Public libraries are an incredibly valuable resource.

And if you caaaaaaan believe it, it's Friday back again

Have a great weekend!

This cartoon and others are now in the art-for-sale section of my website: www.tomgauld.com/art-for-sale

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A comic strip in six panels. Drawn in ink on white paperand signed by Tom Gauld in pencil. The panels inerlock like a jigsaw with knobs and sockets. Two stick figures walk right to left through all the panels. Panel 1: Person 1 says "I hear you're working on a new theory." Panel 2 & 3: Person 2 says: "Yes, I'm calling it the jigsaw model. I think it could change our whole View of reality." Panel 4: Person 1 says "When Will you publish?: Panel 5: Person 2 says "But a couple of things are still bothering me." (this piece/panel is a bit squint) Panel 6: This piece is rotated ninety degees and fits to the others very badly. Person 2 is saying "Soon. I feel like I'm really close" A second look at the whole comic shows that the last two panels read in the wrong order because the jigsaw has been put together incorrectly.

CC: @prahou@merveilles.town

I'm full of Frustration right now.

#DavidBall #SoftCell

How can this get better

Thanks to everyone involved. All hail the fish.

lol honey bad news the website's down so the bed cooked the children

https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/aws-crash-causes-2000-smart-beds-to-overheat-and-get-stuck-upright-3272251/

https://triptico.com/tag/70312d601fb1640b1e74475951cb08ba.html

‘The exceptionally limited edition book.’ (My cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com books)

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Title: The exceptionally limited edition book Part 1. Bound in cloth taken from the author's wardrobe! (image of tweed-bound book) Indecipherably elegant font! Your mere presence sullies its beauty! Part 2. Luxurious presentation! (the book inside) Three slipcases (inside a) Lightproof Velvet bag (indide a) Archival Glass box (inside a) Lead-lined Biometric safe Part 3. Scroll of Authenticity! (image of long, text-covered scroll with am ornate seal) Includes author's signature, home phone number and invitation to stay for a few days over the summer. Part 4. Too heavy to hold: reading assistants On standby 24/7 (image of two figures holding huge book) Sign up promptly to ensure you are considered for the waiting list to enter the lottery to register your interest in preordering a copy!

@lambdacalculus classic

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Girl, holding the cyber mantis leaflet given to her by an ominous robed character comes across a sign with the same symbol and an entrance to an underground club. Outside the entrance two hackers smoke. There is a poster for the band lo0. She enters. In the hallway she walks past 3 coin laundry cultists. The hallway is littered with posters and stickers. She presses on." She walks into the club. The singer of lo0 is just performing their classic: 'browser poweruser.' The place is packed with hackers. Everyone in the club turns around to look at Girl. Most are surprised. A few recognize her. Girl is happy.

A GOOD DILEMMA HAS NO GOOD OPTIONS

In the year 1913, the day after Christmas, Ambrose Bierce was heading SW when he met Nathaniel Ebenezer Hickox. He is long forgotten now, but he was a hard-boiled bandit and also a very bad tempered motherfucker.

"Stop there", said Hickox, drawing his gun. It was an impressive object.

Bierce obeyed silently. His horse, a somewhat old but still good-looking male, found Bierce's lack of words disquieting. Silence was not common in his presence.

"What are you doing this far, old man?", said the bandit, almost without opening his mouth.

"I'm going beyond the border to join Pancho Villa's army", said Bierce.

Hickox hummed. "And why would you do such a stupid thing?".

Bierce took a look at the bandit's animal: it was a strong stallion with a very singular white mark on its forehead.

"It's what I have to do", replied Bierce, arms crossed.

"Mmmmm. Do. Mmmmm. Do.", said Hickox, and then: "What do you have on that bag?".

The wind blew for a second and nothing was to be heard.

"Tell me, my friend", said Bierce, "If you had to pick one, what would you prefer, raisins or radishes?".

Hickox scratched his filthy beard with his free hand. Suddenly, he realized that he didn't want to answer stupid questions from a bizarre man, nor breathing dust from the plains, nor bearing the annoying pain in the back that was there for days, nor thinking about raisins nor radishes: he remembered a warm place in El Paso, a site full of music and señoritas and whiskey and with a delicious smell of recently made beef steak.

