*WELL State of the World 2026 is winding down, with much eloquent doomer grumbling, but I feel better for doing it, and somehow I always do. people.well.com/conf/inkwell...

It certainly sounds a bit like the language of the Middle Management Tribe. And the structure: Sentence, summary list, moral, request for reflections is pretty much their Haiku

*My thoughts are that he's quite right. People really are speaking Delvish now. It's a dialect that's not of human origin, but it's a new, living dialect with which people speak to each other. *There may even be a Delvish *cultural sensibility*

Wintery Mix Tuesday 13th Jan. The MET Office forecast predicted a wintery mix would fall from eleven until noon. Delayed by my own natural distractions that was scheduled for slightly after I left the house on my standard Tuesday run. On the calendar fifty minutes of easy running with six times…

Wintery Mix Tuesday 13th Jan. The MET Office forecast predicted a wintery mix would fall from eleven until noon. Delayed by my own natural distractions that was scheduled for slightly after I left the house on my standard Tuesday run. On the calendar fifty minutes of easy running with six times…

2025 A lot of people I respect write excellent roundups of their years, and 2025, has been no different. I wish I'd been more methodical in recording the music that I'd enjoyed this year (mostly techno of various flavours and stoner metal), but I have not. The important activities in my life are…

Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021) sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/s...

*StanfordOrKetamine has set me and my formerly-human open-source friends on fire"

When the film is so underexposed that it ends up feeling like painting. Shot on Ilford XP2 and Nikon N50

Frustrated that I wasted a morning waiting for an important delivery that didn't arrive (so couldn't run in the snow) and now, after having to work all day, lack the executive function to even do a basic 20 minute strength session. I want my happy noon till seven thirty schedule back.

@countrysideben.bsky.social Quick question, how's the road to Mar Lodge/Linn of Dee right now? Thinking of heading up that way on Friday/Saturday.

On Sunday I skied from my house to the sea then Footdee. Now I just hope the snow melts enough that a new washing machine can be delivered.

Microsoft is so fucking stupid. Microsoft renamed Microsoft Office to Microsoft 365 Copilot App I'm not joking

It's frustrating that the second photo of the sea, the harbour lit up, and the snow covered dunes will probably be the best photo I take this year.

The first run of the year had immaculate vibes, even if it was slow. Ran across @moabin.bsky.social skiing. I've joked that there's a dub techno album cover in the photos I took, but I'm not sure I'm joking.

Three songs that possess the spiritualized energy I fantasize about cultivating in the first minutes of a new year: www.jamesreeves.co/first-things/ 1. Kali Malone - Spectacle of Ritual 2. Abul Mogard - Desires Are Reminiscences By Now 3. Autechre - VLetrmx21 (65% slower)

New Journal And hot on the heels of yesterday's entry about being at the end of one journal, today I start the new one. The sticker came from the parcel with my one of my Christmas presents in. As a bonus, below is a photograph I took earlier today of the stack of most of the core notebooks that…

Notebook Intervals I'm reaching the end of my current personal notebook which is always a weird position to be in. There are three stages in the lives of my notebooks: the first dozen or so pages are filled with references to the previous notebook, but there is an immense feeling of optimism and…

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Buttons are back. Knobs are back. Dumb devices are back. Own-it-forever software is back. Print is back. Personal websites and chronological feeds are back. Touching grass is back. People keep saying 2015, but it’s not far enough. The entire 2010s were a mistake. We must retvrn to… 2009.

Long Run Saturdays Oil industry machinery in the south harbour with golfers on the clifftop golf course in front of it. I'm moving my long runs to Saturdays since it might be more restful. When I posted this to Instagram mid run I put some Deepchord alongside it. You'll have to imagine that.

If you pay attention to any large industry long enough and follow it to its logical conclusion you eventually end up sounding like a communist even if you started off testing CPU case fans. youtu.be/cUrJVdF2me0?...

Reject AI! Worship the true machine God! Its name is 909/303!

it’s going to look great at first: a new era of “cheap” phones and laptops, that are light and slim with amazing battery life - because they’re basically just front ends for cloud services, and do zero local compute added bonus: forget trying to block ads when “your” browser is running in the cloud

Jen's away visiting her parents, so I've mostly been in my room exploring dub techniques. Results so far are mixed.

An annual roundup and must read from @jamesreeves.co

Ballard is like Baudrillard, I dont want to admit he's right, but living in britain, he becomes more right every day

On the third day of Hanukkah, I am kicking off a new project on my blog: a series of short critical essays as I read - for the who-knows-how-many-th time - The Lord of the Rings. Today's essay is an introduction, and new posts will go up every two weeks. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

I think the fundamental gap here is that non-creative people think that creative people make things for the end product, when in fact it’s the act of creation and not the end point that makes it worthwhile.

Bandcamp Friday!

“The purpose of a system is what it does. There is, after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it consistently fails to do.” — Stafford Beer, 1985

Our next trip is to Glen Doll, in the Angus Glens area of the #Cairngorms National Park. Our trip in 2018 was one of glorious blue skies one day and misty with snow falling the next - it's a great area to explore! We have a programme of monthly weekend trips for 2026 - why not join us?

A few days ago in the Cairngorms #hiking www.christownsendoutdoors.com/2025/12/nove...

Goshawk dies from gunshot injuries in Aberdeenshire - Police Scotland appeals for information raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/12/01/g...

All the greatest hits at a slower speed—guaranteed. Plus some egg foo young. 1. Simple Minds - Don’t You Forget About Me 2. Will Web - Spacewalk 3. The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe 4. Vladislav Delay - Huone 5. Swans - Leaving Meaning 6. Pole - Hafen 7. Aphex Twin - #1 8. The Cars - Jacki

New! @wordgarbler.bsky.social revisits an old favourite with Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and @sakbari.bsky.social is excited about Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s new book Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead. Listen at megaphonic.fm/spouter/87 or on your podcast app.

J G Ballard on the South Bsnk Show , twenty years ago. I first found his work in the SF section of the local library when /i was ten or so, and and got hooked on the atmospherics of the first three novels. Later, called by the vast temporal resonances of the far night sky... youtu.be/8LosxrbL3sU?...

Clashindarroch Forest Last Friday and Saturday I went nordic skiing in the Clashindarroch Forest for the first time. There were mixed results. Yes, I enjoyed spending time with friends in a beautiful place, but an increasing weariness from the day job has made me irritable. It didn't help that I'd…

Loch Avon. Sept 2025. #cairngorms #blackandwhite #lochavon

Ben Macdui Summit Trig Point. Sept 2025. #cairngorms #blackandwhite #benmacdui

Ben Macdui Summit Trig Point. Sept 2025. #cairngorms #blackandwhite #benmacdui

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while: here’s @davidheb.bsky.social on the incomparable Nina Allan’s latest, A Granite Silence: “In her latest novel, Allan turns her attention to a historical murder case: The many worlds that spiral out from one tragic event.”

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

i’m not crying you’re crying xkcd: Fifteen Years

Some scenes from cross country skiing in the Clashindarroch forest last Friday. It's difficult to concentrate this week.

"Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living." ~ Søren Kierkegaard 🎨 James T. Watts (1892)

Snow has arrived in Aberdeen, but I already enjoyed a short dook into the snow on Carn An T-Sagairt Mor last Saturday.

Two reviews of Izumi Suzuki's "Terminal Boredom" (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021) (with @rachelcordasco.bsky.social ). sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/11/15/s...

Today's album on repeat Robert Hood's Internal Empire.

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