Patrick DeWind

I've fallen behind on posting about the books I've read this year. That said, I've been meaning to try having a thread of threads of things I've read for the year because I totally haven't done that before. So here's my thread of things I've read in 2026:

I'm reading a book that concerns slavery, and it being something one would want to take notes about, I have found that "slave" is one of those words the iPhone keyboard won't let you swipe to spell nor autocomplete. Slaver is perfectly fine according to Apple, though.

Oh hey! It is Monday which means it is time to run updates absolutely everything.

When I was but a lad of single digits melanoma almost took my father from me. Some of my earliest memories are of his operation and treatment, and he still has a big moon-shaped depression in his back from where they had to remove skin and muscle to get all of the tumor. This is big. ❤️

Ruin a song by adding "In My Pants" to the title. Something Stupid in my Pants.

Ooooooh. Now that's my jam.

Apple Music has a playlist for me called Feel Good Music. First song: Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes. 😑

I FEEL SEEN!

C programmers in 2026. (We're not laughing at the PHP guys specifically. We're just flinging dangling pointers around like force lightning to piss people off at this point.)

One of my all time favorite movies.

Editing my init.el in vi, because I'm like that.

Crosswords are still largely written for boomers. Like, no, I don't remember the 1960's. I wasn't around then. Supersonic Transports are SOOO 1900's. And no, Grebes aren't even remotely related to Loons. Keep up with the science grandpa (says angry old GenXer).

Do you denounce the Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence?

If you see this post your getaway vehicle.

Share a GIF from a HORROR movie!

This booth at my local Mexican restaurant tells a tale as told in the alt text.

Microsoft Teams has my microphone on. I'm not in a meeting. It is just listening. So are they spying on me, or are they so incompetent that their own application is incapable of freeing a system resource it was using?

I'm still Team Heraclitus: everything is change.

If something behaves like malware, it is malware, even if it comes from a big company... ...especially if it comes from a big company.

But every time it rains...

Time for bed. I have to wake up at Systems o'clock for an OS upgrade on three of my databases. Then I have a day full of meetings. In protest I'm going to spend my day trying to get Emacs to tramp over to a file I have to ssh and sudo su to edit.

Marillion, of course. And yes, I had this poster in my room.

I got my start with ytalk on Unix and phone on VMS. There was a BBS chat function the SysOp could do too, but I don't recall the name. (Damn, I am old).

😑

Oh hey! I added this to my Kindle queue after finishing A Light for the Dead to Follow. I read a short story and a novella of hers, so I thought I'd hit the other end of the size spectrum.

Book #29 - A Light for the Dead to Follow by Rebecca Crunden @bookspotlight.bsky.social Indie author? Hell yeah indie author! This was a fun novella. I really liked that I had no idea where the story was going based on the blurb. And now I want a tower in the middle of a cursed woods.

Sure, happiness is great, but have you tried not being miserable all the time? - Marcus Aurelius...probably.

Have I mentioned recently how awesome @signal.org is?

I hope she lived a good life. She did great things for us all, especially programmers.

I think Kate Bush really oversold Wuthering Heights.

Semper vigilans.

Long live the new flesh.

I wonder what else Starbucks lies about to us.

A couple of my favorite authors talking about the engineering mastery of one of my favorite authors. I love this place.

It is happening everywhere, isn't it?

Awww yes! If you haven't read his work I highly recommend it.

The Ashtray Maze in Control is absolutely one of the coolest video game sections. Ever. The shifting world, the soundtrack…peak-level design.

And with that I'm finally caught up on my summer reading. I'm behind on my usual number of books for the year, but fortunately I have a pile of novellas to read because one of my favorite authors here has a new book in the series.