Mike Harrison on the books he read this year, which is as good a recommendation list as any.

This happened to me. If, after a crash, your postgres instance won't come back up, there's a cheeky PID file you need to delete manually.

"WordPerfect was always the best word processor. Because it allowed for insight into its very structure. You could hit a certain key combination and suddenly the screen would split and you’d reveal the codes, the bolds and italics and so forth, that would define your text when it was printed. It was beloved of legal secretaries and journalists alike. Because when you work with words, at the practical, everyday level, the ability to look under the hood is essential. Words are not simple. And WordPerfect acknowledged that." I grew up on WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, and Reveal Codes. Some days, I wonder if it's why I got on with markup so well.

Really lovely: a procedurally generated pastiche of the Voynich manuscript, with explanation and some lovely screengrabs.

Very good post on Just Using make as your task runner.

This is a great talk by Zach Gage, from PRACTICE (I believe) on how to both design difficulty into games, but more importantly, how to help people become better at problem-solving, and the very specific relationship between shapes of problem, learning style, and difficulty. Great reading for game designers, but also recommended for any interaction designers, really.

I'm going to need to do this at some point.

"If you want to know about the inevitable end-state of the Tarkovsky/Strugatsky zone, you should look at the development of the Alps (& now the Himalaya). What was a nightmare is controlled into a form of play by skill, technique and equipment. What used to kill you is now so well understood that you can enjoy it. Or, to put it another way: what used to kill explorers first begins to kill only experts who push their skillset too hard then winds up only killing the tourist the experts usher up the mountain for money–and even then only often enough to keep up the activity’s reputation."

This is a good list, from Toby Litt, and clearly one earned many times through fire.

Charming branding from Porto – just a lovely use of a system, but also one with wit and charm aplenty.