h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

That is too many axles

A few weeks ago, I walked the Monopoly board and now I have written the day up.

So, come and relive the heat, the surprises and the traffic sewers.

https://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com/2026/06/monopoly-walked-it-mate.html

I've been running Follow the Crypto since 2024. Today I'm relaunching it as Tech Influence Watch, expanded to cover AI political spending alongside crypto. They’ve spent more than $400 million this election cycle, and now you can follow it in close to real time.

https://influence.citationneeded.news/

Here’s the full story behind the Tech Influence Watch launch, including what I found while building it and why it matters now: https://www.citationneeded.news/tech-influence-watch/

#crypto #cryptocurrency #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #USpol #USpolitics #CitationNeededNewsletter

John Finnemore on the French horn/cor anglais:

"I was idly wondering why the cor anglais has a French name meaning ‘English horn’, and the French horn has an English name meaning… well, ‘French horn’. I looked it up, even though I knew there would just be some reasonable but rather dull explanation.

"There isn’t. There is a completely bonkers explanation, in both cases. Here’s the first.

"So. The cor anglais isn’t English, or French. But that’s nothing, because another thing it isn’t is… a horn. It’s basically an overgrown oboe, and it’s from Silesia. But being thin with a bulb on the end, it looks a little like the trumpets angels are shown playing in medieval art.

"Or at least it did to the Germans, who started calling it the Engellisches Horn, or angel’s horn. Can you see the hilarious misunderstanding that’s about to happen? Well, that happened. The Italians thought the Germans called it the English Horn, so they translated it to corno inglese. The French got it from the Italians, and called it the cor anglais. The British got it from the French, and presumably stared at it, thought ‘We can’t call that an English horn! It’s nothing to do with us, we’ve only just this minute seen one!’ …and I suppose decided just to keep the French name to save embarrassment.

"But that is rationality itself compared to what happened with the “French” horn.

"Right. The French horn. It isn’t French, or English… but it is a horn. So that’s something. (In fact, horn players just call it ‘the horn’, and they wish you would too, but they can’t make you.) This story is simpler than the cor anglais one, but even more gloriously stupid.

"The French were famous for making beautiful hunting-horn type horns: curly tubes that made a nice noise when you blew through them. Then the Germans came up with a more complicated horn with slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you. So British horn players started calling the horns they played in orchestras French Horns, to make it clear they were having nothing to do with those funny looking new German horns with all the bits hanging off them. But the thing is… slides and crooks and valves and what-have-you are a really good idea. You can play tunes with them and everything. So, before long, in a brilliantly British combination of ruthless pragmatism and equally ruthless face-saving, British horn players were playing German horns… but still calling them French horns.

"In summary then: the cor anglais, or English horn, is a Silesian oboe that the Italians thought the Germans thought was English, but the Germans actually thought looked angelic. Whereas the French horn is a German horn that the British called the French horn to distinguish it from the German horn… which is what it is.

"All clear? Good. Carry on."

🧵A Covid thread - but a good news one! I’m barely writing about Covid anymore because there is barely any Covid to write about. I thought it was worth celebrating this in this thread. 1/7

Curation of oddball typography, gotta smile: https://unsung.aresluna.org/good-type-against-all-odds/

#typography

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Dro...

The good @drfootleg has been busy, creating a "hardware abstraction framework" to run MicroPython games on any hardware! His first task? Porting Asteroids to the Tufty 2350! https://blog.pimoroni.com/dr-footleg-saves-the-galaxy-creates-tufty-2350-asteroids-game/

I've been making a linguistics puzzle game where you decipher a language (which happens to be German) using shared etymology, shared cultural knowledge and pattern matching.

It's called German Is A̶w̶f̶u̶l̶ Easy and the first five levels are up! No German knowledge necessary, and feedback is very welcome.

https://michellefullwood.com/languages/german/is-easy/

#etymology #linguistics #puzzles #LearnGerman

On the way home I introduced two women on the overground to birdnet - "is that like shazam for birds?!?!" so overall a good night out

I ❤️ Debian: https://nerds.xyz/2026/05/debian-13-5-linux-security-update/

#debian #linux