Month: January 2026
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I may have been dragged to MegaConLive London by my multi-fandom loving 12-year-old, but I at least managed to find somebody worth getting a selfie with.
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Dan Q with Eddie Bowley.
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My 12-year-old's persuaded me to take her to MegaConLive London this weekend.
As somebody who doesn't pay much attention to the pop culture circles represented by such an event (and hasn't for 15+ years, or whenever it was that Asdfbook came out?)... have you got any advice for me, Internet?
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How You Read My Content (The Answers)
Kev Quirk ran a one-question survey recently about how people discover and read his blog posts, and I think it's a pretty inspiring idea. Sure, consent-based surveying introduces biases... but what analytic technique doesn't, really?
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PHP 8.4 on Caddy on Debian 13... in Three Minutes
I just needed to spin up a new PHP webserver and I was amazed how fast and easy it was, nowadays. Just the stock package repositories and around five commands and my fresh box and it was serving PHP applications over HTTPS.
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Inspired by a conversation with Elle (@e11e@mastodon.social), I expanded my FreshRSS-to-blogroll generator to support injecting 88×31 buttons (where I have them) for folks I follow.
There's still a way to go, but my blogroll's looking a little prettier as a result.
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Peripheral Vision
The other night, I encountered an optical illusion by which I could see a particular partially-obstructed light only when it was in my peripheral vision. This put me in mind of the experience of being only peripherally able to see the internalised quirks of your employer that were once obvious to you, and this lead me to reflect a little on my first six months at Firstup.
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gradient.horse
Michail Rybakov's gradient.horse might be the second most-amusing use of a .horse domain name I've yet seen. Draw a horse and let it run wild and free with its friends in the gradient plains of your browser window!
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Found GC8YPVJ Finn1
On the morning of the Three RIngs Christmas party, I took an early walk to a nearby geocache, just outside the area where the roads are closed for the Warwick leg of HS2's construction.
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I think my "six seven"-obsessed younger child was in the kitchen with a biro earlier. How do I know, you ask?
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Close up of a bunch of bananas. The numbers 6 and 7 have been drawn on them in ball point pen.
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Well my day, week, and year (which has been off to a slightly ropey start) got a whole heap better today when I received a postcard from August (@august@chaos.social) & Sappho (@kruemmelspalter@chaos.social), sent from 39c3 on a CCC postcard... with a CCC stamp (thanks, Deutsche Post)!
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Both sides of a postcard. The reverse shows a red-on-black illustration of the shape of a computer keyboard, superimposed upon the outline of a star, alongside, white text reading 'Chaos Computer Club'. On the front is the message: 'My girlfriend and I really love your blog, so when we saw that you accept postcards, we knew we had to send you one from this year's Chaos Communication Congress - 39c3! You're awesome, please keep doing what you're doing! August & Sappho @august@chaos.social (Mastodon) kruemmelspalter.org (Website)'.
Super cool, and exactly the mood boost I needed today.
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Gay sheep - what the FAQ?!
About 1 in 12 rams (and a similar proportion of ewes) show a strong preference for other sheep of their same sex. To save them from being destroyed by breeders, this German farm is rescuing them and adding them to their queer flock.
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88x31 Button Creator
Dan of ritual.sh has produced an absolutely epic 88×31 button generator; well worth playing with if you're into that kind of thing.
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Nostalgia, Music, and Computers
It turns out that I get nostalgic about technology in the same way as I get nostalgic about music. Here's some things that take me right back to being nine, eleven, thirteen and fifteen years old.
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Tonight I learned that when my electric car gets down to 5% battery, it sounds an alarm.
And that when it gets down to 4% battery, it sounds a louder alarm.
And that when it gets down to 3% battery, it engages 'limited performance' mode and shows a picture of a tortoise.
And that when it gets down to 2%, and you've already turned off the heating and the radio and you're wondering how much power the windscreen wipers are using... that's when it stops showing you it's estimated range.
Fortunately, I then only had half a mile left to go. But for a while there it felt a little bit hairy!
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Electronic car dashboard showing 3% battery, a 'limited performance' warning, and an icon of a turtle in a yellow circle.
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Bitterly cold and starkly beautiful, this morning: West Oxfordshire is blanketed in an impenetrably thick freezing fog.
It's quite pretty, though I'm regretting not bringing my gloves out with me!
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Tree-flanked fields almost impossible to discern through a blanket of thick white fog.