Mark Carroll's Journal

It's no longer winter

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 10:28:47 GMT

A few years ago, driving from Portland, ME, back down to Belmont, MA, on Hallowe'en, we experienced a heavy blizzard. This Easter Sunday here in Glasgow, the morning started off with a lovely blue sky then gray turned to sleet then to handsome snowflakes that are settling. Update: Now the sky's back to blue.

The snow could at least confine itself to winter. I still vote for using R.'s citizenship to live on a tropical island instead! Fortunately, our dog L. is wholly unfazed by rain and snow.

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Curious about the paranormal

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:03:39 GMT

I have always been interested in the paranormal. There have been stories among family that touch on ghosts, telepathy, etc. that are difficult to explain, e.g., seeming rather more than just a person hallucinating a thing. Also, there are historic UFO sightings that include independent witnesses and various kinds of corroboration that are difficult to explain in terms of publicity-seeking liars.

I wouldn't say that I believe in anything concrete in that sphere, goodness knows there's enough of an assorted bag of inconsistency there. Even when there is consistency, one wonders how often it's because of the spread of memes, like when we all saw the striking grey alien staring at us from the cover of Communion in every bookstore. Still, some of it seems trickier to dismiss so it seems to warrant further attention.

For the older incidents, like around Ellsworth AFB, it's difficult to see what more we can discover now. For the newer, it may be rather easier to forge convincing evidence. Still, it would be interesting to collate and look closely at some of the best-evidenced most-inexplicable examples.

Unfortunately, popular treatments of such will tend to be less critical than they should be so as to sell more copies; perhaps Richard Hall's work is an exception. Wikipedia used to detail some interesting incidents but they were one of many regrettable casualties of deleting content on the basis of insignificance. If you want to know what Makka Pakka calls his trumpet, these days you will have to look elsewhere.

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De la Terre à la Lune

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:41:13 GMT

I am a fan of manned spaceflight. If we are confined to this planet only, especially if we remain such poor stewards and with such capacity for destruction, then we will be limited and eventually gone, leaving nothing behind but artifacts.

I was concerned for Artemis II, fearing that something like Apollo 8 was a jump too far too fast after a long fallow period, and that showhorses had too greatly replaced sober experts in program management. It was with considerable relief that I watched the astronauts achieve orbit and I am glad that their time in orbit has provided the confidence for their present journey onward to the moon, incidentally arriving at around the dates of first contact for Star Trek and Babylon 5.

I do not know if my children will get to see us establish a longer-term presence on the moon, perhaps even among asteroids, but I can dream. In the meantime, at least I can reasonably hope for the astronauts' safe return.

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Unbidden lyrics and random tunes

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:06:13 GMT

When people pause in uttering a sentence, my mind is often eagerly prompt in filling the space. For example, on the train there is an announcement about the carriage, I forget what, but there's a pause where I want to fill it in with, … may be larger than it appears or somesuch, which I suppose my brain concocts from some combination of Doctor Who and car side-mirrors. There is also an announcement instructing to tell them if one sees something strange (a headless horseman or a two-headed goat or whatever) which also includes a brief pause, ripe for completion with, … then throw something at it.

More striking, though, is that my brain wants to put words to music. I notice when existing mundane sentences fit a line of music from some song or jingle, could be from any time or genre, ranging from Henry Mancini to South Park. And, with little tunes like fancier alarm tones, my brain wants to add lyrics to them. They range from nonsensical to unprintable but there you are. Sometimes it will just substitute part of a sentence: for instance, from this commercial from my childhood, I notice various other unlikely things that might be, … just enough to give your kids a treat.

For me, the most striking part is that, although I am neither musical nor lyrical in any competent sense, my brain clearly notices when an existing verbal phrase fits an existing line of music or vice versa. This suggests that I am indexing somewhat by syllable patterns, perhaps emphasis too; that would explain why, when I am trying to remember a word, I will typically have a good idea how many syllables it has. There's some cognitive architecture lesson here about how brains handle language, at least mine.

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History and the Remains of Empire

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:09:48 GMT

Britain has many nice fancy buildings and engineering marvels whose origins coincide with the the height of its colonial era. I surmise that the colonies were exploited such that their wealth turned into shiny domestic things. In visiting Paris and seeing the many old, grand buildings, and noting that France also had many colonies, I wonder if my theory holds analogously there too.

