Fri 23 Oct · today

• 15:00–17:00 · Meet with Leonardo (Leonardo Farfan) · video call, cal.com link in the invite
• Synlab blood test is no longer today: the calendar now has it on Thu 29 Oct, 09:00–09:30, Jankovcova 1518/2, Praha 7 (order 2026058765, paid; walk-in, fasting recommended)

Sat 24 Oct

• Nothing timed.

Sun 25 Oct

• Nothing timed.

• JP-KONTAKT order 20/2026/4730 (VSS 180/70 height-adjustable desk, white, with assembly) · paid, still no delivery date (no new mail from JP since the payment receipt on 21 Oct) · JP's own delivery to Kubelíkova 39 · for delivery questions JP points to its logistics team, logistika@jp.cz, tel. 725 468 221
• Nothing else expected.

Kyiv's CHP-5 power station hours after an earlier Russian missile strike, 2023 (CC BY 2.0). Wikimedia Commons

• Ballistic missiles on Kyiv after Witkoff–Putin. Strikes hit 12 regions, killing at least four people and wounding scores, including five children (Zelensky). Two women were killed in a strike on a market in Lozova, Kharkiv region. Downing Street rejected Witkoff calling Putin a "humanitarian". Guardian
• Starlink muddle. Trump says Musk "put it back"; a senior European official told AP nothing has changed in the military Starshield service, and Zelensky said it hadn't been fully restored. Also: at least seven cargo ships have been hit by drones off Romania and Bulgaria in two weeks, with 30 sailors dead or missing. Guardian
• Trump: "we may do it a little bit further". He says the US isn't negotiating with Iran and something will happen "fairly soon". The IRGC warns that US naval escorts through "mined waterways" could trigger strikes on US bases, and claims three more vessels hit mines west of Hormuz. CENTCOM says the blockade, now past 100 days, has blocked at least $25bn of oil exports. Gulf News · Financial Express
• Netanyahu calls for regime change; Houthis keep firing at Saudi Arabia. Five days before Israel's 27 Oct election, Netanyahu told the IDF, Mossad and security agencies to pursue regime change in Iran. Saudi defences intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh and drones over the south. Guterres condemned the attacks. Gulf News · The National

Pavia's courthouse, where the case is handled (CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons

• Trial could be a year or more away. Pavia prosecutors have nine months from the 28 Sept close of the investigation to ask for trial. The defence is weighing a constitutional challenge before the GUP: a final conviction (Stasi, whose lawyers plan a review request in Brescia) and a new defendant can't coexist. PG Francesca Nanni says her decision on the file won't be quick. RSnews · MilanoToday
• Corruption strand: nine names. Pavia prosecutors are examining four former carabinieri, three lawyers, and Sempio father and son. Ex-lawyer Massimo Lovati says in his interview record that the family paid €45k in cash, €15k each to three lawyers. Under review: calls from Lt. Silvio Sapone to Sempio in Jan 2017, before the notice of investigation. The Poggi family won't join as civil party against Sempio. CronacaLive
• Lovati on Rai1 (22 Oct): "Non ci sono elementi per portarlo a processo." Nothing notable on X. RaiPlay

• Bitwig. No new release; still 6.1.4 (13 Oct). Bitwig
• Traktor. No new release; Traktor Pro is still on 4.5.1. NI
• Tutorials. Nothing new from the last two days for Bitwig or Traktor. The most recent Bitwig one is Krumelur's live-set walkthrough (Clip Launcher, latency calibration, Eurorack FX) from 19 Oct, if you missed it. Bitwig
• Ubuntu tip: firmware updates from the terminal. fwupdmgr refresh && fwupdmgr get-updates checks the LVFS service for new BIOS, SSD, dock or touchpad firmware for your machine, then fwupdmgr update installs it. Ubuntu already ships fwupd, so you can do this without hunting on the vendor's site.
• Package: smartmontools. sudo apt install smartmontools, then sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0n1 (or /dev/sda) shows your disk's health: wear level, error log, power-on hours, temperature. Good to check before a disk dies, not after. packages.ubuntu.com

Turn the ping on or off. Settings → General has a notification sound switch, plus a row to pick the sound. If only one bot is too chatty, use the gear in that bot's info pane instead: its per-agent Settings page has its own notification options.

