Sun 18 Oct: nothing timed today.

Mon 19 Oct: nothing timed.

Tue 20 Oct: 19:45–20:15, MUDr. Král (the invite title says 19:50), HemoClinic, Na Poříčí 1041/12, Praha 1 – Nové Město. Renata sent the invite.

• AlzaBox, order 1063088224: Hylo-Dual eye drops 10 ml, already paid. It's at AlzaBox P3 Žižkov, Fibichova 1586/11 (by the Žižkov TV tower). Pickup code 732 201. Collect by Mon 19 Oct, 23:59.
• Alza, order 1063088226: Nidelo Dynamic Grip socks (white, 37–41). DPD is bringing them to the same Fibichova AlzaBox, expected Mon 19 Oct by 20:00. The pickup code arrives by SMS/email once they land.
• Intimissimi, orders 2003989511 and 2003989496: these have been waiting at the Intimissimi shop at Náměstí Republiky 1 since 13 Oct, and the shop holds orders for 10 days (until about 23 Oct). Skip this if you've already picked them up.

• Ukraine: On the night of 16–17 Oct Russia launched one of its biggest strikes yet on the power grid: 332 drones, 4 Kalibrs, plus ballistic and Kh-22/32 missiles. Ukraine shot down 289 drones and all 4 Kalibrs, but more than 15 power sites in 10 oblasts were hit, causing outages. 7 people were killed and about 90 injured (Kyiv Independent, Ukrainian Air Force).
• Sanctions: Trump signed an executive order on 16 Oct waiving key parts of the Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. Zelensky says the waiver rewards Putin (AP, ISW).
• Front line: Russia's defence ministry claims it took Dobropillia. Ukraine's General Staff says the town is still under Ukrainian control. DeepState mapped a small Russian gain (about 7 km²) on the approach to the town.
• Iran / Hormuz: UKMTO, the UK's maritime security monitor, counted at least 10 ships attacked in or near the strait in a week, the most since the war began in February. On 16 Oct two tankers off Al Jubail were hit, one by an RPG from a small boat. The IRGC says a supertanker hit a mine and caught fire (CBS, AP, ISW).
• US options: ABC reports Washington has prepared a range of new strike options on Iran, including the MOAB (the largest US non-nuclear bomb). No decision has been announced.

• On 16 Oct Andrea Sempio's lawyers (Cataliotti and Taccia) filed five expert reports with the Pavia prosecutors. They argue that the DNA under Chiara's nails is a mixed profile pointing to a second, unidentified man (the so-called "Ignoto 2"), that the dotted-sole shoe print matches roughly a size 40 (Sempio wears 44), and that print 33 contains no blood (Sky TG24, Il Messaggero, Corriere).
• Rai Tg1 (17 Oct) reports that the prosecutors are moving toward a request to send Sempio to trial. Taccia: «Rinvio a giudizio? È un'ipotesi molto probabile.»
• Sempio also gave Sky TG24 an exclusive interview. No other substantive new YouTube or X discussion.

• Bitwig: 6.1.4 (13 Oct), the version with the rekordbox integration, is still current, and Bitwig says stem separation is coming this winter. No new tutorial from the last two days.
• Traktor: Pro 4.5.1 (July) is still the public version, with no new release and no fresh tutorial.
• Ubuntu tip: apt policy <package> (for example apt policy firefox) shows the installed version, the candidate version, and which repository or pin wins. It's the fastest way to untangle a PPA, snap or backports conflict before you upgrade.
• Package: hyperfine (sudo apt install hyperfine) benchmarks shell commands properly, with warm-up runs, means and spread. For example, hyperfine 'rg TODO' 'grep -r TODO .' tells you which one is really faster.

Settings has an Auto-review rules row, just below Auto-review in the General tab. Auto-review is the safety check that sometimes pauses a bot's action for your OK, and this row holds the rules it applies. Open it when a pause surprises you, before you start approving things blindly.

• Aldabra's giant tortoises are back. A five-year count by the Seychelles Islands Foundation and the University of Exeter puts about 180,000 tortoises on the atoll, the highest figure ever recorded. In the 19th century hunting had pushed the population below 1,000 (The Portugal News, 17 Oct).
• A rubbish tip now powers a hospital. A solar farm built on a former landfill near Wolverhampton, with 15,200 panels, now supplies about three quarters of the local hospital's electricity (Energies Media).

An octopus has three hearts. Two pump blood through the gills and one through the rest of the body, and its blood is blue because it carries oxygen with copper-based haemocyanin instead of iron-based haemoglobin.

Parmigianino, Vergini sagge e vergini stolte (1531–1539), fresco on the arch above the presbytery of Santa Maria della Steccata, Parma.

What it shows: the parable from Matthew 25. Six tall, elongated young women stand along the underside of the arch: the three wise ones hold their oil lamps ready for the bridegroom, and the three foolish ones have let theirs run out. They are set among gilded rosettes, with an almost jewellery-like elegance.

The context: Parmigianino signed the contract in 1531 and worked on it for years, far beyond every deadline, increasingly absorbed in alchemy. The confraternity took him to court, and he fled to Casalmaggiore, where he died in 1540 aged 37. The arch is his unfinished testament. Others (Anselmi and Gatti) went on to complete the church's decoration.

Why it matters: it is Mannerism at its purest. Proportions are stretched for grace rather than for truth, and the figures look more like ideas than people.

Vittorio Sgarbi (Gazzetta di Parma, 4 Apr 2021, special issue for the Steccata's 500th anniversary): «Il Parmigianino risponde soltanto alla sua mente e alla sua mano, dipinge per sé, serve alla sua visione, ai suoi sogni. Vasari racconta che cerca stimoli nell'alchimia per trasformare il mercurio in oro e io credo piuttosto per trasformare la materia in spirito.»

desultory (DEZ-ul-tor-ee): lacking a plan or purpose; jumping from one thing to another without real focus.

• We made a few desultory attempts to tidy the garage before giving up for lunch.
• The conversation stayed desultory until someone mentioned the election.

• neděle (NYEH-dyeh-leh), Sunday. V neděli mám volno. (I'm off on Sunday.)
• procházka (PRO-khahz-kah), a walk or stroll. Půjdeme na procházku do Riegrových sadů? (Shall we go for a walk in Riegrovy sady?)

Dino Buzzati, Il deserto dei Tartari (1940). A young officer, Giovanni Drogo, is posted to a remote frontier fort to wait for an enemy who never quite comes, and his whole life slips away in the waiting. It shares Kafka's deadpan dread and Hrabal's eye for absurd routine, and it's short enough to finish in a weekend.

Amici miei (1975, Mario Monicelli; the project began with Pietro Germi). Five middle-aged Florentine friends spend their days on elaborate pranks, the famous supercazzola included, to keep boredom and death at bay. It's the funniest and saddest film in the commedia all'italiana, close in spirit to Hašek and Hrabal: hilarious on the surface, melancholy underneath.