I saw a microbiologist today...
They were much bigger than I expected...
07.03.2026 19:31
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I saw a microbiologist today...
They were much bigger than I expected...
I finished Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky, I did not enjoy it one bit! I will still give another of his a try, maybe House of the Dead, but now for a total change of pace I've started We Are Legion (We are Bob) app.thestorygraph.com/books/cbf80f... which a friend recommended as something fun
I'm thinking of giving up on a book I'm reading, and I wonder on @thestorygraph.com if giving up and marking as "Did not finish", or if finishing (for real of course, actually read the rest) and giving it a 2 star review would better steer the recommendations away from this type of book.
What's everyone reading this weekend?
The book My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Frederik Backman
Currently reading the first of my Frederik Backman subscription from you, My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises. Just over half way through and it's utterly brilliant so far. The themes of grief make it a real tear jerker at times, but in a wonderful way.
Delivery of in stock books from Blackwell's (I had tried bookshop.org and all my usual indies first and no one else had it) is so unbelievably slow, 10 days since I ordered it, and this is not abnormal. 7 days until dispatch notification, but Whistl didn't actually get it until day 9.
The @grafana.bsky.social SQL expressions (grafana.com/docs/grafana...) which are in public preview, are absolutely amazing. It's so much more powerful than using the in built transformations (which are still useful, but the SQL Expressions allow you to do things they cannot)
Boy saves family with 2.5-mile swim in shark-infested waters MANA SHEPHERD/ASAP, ALA James Salmon Perth A 13-year-old boy who swam for four hours through shark-infested Western Australia's waters to save his mother and two siblings after they were swept out to sea has been described as "superhuman" by rescue services. Austin Appelbee swam 25 miles to shore to raise the alarm after getting into difficulties with his mother, Joanne, 47, brother Beau, 12, and sister Grace, 8, police said. He then ran 1.2 miles to find help. Paul Bresland, Naturaliste Volunteer Marine Rescue commander, said that Austin's efforts were "superhuman". The family were on holiday last week Quindalup near Dunsborough. coastal town about 150 miles south of Perth, where they live. Making the most of what appeared to be calm conditions, they paddled out into Geographe Bay 3. Family rescued 9 miles from shore Indian Ocean 1. Austin swims 2.5 miles to shore Geographe Bay 2. He runs 1.2 miles to call for help in Dunsborough Quindalup Jetty 3 miles in the Indian Ocean on Friday morning on a kayak and inflatable paddleboards. At about llam conditions became rougher. They lost their paddles and their kayak flipped over and started sinking as it filled with water. Austin's mother realised their best chance of survival was asking her elder son to swim for shore while she tried to keep her other children from drowning "One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was to say to Austin, "Try to get to shore and get some help, this could get really serious really quickly she told the broadcaster ABC. *I knew he was the strongest and he could do it." For the next few hours, she and her rounger children clung to their paddle boards. Austin set off on an inflatable kayak wearing a lifejacket. He abandoned the kayak after it took on water, and took off the lifejacket. Austin said he tried to focus on positive thoughts as he swam through rough seas. "The waves are massive and " he said. "I just I have no lifej…
sorry to be sentimental but this is the most amazing heartwarming story
I whole heartedly agree, I've already read A man called Ove, Beartown (just number 1) and Britt-Marie was here. All three were wonderful
A copy of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Frederick Backman which is tied up with a ribbon with a beautiful bow
Lovely to greet the postman and see that @bertsbooks.bsky.social packaging. I opened it to find the first book in my Frederick Backman subscription so beautifully packaged
From an @thestorygraph.com recommendation, I just started The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn
I went to collect a reservation from my lovely local provincial library: "Hi, I've got a reservation to collect" and the librarian/staff member paid me possibly the greatest complement I could ever hope for "Oh yes, when unusual and interesting books come in I always know they are for you"
I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place
Some days (like today) I like to not dismiss the Monzo notification that I bought a book (usually from bookshop.org) so I can keep feeling the small burst of joy knowing a book is going to arrive. Even though I know this one is on back order and will take multiple weeks, it's still making me happy.
No
Heard a lad earlier talking about ‘Belgian whistles’
“A basic website costs 10k or 25k upwards if you want all the Belgian whistles”
BELGIAN WHISTLES
Hey there, the video you shared is private
I wanted to read Cogwheels by Akutagawa, so I bought "The Essential Akutagawa", sadly among the 22 short stories in it is not Cogwheels, I needed instead to buy "Essential Akutagawa". Ah what a silly mistake. However my lovely library has "Rashomon and 17 other short stories" so I've ordered that in
Either The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy or The Code Book by Simon Singh. I loved both, and they both convey complex problems with brilliance to the reader while keeping an engaging style going throughout
Thinking about this more, it's clear the GitHub cli is not designed for humans to interact with GitHub projects, and I feel I should just give up trying to interact with them as a human
It's possible I am missing a quicker way, but the documentation is purely api docs for graphql without examples of connecting things together.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but github projects makes me miss Jira :( 3/3
...to create a gh issue and add custom project field values you need to parse the non-json output of gh issue create to look for the issue ID, then:
do graphql lookups to get:
The project ID
The issue ID
The field ID
The field value ID
then finally a graphql mutation to set it
... 2/3
Having used github projects for a while I am firmly in the camp of "it sucks", largely because driving it via cli is an absolute nightmare requiring you to do tons of graphql api queries manually. The CLI is absolutely bobbins for interacting with github projects. ... 1/3
The cover of Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal
I'm reading Live at Golgotha: The Gospel according to Gore Vidal.
I'm about 25% through, it's tough going, but I'm also enjoying it. I think the Story Graph reading challenge is helping to keep me at it :)
Can’t kick it wide right if you aren’t kicking.
This Motherless Land
Here One Moment
The Wall
We Solve Murders
Before we get properly into the swing of the New Year, let's take a look at the bestselling books of 2025 in our shop in Swindon...
We had a lovely visit from Nikki May, helping This Motherless Land to 20th place, plus The Wall in 18th was Pedro's favourite book of the year.
The Andromeda galaxy
Rather pleased with this image of Andromeda, it took 4.5 hours and 1000 stacked images to get, but I'm really happy with it
...I still think it's a good book, but perhaps a Pratchett novel isn't the kind of book I get the most from reading these days.
Next book up is probably a much more serious science fiction book recommended by a friend whose opinion in books I value greatly 2/2
Finished reading Interesting Times today. While I enjoyed it, I didn't feel compelled to keep reading, and it didn't scratch the same parts of my brain as things I've read more recently...1/2
