Spool-Five

Mad Max: Fury Road is a great movie.

Recently I visited China and spent a while in the north-eastern city of Anshan.

Related to my previous blog post, here are some of the interesting things I heard for the first time on the radio over the past couple of months.

The Taoist idea of Wu Wei (無為) has always seemed very ambiguous to me.

Westworld is a science-fiction film (1973) and TV series (2016-2022) that is based on the premise of a theme-park populated by AI robots role-playing the setting of the American “West”.

The term AI Alignment, like many new concepts associated with AI, is very broad and fuzzy.

And now, here’s this year’s final (optional) prompt.

Finally, here’s today’s prompt (optional, as always).

Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers,” is short and somewhat shocking, bringing us quickly from a near-hallucinatory descriptive statement to a strange sort of question, before ending on the very direct statement of a “truth.”

Last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt.

Relays in networks.

And now for our (optional) daily prompt!

In her poem, “The Flying Nightdress,” Mandakranta Sen describes something fantastical and strange that occurs while the rest of the world is asleep.

And speaking of forms, today’s (optional) prompt takes its inspiration from Kiki Petrosino’s loose villanelle, “Nursery.”

Jaswinder Bolina’s poem “Mood Ring” imagines the speaker as both himself and an interior being (who happens to take the form of a small donkey).

Leaf fall down, or more like jump Fox on footpath, while Bulbous baby laughs with joy

For today, try writing your own poem that uses an animal that shows up in myths and legends as a metaphor for some aspect of a contemporary person’s life.

The morning sun, the midday rain The afternoon wind spins weather vane A spot of snow, a hurricane Some buds appear, some hidden stay Plans are scrapped, new plans are made Four seasons, at once, in a day

A rugged field, a crossing made From bough to place of lovely shade That cooling spot, where water breaks The limestone rock, the shore of lake Where once he came, in hooded gown With stick made from old branch pared down A sacrifice, the drops of blood A

For today’s challenge, write a poem in which you respond to a favourite poem by another poet.

In “Ocean,” Robinson Jeffers delivers an almost oracular, scriptural description of the sea not just as a geographical phenomenon, but a sort of being – old, wise, profound, and able to teach those who want to learn.

Today, we’d like you to write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

And now for our (optional!)

Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape.

Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

And now for today’s (optional) prompt!

And now, our (optional) daily prompt.

I didn’t go with the ‘prompt’ for today.

And now, here’s our optional prompt for the day!

When I was younger, I used to love following music developments.

Sandy soil, some strewn branches From recent high winds Tall red tree-pillars, evenly spread A space for formal matters A clearing Round bee, and small finch, Unseen mites in sandy crevasses Convening, on sunny afternoon, A quorum

Picture from Powerscourt “river walk” in Wicklow, 6th April 2026.

Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover.

Finally, here’s today’s optional prompt.

And now, last but not least, here is today’s optional prompt.

Speaking of things that are unsettling, it’s now time for our daily prompt — optional, as always!

And now, here is our (optional) prompt for the day!

I have a confession to make, I still haven’t used Claude Code.

tags #internet The Domain Name System, or DNS, is a system for establishing globally unique, human-readable names that correspond to various types of network resources, most commonly IP addresses.

I came across the 512kb club a long time ago, and it was very influential in helping me understand how websites work and the impact different kinds of assets or design choices can have on how pages load.

These are the tools that I frequently use.

I’m calling the protocols discussed below “smallnet protocols”, but actually I don’t know the right name for them…

These are from the Rich Hickey talk on “Design in Practice” at Clojure Conj 2023.

A quick look at some stats about gemini capsules.

Some notes on the year.

One of the nice things about the clojure programming language is how flexible built-in functions are.

tags #internet Currently, there is a working group at the IETF studying decentralisation in the internet - Decentralisation of the Internet Research Group (DINRG).

Clojure’s core async library recently added a namespace called ‘flow’.

tags #internet In guarding against thieves who ransack coffers, search through bags, and break open cupboards, people are sure to bind them with ropes and cords, secure them with clasps and hasps.