Glasgow's Victorian buildings seem to have developed a bit of a habit of collapsing and burning down. I can't help but suspect that, as we all end up as second-tier powers, it's nice to have the shiny things (if we don't think about why we have them) but there's going to be decreasingly many, no longer is there means to create them. They're valuable but perishable leftovers of a past era.

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A week in Paris

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 17:38:37 GMT

R. and I are back from a week's tourism in Paris. I enjoy how we continue to find ourselves agreeing often: R. certainly sees why I prefer Paris to London, it's so pleasantly walkable. ( I am always happy to go back. )

Being dragged reluctantly into the modern world, I ( tried using public transit via smartphone ticketing. )

For me, Paris tourism is typically some combination of walking and Métro around central Paris visiting various attractions and just taking in the environment. We hadn't prebooked much so we had some freedom to go as our whims and increasingly aching bodies would take us. The weather was generally good, I consider us lucky. We kept sufficiently on the beaten tourist path that I scarcely had to ( attempt to speak French. )

The gardens varied rather. Many of them seemed to be wide, dusty, pale gravel paths, lawns, conical shrubs, cuboid trees, statues, hedges with right angles, etc. We wandered through the Jardin des Plantes which at least had flowers, a variety of rather well-grown ones indeed, though no fewer right angles. I think the Japanese might be rather better at the kind of garden I like.

Paris has a considerable abundance of publically accessible magnificent buildings that I enjoy seeing and being inside. ( I enjoyed a few of the museums. )

In this visit, we did not ( eat out at fancy restaurants. )

Last night's return flight was from Charles de Gaulle into Edinburgh so we took our usual commuting route, the train into Queen Street, as part of our journey back home to Glasgow.

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Weekend outcome

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:42:14 GMT

I did not feel like thinking or moving at all this morning but, after enough resting, by this afternoon a little energy had accumulated. I did file my 2025 FBAR with FinCEN and went on to figure enough of my US taxes to discover that a combination of higher thresholds and lower income (I was made redundant last year then took a new job on a lower base salary) means that I should be able to skip itemizing deductions. This is great news because the calculation of pro-rated foreign tax paid on not-excluded income, and of mortgage interest paid (not easily obtained from Barclays), all converted from GBP to USD for when each happened, is quite a pain.

I also did some travel and attraction ticket planning for our coming trip to Paris, last time I was a tourist there we still had the Carte Orange. I even (finally) got around to responding properly to an e-mail from a relative. Maybe I'll yet get around to opening and filing pending mail.

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Weekend catchup

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 20:57:45 GMT

Our weekends typically involve a Saturday of errands, today's were car-based: returns and purchases at IKEA, deposits and withdrawals at the container we still rent (plus first carrying stuff down to the car), also stops at Asda, Matthew's, Primark, Boots. We came away from Asda with plenty of must-sell-today discount fish and meat, R. cooked us some for our evening meal. The stop at Matthew's was because we wanted some Southeast Asian rice, they have the more Eastern products; our local Foodasia has plenty of other rice but is rather more South Asian. Basically, our neighborhood is much more South Asian, the East Asian stuff is over on the other side of the city. Among all this, we were lucky with the soccer: we passed near a stadium but not when everybody was entering or leaving.

Our Sunday can be varied: we may go out somewhere more pleasant, like the beach (cold though they are here) or the park, where L. our dog can run around. I may have something else going on that day, like seeing family in Dundee. Tomorrow, I hope is like last weekend: I will stay home and catch up on all manner of non-work things. Though, some Sundays when I'm home, I am just tired and don't do much. I plan to at least get to open and file pending mail, file this year's FBAR with FinCEN, etc. That doesn't sound like much but, beyond work and necessary chores, it seems that it's difficult for me to have the energy to do much else. R. is very understanding of how we both have difficulty making time to get done all we feel we should or want. Like that stuff in the container, we need to do a proper sorting: we won't soon plausibly afford to live anywhere we can store it all.

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Glaswegian matters and beyond

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 23:28:30 GMT

At the weekend, I happened to be further up the Clyde at the right time to see the bow of a new Naval frigate being transported up the river to the shipyard where the warships are assembled. I didn't know what kind of ship it was for at first, I learned that later online.

Glasgow has a great city center, rather walkable and with the subway for longer hops. Next to Central Station is a fancy building some decades older than the converted Victorian mill that I live in. At least, there was, until a vape store somehow caught fire. Now there are cordoned-off streets, the smell of smoke, and a considerable number of sad, shocked people and even more rather inconvenienced ones.

