Статья

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 5

Even here at Pordenone, not every film you watch can be a masterpiece. So rest assured that tonight’s gala screening of A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926), with live benshi narration from Kataoka Ichirō, more than fulfilled the festival’s chef d’oeuvre quotient for the day. It screened in the evening, with more shorts, all … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 5 →

Silent London · EN

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 6

I have spent a lot of words on Le Giornate del Cinema Muto so maybe I need some new ones. Conveniently enough, day six of the festival proved a fruitful day for neologisms – right from the start. A couple of minutes past nine in the morning, in fact when I was merrily enjoying the … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 6 →

Silent London · EN

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 7

Let’s begin in the logical place, at the very end of the day. Tonight was a gala night in Pordenone, a celebration of some of my favourite women. For sure we had Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson on the big screen, but if you want a really iconic duo, check out our Jean Mitry prize-winners, … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 7 →

Silent London · EN

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 8

Even the most beautiful tram ride eventually comes to a halt. Even the transcontinental railroad has a beginning and an end. It is also true that after eight days of divas, detours, detectives and decadence, the Giornate del Cinema Muto closes its doors for another year. I had a wonderful festival with great films and … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 8 →

Silent London · EN

Queen Kelly in Belfast this month

Hello! How are you handling the Pordenone comedown? I am mostly answering emails and drinking tea. But I just wanted to pop on here to let you know that the Queen is coming to Belfast. And so am I. The gorgeous new restoration of Queen Kelly (Erich von Stroheim) will screen at the fabulous Queens … Continue reading Queen Kelly in Belfast this month →

Silent London · EN

Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico: coming soon to Blu-ray

This is a place to share silent film news. So, um, here is some news about a silent film, that is really a sound film, or several sound films, or no film at all. But I think you want to hear about it. Between 1930 and 1932, Sergei Eisenstein shot film, more than 30 hours … Continue reading Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico: coming soon to Blu-ray →

Silent London · EN

Pre-order now: The Silent Film Companion

I have been wanting to share this news for a long time. I am delighted to tell you that The Silent Film Companion: A Recovered and Expanded History is now available to pre-order from Rutgers University Press. This book, which will be published on 12 January 2027, contains 57 entries on individual silent films. It … Continue reading Pre-order now: The Silent Film Companion →

Silent London · EN

Book now for Living Pictures: Victorians on Film

This one should be right up your street, especially if that is a Victorian terrace in London… Go right back to the beginnings of British film history with this short course devised by the V&A Museum and the BFI and led by Mike Berlin and Bryony Dixon. It is called Living Pictures: Victorians on Film. … Continue reading Book now for Living Pictures: Victorians on Film →

Silent London · EN

Cronjob vs systemd timers - how to create a systemd timer

IntroI’ve been using cronjobs for a long time. More recently I’ve been testing systemd-timers as they allow dependency management, so I don’t have to check (in the script I’m running) to see if certain services are up/running before my scripts can do their work. In this post I’m going to demonstrate how to create a simple systemd timer service which runs a script on a schedule A quick comparison with CronI’m all for learning to use new tools.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

ZSA Moonlander - A keyboard review

IntroIn Jan 2024, I’d had enough. Upon finishing a day of coding my wrists would start to ache and I’d feel a tightness in my ribs, shoulders and upper back. I’d recently turned 35 and my body isn’t as adaptable as it was 10 years ago. Where I could sit on a cheap office chair and use the computer for hours on end, and feel no ill effects. Time has moved on and my body is not as accomodating as it once was.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

A secure & efficient Node/npm in Docker setup for frontend development

IntroI’ve been searching for a secure and efficient Node in Docker setup for a little while now. And I think I’ve found it! A couple of years ago, I’d install the latest LTS version of Node/npm on my Windows machine and be done with it. In my day job, I could be working on one of 4 different front end projects, and have my own front end projects I’d work on in my spare time.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

Goodbye Disqus - Your injected ads are horrible

IntroThis will be a short and sweet post. I’m not big on goodbyes. Disqus started showing ads for their “free” tier comments system a few years back. At the time, the communication they sent out via email, seemed quite laid-back and had the tone of “don’t worry about it, it’s not a big thing”. Which in part led me to almost forget it happened. At the time, the disqus comments system looked quite smart and sleek.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

merge-pdf.app - A free, privacy-first PDF Merging tool

Privacy-First PDF Merging: Why I Built merge-pdf.appWe’ve all been there. You have three different PDFs, maybe a cover letter, a CV, and some certifications - and you need them in one single file. The “old” way to do this usually involved searching for “Merge PDF” on Google, clicking the first link, and uploading your sensitive documents to a random server in the cloud. You get your file back, but at what cost?

