Today, for the first time ever, I reached the end of a roll if dental floss without first losing or giving up on it.

Last night I wrote a stupid userscript to exploit a stupid XSS vulnerability to add a stupid feature to a Web-based chat room I'm in. Everybody else's name is coloured in accordance with the theme they're using. But mine... can be a rainbow, or an image, or something else entirely.

As if I hadn’t suffered enough “flood damage” this year, I started my first workday since rebuilding my home office setup – hour the first time in months! – in our rental… by pouring a cup of coffee into my keyboard. 😱

Now that we've finished our move into the Chicory House, I have for the first time in over two months been able to set up my preferred coding environment... with a proper monitor on a proper desk with a proper office chair. Bliss!

Inspired by Jeremy Keith doing the same, I've made the salary history of my career transparent.

A goldfinch came to my bedroom window to say hi, this morning. Good morning, Goldfinch!

There's a special spot in my wallet where my "front door key" lives, but - despite the practical reasons to do so - I've resisted adding the Chicory House key in that spot. Instead, I've found myself keeping it in the "secondary key" spot, as a tiny reminder that the current state of affairs is a temporary one.

Today's mission in what we're calling the Chicory House - our home while our actual house gets repaired - was to unpack the kitchen. I think it's looking pretty good! (The cardboard box you can see contains pans we brought with us that turn out to be incompatible with the induction hobs at the Chicory House, boo!) Next weekend's mission will be to set myself up a workspace that isn't the conservatory dining table. 😬

In a longer article about the less-known Duleep Singh princesses, my friend Sundeep argued that it was inappropriate to describe Irene's death as her "committing suicide" because it implies criminality. One rabbithole of the laws of four countries later, I argue a (pointless) counterpoint.

I remain a huge fan of Kev Quirk's "100 Days To Offload" blogging challenge. And today... I just completed it for the seventh time! Kev announced that he completed it again today, too. He uses a different metric to me - he counts "posts over a twelve month period", while I u...

Minas Karamanis has produced a fantastic article about his experience of the use of LLMs for research in physics, and the concerns that he has about its use by less-experienced researchers just beginning to find their way in the field. I echo his thoughts, from my own field of software engineering, and wonder... how will we allow junior developers to gain experience in a world that may encourage them to use LLMs rather than trying and failing for themselves?

Long ago, you could move to a new area, scan for local WiFi networks, and fully expect to see a wonderful diversity of different network names. Some named for their locations, sure, but others named for people, or fandoms, or just "fun" ones. Has this art form died? Most residential SSIDs nowadays seem to just be the default one that comes with the basic router supplied by the ISP. Most commercial ones are just the name of the business. Sometimes you'll spot a phone configured for tethering but even that's usually just "Alice's iPhone" or similar. I can't remember the last time I saw a "Chicken Crossed the Road to Steal Our Wifi" or a "Russian Hackers" or a "Routy McRouterface" or a "All Your Bandwidth Belong to Us" (okay, that last one's a bit dated). Has the art form died?

The dog is concerned. Why, despite all her warnings, am I still letting these men take all of our (surviving) furniture?

It’s fifty-five days since my house flooded. Since then, I’ve lived in hotels, with friends, on volunteering retreats and – mostly – in a series of one- or two-week AirBnB-style short-term lets. It’s been wild. It’s also been wildly disruptive. To our work. To our kids. To our general stability. Today, we make a change. […]

On our last day out at our current AirBnB, we searched for a takeaway. Google Maps found me a Chinese takeaway, but it had an unexpected suggestion when I asked for an Indian...

It's my final day in the cute garden office of the AirBnB we're living in, this week, and every time I step through the door I catch a glimpse of our small, sandy-coloured dog squatting in the garden. Except the dog isn't even here. My brain keeps getting tricked...  by this statue of a pig.

I’ve lived in a LOT of different places these last few months while we’ve been arranging a place to live for the next six months or so of our house repairs. Each new AirBnB has had its pros and cons (and each hasn’t felt like “home”). But man, I really like the “garden office” at […]

I guess I’ll need some “assistnace” from Tesco to explain why my (long-neglected!) Clubcard didn’t work when buying some emergency sunscreen this morning. 😂

Inspired by Mike Cook's argument that old video games should be allowed to die, I was inspired to jot down some of my own thoughts and experiences in the area of video game preservation.

Today I had a Cadburys’ Cream Egg… for breakfast. I am a monster.

Found successfully on an Easter morning dog walk from Bledington. The geopup and I came out across the fields, trying to get outdoors early before the rain that's forecast for later in the day. Careful patience, logical elimination, and a determination not to give up were the keys, here.

The final of the short term lets we’re staying in (before we switch to a medium-term one!) while our flooded house is repaired is also perhaps the prettiest. Our village this week is peak-Cotswolds, for sure!

The final of the short term lets we’re staying in (before we switch to a medium-term one!) while our flooded house is repaired is also perhaps the prettiest. Our village this week is peak-Cotswolds, for sure!

QEF for the geohound and I as we came out for a walk from the house we're borrowing this week - the latest of many AirBnB-like week-long lets we've had to decamp to after our house was rendered uninhabitable by a flash flood around fifty days ago. Hopefully the last, though, as the insurance company may at last have found us sonewhere to live longer-term while our house is repaired!

The elder geokid and I had a search in all the likely spots we could find after attending her cousin's 2nd birthday party nearby. No luck for us today!

Ran out of time and had to give up.. Nice view of our accommodation for this week from this hill, though!

Found without difficulty while the geokid amused himself on the swing. Shame about the litter near the GZ, may be a CITO opportunity up here! Loving the views: think I can see our accommodation from here! TFTC and for showing us this rope swing!

Not a fan of this kind of container, but I must admit that I enjoy a decent-sized cache! TFTC.

We enjoyed sitting on the nearby bench while we cracked open this decent sized cache (and emptied out the accumulated water!). Log still in good condition, though. TFTC!

Quick find with the boy (thanks to the hint!) as we stopped for a sandwich break. TFTC!