Some of my favourite “dipping” books are the miscellanies and almanacs by Ben Schott. But I’d never been fully sure what the difference between the two was. But I’ve learnt:

A miscellany is a collection of varied information with no organising principle beyond interest and surprise — from Latin miscellanea (“a mixture”). The format has roots in Roman and early modern English literature; Ben Schott’s Miscellany (2002) revived it as a modern trivia cabinet. Dip in anywhere; there’s no order to follow.

An almanac is fundamentally calendar-structured, tracing its name to Arabic al-manākh (“the calendar”). Historically contained astronomical data, weather predictions, feast days, and seasonal guidance. Old Moore’s Almanack (1697) and Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack are classic examples — practical tools as much as reading matter. Ben Schott’s almanacs follow this time-anchored tradition, organised by month and season.

Key distinction: miscellanies are timeless and structureless; almanacs march through the year.

A gynaeceum (or gynæceum) refers historically to the women’s quarters or inner, secluded apartments in an ancient Greek or Roman house. As the counterpart to the male andrōn, this area was typically located in the innermost part of the home for women’s activities like weaving.

The men’s room – the andron – was positioned near the front, accessible to male visitors. The gynaeceum was typically at the rear or on an upper floor, accessible to family only. It was where women spun, wove, raised children, and ran the household economy. And I’m sure it was a lot more bare bones than the men’s room!

Apparently having the wealth to hide your wife away in a gynaeceum was an elite ideal. As the wives of poorer households would go to markets, wells, and shrines.

I remember reading once that Ancient Greece was more like a strict Muslim city than a city of democracy, knowledge and philosophy. Women being “locked away” in a gynaeceum certainly attests to that argument.

#NewWord learnt via Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo 📚

Many are worried that the rise of realistic looking AI video tech will lead to fake videos of people doing bad things to smear their name.

But another worrying side effect of AI is how people will cry out “it’s AI” to genuine videos, just because they don’t want to believe it’s real – or want to convince others that it’s not real.

AI creates plausible deniability.

I see this battle over truth every single day in the comments on social media.

This was a few of the comments on a video about abuse in Romanian orphanages:

(I’ll be honest, I kind of watched this in the background) I had fairly high hopes for this film – it had good reviews and seemed fun. But it didn’t entirely work for me. The “gentleman villain” parts kind of worked and gave an okay backbone to the film. But whilst fun, it just lacked a bit of life. There’s an elite cast on display and they all do great (Kristin Dunst especially), but the film felt pointless at times 50%

Why did no one tell me you’re not required to use Route 53 for DNS if you’re hosting a website on S3/CloudFront‽

I have quite a few websites. They’re small, static and don’t get much traffic. So S3’s pay-as-you-go pricing works well for me. It costs me a fraction of a dollar a month.

Or it would, if it wasn’t for Route 53, which charges a flat $0.50/mo for every single domain, no matter how much traffic it gets. It accounts for ~95% of my AWS bill.

Well, I randomly discovered that you can use Cloudflare for DNS (I thought if you were using S3/CloudFront you had to remain in the AWS ecosystem for the DNS).

I can’t wait to start transferring my sites DNS to Cloudflare tomorrow.

In a recent post on lowering phone usage, I recommended playing chess. But I haven’t actually played chess for ages. So I thought I’d put my money where my mouth is and play. And it was lovely.

I get an energy crash between 15:00-18:00 and am often tempted to scroll on my phone. Chess was a pleasant replacement. Mentally challenging, but also relaxing. Sitting there, waiting for my opponent to go, was quiet and peaceful. I briefly put some music on in the background, but quickly turned it off – I was enjoying the quiet too much.

I can see myself get into chess more regularly. I was pretty terrible today. I was matched against fellow newbies and still mostly lost. Though winning in my final match was a great feeling.

If you wanna play with me, my username on lichess.org is clowes – add me.