Michael Birch

Review: The Proof in the Code by Kevin Hartnett I love this book. It's not a technical book, but it tells the story of how Lean got to where it is today. I am delighted by all the passion for math throughout. I like hearing others overcome problems I have encountered when trying to use Lean. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Review: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S. A. Chakraborty This is a "one last job" style story with pirates and it is as much fun as that sounds. There are a few surprises along the way which make it more fantastical than the one-line summary suggests. Looking forward to the sequel! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reality Fracture is such a fun set. This trophy deck is best described as "Naya control" with nearly as many removal spells as creatures, a few EJ cards give card advantage/selection to colors that would normally be lacking it, and there are multiple sources of life gain to survive to the late game.

Review: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson The world and the characters remain interesting enough, but I still think it's too long (finished it on the 3rd borrow from the library). I also still hate the third act breakup as a trope (not exactly what happens here, but similar vibes). ⭐⭐⭐

#rustconf2026 day 2 talk summaries thread! (Doing it throughout the day today instead of all at the end to minimize my chances of forgetting things)

I should start using the `time` crate instead of `chrono`. The maintainer has put a lot of work into performance and correctness (including miri-based tests for soundness of unsafe code).

Rust is a language of places. But smart pointers in libraries currently can't take advantage of this in the way built in pointer types can. A proposal to introduce handle traits aims to fix that issue. It will allow nice things like automatic field projection on mutex guards.

youtube.comRust FoundationThe Rust Foundation is an independent non-profit dedicated to the stewardship of the Rust programming language and its global community. Visit us at rustfoundation.org.

#rustconf2026 day 2 talk summaries thread! (Doing it throughout the day today instead of all at the end to minimize my chances of forgetting things)

The rust atomics talk was so good! But I can't adequately summarize it here because it had a lot of technical detail. This is one I should bookmark the recording of when it comes out on the rust foundation YouTube page www.youtube.com/channel/UC0j...

Rust is starting to be used in robotics. The language is providing benefits of performance, reliability and composition (like it does everywhere). But the ecosystem is fragmented and deciding what crates to use to get started remains a challenge.

#rustconf2026 day 2 talk summaries thread! (Doing it throughout the day today instead of all at the end to minimize my chances of forgetting things)

carolinemorton.co.ukHow Synthetic Data Gets Made | Caroline MortonHigh level overview of how synthetic data is generated.

Writing rust code (including using cool patterns like newtype and type state) to implement the process driven approach to synthetic data. Blog post talking about synthetic data methodology: www.carolinemorton.co.uk/blog/synthet... There are probably other good posts on this blog to check out.

Summary from the talks I went to today at #rusrconf2026 (this is mostly for my future self, but maybe others will find it interesting) 🧵

Rust could (should) be taught as the first systems programming language to undergraduate students. There is an initiative to gather educational materials: rust-edu.org

One could consider generating formal specs (eg TLA+) from natural language informal specs using AI. The presenter indicated having success with this approach (including catching one bug before it reached production).

Summary from the talks I went to today at #rusrconf2026 (this is mostly for my future self, but maybe others will find it interesting) 🧵

The inline dyn trait pattern allows writing nice library code with good compile-time checks in cases where a protocol (eg LSP) has opt-in extensions.

Reverse engineering malware written in Rust has a number of challenges but the tooling is getting better.

Summary from the talks I went to today at #rusrconf2026 (this is mostly for my future self, but maybe others will find it interesting) 🧵

Volvo is trying to make EVs cheaper by building batteries with wirelessly controlled electronics to output AC directly. The controllers for these electronics are written in Rust.

"The compiler has your back and generates good code for you." Amen brother! #rustconf2026

The #rustconf2026 talk on reverse engineering Rust malware is quite good. I think it's funny though that `fn main` pronounced out loud sounds like "f---n' main", which is probably apt when it's annoying to find the main function in a Rust binary compared with C.

Today I learned `rustls` is pronounced "Russells" not "Rus TLS". Thanks #rustconf2026 !

3 Sept

Review: A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett Another great installment in the series of Ana and Din mysteries! I have enjoyed all of the books in this series but this one in particular I found to be quite engaging. The mystery has a few twists while we continue to learn more about Din. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

29 Aug

Review: Infinite Shores by Pascale Lacelle I liked the first two books in the Drowned Gods series, but this one doesn't stick the landing for me. I think there are many interesting ideas, but it feels like they aren't able to be fully expressed. Still worth checking out the series as a whole. ⭐⭐⭐

14 Aug

Got the trophy + ranked up to Platinum in a #MTGxTheHobbit Pick-Two Draft on #MTGA with a sweet green-black deck. Green was wide open in my seat; I was passed many rares (enough to get the Rare Drafter achievement) so I had lots of strong cards including Chief Warg's Company and Part in Friendship.

7 Aug

7 wins in a Marvel Super Heroes Quick Draft on MTGA with a scrappy black-white deck. A decent mix of removal and card draw (stapled on creatures) with a few land cyclers to smooth out draws is a recipe for success in this format.

