Author Archives: blaise

frax

Posted on October 2, 2013 by blaise

This baby has been a long time in ges­tat­ing.  Hats off to Ben, Kai and Tom for cre­at­ing, over I won’t say how many years, the great­est app ever to ren­der a reti­na dis­play pix­el.  Frax is not only the … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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notebook

Posted on August 4, 2013 by blaise

I began keep­ing note­books at age 7 or 8.  My par­ents must have sent this one in a box a while ago. The entries in it date from late 1985 to ear­ly 1986, so I would have been 10 at the time: a … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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anselm’s puzzle

Posted on June 8, 2013 by blaise

http://styleisviolence.com/the-hard-boiled-wonderland-puzzle/

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scones

Posted on June 2, 2013 by blaise

The dust con­sist­ed of 2 cups of flour, 2 tea­spoons of bak­ing pow­der, and 1 tea­spoon of sug­ar pre­mixed.  The added crys­tals are ½ tea­spoon of salt.  “Very hot” con­ven­tion­al­ly means 450–500F. This recipe was adapt­ed from the Aus­tralian Women’s … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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thickness

Posted on May 15, 2013 by blaise

“Sorel’s basic char­ac­ter flaws had all cement­ed by the age of fif­teen, a fact which fur­ther elicit­ed my sym­pa­thy.  To have all the build­ing blocks of your life in place by that age was, by any stan­dard, a tragedy.  It … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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glass

Posted on March 22, 2013 by blaise

The real Glass—Philip Glass.  I’m lis­ten­ing to the sec­ond move­ment of his first vio­lin con­cer­to, while walk­ing to the bus through a light snow­fall on Capi­tol Hill.  It feels tran­scen­dent.  For a few min­utes there’s noth­ing else at all. The … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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the kitchen

Posted on January 22, 2013 by blaise

The on{X} team has just released a very nice new piece of func­tion­al­i­ty, the Kitchen.  This allows any­one who uses on{X} to very eas­i­ly write a new recipe, defin­ing nov­el smart­phone behav­iors sim­ply by snap­ping togeth­er Lego-like com­po­nents. The Kitchen … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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marbles

Posted on January 7, 2013 by blaise

Comics aren’t my usu­al thing, but I need to give Ellen For­ney her due.  I’ve just read her auto­bi­og­ra­phy Mar­bles, about the nature of cre­ativ­i­ty, bipo­lar dis­or­der, and her strug­gle to achieve bal­ance.  It’s a love­ly thing.  The book is … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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new piece

Posted on December 5, 2012 by blaise

Rainy day

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the sense that the booker prize sucks

Posted on October 18, 2012 by blaise

There are two book reviews I’d like to post, by way of com­par­ing great writ­ing with crap writ­ing.  My orig­i­nal thought was to inter­leave snip­pets from these two books, allow­ing one to make its own case and the oth­er to … Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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