Recently updated blogs

I hope Municipal Dreams, the blog, has provided a useful political and design history of council housing (amongst other things) but the aspect I value most is the social history it tells. People read about the town or the estate in which they or their parents grew up or, less directly, they see a story that echoes their own. Given that one in two of the early post-war generation lived …

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provides a helpful framework for identifying technical accessibility issues, but what happens when the same issues crop up time and again? How can you find the causes and change the culture of the team behind the system?

The front door closes and you walk towards your vehicle. Opening the door and settling in for another journey, you place your phone in its cradle. You think of today’s to-do list, the groceries, the journey to see family or friends. You tap Sounds Daily to be greeted by a friendly, but not quite human voice welcoming you to “The best of BBC Sounds - made just for you”. The …

This post is an edited interview transcript of our discussion with the wonderful Tamika Heiden for the 2024 Research Impact Summit – which is on this week (5-6 Sept; all online and all free!). We were really pleased that Tamika asked us to speak at the Summit. She has been at the forefront of thoughtful work around research impact, engagement, and knowledge translation for many years. Please note that this …

Some notes on setting up an apt-cacher-ng based cache server for Debian apt packages in my home operations ("homeops") context, including a section on using SSL/TLS origin servers. Background Living on and working primarily from my narrowboat means I'm generally more mindful of what I consume, and the resources available to me. Water, electricity, gas, and fuel for the stove in the colder months. And while I have an "all …

What takes place once a year and involves me drinking large quantities of beer? Well, OK, it could be practically anything, admittedly, but, more specifically, it's the BV London Pub of the Year award. Yes, it's a painstaking process, visiting and revisiting pubs to determine which one is the best in the capital, but I've been doing it for well over a decade now and you can thank me later. …

There have been at least 34 homicides in Barbados between January 1 and August 31. My count and subsequent analysis is based exclusively on what is reported by The Media. The numbers and analysis below are not to be treated as official in any form or fashion. Note to Image 1: Parish information for one…

hello all! no more art will be posted on this log/RSS feed; i’m merging/updating it to a new art blog powered by tegalog instead of wordpress. the new RSS link is not “quite” live yet because i haven’t transferred the domain, but will be live in the next month. please update your current RSS feed to the feed below: https://kradeelav.com/diary/tegalog.cgi?mode=rss& i will post one more update when it’s confirmed to …

We hit that point in the year where we could no longer resist the call of Gotland. I packed two cameras for the…

The very mention of the village of Happisburgh in Norfolk brings to mind all manner of prehistoric associations and connections with long-extinct ancestors. The early years of this current century have revealed exciting local evidence of the presence of earliest hominins in northwest Europe: Homo antecessor (‘Pioneer Man’) – near million-year-old clues in the form … Continue reading "Of Whales and Ancestors: Ostend, Norfolk"

Whenever I publish something about my Python Docker workflows, I invariably get challenged about whether it makes sense to use virtual environments in Docker containers. As always, it’s a trade-off, and I err on the side of standards and predictability.

one thing about being away from the desk for a while is it resets your habits and relationships to your habits and you see them afresh from the outside, & this prompted me to ask 'when I feel this little stab of distress that prompts me to check reddit, where is that distress coming from? What is distressing me?' & I realised that for me at least, it's the context …

ESPHome device, a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 and level shifter with 3.5mm TS and HDMI connectors. After getting the Onkyo RI support for ESPHome and Home Assistant in place, it was neat that I could turn my Onkyo A-9050 amplifier on and off remotely, but it wasn’t actually very useful; it didn’t save me any time/hassle. This iteration, adding HDMI-CEC support, brings it all together. Back when I started this …

This is one of those things that I do so much but always need to think. So I’m going to create some documentation for myself, and maybe it’ll help others. Specifically, I’m going to setup an extern...

Every week, we recommend 5 publishing articles/blog posts that supplement the major news for the week. Whether data or industry commentary, we hope these 5 links will be a simple way to keep you in the know. How Hobart, NY Transformed Into a Book Lover’s Paradise How Translating Small Languages is No Small Task Should Author Profiles Replace Book Criticism? The Censorship Battle in Florida Continues as US Publishers Sue …