Since time immemorial, software has had version numbers. A developer releases V1 of their product. Some time later, they add new features or fix bugs, and release the next version. What should that next version be called? Modern software broadly bifurcates into two competing standards; SemVer and CalVer. SemVer Semantic Versioning is usually in the form 1.2.3, the last digit is usually for…
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The venerable curl is one of the most fundamental pieces of code in the modern world. A seemingly simply utility - it enables other programs to interact with URls - it runs on millions of cars, is inside nearly every TV, used by billions of people, and is even in use on Mars. And, as of last week, features a small contribution by me! Look, I'm not an experienced bit-twiddler. I can't…
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I was lucky enough to score playtest tickets for the new season of Phantom Peak - the open world, interactive and immersive puzzle experience in London. I'd never been before and generally have a mixed reaction to these sorts of immersive shows. I loved Doctor Who - Time Fracture but found 1984 to be underwhelming. Phantom Peak takes you inside an Old West mining town in a weird steam-punk…
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Because I'm an optimist, I submitted a few talks to FOSDEM in the hope one might be accepted. Because I'm lucky, I got two speaking slots. Because I'm an idiot, I decided to do both talks. On the same day. An hour apart. On opposite ends of the venue. Fool! My first talk was at the Social Web Birds-of-a-Feather session. I told people about my ActivityBot social networking server and how I…
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Long-time readers know that I am not a fan of What Three Words. I think it is a closed, proprietary, and user-unfriendly attempt to enclose the commons. I consider that it has some dangerous failure modes. A year ago, The Financial Times wrote about What3Words' business woes. But it looks like things are about to get a lot worse. As reported by a user on Reddit, Mercedes cars no longer support…
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I was packing for FOSDEM when I suddenly realised that I'd lost my clicker. Disaster! Here's a shortlist of what I need in a presentation remote: Ring style to fit on my finger USB-C Works on Linux Frickin' lazor beams! The only one I could find which matched all that was this Voviggol unit. Ring Here's how it looks hooked to my hand: The ring is stretchy and will fit around the…
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I was delighted to be invited to speak at FOSDEM. And I was not at all intimidated to be speaking on the cavernous Janson stage. The audience were lovely, asked interesting questions, and - most importantly - laughed in all the right places 😅. Regular readers will recognise this as being an updated version of the talk I gave at EMF 2024 - feel free to watch that one if you want to see if I've im…
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I'm just back from my first ever FOSDEM - a megaconference dedicated to Free and Open Source technology and culture. It was epic. I'm still ruminating on the experience, but here are my first impressions of what did and didn't work. The Good Bits Really, it is a dozen conferences squeezed into one. Over a thousand talks, on a seemingly infinite array of subjects, about a million people…
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