I have no love for vape stores in the first place, I tend to avoid patronizing establishments that expand their range to vapes. Given vapes' propensity to catch fire in waste processing centers, etc., goodness knows who thought it a good idea to allow a vape shop to locate next to a critical transit hub in a historic landmark whose construction substantially predates fire safety codes. Perhaps we shall find out, with luck when I am not feeling grumpy and vengeful.

My commute may be quite unaffected: when I pass close to the area of the fire, I'm in a subway tunnel on my way to Queen Street, the other main railway station; I hope that tomorrow's train to Edinburgh isn't overly crowded by passengers displaced from Central which won't be open yet.

I refueled our car this evening, I figured that gas prices aren't dropping anytime soon. In probably 2003 I tried holding off filling the car with gas, back when I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria (with around a seventy litre fuel tank), but eventually I had to give in and pay the higher prices. At least, with mostly just driving around the city in our hybrid in the near term, today's gas should last us for a good while.

Update: My morning train's quite full but I arrive comfortably early enough to have snagged a seat easily. A pox on the selfish passengers who use their coat and bag to occupy two seats while others are still boarding.

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Dentistry and ventriloquism

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 23:09:05 GMT

Because I have sensitive teeth (or am a big wuss) my kindly dentist anesthetizes me before the scaling. This leaves my mouth rather numb for quite some time afterward.

This latest time, I noticed that I could still say some words before the anesthetic much wore off even if others remained a challenge. For instance, we don't seem to need our lips at all to say, succulent delicacy; I surmised that may be an easy utterance in ventriloquism too.

Lips remain helpful for drinking such that all the liquid goes down the inside of my neck rather than some trickling down the outside.

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Obtaining old calculators

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:16:09 GMT

Recently, I stumbled upon an article about Commodore Business Machines' line of calculators. I have owned plenty of Commodore hardware, going back to the PETs that my secondary school retired, but no calculators. I was amused to read that, back in the 1970s, some calculators were marketed as being electronic slide rules. I still have my father's slide rules, he also had a desktop mechanical calculator and, later, one of the first version of the TI-30, with the red glowing digits that would show some thinking going on as it evaluated a trigonometric function.

I determined that I might enjoy occasionally using a decent ancient scientific calculator, ideally with a reverse-Polish interface. However, looking around online now, I don't see any particularly sweet spots in what one can buy of Commodore's calculators. I like how, say, the Commodore SR-4190R even has hyperbolic functions and probability distributions but it's not as if examples in good condition remain abundant and rarer models like the M55 appear indeed to be inconveniently rare.

Remembering mst3kmoxie's HP 12C, which can calculate some of the financial things that now form part of my day job, I explored the alternative of investigating the older HP and Novus range. However, things like the Novus 4510 don't seem to have existed in the UK and international shipping costs plenty. In dropping the nostalgia and taking a look at modern offerings, I discovered the SwissMicros DM15L which could be fun to play with. They seem to be out of stock right now but, worse, Parcelforce fees for importing one would mean it wasn't worth it.

So, the obstacles are broadly those of availability at all, or of getting the calculator from there to here. Ah well, it's more an idle fancy anyway rather than a pressing need. I seem to be in the wrong place and considerably the wrong time.

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Learning to live with generative AI

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:05:39 GMT

I routinely use generative AI in my workplace, my employer encourages it and pays for it. It works well, it's a definite help. At least for the meantime, it requires my expert supervision, close monitoring, to do good work but it's actually rather clever at times even if often rather dumb too. Where my work strays beyond my expertise, it fills in for me.

I have probably mentioned that I like the description of computer programming as mathematical engineering, it captures what I enjoy most about it. It's rewarding to devise and express good solutions. I love to create systems that do well at behaving in desired ways.

So, sometimes, for those parts of my work tasks to which I was looking forward, I've typically been working with the AI enough that it has the context to say, hey, you still have this bit unfinished, shall I do it? and I'm like, no, let me!

For the moment, I can still capture some crumbs of what I love to do. However, I wonder how obsolete that's becoming, the future's arriving faster than I expected. You could drop me back into the 1980's and I could be very happy writing software but these days nobody wants programmers who could hit the ground running in that kind of environment. Given the speed at which coding assistance has become rather good, I can't help but wonder if the 2030's will largely have only jobs for people who can direct the constellation of artificial agents well. That's a thing I'm sure I can do competently to support my family but … how much do I want to?

I love to learn about what clients actually need, figure out how I can meet those needs by creating software, then to deliver something valuable to them. But what I love most is the part of the process that machines may soon do maybe not quite as well but far cheaper than I.

