Times are Europe/Rome, the same as Prague.

Wed 4 Nov · today

• 12:00–13:00 · 🧘 Pilates · Next.Move Churchill (Energy), Italská 69/2584 · be there 5 min early

Thu 5 Nov

• 09:00 · 🩸 Blood test, Synlab Olšanská · Olšanská poliklinika, 2nd floor, Praha 3 · walk-in, fasting recommended · bring the order code (2026058765) and ID/insurance card · Thursday hours 6:30–12:00 and 12:30–14:00

Fri 6 Nov

• Nothing timed.

• JP-KONTAKT desk, order 20/2026/4730 (VSS 180/70 height-adjustable, white, with assembly) · due this week, 2–6 Nov, per JP on 30 Oct · no delivery day confirmed by mail yet · logistics should call, or book a day on 778 747 901
• Nothing else · nothing expected or waiting for pickup

• 🇺🇦 Russia's biggest energy strike this year. On 3 Nov: 289 drones, 17 ballistic and 59 cruise missiles across ten regions. Kyiv lost water and its metro was suspended; three drones targeted a substation critical to the Khmelnytskyi nuclear plant (IAEA informed). A Kharkiv hospital strike injured 73, and a glide-bomb hit on an aid centre in Komyshuvakha (Zaporizhzhia) killed at least 33. Ukraine set a refinery in Yaroslavl on fire. Kyiv Independent
• 🤝 Abu Dhabi talks confirmed. The Kremlin confirmed US-brokered three-way talks in Abu Dhabi on 10–11 Nov, the first since February. BBC
• 🇮🇷 Strikes near Qeshm. US forces carried out limited "defensive" strikes near Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz late Monday after Iran apparently fired at a US aircraft. AP
• ⚖️ Hormuz stays shut. Tehran called Washington's answer to its demands "not convincing" and says Hormuz stays shut until its seven conditions are met. Qatar is pushing an interim deal and expects both sides' feedback within about 36 hours; Trump has threatened major strikes after the midterms. CBS

Garlasco, the castle tower (Awd, CC BY-SA 3.0). Wikimedia Commons

• Trial requested. On 3 Nov the Pavia prosecutors formally asked for Andrea Sempio to be sent to trial for the murder of Chiara Poggi, charge unchanged: omicidio volontario pluriaggravato, with cruelty (at least 12 wounds to head and face) and "motivi abietti" tied to a rejected advance. The case now goes to the GUP for a preliminary hearing. ANSA
• The defence. Sempio, via lawyers Cataliotti and Taccia, says he's convinced his innocence will be shown. The defence will ask to suspend the case until Alberto Stasi's revision request is decided (Stasi's team expects to file it by mid-November), possibly raising a constitutional question; Cataliotti expects the hearing next year. The Poggi family won't join as civil party. ANSA, defence
• Worth watching. RaiPlay's short explainer Garlasco: Sempio rinviato a giudizio, cosa succede adesso (Vita in diretta, 3 Nov).

• 🎛️ Bitwig. No new release this week; 6.1.4 (October) is still current. No new Bitwig tutorial from the last two days worth flagging.
• 🎚️ Traktor. Nothing new; Traktor Pro 4.5.1 remains the current version. No fresh tutorial spotted.
• 🐧 Ubuntu tip: column -t. Pipe messy output through column -t to line it up into a clean table, e.g. mount | column -t or column -t /etc/fstab.
• 📦 Package: progress. sudo apt install progress, then run progress -m while a big cp, mv, dd or tar is going: it shows percent done, speed and time left for the running copy, no restart needed.

Invoices day. At the start of the month, when invoices land, you can jump straight to Settings → Usage & Billing → Billing. That tab only appears when it's enabled on the account, so if the row is missing it's an account setting, not you.

A Peruvian diving-petrel fledgling (CC BY-SA 3.0). Wikimedia Commons

• 🐦 Chile's seabird comeback. Peruvian diving-petrels on Choros Island have grown about 300-fold since 1980, to nearly 90,000 breeding pairs, after invasive rabbits were removed in 2013. Island Conservation
• 🦫 Beavers back at Loch Ness. NatureScot licensed the release of up to 15 beaver families over three years in the River Ness catchment, about 500 years after they vanished there. Good News Network

A Eurasian beaver in Trondheim, Norway (Bouke ten Cate, CC BY 4.0). Wikimedia Commons

The Orloj's astronomical dial (Jorge Royan, CC BY-SA 3.0). Wikimedia Commons

Prague's Orloj on the Old Town Hall was first installed in 1410. It's the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest one still working.

Image: The Yorck Project, public domain. Wikimedia Commons

Francesco Hayez, Malinconia (1840–1842) · Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Everyone knows Hayez for the Bacio, but he painted the theme of Melancholy more than once: a lone young woman, no story, no battle, just a mood. That's what makes it interesting, since Hayez spent most of his career on big historical and patriotic scenes loaded with Risorgimento symbols. Here he drops the narrative and paints a state of mind. Sgarbi puts it right next to the Renaissance greats:

«Ma, quando dipinge libero da vincoli narrativi, realizza capolavori di formidabile intensità spirituale e sentimentale, nella più alta espressione di una poetica romantica. Penso a soggetti più volte ripetuti come la Malinconia in cui si concentra attingendo un valore assoluto paragonabile a quello di grandi capolavori dei maestri del Rinascimento, come la Flora di Tiziano e la Muta di Raffaello.»

Vittorio Sgarbi, il Giornale, 10 Sep 2017. il Giornale

fugacious (adj.): lasting only a very short time; fleeting.

• The fugacious November light was gone by half past four.
• Market rallies on election day tend to be fugacious.

• krev (kref, the final v sounds like f): blood. Zítra jdu na odběr krve. (Tomorrow I'm going for a blood test.)
• žíla (ZHEE-la): vein. Sestra hledala žílu na levé ruce. (The nurse looked for a vein in my left arm.)

Stefan Zweig with his wife Friderike outside their Salzburg house, 1922 (Ludwig Boedecker, public domain). Wikimedia Commons

Stefan Zweig, Schachnovelle (Chess Story, 1942)

A short, tense novella on an ocean liner: a world chess champion meets a quiet Austrian who learned the game in Gestapo solitary confinement from a stolen book. Under 100 pages, with the obsessive inner spiral you like in Poe and the Central European melancholy of Roth.

Get it: Amazon.it · Italian edition, La novella degli scacchi, Einaudi (2015), transl. Enrico Ganni, €8.50

Le Samouraï (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville)

Alain Delon as a silent Paris hitman with a caged bird and a ritual for everything. Almost wordless, cool blue-grey images, and a huge influence on every lone-assassin film since.

Trailer: avids | network on YouTube

Where to stream: Czechia (Samuraj): streaming on Lepší.TV. Italy (Frank Costello faccia d'angelo): not streaming, renting or selling anywhere right now. JustWatch CZ · JustWatch IT

MAD Music Venue That's A WORKING VINTAGE SHIP – MS STUBNITZ – Walkaround · LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER (United Kingdom) · English, 35 min

Sam Battle, the synth-builder behind the channel, takes you around MS Stubnitz, an old ship that now works as a live-music venue. Nice mix of electronic-music culture, engineering and odd history, from someone who builds his own instruments. YouTube

MS Stubnitz at her Hamburg berth (Pauli-Pirat, CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons

• Artificial · not on Flora's programme; Czech release reported for late January 2027.
• The Social Reckoning · not on Flora's programme today.
• Elon Musk documentary · not listed yet.