christmas trees in the snow … … or the reverse of a freestanding street sign … ✨warm wishes to everyone l know here and many thanks ✨

AI is reshaping journalism, but Mongabay is seeing deeper engagement as readers value verified, accountable reporting. As synthetic content floods feeds, trust, transparency, and original journalism matter more than ever. A reflection by Mongabay Founder and CEO @rhettayersbutler.bsky.social:

magical christmas lights edinburgh botanic gardens

Apparently, Kneecap are performing in Tokyo. 東京で新年にニーキャップの公演が！　www.creativeman.co.jp/event/kneeca...

.. light to dark | dark to light ..

HAPPY MAYBE NIGHT! Our Winter Solstice celebration of Finnegans Wake has begun :))) www.maybeday.net/night/

Phenomenal performance last night of A Christmas Carol at the Viking Theatre! The brilliant show has been running for a few years now and somehow it keeps getting better each year. Massive kudos to the cast Michael James Ford, Sinead Murphy and Sam Ford as well as to the whole team onsite. 🎄🎶

Avatar was okay in Book 1 but got significantly better in Book 2 and became epic in Book 3. Very glad to have discovered the show. My favourite character by far is Toph, followed by Zuko and Iroh. Aang's arc was a bit forced imho and perhaps needed another Book to be truly told. Still, a great show.

A break from Christmas content to enjoy this capybara eating a banana. From François Froger's 'A relation of a voyage ...' (London, 1698).

Wonderful choral performance last night at the Church of the Immaculate Conception aka Adam and Eve's. The high point for me was Lully, Lulla, Lullay, a carol lamenting the death of the boys during the Massacre of Innocents. Brilliant rendition by Cór Linn. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cte1...

💨 🍃 walk on through 🍃💨

Shogi women's professional player (WPP) Kana Fukuma has just done a press conference regarding her demands for the Japan Shogi Association to improve their rules. She stated that the current rules force WPPs to choose between having a child and participating in a title match.

Is your Christmas tree up yet, or is it still too early? Hand-coloured fir tree with bonus wildlife, from Hieronymous Boch's herbal printed 473 years ago.

Mindmaps have been slow in coming, but now the process is accelerating. This one is from our October meeting with brilliant Sam Slote - you should have heard him reading the perforated part of the letter! Yes, lots of pecked punctuation in this one: it was one busy hen. Art by Linda Lotiel

Who were the real people in the Ormond Hotel in "Sirens"? In this blog post, we explore the history of Dublin's Ormond Hotel and also the true story behind Ulysses' possibly most forgettable character. #booksky

Our collection of parrots, watercolour on velum, from Eleazar Albin's 'Natural History of Birds', mid 18th century

▫️ ice season ▫️ snow queen approaching

When all the major tech companies are busy splurging oodles on AI and worsening their services in the process, this is a major opportunity for competitors to just go all-in on enhancing reliability. They can then offer a more reliable equivalent app which is also AI-free. Two birds. 🤷

Join us on Thursday, 15th January 2026 at 6.30pm for "Making Finnegans Wake Accessible: The Project of Finnegans Web," a talk by Irish-Japanese translator @kenjihayakawa.com. The event is free but booking is essential. Doors open at 6pm. www.eventbrite.ie/e/making-fin...

LoFi Finnegans Wake Mix would be nice to have, but it'll probably be pretty much the same as LoFi Thomas Moore.

we are floating lanterns

🥂

winterwall

Feeling some serious early Björk vibes from some of Ado's songs. Would love to see a live performance (any chance she might stop by Ireland in her next world tour...?).

Saddened to hear that the iconic Shogi Club 24 (将棋倶楽部24) is closing down as of end of this year. At a personal level, the website helped me dramatically improve my game and pass the Shoureikai entrance exam back in 2004. Big props to everyone who kept the website going for this long.

Is it just us or is there a dog-like look to the sea monster in this 1576 map of Corfu?

Just a few tickets remaining for A Christmas Carol! A sell-out hit at the Viking Theatre for the past nine years, you can catch this special holiday production for €20 at the James Joyce Centre on 12 & 13 December at 7pm. www.eventbrite.ie/e/a-christma...

I had a lot of fun putting together this playlist of songs referenced in Chapter I.1 of Finnegans Wake: music.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCO... (Children's songs had to be excluded because YouTube does not allow "Made for Kids" content to be added to playlists.) Chapter I.2 coming soon...

Whoa, this is an incredible list. ulyssespages.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.... A lot of overlap with songs mentioned in Finnegans Wake.

"Not a single interpretation was free of reputational risks [...] AI interpretation is still at an experimental stage and is not fit for use in WHO meetings with external stakeholders." Yep, this checks out. Well done WHO for conducting such an informative study. www.atanet.org/wp-content/u...

Six Time Machines.

Came across this gem today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCO...

Thanks to @gregfallis.com for the last 20 years I can never see autumn leaves on glass patio tables without whipping out the camera. #BlameGreg #photography #Ontario #nature #EastCoastKin

"While one could argue that their role of typesetting, printing, and diffusion were central in the print world, the ease with which these function can be fulfilled—or are no longer necessary—in the electronic world makes one wonder: what do we need publishers for?" journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Just learned what a "gongoozler" is. Hm.

One of the aims of Finnegans Web is to showcase the experimental side of Irish literature. I'd guess that not many Japanese readers would associate Ireland with literary experimentation, whereas in actual fact such experimentation has always been at the heart of modern Irish literature.

𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝘀

▫️ curb stones after the rain ▫️

Attended an interesting event the other day featuring three Irish writers talking about literature and art. The talk reminded me of the following interview. pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.107/17... Bök also made an amusing piece RE: Super Mario Bros, Mushroom Clouds: writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/...

Watched Flow. One of the best films I watched this year.

🍂 the dry season 🍂 lindisfarne

Words in Finnegans Wake are generally quite opaque, polysemic and multilingual, yet their pronunciations are clear and uniform most of the time, which is quite surprising. One could of course intentionally mispronounce them, but then the words stop making much sense.

I'm supposed to be on a "Finnegans Break" but as a way of not translating Chapter I.3, I'm ending up writing other stuff that's related to the Wake anyway. Hm.

🍃 🍂 november - month of the magic windows 🍂 🍃