Passing fancies #26

Strap yourself in and prepare to be inundated with evidence of my weird interests, much of which I discovered via my RSS feeds.

Beer

Saturday we had lunch with some friends I met 26 years ago while working at a startup company called Ocular Networks.  Since one of these friends moved to New Jersey a few years ago, we have to look for places that are roughly equidistant to get together.  This time we chose Troegs Brewing in Hershey, PA.  Troegs has been a favorite brewery of mine for about 20 years and their Mad Elf is my absolute favorite winter beer.  The mixture of a strong Belgian style ale made with cherries and honey always makes it feel like the holidays to me.  During lunch we raised a toast to our friend David who we lost a little over a year ago.  David loved beers from Troegs as much as I do.

Books

Today I finished Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, who died a couple months ago.  I had read the first volume of Persepolis years ago and while looking at stories about her recent death I learned about this second volume.  These books provide insights into what it was like to live in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  They've won awards and I can see why.  This is proof that graphic novels can qualify as literature.

Television/Movies

This week we finished watching Lucky, a miniseries streaming on Apple TV.  It was a suspenseful series and since they didn't drop all the episodes at once, it gave us something to look forward to seeing each week.  The cast and writing were excellent.  Highly recommended.

We also finished watching the second season of Cross which streams on Amazon Prime Video.  It was entertaining but not quite as gripping as the first season was.

Today we saw Spider-Man: Brand New Day at Alamo Drafthouse and it was a fun movie as well as a great movie going experience.

One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie so much is Spider-Man is my favorite superhero.  I've been reading comics featuring him since I was a kid.  I liked the fact that in the early comics he was a teenager who didn't fit in at school prior to obtaining his powers.

The Alamo experience is so good that I'm reluctant to visit other theaters.  One of the many things I love about Alamo is that they feature themed short films for 30 minutes prior to the feature film.  For this movie, they had a summary of the previous films Spider-Man has appeared in for people like my wife who don't follow superhero films as closely as I do so they could understand a few of the references in the movie.  

At Alamo today I was pleasantly surprised to find a favorite beer like Founders Rübæus on tap there.  It's a lovely refreshing raspberry ale which manages to be both sweet and a bit tart at the same time.  That just made the movie that much more enjoyable.

Music

While watching Cross, season 2 episode 7, I heard a snippet of a song which I found intriguing.  A bit of research showed it to be Devil Always Makes Me Think Twice by Chris Stapleton.  I like it because the guitar in this song has a nice bluesy sound to it.  I often end up doing searches to find the artist and name of interesting songs which are featured as background in various movies and TV programs we watch.  This capability wasn't available when I was young so I enjoy being able to track down interesting music this way.
https://youtu.be/25yizPKZeDo?si=EEqiP2QR5Dw7niVb

Links

The news that dogs can tell when their owners are happy confirms what I've suspected for as long as we're had dogs.  They are amazing companions who have enriched our lives.  I say this as our latest rescue dog, a pit bull named Kya, relaxes next to me but as you can see from the photo above pops her head up when I tried to take her picture.
https://time.com/article/2026/08/10/your-dog-can-tell-when-youre-happy/

This story about J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings being rejected by the Nobel Prize Committee in 1961 should be surprising but I'm skeptical that this and similar prizes are ever awarded to the most deserving art.  Tolkien's books are among my favorites and I've revisited them periodically ever since I first read them while in high school..
https://www.openculture.com/2026/05/when-the-nobel-prize-committee-rejected-the-lord-of-the-rings-tolkien-has-not-measured-up-to-storytelling-of-the-highest-quality-1961.html

This interview with Melanie Buggey who crossed the Strait of Georgia in record time is amusing to me mostly because of how offbeat some of her answers are.  Humor can help elevate an otherwise routine interview.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/b-c-swimmer-crosses-strait-of-georgia-under-nine-hours-9.7316260

Sadly, the fact that Black artists have been largely left out of the history of punk and indie music isn't terribly surprising.  It's given me the desire to seek out music from the artists mentioned in this article.
https://thequietus.com/culture/books/history-itself-justifies-our-presence-stephanie-phillips-on-the-erasure-of-black-voices-in-punk-and-indie-music/

I found news of members of Gen Z embracing retrotech interesting.  While I'm a baby boomer much older than the generation mentioned in the article, I also find retrotech more interesting than most modern tech.  User interfaces have gotten more complicated but they don't seem more efficient to me.  My latest toy is a Friendly fZ80 computer designed and produced by Tom Jennings which provides Z80 emulation to be able to run the CP/M and MP/M operating systems.  If you're a fan of BBSes, you may have heard of FidoNet, which Tom created.  I'm looking forward to the HDMI to VGA adapter I ordered arriving so I can give it a try.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2026/08/24/from-ipods-to-wired-headphones-why-more-gen-zers-are-picking-retro-tech

Since the Z80 is an 8-bit CPU, this article about how 8-bit computers work seems appropriate.
https://amenzwa.github.io/stem/ComputingHistory/How8bitComputersWork/