I find myself looking back to things I once did and appreciating that at least I had the chance. I have loved doing simple things like feeling the hot, dry breeze in Death Valley, driving a rusty pickup truck through the Ohio countryside in the sunshine, walking along the beach in Aberdeen, and frequenting the AANI weekend market in Taguig. Or, in this case, the chance, repeatedly, to be paid to solve interesting problems by creating software by my own brain and hand. Of course, I can still do what I like as a hobby though it feels emptier if it just means that I am doing something the hard way. I also wonder how healthy it is for one's likes to be overly nostalgic. I have an elderly relative who probably feels as if the world has gone downhill since the 1950's. I don't want that to be me someday, I should find more ways to embrace the future.

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News from the Middle East

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:31:10 GMT

Having learned of exchanges of fire in the Middle East, I can't help but worry for the innocent people in the region. Further, I found myself quickly jumping to: what's the off-ramp for Iran? Whenever attacked, it responds. These exchanges typically fizzle out but if Trump welcomes distraction from Epstein then goodness knows how far this will go before he lauds himself for some paper victory.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that if Oriental is a rather Western-centric term for a region then Middle East is no less so.

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Cross-trainer

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 20:42:14 GMT

I had a proper go on the cross-trainer after work. It will certainly suit for some while, on this first go it kicked my ass; I haven't been on one since they dropped the requirement for masking at the gym at work in Eastern Tennessee, after most people stopped caring about COVID-19. One of the nice things about starting again is that tangible progress is easily achieved for a while, I expect the same this time. Judging by my prior performance after enough workouts, I'll be kicking this machine's ass again someday but not for months yet. Someday I could graduate to a cardiostrong EX60 or somesuch but I don't expect to become that wealthy.

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A varied update

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 22:35:22 GMT

Yesterday, I had a headache all day which obviously wasn't great. I still went shopping in the town center with R. but was more content being a beast of burden than making any choices, also for busier or more cramped shops I was happy enough to wait outside in the space and the breeze. My headache finally improved somewhat in the evening, after some paracetamol. I don't think that my head was affected by fasting for Ramadan, the previous day and today were fine. One of our errands was to pass by the newer Asian grocery store (our neighbourhood has many Middle Eastern and South Asian people) to pick up more fast-breaking dates. At this latitude, I could get used to these winter Ramadans.

My annual appraisal at work went decently, especially given that it includes a period of my finding my feet. At the moment I'm working mostly in my comfort zone, on somewhat mathematical/algorithmic code that does not require figuring out other complex aspects of our system. I'll probably help out with some other random thing too, this coming (Agile) sprint.

I finally bought a cross-trainer, a JTX Strider-X8. It's smaller than the previous NordicTrack Audio Strider 500 from before moving to the US, it just about fits in the flat, and the flywheel's also rather smaller so maximum resistance gets it up only to being just about worth bothering with, but it's somewhat affordable and far better than no cross-trainer. I look forward to planning it into my weeks.

We've been bad at festivals again. This weekend featured excellent meatloaf yesterday (it happened to be just to my taste) and a variant of kedgeree today, thanks to R. as usual. At some point, we will get around to eating Asian round things for the Chinese New Year and pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, but delayed as usual. As we're not exactly observant of the wider context of these, such flexibility doesn't exactly detract from whatever authenticity there is in our celebration.

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Tall brick buildings

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:19:19 GMT

On the way east into Edinburgh, one can catch sight of the tall red-brick warehouse building marked Jenners Depository. This reminds me of a different tall red-brick warehouse building that my memory places on the way east into Truro along the A39. However, some looking online fails so badly to find anything of the kind that I have probably somewhat misplaced it. It's some consolation that some further poking around online reveals that what I saw on the train into work recently was Niddry Castle.

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Alternative timelines in Western Europe

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 19:36:17 GMT

I discovered only recently that, before France fell to occupation by Nazi Germany, their cabinet had rejected a substantial Declaration of Union proposed, probably rather too late, by the British cabinet. I wonder what such a union would have looked like and what it would change about modern Britain. Especially, what minimal edits one might have to make to history in order to make such a union actually happen in an effective and long-lasting way.

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Some weekend travel

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 18:33:14 GMT

It turns out that the Kingdom of Fife's south coast is within fairly easy reach for us. We took a small trip and did our usual Scottish tourism of ruined castles and churches, and chilly beaches, this time mostly overlooking the Forth.