Then, without a word, he left, leaving Ambrose Bierce alone. The beloved writer and notable bigmouth observed the bandit's figure as he disappeared towards the horizon.

#ShortFiction #SundayReadings

In the USA, it is called “MAGA”

In Germany, it is called “Why grandpa has to live in Argentina.”

How odd I can have all this inside me, and to you it's just words.

Madrid, Spain

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A small window in Don Ramón de la Cruz street, Madrid, Spain

Who wrote this piece of shit? / probably me...

Save the planet. Ask me your stupid questions instead of ai and give me $10. I'll get it right 20-40% of the time and I require very little water

https://youtu.be/EuUyROUN-Bg?si=YboaUH-iSE_8mPTo&t=573

#relatos

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Cartel del certamen

Get better 😆 ❤️

activitypub: fucking exists, cheap, clunky but works

atproto: what if we redesign the whole thing from first principles and it's super complicated and costs a bundle to run and it's been two years and it still doesn't fucking work and also we keep a centralised kill switch, but here's our white papers on how it's superior to the solution that fucking exists

@grunfink #snac

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SINCE YOU LEFT ME I'VE BEEN SNACPILLED comam.es/what-is-snac

Quinta de la Fuente del Berro, Madrid, Spain

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Thin window in the external wall

CC: @victor@taquiones.net

Sign that you're getting old: People are nostalgic about the thing you think of as the crappy new thing that replaced a much better old thing.

LE MASQUE VIDE (THE EMPTY MASK)

First, we agreed to leave him there; we were no one to decide on what the sea had decreed. But soon we understood that rotting under the sun and becoming food for the seagulls was not a fair ending to what probably had been a life of bravery and courage, so we moved him among the rocks and covered his head with a shelter made of planks and ropes.

My sister thought that he needed some eyes and she filled the scary holes that led to his long gone brain with branches of lilies, small blots of blue and violet.

Our life went on and we forgot about the seaman. There were long days of light, rain and storm. My sister grew up and became a woman; me, I don't know very well what I ended up being.

One day I returned to that beach and found it very different. I visited the rocks where he rested: he didn't look like a fisherman anymore. A sense of apathy and ennui filled by heart. Upon my head, a flock of birds flew in circles chasing each other.

#ShortFiction

CC: @stefano@bsd.cafe

Iglesia evangélica de habla alemana (Deutschsprachige Evangelische Gemeinde), Madrid, Spain

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A window in the Deutschsprachige Evangelische Gemeinde, Madrid, Spain

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner

Kiddo: that’s AI

The Man of MATA pt1

next: https://merveilles.town/@prahou/115271822786360293

pls consider supporting my work: https://analognowhere.com/support

#unix_surrealism #comic #technomage #openbsd #linux #penguin #mata

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Somewhere in a desert... Girl and Penguin are eating breakfast. Penguin: "Morning, slept well?" Girl: "mhmhmhm" Penguin: "What's today?" Girl checks her school schedule. It's Monday, morning class - history. Girl: "History. Penguin, unenthusiased: "Sounds exciting."

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Classroom. Fish begins the lesson. Fish: "I wanted to call this class mythology, but Purple said history suggests that some of it might actually be true. Nobody remembers how long ago, but as you know, the world ended. While the inheritors of the ravaged land learned to adapt to their predicament, three brothers, successors of those who brought about the end, set out into the destroyed world to ruin it some more." LAST REMAINING MATACORPBUNKER B_73; three brothers "Well, gentlemen, we ate all the women, children and uly. The water purifier is busted and the only person who could fix it was Parkinson." "We ate her last week." "We ate her last week." "Nothing to eat, nothing to drink. So now what?" "I think it's time to do what our great great great grandparents spoke of - Go outside and restart civilization." "Ugh..."

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Penguin and Fish are dressed as the MATA brothers. Penguin: "I have the best ideas." Fish: "You're going to have to help us play the third brother." Girl, ecstatic: "School trip!" analognowhere presents: techno-mage in: Girl, Fish and Penguin stand outside their cave home. Fish: "... they gathered a bunch of thumbdrives with ancient CORPO tech and went on a journey to find people and machines they could poison." Penguin: "It's a good day to fuck shit up. Come on, bros!" Girl: "He's really into it!"

