The newer album

I tried something novel: listening to Angine de Poitrine via audio only! Still good, but without the visuals the tracks wear thin about halfway through

Two of many reasons I stopped buying vinyl long ago :)

This is something my teenage self would have bought based solely on the cover art, then tried to convince myself that I liked the music (see also Nazareth's No Mean City)

Clearlight: Symphonies – The Collected Recordings, 5CD Clamshell Box Set • 5CD REMASTERED CLAMSHELL BOX EDITION GATHERING THE ESSENTIAL ALBUMS BY THE FRENCH PROGRESSIVE ROCK GROUP CLEARLIGHT.  • INCLUDES THE ALBUMS 'CLEARLIGHT SYMPHONY', 'FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES', 'LES CO...

Somehow I'd never heard of Clearlight until this box set came out, and GOOD LORD is it proggy, like "I heard you like prog so I put some prog in your prog so you can listen to prog while you listen to prog" proggy

Fiction Anthology Purchasing Factors This survey is designed to help clarify how people decide on buying and reading short fiction anthologies. For the purposes of this survey, I am defining "anthology" to mean a book of multiple short...

Some indy research that I'll be sharing results of for everyone to see / use! This survey is on short fiction anthologies. You can take it even if you never read them, as there are Qs about that, too. The aim is to help anthologies shine, so please share it!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Boots on the Ground YouTube video by Massive Attack - Topic

Reposted it from @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social earlier, but here it is again:

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay

A DISTASTEFUL HORROR STORY My first horror novel, available to buy as a PDF for the very first time. This is an uncorrected proof, so if it escapes into the wild unforbidden lands of piracy, I'll know who leaked it!

As it's my 50th birthday today - if you want to help an author out - you can buy a pdf of my first novel A DISTASTEFUL HORROR STORY (2019) - which will be deleted forever tomorrow, never to be reprinted in my lifetime.

buymeacoffee.com/johnnymains/...

BREAKING: Maryland is about to become the first state in the nation to ban the use of surveillance data and dynamic pricing at grocery stores.

The Maryland House has just passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act.

Governor Wes Moore plans to sign the bill.

In case you needed any more reasons to boycott Target

A tribute to the King, Charles Schulz. Lucy Van Pelt is sitting in her psychiatry booth, looking depressed. Sitting on a stool next to the booth is Charlie Brown, looking depressed. Instead of the normal text on the front of the booth it reads, ‘Maybe it will happen today’. With the ‘today’ being on a little removable placard.

I didn’t know this, did you? Amazing!

Have you dug up the Jack-Knife album? There's a couple great tracks on that

From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

Octavia E. Butler, 1998:

Classic Ghost Stories From A Master Writer Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote over a hundred books during hi lifetime, including the extremely successful Mapp & Lucia novels. It was his ghost stories for which he was best known in hi day, and which represent probably his best writing. For the first time, these stories are reprinted in one volume, bringing together material that has not been available for over 40 years.

What a strange typo to appear *twice* on a book's back cover ("hi" for "his", 1992 Carroll and Graf edition of E. F. Benson's Collected Ghost Stories)

At Hood College for Julius Hemphill saxophone quartets, performed by Marty Ehrlich and the Maryland Saxtet, presented by FEMA (not *that* FEMA... the Frederick Experimental Music Association)

Check out the ritualistic meditative grooves of Monk Pond’s Echoes of an Infinite Dawn recordcratesunited.com/2026/04/11/m...

The Garden, by Hakumba 4 track album

Hakumba - The Garden - Afrobeat, Ethio-jazz, and spiritual jazz from 13-piece Hungarian band (including cello, viola, male & female vocals)

Washington National Cathedral, north side

At Washington National Cathedral for The Tallis Scholars: Miracles and Mysteries

Wrigglers, by Polypores 9 track album

The record is called Wrigglers

polypores.bandcamp.com/album/wriggl...

Sphere to Sphere, by Zyggurat 7 track album

Zyggurat who had a Mini CD on Clay Pipe a few years back have a new album out on @oldtechlady.bsky.social today, and it's great! old-technology.bandcamp.com/album/sphere...

YES - Aurora (Official Video) YouTube video by yesofficial

Yes - Aurora - new song out today, title track from forthcoming album due June 12 Yes - Aurora - new song out today, title track from forthcoming album due June 12

A plea to UI developers: if the user has to choose an item from a picklist, alphabetize the picklist by the value displayed, not a shadow value. So sick of "Delaware" coming after "District of Columbia" because "DE" comes after "DC". Could be even worse for countries!

Today's lunch salad:
Spring mix
Pumpkin seeds
Roasted chestnuts
Pickled onions
Pickled beets
Blue cheese crumbles
Croutons
Balsamic with honey dressing

The All Your Base meme, but it’s cybernetic Siouxie Sioux saying “WOAH: ALL UR CITIES LIE IN DUST MY FRIEND.”

A bay on the ground formed by three low concrete walls; in the bay is a jumble of 15-20 old toilets; on the back wall "TOILETS" is spray-painted in red

The world provides, if you know where to look

Bookmarking this for when I get asked why I'm not using Copilot at work

A Clinton/Kaine bumper sticker from 2016; the logo is a large capital H with a right-pointing arrow formed from the crossbar

Someone in my neighborhood still has this bumper sticker on their vehicle. I'm still pissed that a Democrat would use a logo indicating movement to the right! But given that it was Hillary Clinton, at least it was honest.