Recently updated blogs

In this episode, I look at making the bridge and tailpiece and then the final assembly. There’s also a bit of as surprise for you??

Making a complex network simple has been a stated aim for public transport bodies in Melbourne for decades. That has two strands; (a) planning services to be inherently simple (eg higher frequencies, direct routes, consistent operations and fewer unique stopping patterns on buses and trains) and (b) providing good passenger information, whether for regular travel or when something changes. The latter has become particularly important; there would seldom be a …

Fuck you Facebook. That was the first thought I had when I woke up this morning. Followed by: What ministry is Mark Zuckerberg volunteering to manage for the dictators of the world? All I could think of is how Orwell’s Ministry of Love is about hate. So what are we creating here? The Ministry of Empowerment to ensure the oppression of the most vulnerable? Lovely. But maybe you, dear reader, …

In 1966 at age 35 the late Catherine Aird published her debut detective novel, The Religious Body, putting her squarely in the midst of what might be called second wave crime queening in British detective fiction. With Dead Men Don't Ski in 1959, Patricia Moyes slightly anticipated this newer generation of Sixties women mystery authors who were writing firmly in the style of their predecessors Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, …

We still have iced snow here, with - 9°C expected tonight, and even colder temperatures tomorrow. Several hundred feet below...

Back in 2023, I belatedly jumped on the bandwagon of people posting their CSS wish lists for the coming year. This year I’m doing all that again, less belatedly! (I didn’t do it last year because I couldn’t even. Get it?) I started this post by looking at what I wished for a couple of years ago, and a small handful of my wishes came true: Subgrid support Nested selectors …

How to quickly get code syntax highlighting in Keynote without having to select each bit of code and changing the colour manually. Read more.

I have news! On Saturday 11th January I will be performing at Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom in Norwich. I will be playing a 20 minute set of original songs and poems, raising funds for PAL Humanity and PCRF. I will be joined by kirakira, Billy Lubach, The Mink, and Damp Matches. I will be selling poetry books, photography books and maybe other things, with all funds split between the two organisations …

Recently I realized I was yet to see the sunrise in Taiwan.In my first year, summer temperatures pushed my daily walks further into the night. Then, by the time winter returned, my late starts had become habitual.And suddenly, I’ve been here two years already. Time passes me by, like sunrises in my sleep.So today, on my two-year anniversary in Kaohsiung, I set my alarm for 5:30am—an unfamiliar time of day …

Ridgeline subscribers — A new year, a new city. My pick for New York Times’ “52 Places to Go 2025” is Toyama City of Toyama Prefecture. It is placed at 30 on this year’s list (not that the list is a “ranking”!) and Osaka — with its forthcoming Expo — is placed at 38. I think that’s quite the interesting contrast of Japanese cities to highlight. Times picks aren’t entirely …

A list of BBC Sounds things I have listened to over the festive break. It's quite a long list.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their …

I decided to go cold turkey on micro-blogging. I’ve had a Twitter account since November 2006 and at some point owned 12 different accounts. I stopped last month. I don’t know for how long but I’ve gone back to ‘big writing’, ie. working on the second edition of Smarter Homes which I owe myself (and my publisher Apress). Sometimes, you just have to spend your January nights writing about 1920s …

Happy New Year to all! This first post of 2025 marks the beginning of a fresh year of cycling-related content. For January, I’ll publish on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays, returning to my usual schedule of the 1st and 3rd …

Twenty twenty-four was not a typical harvest (and, is there even such of a thing?). ¶ But it wasn't a bad harvest either, and in any case illustrates the rhythms, the rise and fall, of agriculture (as expressed at my local markets). ¶ All of the apples for sale, by date, from July to the end of the outdoor markets in November of last year. It's from this spreadsheet. Last …