip in half vertically and horizontally.- Mark the center of the strip where the folds cross with a pencil.- Measure 1/2” from the top and bottom of the strip. Mark these two points in the fold as well.- Now you should have three pencil dots going down the center fold. 3) Prepare the book block to sew. I’m doing the cover sheet separately from the others, because it is a thicker paper and behaves a little differently. But it’ll still line up with the others in the end, since all of the sheets will use the same template. - Pick up your book paper sheets and shuffle them against your table surface into a neat stack or “book block”. Line up the corners as best as you can. - Bend the block in half. Again, align the corners as much as possible. Then commit to the fold. You can run the edge of the bone folder along the fold to make it crisp. - Unfold the block. Place it on your hole-punchable surface.- Place your template in the center fold of your book block. - Now the fun part. Line up your awl with the three dots on your template and press down to punch three holes in your book block. I start with the center hole so I have it as a reference point. You don’t need a ton of pressure or force, unless your paper stack is super thick. Just enough to pierce through every sheet of paper in the book block. - Between punching holes, check and make sure your template is still flush with the center of the book block. 4) Ready to sew! Set your template aside—you can save it for the next book you make of this size. As long as the holes aren’t too ragged and inaccurate, you’ll be able to use it again and again.- Thread your needle. How much thread do you need? It depends on the size and thickness of the book. Generally, if you pull 2.5 times the height of your book block, that’ll be enough for this simple stitch. When it doubt, pull some extra—you can always cut it later if it turns out to be too much. - Pick up your book block (including cover sheet) in one hand. Make sure the sheets are in order and aligned as best as you can. The inside of the book should be facing you. - Pass the needle through the center hole, going out. Pull most of your thread through, but leave a few inches of it inside for tying it off later. - Now your needle is on the outside of your book. Pass it through the top hole, going back in. - Now your needle is inside the book again. Pull it up and pass it through the bottom hole, going back out. - Now your needle is outside the book. Pull it through the center hole, going back in. - The thread should be nice and taut throughout. If it’s sagging or loose anywhere, give it a gentle tug to adjust as needed. - Arrange the ends of your thread on either side of the thread running vertically through the center. Then tie the ends together. Tying them around the center thread keeps it neat and secure. For extra security, you can double-knot and/or add a dab of glue on the knot. - If you like, you can trim any extra thread left over after tying the knot. I like to tie a small bow and leave it. Congratulations! You made a hand-sewn book! It’s a small touch that can take extra time and effort—oh, the nights I’ve stayed up sewing thirty books for a con the next day—but the experience of turning the page and finding a bow there, the way bright threads stands out on the shelf of someone’s indie zine collection, that’s worth every stitch. Hand-sewing is suitable for books distributed in a small community, where the stories shared inside can feel so personal. That intimacy makes it perfect for journaling, too, I suspect. As long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve actually yet to sew up a TN insert this way…maybe one of you will beat me to it. Happy crafting! — Text and photos by: A.C. Esguerra Where to find A.C. : instagram @blueludebar Read other stories by A.C. : Here Bk Artifacts Featured: Traveler's Notebook / Camel - Regular

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my husband's at a local fighting game tournament and he's beating the guys that a year ago were his personal Red on the Mountain

Because eMudhra is in the news, I am sharing a screenie of a footer of an email I once received from them in reply to my query about my PAN card (a government-issue tax identity and card).

Thinking about when Odin was such a baby, even more baby than now, that he had not yet grasped the causal relationship between walking towards the park and being in the park He HATED walkies the first several months of his life. He didn’t want to go anywhere and got scared if he lost sight of […]

I have long noticed that the ancient Greeks had a compulsion to attribute everything to an inventor, often implausibly so to someone very famous; I think I have found the apotheosis of this tendency in Aristotle attributing the invention of the baby rattle to "mathematician, music theorist […]

I just wrote this in my own notes about Greek philosophers taking the slave underclass for granted, and I invite you to weaponize it against the deserving: "He sounds like the kind of man who expects his mother to come do his laundry at Walden Pond."

well, I was able to get a spot in January for the citizenship exam missing from my list, I was worried that they'd just not hold any for months and months and shrug about it

whoops #aliexpressfinds

I am so vulnerable to ye olde "L2/L3 confusion" Practice question for Dutch exam (in Dutch): name a few foods that contain a lot of sugar Me: uh... 糖

I feel like you can glean a lot of profound lessons about infosec, process, safety and design from this Minecraft video where one team digs a giant hole in front of their base, everyone on the server knows about the hole, and yet people keep falling into the hole, including the ones who dug it […]

@0xabad1dea A related fallacy is that cheap, poorly made tools are fine for novices, and that only experienced pros need the good stuff. If I don't have experience with some task, and have no idea what I'm doing, I need all the help I can get. The last thing I need is introducing an "are my […]

Guide to understanding Amsterdam news: “400 cobras found in shed”: they mean fireworks, it’s fine (it’s not fine) “Python in console”: no, programmers fleeing PHP, don’t stick your hands in there, it’s a literal snake.

“It’s a poor worksman who blames his tools” has always been complete nonsense. No-one complains about imperfect tools faster and louder than a master. A master will yank a cheap or damaged tool out of your hand and yell at you for not blaming it yet Cheap, lousy tools come from middle managers […]

In the Netherlands, first we got a national news alert that all government websites were shutting down because of the PHP bug, and then our national comedian-newscaster Lubach did a bit about it. so yeah, containment was breached

eMudhra, the company that made 4 the new funniest number, put out a press release that said the problem was discovered "possibly with AI assisted techniques" to make it sound sophisticated and difficult and not something that just anyone could discover No, what happened is that someone bothered […]

ugh. the patch is massive 🫩 the bug is based on causing an OOM condition and no-one ever accused the php interpreter of being neatly and elegantly architected, so the fix touches everything 🫩 the bugs go back many years but backporting the fix to all those versions is wildly impractical 🫩 the […]

Our router rebooted itself and started blinking ominously a few minutes before the embargo ended. I sure hope that was the ISP pushing updates for its rinkydink management interface and not someone installing a bitcoin miner in its rinkydink management interface

Odin got bored waiting for daddy outside the grocery store and decided to see how many Festive Autumnal Decorations he could get stuck in his fur

So, no matter how bad the PHP fallout proves to be, I have to concede that they *have* cleaned up their act quite a bit in recent years and these sorts of bugs out of PHP are much, much rarer than they used to be Did you know that, when I was a fiery young programmer in my 20s, I ran a hate […]

Double ADHD marriage be like: realizing we both completely forgot about our anniversary weeks ago