We tend to stay at Travelodges because they are cheap and dog-friendly. On sitting in the typical rather short bathtub this morning, I realized that perhaps adults are meant to only shower in them, rather than washing their body one third at a time, and that the bath feature is intended more for dogs and small children.

The weekend started out with some good weather, we returned home once the rain moved in properly.

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Hidden mysteries of the Clockwork Orange

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 08:15:43 GMT

I sometimes wonder about quite how they organize Glasgow's subway system. For example, I had guessed from service frequency that they often have as many as four trains running on each circular line. Is one train allowed to leave a station until the train ahead has arrived two stations ahead? Or, maybe it need only depart the next. I don't know how they guarantee separation. I have also wondered how they manage various situations, for example, what if a train breaks down? I suppose maintenance is centred partly on ensuring that they don't in a manner that unexpectedly blocks the line and strands the passengers. It's hardly a wide tunnel.

I have noticed that it's not uncommon for the outer line to pause at St Enoch while the driver pops out for a minute. There's also talk of a depot, one morning (last month, I think) the subway wasn't running because the line from the depot was icy, suggesting some track that isn't underground. Recently, I happened to spy an exciting clue: travelling on the outer line from, I think it was, Ibrox to Govan, I glimpsed a line branching off along another tunnel then rejoining a little later. I wonder what other side tunnels there are.

A bit of googling suggests that they can have as many as six trains running per circular line, though I wonder how typically that actually happens. It also suggests that the tunnel I saw may be a branch to the not-submerged depot so perhaps the inner line also has a branch in the same segment.

Incidentally, Glasgow has an excellent transportation museum which includes a couple of older subway carriages and is packed high with exhibits. Last time we visited, it even had Imperial military folks from Star Wars happy to pose for selfies with visitors. Dundee's transportation museum is funnier in offering modest but quite random mystery tours on an old bus.

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A strange computer programming course

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:25:49 GMT

I dreamed that I was taking some computer programming course where, in the classroom, I had to develop some real-world robotic mimicry system like: I draw and, as I draw, it stitches thread so as to reproduce the lines I'm drawing. We had a reasonable amount of time for completing the task because the class was a double-period, at the start of the day.

The dream transitioned to a different activity that I now forget more, where I was facing a related programming assignment but outdoors: I was approaching a small, ruined outbuilding where I was to perform some part of the task, not able to take long because some rather autonomous thing was out there pursuing me.

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Cats' litterboxes

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 14:30:33 GMT

We have a couple of cats, B. and J., who were rescued as kittens. ( Excretory developments. )

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Broken record of recurrent thoughts

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:12:07 GMT

I mention a few recurring topics, probably because I still haven't properly addressed them. For instance, ( I remain overweight and unfit. )

I also need to get back to writing code in Haskell and in Rust. Quite how and when this happens, I am not sure. I do need ( to sort out my personal computing. )

R. is thinking about when and how we move to live somewhere else. For a couple more years yet, high school catchment area remains quite a constraint, though I can look around ( for where we might move to someday. )

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A simple day

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:02:05 GMT

The weather forecast for this weekend wasn't great but we got to walk our dog L. a little around the neighbourhood today, which is something. We avoided the parks, they will be muddy. He's still too reactive when seeing other dogs at a distance.

Now we're back home, the Winter Olympics makes for pleasant background on the television. R. heated a roast chicken we found discounted in the local Tesco Express. I should sort and file some accumulated routine mail, and perhaps we'll be able to give L. a decent walk again tomorrow.

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Vive la Résistance

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:58:39 GMT

I always seem to be living outside the US at times when being present could perhaps allow me to do the most good as a white English-speaking not-MAGA US citizen. It has been tremendously encouraging to learn what good people are doing there and disappointing how little coverage it gets in the news here. The history generator's settings keep tending alarmingly toward interesting times as the administration finds new ways to harm people.

Here's hoping that the Democrats retain something of a spine over reforming ICE. It was interesting to read some suggestion that, even before all this, the Federal law enforcement community had often seen ICE more as cosplayers than competent.

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A spectral surprise

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 18:13:10 GMT

Given the short winter days this far north, I commute largely in darkness. The railway carriages are well-lit and variably heated. After I settled into my seat for my journey home this evening, I glanced around to see who else is around me. In the window, I saw the reflection of a lady a couple of seats ahead of me.

Curiously, looking in my actual carriage, I couldn't see her at all, she could be seen only in the reflection.

It turned out that there was a train at the platform alongside, I suppose she was seated on that one instead and I spied her directly. At least, we've now set off and I no longer see her!

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