Kind: Articles
Traditional long form content: a post with an explicit title and body.
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MS Paint-grade QR Codes?
I hand-drew a QR code so it looks like what I did was made a maze in Microsoft Paint. But it works! Here's how.
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Details/summary lightboxes in pure HTML + CSS
For years, I've been using a HTML+CSS-only technique for popover 'lightbox' images on my blog. Now I've come up with a more-semantic way to do the same, and its HTML code is tidier too!
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Internet Services^H Provider
When you signed up with an ISP, you used to get Web space, email, shared FTP access, a nearby IRC node, newsgroups, and a software bundle. Nowadays you get a shit router, a voucher for a free month of a streaming service you didn't want, and crap customer service. Where did we go wrong?
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Quesapizza-pizza
A quesapizza is a quesadilla, but made using pizza ingredients: not just cheese, but also a tomato sauce and maybe some toppings. A quesapizza-pizza is a pizza... constructed using a quesapizza as its base! Watch me make one in a 90-second timelapse.
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Heterophonic Homonyms
On a car journey on which they'd otherwise have been fighting, the kids helped me start a collection of heterophonic homonyms - words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings. I've got nine of them now in English, and maybe two in other languages... can you help me find some more?
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Clapham South Deep Shelter
This weekend I once again found myself underground beneath London; this time exploring the Camden South Deep Shelter with the help of the Hidden London folks. And it was pretty damn cool.
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Lock All The Computers
I wanted a button on my desk that, when I pressed it, would simultaneously lock every computer connected to my KVM system. Here's what I came up with.
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Buldak
Based almost-entirely on seeing some folks on Nebula do a blindfold taste test challenge of some Korean ramen, JTA ended up importing some of the same brand and I ate some for my lunch. Here's what I made of them.
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Please Fix This Site? Okay!
PleaseFixThisSite.com is a funny web-based take on that XKCD comic about extorting graphic designers who hate your design choices. But you don't actually need to pay the extortionist to "fix" their site. Just have your userscript manager run a few lines of my code, and the effect is much the same.
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The Local Historian
This week I (again) helped share my knowledge about a nearby stone circle and henge with a group of children from the local school. And I was overjoyed to receive the most-delightful handmade 'thank you' card from the class.
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Firstup Recruitment
I'll soon by starting in my new role at Firstup, after a rollercoaster of a recruitment process that rocketed through all the usual tech job steps... but in barely over a week. What a rush!
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The Huge Grey Area in the Anthropic Ruling
The court ruling that declares Anthropic's use of (purchased) books as training material leaves a curious sorites paradox. If we assume that an LLM trained on only one book (and so only capable of producing content directly inspired by that book) would necessarily be copyright-infringing, at what number of books does that cease to be the case?
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Smug Interview Moment
Recently, I got to answer a technical interview question with "Coincidentally, I implemented exactly what you're describing two weeks ago. For fun. Can I show you the code and the blog post I wrote to explain my design choices?"
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Scarecrows
As part of the Village Festival, there's a scarecrow competition around my way with a televisual theme. I love that my local community works so hard to carve out an individual identity and personality for itself!
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Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella
I recently read Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella. I guess it's got a 'werewolf'. It barely feels 'gay'. It certainly left me 'bored', at times. Turns out that it's a very middle-of-the-road story about Gen Z folks growing into their identities, using sexuality and lycanthropy as loosely-fitting framing devices.