Recently updated blogs

Back in the summer, I decided to get more serious about controlling my Type 2 diabetes, and I enrolled in a program that I found through my insurance company. Overall, things have gone quite well: my blood glucose is down, my weight is down, and I’ve been able to cut my medications to about a third of what I was taking before. But nothing is perfect, and the iPhone app …

The narrator of Sharon Bolton’s new novel is the very definition of a nosy neighbour. Living in the middle of three adjoining cottages with very thin walls makes it easy to hear the people on either side: the narrator knows what music they listen to and what they watch on television, who they speak to on the telephone and what time they get out of bed in the morning. In …

Also rated feeders, AllHere fraud, expensive banana and AI on the blockchain.

What was it like to watch The Box Of Delights for the first time back in 1984? Unless you've actually got the box, there's only one way to find out...

The crew of the USS Cerritos are faced with a classic diplomatic mission in “Of Gods and Angles” as Captain Freeman and her crew work to bring peace between two races of photonic beings, the Orbs and the Cubes. Seemingly standalone from the multiversal storyline running through this season, this episode is a fun comfort food episode of Lower Decks — there’s some good character work, some funny jokes, and …

Yesterday at QCon, I got to give a talk with my colleague Dan Fike about the Principal Engineer role. You can also watch the video on YouTube. The content itself is largely based on the High-Context Triad of blog posts I wrote in late 2023: Layers of context Navigating ambiguity Useful tradeoffs are multi-dimensional I hope you enjoy the talk! (Unfortunately I don’t have a recording of Dan Fike’s portion, …

My website has been static since — checks new search index — at least July 2014!I’ve gone through so many static site generators and custom build scripts I’ve lost track. In that time I’ve amassed quite a big blog. Finding old articles has become harder than it should be. I need search.Finding PagefindBecause my website is “serverless”† I have to implement client-side search. That means JavaScript. That means probably not …

Check out As in guillotine... for more. This is my bi-weekly “newsletter” delivered straight to your inbox, with at least one guaranteed typo I’ll catch after hitting send! If email’s not your thing, don’t hesitate to switch to the RSS feed. I encourage you to click through the main links (there’s only five and they’re all interesting!), and if you enjoy something — send me (or them) an email, leave …

After much waiting and a couple of false news alerts, the latest expansion for bike racing game Flamme Rouge is finally really here: Grand Tour is available for purchase. For some unknown reason, this expansion has been multiple years in the making – or rather waiting as there were multiple times where it looked like this was about to come out. But now in 2024, six years after the last …

Join Lindsay Fryer, the founder of Lodestone DC, and me today at 2pm for a special pop-up LinkedIn Live to discuss the implications of the nomination of Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education. Linda’s a Senate confirmed former SBA administrator, wrestling magnate, state board of education member, political candidate, and current Trump transition co-chair. To the extent that you can use the words “predict” and “Trump” in the …

https://kelake.org/wp-content/uploads/a2f22681-e119-4401-8eca-18e7ed7bb725.Nicole_s_Compass_and_the_Garden_.mp3 I had some credits for AI voice over at a sound effects service, so I thought I would plug-in the first paragraph from the latest story I wrote. I have a thing for British and Australian accents, so I chose a “middle-aged British female” with “slightly exaggerated” production. I think Sheryl is secure in her job, but it won’t be long before it becomes hard to tell the difference. …

After previously implementing support for image value remapping in my image-processing infrastructure, I’ve been looking into generating better gradient colour mapping schemes / palettes than the initial hard-coded HSV ramp I used. The thermal camera I have can bake in one or two pretty nice presets, but as previously discussed, I wanted the freedom and flexibility to “tone-map” them myself afterwards, for more creative freedom. There are a wide range …

Two grown men messing about by water Source

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. ***Oh is he more, too much more than a pretty face?I don't think so.Then again, perhaps I do think so.He is, after all, still at Number One on the UK singles chart, with his latest smash Gonna Make You a Star.I refer, of course, to David Essex who's discovered what it's like …

A shock report in the Guardian highlights claims of the immense cost to the British economy of health problems resulting from poor diets. The UK’s growing addiction to unhealthy food costs £268bn a year, far outstripping the budget for the whole NHS, the first research into the subject has found. The increased consumption of foods high in fat, salt and sugar or which have been highly processed is having a …