Some time in the last 20 years, ISPs stopped saying they made you "part of" the Internet, just that they'd help you "connect to" the Internet. Most people don't need a static IP, sure. But when ISPs stopped offering FTP and WWW hosting as a standard feature (shit though it often was), they became part of the tragic process by which the Internet became centralised, and commoditised, and corporate, and just generally watered-down. The amount of effort to "put something online" didn't increase by a lot, but it increased by enough that millions probably missed-out on the opportunity to create their first homepage.

In the event of a fire on my bus, I’m concerned that the head of the man sitting in front of me is flammable.

In my first few weeks at my new employer, my code contributions have added 218 lines of code, deleted 2,663. Only one of my PRs has resulted in a net increase in the size of their codebases (by two lines). I need to pick up the pace if I’m going to reach the ultimate goal […]

Have you ever wanted to hear a (sarcastic, passive aggressive) dramatic reading of RFC 2119? Eric Bailey - and the actor he found - have got you covered!

A Twine-like choose-your-own-adventure, but with the rooms randomly shuffled each time, in sort-of a semi-rougelite way. Some imaginative work in this. And the art style is wonderful!

A quesapizza is a quesadilla, but made using pizza ingredients: not just cheese, but also a tomato sauce and maybe some toppings. A quesapizza-pizza is a pizza... constructed using a quesapizza as its base! Watch me make one in a 90-second timelapse.

On a car journey on which they'd otherwise have been fighting, the kids helped me start a collection of heterophonic homonyms - words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings. I've got nine of them now in English, and maybe two in other languages... can you help me find some more?

Thanks to the community's invention of a "Region unlocked" achievement, I've been able to instantly (and retroactively!) tick another one off my geohashing list, for my expedition on Trinidad early this year! (Possibly I've achieved it other times, too: I haven't yet determined whether anybody successfully hashed in County Mayo or County Galway before I did last year, on account of both counties spanning multiple graticules and so requiring more research!)

Do you know the story of how Tom Lehrer hid an Easter Egg in an academic paper he wrote at the NSA, and his joke wasn't discovered for almost six decades?

This weekend I once again found myself underground beneath London; this time exploring the Camden South Deep Shelter with the help of the Hidden London folks. And it was pretty damn cool.

Went to Wagamama. Accidentally made the “Order of the Beast”. (Plus a similar side, for those who read binary.)

Seventy years ago, residents of this part of London would take shelter from V1 and V2 bombs in a tunnel beneath my feet. And today, I’m going down there to take a look!

ArtificialCast is a lightweight, type-safe casting and transformation utility powered by large language models. It allows seamless conversion between strongly typed objects using only type metadata, JSON schema inference, and prompt-driven reasoning.

I got kicked off LinkedIn this week. Apparently there was “suspicious behaviour” on my account. To get back in, I needed to go through Persona’s digital ID check (this, despite the fact that I’ve got a Persona-powered verification on my LinkedIn, less than six months old). After looping around many times identifying which way up […]

QEF (once we started paying attention to the right host object!) for the geopup and I on a morning dog walk after an errand in the village. TFTC, now better get off to work!

I’ve eaten “doughnut holes”, but I’ve never seen anybody market “bagel holes”. Untapped opportunity? 🤔

I wanted a button on my desk that, when I pressed it, would simultaneously lock every computer connected to my KVM system. Here's what I came up with.

Checked-in on this cache as it's had surprisingly-few visits yet. Reassured to find that it's all still in place and findable. Second-to-find's still up for grabs.

DOGWALK is a free, open-source Godot game for Windows, MacOS and Linux, produced and given to the world by Blender Studio as a way of showcasing some of their video lessons. And it's adorable.

Based almost-entirely on seeing some folks on Nebula do a blindfold taste test challenge of some Korean ramen, JTA ended up importing some of the same brand and I ate some for my lunch. Here's what I made of them.

ChatGPT lied about the functionality of Adrian Holovaty's software tool, Soundslice. So rather than try to get ChatGPT corrected, he just... implemented the feature it had claimed he already had. Is this the first time in history that this has happened? It could be!

PleaseFixThisSite.com is a funny web-based take on that XKCD comic about extorting graphic designers who hate your design choices. But you don't actually need to pay the extortionist to "fix" their site. Just have your userscript manager run a few lines of my code, and the effect is much the same.

I really enjoyed Computerphile's video about how ZIP tools can be used for abstract tasks that you might initially think were way outside their scope... like working out how close the genetic relationship between two species is, or which human languages are most similar to one another!

This post is secret; you can only find it via my RSS feeds (and places which syndicate them). It's okay to talk about it or link to it, though. Thanks for being part of RSS Club! I spent most of a day getting my new development environment set up, because I kept hitting issues that […]

My new employer sent me a laptop and a monitor, which I immediately added to my already pretty-heavily-loaded desk. Wanna see?

Off to my first day at Firstup. Gotta have an induction: get my ID badge, learn where the toilets are, how to refill the coffee machine, and all that jazz. Except, of course, none of those steps will be part of my induction. Because, yet again, I’ve taken a remote-first position. I’m 100% sold that, […]

As the UK’s heatwave continues, the dog and I were delighted that this morning was sufficiently overcast that we could manage a proper walk without completely melting. Her breed copes badly with the heat and we’ve lately had to keep her indoors or in the shade more than she’d like, so a chance to run […]

I know how I’m SUPPOSED to read it, but when I see this I can’t help but imagine a conversation like… “What shall we call our car wash?” /waves hand/ “I dunno.”

Ruth and I sometimes send one another the 'person rowing boat' emoji when no other emoji seems to fit, and I can't even remember why we started.

This week I (again) helped share my knowledge about a nearby stone circle and henge with a group of children from the local school. And I was overjoyed to receive the most-delightful handmade 'thank you' card from the class.