Month: May 2026
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Converting ISO Country Codes to Flag Emojis
Did you know that there's a simple formula you can use to convert from an ISO two-letter country code to the emoji of the flag of that country. I've made an interactive thingy to demonstrate it, and shared some other fun things I've learned while playing around with ISO 3166 and flag emoji.
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There are many things I don't like about the kitchen in the Chicory House where we're living medium-term following our house flood.
But I like the fact that the integrated spice rack makes it much easier to see where we perhaps have a very-specific blind spot for "buying a new one where the last one's still more than half-full".
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Close-up of a spice rack containing not one, not two, not three but four tubs of 'ground white pepper by Sainsburys'.
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I think I'm probably done with my blog (and podcast) series of Wikpedia @ 25 posts. It's been a surprising amount of work.
But don't think I've stopped hitting Random Article! Today I was reading about surface plasmon resonance, and, despite looking at it on and off all day... I still don't think I "get" it. I've even dived into the linked articles to try to get a background understanding of the topics around it, but... nope. It's still all gibberish to me!
Think I need the ELI5 version!
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Disabling AI in WordPress 7.0
Nicholas A. Ferrell explains how to tell WordPress 7.0 to keep its AI features disabled, and I share my alternative approach: use a fork - ClassicPress - that doesn't include the AI features in the first place, and add them using a plugin if that's really what you want.
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Bringing Three Rings volunteers together: doing remote-first in person, and what to eat in a crisis
JTA wrote a LinkedIn post about Three Rings, its remote-first culture, doing things in person, and crisis management, and it's brilliant.
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Is AI Profitable Yet?
No surprises from this website, but it's interesting/staggering to see quite how LARGE the disparity between spending and profit is for some of these companies.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Carl Person
As I continue my 25-consecutive-days-of-Wikipedia, today's random article of the day was Carl Person, a lawyer with an interesting history.
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I let the elder kid choose her lunch. She chose a pizza so huge that each slice is larger than her entire face. Needless to say, she needed a little help with it!
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Two preteen children sit in front of an enormous pepperoni pizza.
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As both the UK's heatwave and my up-and-down England road trip continue, I think I've finally found a fan big enough to cool me off.
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A large wind turbine.
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Drinking a coffee while editing a podcast episode in the beautiful Ullswater valley, and this lovely little pied wagtail came by to say good morning!
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Pied Wagtail (motacilla alba yarrelli) atop a dry stone wall.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Cirrothauma Murrayi
Today, Wikipedia introduced me to a mysterious deep-dwelling octopus. So cool!
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I spent a while failing to interpret this sign. It seemed to be saying that if you didn't clear your tray... then you'd get ketchup poured on your wrist?
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Printed sign reading 'this is a self-clear area; thank you' beneath a red illuminated icon of a hand onto whose wrist a bottle drips.
It turns out there's a baby bottle warming station on the other side of the bins.
(It is possible they my brain is struggling from a lack of sleep.)
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It's been too damn hot out, so Ruth, the kids, and I took refuge at the snow park of an indoor ski centre!
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Ring riders on an indoor ski slope.
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Wikipedia @ 25: Milices Patriotiques
My random Wikipedia article of the day was Milices Patriotiques, who were a 22,000-strong communist group and part of the Belgian resistance in the Second World War. Which sounded really interesting, but their article was tragically short so that's pretty much all I have to say about them!
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Hold your head up high and show some PRIDE.
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A pride parade.