Today I learned that the quiet, high-pitched neighing sound horses sometimes make is called “nickering”.

I learned this from a subtitle which read “[horse nickers]”. Which, as a Brit, I can’t help but interpret as somebody making a misspelling while talking about equine underwear. 🤣

Screengrab from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Paladmin Xenk Yendar, played by Regé-Jean Page, rides his horse through a forest. It's subtitled with him saying "I'm sorry." and also "[horse nickers]".

Max props to the developer of puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth, who I just bought a coffee for.

The screen-scraper I wrote to bulk-export data from my Garmin sports tracker (because Garmin’s API is “only for corporate partners”, which is a magic spell you can say to make me write and open source a screen-scraper that targets your systems) stopped working today. Turns out Cloudflare could detect my automation.

Installed puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth. Fixed instantly. Awesome.

I bought Zach Weinersmith‘s Bea Wolf for my kids (9 and 6, the elder of them already a fan of Beowulf). It arrived today, but neither of them have had a chance to because I wouldn’t put it down.

My favourite bit is when Bea and her entourage arrive near Treeheart and the shield-bearer who greets them says “Your leader sparkles with power and also with sparkles.” The line’s brilliant, clever, and accompanies the most badass illustration.

Inked pencil sketch showing a resolute-faced young girl - Bea Wolf - in a teddy-bear hat, flowerprint dress, and star-spangled boots, standing cross-armed amongst four of her friends. Above, a line of text ends a quote, reading "Your leader sparkles with power and also with sparkles."
I’ll give it to my kids… eventually. But if you’re looking for a book recommendation in the meantime, this is it.

Things The Other Child Did Wrong That Lead To The Fight that I’ve heard so far today:

  • Clapped too loudly
  • Sang too loudly
  • Sang too quietly
  • Sang the wrong words
  • Put their feet too close to the dog
  • Ate the last grape
  • Ate the wrong grape (!?)
  • Finished brushing their teeth first
  • Clapped too loudly, again
  • Called somebody “buttocks”
  • Said somebody had buttocks
  • Expressed interest in going a different route to school
  • Put shoes on in wrong order