ryansouthgate.com · EN

Fixing qBittorrent in Docker, swallowing RAM and locking up the host

IntroI’ve had qBittorrent running happily in Docker for over a year now, using the linuxserver/qbittorrent image. I run the docker container and others on an Ubuntu Server host. Recently, the host regularly becomes unresponsive. SSH doesn’t work, and the only way to recover is to power cycle the server (running on a small NUC). The symptoms were: RAM usage would climb and climb, the server would become sluggish, and then it would completely lock up.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

Self-hosting and surviving the front page of Hacker News

IntroLast October, my post “Why I Ditched Disqus for My Blog” unexpectedly reached the #1 spot on Hacker News - and stayed on the front page for more than 11 hours. Overnight, a blog I usually run quietly from an old laptop-turned-server at home was under the kind of scrutiny I never prepared for. For context, a couple of years ago, I migrated from Ghost to Hugo, and started self-hosting in a truly DIY way - a setup that could reliably handle my modest regular traffic.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

AI is a Race Car, Not Autopilot

AI-assisted coding feels a bit like being handed the keys to a race car. In the right hands, it’s quick, precise and capable of covering a lot of ground in a very short amount of time. In the wrong hands, it’s still quick - and more likely to end badly. Speed is not the whole storyThe obvious comparison is speed. A race car is built to go fast. AI-assisted coding tools are also built to make software development faster.

ryansouthgate.com · EN

Dorohedoro and other TV notes

Posting has been a little light lately. A lot going on in real life. But I have managed to sneak in some TV time in the last few months. I read the book Project Hail Mary several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m a bit late in watching the movie, but I caught it … Continue reading Dorohedoro and other TV notes →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

For All Mankind and Star City

I was leery of the show For All Mankind for a long time. The promotional material made it sound more like a political drama than a space adventure. And sure enough, the first time I tried to watch it a few years ago, I largely ran aground on all the domestic soap opera. But the … Continue reading For All Mankind and Star City →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

Buying a new TV

My ancient Sony Bravia had developed a low grade hum that seemed to be showing up with increasing frequency. Googling around revealed that it likely indicated the power supply was nearing the end of its life. I can’t complain. The set was 16 years old. I mentioned to someone the other day that I was … Continue reading Buying a new TV →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

Disclosure Day and other TV notes

I was eleven when Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out. In the days after seeing it, I spent a substantial chunk of my allowance on UFO magazines. Reading them, it seemed undeniable that we were being visited by extraterrestrials. My fascination with UFOs didn’t last long. Most of the stories in … Continue reading Disclosure Day and other TV notes →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

The Orphans trilogy

One of the ideas explored in Sean Williams and Shane Dix’s Orphans trilogy is how an early version of uploading might be superseded by later designs, and the attitude the later versions have toward the earlier ones. In this series, the early versions are referred to as “engrams.” Echoes of Earth, the first book, starts … Continue reading The Orphans trilogy →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

Exodus: The Helium Sea

Peter F. Hamilton’s Exodus: The Helium Sea is the second part of a duology that began with Exodus: The Archimedes Engine. It continues the story of humans trying to survive in a star cluster dominated by numerous posthuman species known as Celestials. The Celestials are descendants of the first settlers in the cluster, who arrived … Continue reading Exodus: The Helium Sea →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

Lanterns and other TV notes

Still alive. I haven’t been posting lately, or been around much online, mainly due to being busy with real life issues, issues which have crowded out most reading. But I have managed to watch a little TV. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, starts off with a man in a goofy getup walking into a … Continue reading Lanterns and other TV notes →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN

Voting 2026

I have to admit I often have trouble summoning the motivation to vote in the midterms. Usually the polling in my state is so lopsided that it seems pointless. However, it turns out that the two senate candidates this year are within five points of each other. Realistically, the MAGA candidate is probably going to … Continue reading Voting 2026 →

SelfAwarePatterns · EN