This a rant, written at midnight, after battling software errors. Set your profanity filters accordingly. I despair over the state of software engineering - specifically, stability. We seem to have lost the understanding that computers are there to do the hard work for us. And I don't think we ever believed in a user-centred approach to developer tools. The last time I developed an Android app…
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Last Monday was a Bank Holiday in the UK. The Tuesday was a "Privilege Day" - a day off for Civil Servants for the Queen's birthday. Thursday was my wife's birthday - which I had booked off ages ago. So I decided to cash in my TOIL and take Wednesday and Friday as holidays as well. Including weekends, that made for nine days off in the glorious British sunshine. Stuck at home, sure, but nine…
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My quest to move my entire life to USB-C continue. Headphones, laptops, Switch, phone, eReader - all taking the same power port. Bliss! But that means I need more USB-C chargers. This is the YLpower 87W USB-C Charger. First off, 87? What? The USB-C port is capable of 85 Watts - enough for even the most demanding laptop. The USB-A port supplies the remaining 2 Watts. Perfectly fine for most…
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I have a vivid memory of my school days. I'd completed a pencil sketch in art class. For once, I was impressed with my dexterity. Then the teacher demanded that I colour it in. I was terrified that I would ruin it. I begged to use the photocopier - but to no avail. So the drawing remained uncoloured. I've been like that ever since. I have a crippling fear of doing something artistic which cannot …
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I'm going to revisit an argument I had in… Ooooh… 2001ish? I wanted to make some edits to my university's fledging student union website. In order to do this, I needed to learn the arcane art of SSH. This was one of my first introductions to text based config files. I was horrified! A single typo, or a stray comma could break everything. The instructions our WebMaster provided were laughably unc…
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Barbara Newhall Follett was just thirteen years old when she published The House Without Windows in 1927. The book went on to become a million-copy bestseller. Years later, as an adult herself, Barbara followed in the footsteps of her radical heroine - dissatisfied with the limitations of life as a respectable married woman, she walked out of her house one day and simply disappeared. This is a …
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I have a weakness. I love listening in to other people's conversations on the bus! I was sat behind a gaggle pride squad of teenage girls on the bus. They were variously complaining about their schoolwork, parents, and love-lives. I'm not going to attempt to recreate their vernacular, but the conversation went something like this: "Why won't Daren answer my WhatsApps?!" "Is he leaving you on…
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Here's a simple scrap of CSS which you can Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V kbd { border: .1em solid #aaa; border-radius: 15%; display: inline-block; padding: .1em .5em; background: linear-gradient(180deg, #fff, #fff, #fff, #ddd); user-select: none; cursor: pointer; color: #000; font-weight: bold; } kbd:hover { background: linear-gradient(0deg, #fff, #fff, #fff, #ddd); } …
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ISPs suck. They're designed to. The A in ADSL stands for "Asymmetric". That is, your download speed is faster than your upload speed. This makes sense for most domestic purposes. Most people suck down a lot more than they push up. But we've now entered the (permanent?) work-from-home era. If you're anything like me, you're spending more time broadcasting video than you ever did before. It's…
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I started dating Liz - my now wife - one cold January back at university. We were young and disgustingly in love. This was it - 💕true love💕! And then, right in our honeymoon phase, she left to Australia for the summer holidays. We both wailed and made overly dramatic speeches about how we'd stay true to each other. And we'd write every day! And nothing would tear us apart! Those eleven weeks sss…
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I love reading Changelogs - but I hate writing them. Here's what's changed with SuperTinyIcons since I launched it in 2017. It's a project to create SVG logos of popular services in under 1KB. Maximum filesize is 1,023 bytes. New Contributors! What started off as just me noodling around, has now attracted over 60 contributors! Some just drive-by and make a single change, others stay for a…
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Early Internet pioneer, Jon Postel, beautifully captured the "Robustness Principle" for networked communications. "Be strict in what you send, and generous in what you receive." That is, any computer sending data to another, should stick closely to the specification for that communication channel. Any computer receiving data, should expect that the sender isn't following the principle, and…
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