Personal blogs

Those of us of a certain vintage will always remember the Onion fondly. Their smart, acerbic satire seemed inexhaustible during the late 90s and 00s. It was a time when I could put an “America’s …

Let us posit a simplification, which will hopefully seem less arbitrary and less reductive as we further describe it. The simplification is this: that the two poles of concern, when it comes to what we …

Last Sunday I flew out eastwards to meet Shannon in Nashville to view the eclipse. I just managed to get a brief glimpse of the city, visiting Broadway the night...

One stereotypical nerd gadget I’ve never seen the point of, that I always assumed was the nerd equivalent of hand-woven gold hi fi cables, was the mechanical keyboard. I assumed they were, as the phrase …

A note on how learning works (in my experience, anyway). Assumed audience: People interested in learning—especially but not only math, programming languages, music, or engineering. For the past week or so, I have been working …

Zilog have announced the impending end of supply for Z80 8-bit microprocessor chips, 48 years after they were first introduced. As a teenager in the late 70’s who started an electronic engineering degree in 1979, …

1. I loved this story about the importance of public libraries. 2. This story is audio only, but Artomatic in DC this year is in an old office building, and one artist is displaying his …

Websites That Forbid Other Websites From Linking to Them – Pixel Envy: Some of these are even more bizarre than a blanket link ban, like Which? limiting people to a maximum of ten links to …

How to live without your phoneAfter a while without my phone, I started to really notice how much everyone else was staring at theirs. On public transport in particular. Every adult is sitting there, pushing …

May 4, 2024 | Attention 🎯 | Permanently Moved 🔊 There’s a word we used to use in the 1980’s and 90’s to describe a user with such a deep understanding of a technological-system. A …

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about how i relate to gender. i think generally, i don’t really relate to gender – for a long time this has been the reasoning behind using exclusively they/them …

So in the army I had a nickname “Chow Wi Wang” and I just found out there is the .wang top level domain, so I had to buy chowwi.wang Now what to do with it.

Text of a Presidential Address (2023) delivered to the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists’ Society at Norwich, 26-3-2024 Thank you – firstly – for doing me the honour of asking me to be your President for …

Oops! Usually when I fail to post on time and then illegally backdate the post, yielding a penalty of -1,000 points, it's shortly after midnight. Like, as I'm trying to fall asleep (which of course …

I don’t remember how I came across it, but this is one of the most exciting papers I’ve read recently. The authors train a neural network that tries to identify the next in a sequence …

It’s raining. I’m enjoying the cool London weather but I’m worried it won’t last. I had a disjointed week without much momentum. I felt suddenly nauseous at work on Thursday and came home to groan …

Welcome to the jungle The morning after Part 1’s arrival, I set out to squeeze in a short visit to rustic Lamma Island, just a half hour ferry ride away from the region’s concrete-steel-glass heart. …

Replied to Adobe Throws Photographers Under the Bus Again: 'Skip the Photoshoot' by Jeremy Gray (petapixel.com) If Adobe has its way, its Firefly AI may essentially replace artists and make Adobe's platform a more attractive …

Skomer stay! Puffins! And Everest Trek Get Together No. 20! (You’ll have to wait for Puffin Pics – need to get them off my camera) Updated: now with added puffins Serious puffins, Skomer A drizzly …