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The three brothers cross the ancient desolate land. "This suuuuuuuuuuuucks." "Shut up."

I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON

CC: @chebra@mstdn.io

CC: @pkotrcka@toot.community

Secret Panel HERE 😶 https://tapas.io/episode/1922792

CC: @victor@taquiones.net

Esta chica, salida de la nada, se erige en una especie de "justiciera" y decide que se salta lo que los autores han decidido que es su (equivocado o no) medio de subsistencia.

Pero bueno, allá cada cual.

CC: @victor@taquiones.net

Pero así, sin saber más, solo son conjeturas.

CC: @philspectrum@mastodon.social

CC: @cmconseils@mastodon.social

This has got to be one of the best. In Wales, UK, there is a legal requirement for road signs to be in both English and Welsh. So, in this case, the official of the Highways department emailed the English wording to the translator and, after receiving a reply, proceeded to have the sign made and installed.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, Welsh-speaking drivers began to call up to point out that the Welsh reads..... "I am currently out of the office. Please submit any work to the translation team."

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The picture is of a road sign. The top part is in English and the bottom part in Welsh. The English part says, "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only."

Ahora también en los idiomas euskera, gallego y castellano, entre otros, más los que están en preparación.

HIPÓNIMO

   De hipo- y -ónimo.
    1. 1. m. Ling. Palabra cuyo significado incluye el de otra. Gorrión es hipónimo de pájaro.

npm was a mistake. the concept of pulling live dependencies that are not collectively managed by a QA team but each individually managed by many thousands of people with wildly varying skill and availability is inherently doomed to constant incidents.

Ken Thompson, 1984: Whenever you use other people's software, you should think about why you trust it.

npm, 2010: LEEEEROY JENKINNNNNSSSSSSS!

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/09/self-replicating-worm-hits-180-software-packages/

IF I COULD BLOW AWAY THE TEARS RUNNING DOWN

The traveler no longer knows where he goes nor where he comes from. He has brief glimpses, yes he does, but they are more and more blurry every time; all is like a mesh of milky lines, pale lights, paths to destinations that have no meaning to him. Sometimes a kid asks him what does he do: "I travel", he says, faking a smile while his eyes try to fix a point and fail.

His life is a hollow pit of departures; here, there, anywhere. He tries to recall his past but a curtain of headache lies in front of it: he barely remembers a loving mother, a cozy blanket, a puppy gone too early.

But soon the traveler is back again in endless corridors, all similar, all white, all convergent to a hub that links to another. He only hopes for one trip more, the one that finally erases him from existence, because he is starting to feel like he's slowly disappearing, mirrors not bothering to reflect his wasted image anymore. "Only one trip more", says to himself while trying to breathe an air thick as mud, blinded by light, almost defeated.

#ShortFiction

"If you don't like it, then leave" is the subtext of the response from Jay Graber.

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A reply on Bluesky by its CEO Jay Graber on September 13th, 2025 stating "We knew from the start we can't get everything right. Moderation is a hard problem, and it's impossible to please everyone. So we built a protocol where you always have the right to leave. If you don't trust us, or don't like our decisions, you deserve the right to choose an alternative."

CC: @pkotrcka@toot.community

Girls, don't cry over Louie,
He wouldn't waste a tear on you

Plaza de Manuel Becerra, Madrid, Spain

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Plaza de Manuel Becerra, Madrid, Spain

The internet never forgets. Your "brilliant" mistakes will come back to bite you in the ass, even after you’re dead.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-quote/

#CharlieKirk

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photo of Charlie Kirk with quote "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights"

Y una vez que lo tengas en el dispositivo intenta abrirlo desde el administrador de archivos o desde los ajustes.

CC: @linuxzx80@fe.disroot.org @d1cor@mstdn.io

@dangillmor
No.

So much no.

These people are asking us to judge the AT protocol on its own merits, entirely divorced from Blue Sky, the company founded and funded by fascists. These are the "keep politics out of tech" people who wan to believe that any tech can be apolitical.

Blue Sky must be destroyed.

As for the purportedly-apolitical and untainted AT protocol, I must again refer to the sage Jules Winnfield: "Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'll never know."

https://thenewstack.io/unix-co-creator-brian-kernighan-on-rust-distros-and-nixos/

I guess Another Man's Woman is also crying now.