The small brains called organoids which scientists have been growing for experiments apparently have a sense of time spanning several years.  That makes me wonder whether these little brains are more aware of other things about their environment which we don't know about yet.
https://thedebrief.org/scientists-grew-human-brain-organoids-for-years-and-discovered-they-keep-track-of-time/

A teacher in Illinois built an amazingly detailed model of Disney World out of Lego.  I'm fascinated by miniature models of real world things like this.
https://www.stlpr.org/culture-history/2026-08-19/illinois-disney-world-lego-kragle-kreations

Working on the Mars rover Perserverance which is capable of operating autonomously much of the time, must have been tremendously satisfying.  Seeing the product of years of planning and implementation operate so well has to feel good.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/the-first-self-driving-vehicle-on-mars-has-proven-to-be-a-smashing-success/

Who knew semi-truck racing was a thing in Columbia?
https://www.thedrive.com/news/insane-semi-truck-racing-event-has-trailer-on-time-attack

link dump #10

 

I follow a lot of RSS feeds which makes it easier for me to discover interesting web pages without having to visit my list of interesting blogs which aren't updated often.  I hate to send these interesting links via email since it feels too much like a teacher giving homework... here, go read all of these web pages and report back to me.  Instead I think collecting them in a blog post is a friendlier way to pass links along.

A fair number of chefs seem to like American cheese for its ability to melt smoothly on burgers.  I'd much rather have a cheese with more flavor such as a medium sharp cheddar even though it's not as attractive when it melts.  Swiss and Blue cheese are also better choices for me than American cheese.
https://www.seriouseats.com/whats-really-in-american-cheese

One of the books I'm currently reading is Alas Babylon.  I've been on a post-apocalyptic kick lately, having recently finished Earth Abides, which like Alas Babylon, I probably hadn't read in 40 years or more. I've also enjoyed The Postman and On the Beach (my personal favorite in this sub-genre).
https://grubstreethack.wordpress.com/2019/12/07/book-review-alas-babylon/

I just read about a company called Elite Obsolete Electronics which is upgrading classic Apple iPods with modern storage devices and better batteries.  I've got a first generation iPod Classic with the click wheel which I've considered doing an upgrade like this but the fact that it has a Firewire interface raises the complexity of synchronizing music to the device.  There's  also the issue of trying to convince Apple Music to sync to such an old device.  Given those issues, I'm probably better off going with a Tangara which is a crowd funded device created with all modern technology.

It makes me sad to read about technology like Stinger missiles which we've forgotten how to produce.  I fear AI is just making this worse.  It's cool that they were able to call engineers in their 70s to come back to teach younger engineers how.  Since I'm retiring early next year, I'm hoping there's no reason that some company tries to lure me back to the workforce.  I always thought the year 2038 date problem would be the reason I'd get pressured, but it looks like there might be more reasons than that.

Drunk engineers often have good advice.  I don't agree with all of it but there are some gems in this list.
https://luminousmen.substack.com/p/drunk-post-things-ive-learned-as

I worry about young people who are losing the powers of concentration required to watch a movie or read a book.  I wonder how many people still want to watch a longer classic movie like Lawrence of Arabia (one of my favorites).
https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2026/01/attention-span-problems-viewing-movies.html

The idea of starting a country where crocs and reply-all emails are banned appeals to me in a strange sort of way,  I also like their idea of selling titles for people to boost their LinkedIn profiles.  In case you can't tell, I'm definitely not a fan of LinkedIn
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20260330-slowjamastan-the-worlds-newest-nation-youve-never-heard-of

Often it's hard to people's minds but no one should have to suffer like the doctor who helped proved that washing hands could save lives.
https://boingboing.net/2026/04/07/the-doctor-who-proved-handwashing-saves-lives-was-locked-in-an-asylum-for-it.html

Even though I've got no where to put it, I kind of want this Lego Star Trek TNG Bridge.
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-256838/Menapian/star-trek-tng-enterprise-d-bridge-diorama/#details

If LED lights can damage paintings, I wonder what effect they have on people?
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2013/01/04/led_bulbs_can_damagepaintings-1-1518123/

link dump #1

I follow a lot of RSS feeds which allows me to find a lot of interesting web pages.  I hate to send them via email since it feels too much like a teacher giving homework... here, go read all of these web pages and report back to me.  Instead collecting them in a blog post seems like a friendlier way to pass links along.

I'm fascinated by miniatures so I find these very realistic RC trucks very cool.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/custom-rc-shop-recreates-real-life-work-trucks-that-are-fully-functional-just-mini

Speaking of miniatures, these models of classic computers remind me of my days as a field engineer in mainframe and mini computer data centers.
https://www.miniatua.com/work/ibm1401/ 

Someone took the time to recreate the Top Gear studio using Lego.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/someone-recreated-the-top-gear-studio-in-lego-and-so-can-you 

Did you ever wonder where the expression 'peanut gallery came from?  It's older than I thought.
https://theconversation.com/the-complicated-origin-of-the-expression-peanut-gallery-148897 

This sliderule simulator teaches you how to use one for calculations.  I should use it remember how to use one of my small sliderule collection. 
https://hackaday.com/2026/02/18/sliderule-simulator-teaches-you-how-to-do-calculations-the-old-fashioned-way/