Andean condor over Colca Canyon (Snowmanstudios, CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons

• Weevils thought extinct are back in the wild. New Zealand's Department of Conservation released about 215 critically endangered Canterbury knobbled weevils this week. Six weevils bred in a lab in Mosgiel turned into 260, many more than expected. RNZ
• Water came back, the birds followed. Marsh harriers and Cetti's warblers bred for the first time at WWT Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth, after work to rewet 250 hectares of drained grassland. The Scotsman
• Condor no. 200. San Diego Zoo Safari Park has now released its 200th California condor, one of seven young birds that joined the new flock over Yurok Country in northern California. There are more than 600 condors today, over half of them flying free. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

Pluto in true colour, New Horizons, 2015 (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI, public domain). Wikimedia Commons

Pluto hasn't finished a single orbit since we found it. It was discovered in 1930 and takes 248 years to go round the Sun, so it won't be back where it was found until around 2178. Its name came from Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old in Oxford, who suggested it at breakfast. NASA

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Francesco Hayez, Il bacio (Episodio della giovinezza. Costumi del secolo XIV), 1859 · Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Two young lovers kiss in the stone entrance hall of a medieval castle. He holds her face in both hands, his foot is already on the step and a dagger handle shows under his cloak; she grips his shoulder as if she could keep him there. A shadowy figure lurks in the doorway behind. It's a goodbye, not a romance. Count Alfonso Maria Visconti di Saliceto commissioned it, and it went on show at Brera in September 1859, the year of the Second War of Independence and Vittorio Emanuele II's entry into Milan. Her blue dress and his red hose nod to Italy's French ally. The medieval costume was a way past the Austrian censors, and the picture became the manifesto of Italian Romantic painting (and, much later, the Baci Perugina box). Wikipedia

«La fortuna dell'opera è nella felicità dell'invenzione. Lo spazio semplice, essenziale, è quello dell'androne di un castello, il passaggio da un piano all'altro. Lei è forse scesa dalle sue stanze e lui l'ha raggiunta per un congedo prima di partire.»

Vittorio Sgarbi. il Giornale, 10 Sep 2017

punctilious (punk-TIL-ee-us): very careful about details and about doing things exactly the right way.

• She's punctilious about the handover: every patient, every drug, every time.
• A punctilious waiter refilled our glasses before we noticed they were empty.

• pátek (PAA-tek): Friday. V pátek večer jdeme na večeři. (We're going out for dinner on Friday evening.)
• spropitné (SPRO-pit-neh): tip (for a waiter, etc.). Je spropitné v ceně? (Is the tip included?)

First edition, Denoël et Steele, 1932 (public domain). Wikimedia Commons

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932)

Ferdinand Bardamu stumbles from the trenches of the First World War to colonial Africa, Ford's Detroit and finally a grim Paris suburb, where he works as a doctor to the poor. It's black, furious and very funny, written in a spoken, slangy French nobody had dared put in a novel before. Bukowski called Céline the greatest writer of the last two thousand years and borrowed his voice; if you like Fante and Hašek's view of war from the bottom, start here. (Céline's later antisemitic pamphlets are a stain; this novel came first.)

Get it: Amazon.it · Italian edition, Viaggio al termine della notte, Corbaccio (I grandi scrittori, 2022), translated by Ernesto Ferrero; also in TEA paperback. Wikipedia

Down by Law (1986, Jim Jarmusch)

A small-time pimp (John Lurie) and an out-of-work DJ (Tom Waits) are framed and land in a New Orleans jail cell, where they get a third cellmate: a cheerful Italian tourist with a notebook of English phrases (Roberto Benigni). Then comes an escape through the Louisiana swamps. It's shot in slow black and white by Robby Müller, deadpan and very funny.

Where to stream: Italy (Daunbailò): not streaming right now, according to JustWatch; it's on Criterion Channel and others in 14 other countries. Czechia (Mimo zákon): streaming on Lepší TV, according to JustWatch CZ. JustWatch IT · JustWatch CZ

Trailer: original 1986 trailer on YouTube

None of the four films is on Cinema City's programme yet (checked the full cinemacity.cz film list, 68 titles including upcoming ones).

• Artificial · not listed · US release 25 Dec 2026; no Czech date yet.
• You Can See Everything (Uvidíš všechno) · not listed at Flora · opens in Czech cinemas 5 Nov via Aerofilms. Aerofilms
• The Social Reckoning (V zajetí sítí) · not at Cinema City · already in Czech cinemas since 8 Oct.
• Musk (Alex Gibney) · not listed · no Czech date or distributor.