A Prophecy In Paint Thôi nôi, and the paint on the wall
Thôi nôi is Vietnam's first-birthday rite - a baby grabs a tray to read her future. One grab in 2000 came true, in paint, on a wall.
Further down the pile Page 3 of the backlog
Older dispatches, same weather. Nothing back here has been tidied up for the occasion.
A Powerful Coincidence He said yes, and the sky agreed
Proposal on a wild Vũng Tàu dune, a yes, two gold rings - and a rainbow cloud with impossible timing. The same-sex marriage quest begins.
Folk Covers & Lofi Bones Two channels keeping my brain alive while agents do the work
Folk-instrument game OST covers from Dryante and lofi reinterpretations from bits & hits - the background music keeping my coding sessions alive.
Internet Find of the Week Tomb Raider: Side-Scroller Edition
Deep in a TR1-3 remastered playthrough and I stumbled into the best Netzfundstück of the year - Lara Croft, remade as a cinematic platformer.
The Brief Spike 8 billion people and falling: a brief spike in human history
Global population peaks before 2080, then falls. Four-fifths of all human births are already behind us. What that means for the next two centuries.
Empty Corners Singapore – empty corners of a crowded island
Singapore for a week without a single photo of the Merlion - wetlands, hornbills, empty rain-soaked parks, and the small human encounters most tourists miss.
Baking Through the Heatwave Bitter orange cake – a recipe in three attempts
A Seville orange loaf cake that took three versions, one feral oven, and an entire office of Monday-morning guinea pigs to get right. (148 chars)
A Pearl Resurfaces The $137 million game I couldn’t play
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within bankrupted a studio, changed cinema forever, and looked like a game I desperately wanted to play. Twenty-five years later, I found it on Netflix.
Two Flags Apart Thirty years of wuseln – The Settlers 2 and the fan project that refuses to die
The Settlers 2 turns 30 - a personal history from DOS to Sài Gòn, and the fan-made overhaul that keeps the Wusler bustling on modern machines.
Sister, Citrus, Continents Lemon meringue tart: A French recipe that traveled through Australia to land in Sài Gòn
Lemon meringue tart with a supply chain spanning three continents - a French recipe, an Australian sister, and a Vietnamese kitchen.