Recently updated blogs

This is a fantastic idea: integrating tactile maps on pedestrian crossing buttons to help sight-impaired people get a lay of the land. These exact signal boxes are used here, but I don't think I've ever seen the map module on them. That's a shame. [View video on Youtube] [View video on Invidious (tracking-free)]

What is the opposite of Cory Doctorow’s neologism “enshittification“, the seemingly purposeful making worse of a product or situation? It’s Cory Doctorow’s embettering of his recent cancer diagnosis. Cory assures his readers that it’s very, very likely to turn out to be completely treatable in minimally invasive ways. In fact, he has already gone through […]

I really like Cog (previously) as a tool for automating aspects of my Python project documentation - things like the SQL schemas shown on the LLM logging page. When using cog in this way it's important to remember to run cog -r to update those generated files before pushing a commit. I've previously been enforcing this using GitHub Actions - as part of my tests I run cog --check *.md …

Despite what society suggests, you're not obligated to stay up-to-date on daily news.Being in the loop won’t solve your perceived lack of control.Just because news is available doesn’t mean you must consume it.Your real responsibility to you and those around you is keeping a clear head and a healthy mind. Don’t let the endless stream of information wear you down.Society often equates news awareness with caring about issues, but you’re …

❚ The cross-cultural pioneer Quincy Jones died this week aged 91 in Los Angeles. In tribute, we republish Andy Polaris’s appreciation of his genius when he brought a huge orchestra to London’s O2 arena on 25 Jun 2019… Excerpt from … Continue reading →

As of October 31, there have been at least 43 homicides in Barbados between January 1 and October 31, marking a 7.5% increase over the previous January-to-September period in 2024. For the same period last year (January to October 2023), there were 16 homicides, showing an increase of 27 cases, or 168%. My count and…

I’m sorry I didn’t upload this before, if there are some amongst you who want to discuss the, er, situation. I have been obsessing about this election for months now and I think that now we’re here I find I’m too anxious to watch the returns coming in as a Trump victory would be the biggest disaster for this country since, I dunno, the civil war? I took a peek …

Developer experience, or shortly DX, seems to be the number one thing that people pay attention to in their chosen tools/frameworks.

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I find this very cool that the Gov.uk / GDS have released their platform tooling (in particular forms) to the public sector. I can imagine it's a jump to go from project in the public sector to being able to implement all the nuts and bolts it requires, and this platform looks to cut right through the hard work. Specifically: You can create accessible, low cost online services without needing …

Read this article if you want to become a much better designer (See what I did here? I framed it in a specific way :) )The Framing Effect in UX design — UX Knowledge Piece Sketch #64The Framing EffectThe way you formulate a problem affects your users’ decisions and behavior. The decision frame is affected by how we present the decision and by the norms, habits and personal characteristics of …

I’m writing this post about eighteen hours before the first polls open on Election Day, and it feels tense out there. The New York Times, for example, just posted an article headlined: “How Americans Feel About the Election: Anxious and Scared.” Based on extensive interviews conducted over this past weekend, the Times concludes: “Americans across the political spectrum reported heading to the polls in battleground states with a sense that …

A polacca through it's first stages before basing, priming, and painting.A little houy.I finished assembling and rigging a few more ships including a little houy, a whaling brig, a polacca, as well as a a couple brigs and a frigate from Warlords Black Seas game.Up close, these models are obviously not detailed, but rigged and painted and put on a pretty base, I think they look rather nice on the …

I have a problematic relationship with keys. Well, that's not true. I have a problematic relationship with key rings. For some reason, my pockets are a violently hostile environment for things I put in them. I don't really understand why this is, but it's true. Keyrings bend out of shape; the concentric rings separate, and my actual keys fall off of them. People have expressed scepticism about this in the …

China is aiming to put humans back on the moon within 3-4 years from now, years before the US returns humans to the moon. That will be a huge pychological blow to Americans. With Dreams of a Lunar Outpost, China Takes New Risks in Space Race With U.S.