BlogDB

Google launches Sheets canvas for interactive dashboards with AI prompts

Google has launched Sheets canvas in Google Sheets, allowing users to reformat spreadsheet data into interactive mini-apps using natural language prompts. No coding is needed, and updates sync betw...

Weekly Notes 33/2026

I ended the Netflix subscription. We have not been using it for a long time, and we were just paying; finally, this month I ended it. Sleep has won for me. If required, I can subscribe again. We st...

NRF’s Potential to Launch an Anti-Taliban Counterinsurgency

Andrea Serino

Fireside Friday, August 14, 2026 (On Financing Pre-Modern Navies)

Hey folks, fireside this week as I get ready for the start of a new semester! For this week, I wanted to talk briefly about the wrinkles that financing navies poses with regards to our worldbuildin...

Tree Rings Reveal the Exact Chronology of the Ancient Phrygian City of Gordion, Capital of the Legendary King Midas

The ancient city of Gordion, capital of the Phrygian kingdom and recently declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, now has a new and precise chronology for its most important construction phases. An ...

Richard of Conisburgh

Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, was one of the chief conspirators of the Southampton Plot to eliminate Henry V and replace him with Edmund Mortimer. He had an impressive lineage. His ...

Homelabbers and Desktop Tweakers may want to move beyond just plain AI chat

The days of asking AI a question, or pasting a config file in, and then pasting (or typing) the updated file back, are no longer needed. I have over 47 running docker containers, with almost as man...

On Publishing Your Salary

One of my favourite things to do online is perusing the IndieWeb. It's fun, and I've been able to discover a tonne of interesting people along the way. But every now and then, I come across someone...

LightDM is Back From The Dead, But Canonical isn't in Charge Anymore

It took years of silence, new maintainers, and a release to bring LightDM back.

Reverse Engineering the Gravity 800 Smoker Controller

I recently released FreeFall 800, open source firmware for the Gravity 800 smoker/grill from Masterbuilt. The project started because I needed to open the controller to fix a broken wire. That is w...

Accretionary Arc

Asking ChatGPT a Legal Question

I’m serving as Treasurer for my county’s Libertarian political party. Recently the county board of elections emailed me asking for some documentation about a few old expenses.

Rest Up

I'm afraid of moving on. There's a certain paralysis-by-analysis that plagues me, if you can believe it! Even with all the pills I take every morning, I still find myself bereft of a sense of norma...

XOXO, Gossip Girl: The Yale Law Whisper Network Dishes On Usha Vance — See Also

Everything You Need To Know About Usha Vance, You Can Learn At Yale Law: Her classmates gossip about her on Signal. The clerkship culture that shaped her politics is the part they don't put in the ...

Putting The $ Into $ervice

Read Putting The $ Into $ervice A customer tosses an item onto my checkout belt. Customer: "Why is this so expensive?! I can get it $2 cheaper at [Competitor]!" Me: "We don't price match, so I woul...

Troubleshooting Video Delay On The Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers are great little devices, and they can do great things with cameras and video. However, there can be a fair bit of latency …read more

En Banc Fifth Circuit Dismisses Alien Enemies Act Case as Moot

The ruling does not address whether Trump properly invoked the Act.

Five Linux Apps to Install on Day One

I read a How to Geek blog post titled 5 apps new Linux users should install on day one (HT Tux Machines). The author, Dibakar Ghosh, recommended the following apps: GNOME Tweaks and GNOME Extension...

Supplement Supplemental (Scouting Scares, Gaslight Gruesomeness, and Maledictum Missions)

Time for another check-in on a selection of RPG supplements that have caught my eye of late. This time around it’s a percentile system special, with two releases for Call of Cthulhu (one regular an...

The road to epsilon-zero: Productive programs and well-founded orders

Previously: Ordinal numbers and basic set theory Ordinals as nim-heaps Nim always ends, even with infinite ordinals Infinite Nim as a coin-moving game Coin-moving games without the coins Previously...