Happy New Year, gentle readers! Looks like 2026 is getting a great start in the “dangerous idiocy” department, with US troops invading Venezuela and abducting the country's president, Nicolás Maduro. Wait, what?
Read moreLasting Peace in the Middle East?
OsmAnd+ and Traffic Data
I've been using OsmAnd+ for satellite navigation in the car for the longest time – it was a viable option for satnav on Sailfish OS (with its Android runtime), and even now that I treated myself to a used-but-rebuilt Google Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS and could theoretically use Google Maps, I prefer not to volunteer my movement data to Google. OsmAnd+ is nice because it works from offline maps and your movements aren't tracked, but OTOH it is missing Google Maps' dynamic routing that takes into account traffic jams and other holdups.
Read moreMusical Detective Work
Back when I learned highland dancing in the 1990s, we used to enjoy doing the Scottish Lilt to a recording that Jack Campbell had been given by somebody, featuring Drops of Brandy played on the harp/concertina/bodhrán/… and then later two voices singing Brose and Butter. Nobody at the time seemed to know where it originally came from. I probably have the track on a cassette tape somewhere, but I'm no longer really set up for playing cassette tapes, and in any case it was a copy of Jack's copy of … and actually considerably worse for wear at that point – so it would be interesting to look for the original!
Read moreBack
There was a month-long hiatus on this blog because, reasons. I'm happy to say that, after a two-week back-and-forth with Framework Computers to get a mainboard replacement under warranty for my laptop, things should now be mostly back to normal in the IT department.
Read moreDelaware Valley Gold
Fifty-Nine!
Another Dance Night
“My Dance Lists”
I spent some time drawing up a programme for the upcoming end-of-April Rhein-Main-Mini-Social and assigned it to the FSCDC teachers' group so Marie could have a look at it before I posted it to the public. But the list didn't show up on her “My Dance Lists” page. What was going on?
Read moreSCD Taster Session, part 2
Just a brief note to document that the second four hours of this month's SCD taster session went fine – we finished with The White Cockade and The Machine without Horses, and while the dancing could have been improved in a few places, everybody finished together and in the correct places! The dancers were generally happy with the workshop and some of them are considering coming on Tuesdays.
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