31 July

Review: The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson This is an excellent conclusion to Mistborn Era 2! It pulls in more from the wider Cosmere than the other Mistborn books, laying interesting ground work for Era 3. Most importantly each of the Era 2 characters get an emotionally satisfying ending. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

28 July

@lynnesargent.bsky.social and I are back from summer vacation which included two stops partially inspired by @3blue1brown.com videos. The Escher museum where we saw in person the Print Gallery featured in Grant's excellent video. The museum had other fun things too, thanks for the recommendation!

28 July

We also visited Laplace's tomb (that is Laplace of Transform fame and 3B1B has a great video about that too). It's very random because it's at the edge of a field kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I feel like this monument (and the person it was made for) deserves some more love!

28 June

This month I celebrated my twelve thousand three hundred forty fifth day on Earth, a.k.a. my 12345 day. Humans love celebrating once in a lifetime events that are multiples of 5 or 10 (50th birthday, 25th wedding anniversary, etc.). 12345 day seems like a good one to add to the list!

28 June

Note: consider the sequence of day counts involving consecutive digits: 1, 12, 123, 1234, 12345, 123456,... The first 3 all happen before you turn 1 year old then the next one before you turn 4. To see your 123456 day you would need to live to be over 300 years old! So 12345 really is special.

23 June

Review The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson I do love an Indiana Jones style adventure story. This one hit all the beats while still staying true to the characters we've grown to love over the series. This might be my favourite installment in Mistborn Era Two yet! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

20 June

Sending off Secrets of Strixhaven with one last pick-two draft trophy. This was a fun format! Being Lorehold for my last draft is fitting since I did quite enjoy playing that archetype. Of course the pinnacle for me was the draft where I won every game with Mathemagics.

16 June

Review: Higher Magic by @courtney-floyd.com This is a fresh take on the dark academia genera focusing on a more realistic story of graduate studies (but still with magic obviously). It's quite a good read! I especially enjoyed the little world-building details included throughout. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

13 June

60 cards. 5 colours. 7 wins. In limited! Oh yes, this cascade emblem format is a fun time. Legitimately I think this a good strategy in the format. It's ok if your mana base is a little bad because you are only paying the mana cost of about half the spells you cast (you just cascade into the rest).

@lynnesargent.bsky.social

13 June

The most important thing is that your spells are high impact, so the more good cards you have in your deck the better things will go for you. Not every card in this deck is powerful but there are enough of them and there is enough ramp and card draw to make sure I get to cast those spells (+cascade)

Michael Birch reposted

Lynne Sargent

13 June

It's new story day! Find "The Once Green Forest of My Lungs," out now with @rottingleafmag.bsky.social. www.briefecology.com/the-rotting-...

briefecology.comThe Once-Green Forest of My Lungs — Brief Ecologyby Lynne Sargent

7 June

7 wins with a nice Prismari deck in Strixhaven Quick Draft! I won't be competing in the Arena Limited Championship Qualifier, but I can still get some wins in a cozy low stakes draft.

5 June

Review: The Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson I liked this well enough and I am interested in what will happen to these characters, so I will continue with this series. I do think it is a little too long; it doesn't have the quick pacing of other Sanderson books, like second era Mistborn. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

23 May

A clean 7-0 in a Strixhaven draft on #MTGArena I won every single game with Mathemagics forcing my opponent to draw from an empty library. I guess I should have done that Draft Contender event after all!

16 May

Review: Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson I like that this book has more connections to the original Mistborn series than The Alloy of Law. I also enjoyed that we got a little more of Wayne in this one; he is hilarious. Otherwise, it still had everything I liked from the first book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

14 May

I trophied a Secrets of Strixhaven pick-two draft on #MTGArena with a streamlined Silverquill deck! I got lucky to consistently draw Stirring Hopesinger, which is one of the best Repartee payoffs. The incidental damage from Melancholic Poet also mattered.

11 May

Review: The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H. G. Parry This is a good version of a dark academia story. I'll always be a fan of this kind of story because, even though I am something of a failed academic, I still think real universities, learning and research are magical ✨ ⭐⭐⭐⭐

5 May

Review: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow I don't know how to write a spoiler-free review of this book that includes any detail. There are a number of twists throughout that feel both surprising and satisfying the way they were set up earlier in the story. I enjoyed reading it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

29 Apr

7 wins with a Prismari deck on #MTGArena ! Magmablood Archaic is a great card even in a strictly two colour deck. The two incidental damage from Heated Argument was also relevant in a few games. Secrets of Strixhaven has been a fun format so far!

27 Apr

Review: To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose I liked the first book in this series, but I might have liked this one even more. Not much goes on (until the very end) but Anequs's relationships with the other characters and her philosophy are engaging enough for me. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

27 Apr

At least part of my enjoyment of this book came from having read Braiding Sweetgrass first. It allowed me to pick up on more of the real world North American Indigenous cultural references.

21 Apr

Review: The Problem with Plastic by Adam Mahoney, Judith Enck and Beyond Plastics I agree with the core of the book: reduce plastic production + consumption, protect communities harmed by plastics processing, regulation preferred to individual action. But I have some gripes in the presentation ⭐⭐⭐

21 Apr

Blanket use of "chemicals" as a stand-in for various toxic substances (most of which are never named) is a pet peeve of mine. Not all claims were well-supported (is the risk of black plastic kitchen implements high enough to justify throwing them all away?) which undermines the rest of the book.