Awful Woman - Full feed

Right now

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

WHEN WILL WINTER END?

Currently reading: The Regicide Report.

Water load of trouble

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:11:00 +0100

While water is wonderful I really don’t want it leaking into my apartment because of faulty pipes and taps. Even more so I don’t want it secretly leaking out of my apartment into someone elses. This is what we call A Fucking Disaster.

That’s why I’ve been integrating leak sensors wherever I fear water leaking. Like everything else I’m installing, these are wired devices: why not when I have all the walls and ceilings open?

These are dirt simple devices, powered by 12V/24V sent over two of four wires. A unit has two metal prongs on its underside. As soon as those prongs are bridged by water, a connection is made and the unit closes a digital logic circuit in the other pair of wires.

You need something smart to connect them to. Given that I will have one of the Kincony ESP32 boards at the heart of my house, this isn’t a problem.

Where

These are one of those areas where my home automation was ahead of my construction. While we were constructing our bathroom I had laid in wiring for these sensors, at places where I knew water pipes would come together. It’s these joins that are the most likely to leak, after all. So I had cables placed under the sink, under the bath pipes, and underneath the electric water heater and drains for the washing machine and water softener (yes a water softener - ain’t I fancy?).

When it came to finalising the bathroom I connected up the sensors in a Normally Open configuration to standard 4-wire KNX cable, and screwed them in place to the floor. When the walls went up they were invisible.

Limitations

However, wired sensors are inherently inflexible. Once the walls went up I couldn’t easily run more cables, nor change the position of the sensors themselves.

The lack of cables also means that I only have a few places covered, and all of them are behind walls. What about directly underneath the washing machine, where water is going to spill out if it borks on guinea pig hairs?

This is part of a layered strategy, so I’m not too worried. For directly underneath the washing machine I can always use battery-powered Zigbee sensors, or an ESPhome USB-powered board.

The stuff I’m really worried about is what I can’t see, and hopefully these wired sensors give me some protection there.

Doing something

So if these sensors pick up a water leak they can inform Home Assistant, which can send us alerts. That’s great if we’re at home, but what about if we’re away?

Well I’ve got that covered also. I had our plumber (for water and electricity are the two things I’m not touching in this apartment project) put in DC-powered water valve where our mains supply comes in.

By applying power 12V DC a ball valve inside it rotates, cutting off the water supply.

Hooked up to the same ESP32 board this means I can open and close the water supply remotely. More usefully I can go further and usa a HA automation to turn off the water supply automatically as soon as a leak is detected.

These things are a last resort only. Upstream from the automated valve I have a normal hand-operated valve - I don’t want to be relying on technology to do something like this unless I really have to.

So there we go - water leak detection and water protection combined into one.

Planning Security

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 13:10:00 +0100

Are you secure? Are your loved ones secure? Is your home secure? Are your loved ones secure at home? Is your dog secure? Are your accumulated mounds of jewellery secure? Are you secure in the knowledge that things are secure? Are you secure in yourself? Have you secured your potential? These are all questions that we must ask.

I’ve never done home security before. Never had an alarm or sensors or anything technological like that. I did have a Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross called Daisy who used to go mental if someone parked in front of my old UK house. But given that she’d roll over for anyone who actually entered the property, she was of little security use.

Given that I’m currently lacking a sappy Bull Terrier, what security options do I have in my new apartment revamp?

The normal path

Traditionally you’d have a commercial security system in a property which you want to protect from evil outside threats. This is a box containing a custom electronics board, with hardwired links snaking out to motion sensors, door contacts, and window break sensors. If one of those sensors was triggered then BEEP BEEP BEEP an alarm goes off, and perhaps even an emergency call gets sent to the local police. In return for all this insurance companies will give you some discounts and deem you to be Protected.

The abnormal path

That path has become rather passé of late. Who wants to put cables everywhere when you can have fancy wireless sensors? Nowadays it’s all about wireless this and wireless that. Even discounting the off-the-shelf Zigbee, Z-Wave and Wi-Fi products, commercial systems themselves have turned to using radio for their sensors. And you know what? Fuck that rudely. There is absolutely no way I want to have a security system that involves me having to change batteries. Christ, the whole reason I’m hard-wiring everything that I can is because I forget to change batteries.

No, no, no, no, no and no again. If I’m installing an alarm system then it’s going to be hard-wired.

The normal path, with a nerd twist

So back to the normal path. But just because I want things hard-wired doesn’t mean that I have to do things the commercial route.

NOTE TO PEDANTS AND OTHER FREAKS: Before you start frothing, yes I know that a commercial system offers the benefit of your insurance company offering you reduced premiums. To be clear, what I’m proposing here isn’t a commercial system, and I have no intention of claiming that it is one to my insurance company.

This is what I’m thinking about:

Lots of sensors, all hard-wired - no reliance on wireless tech.
- Each window frame and door should have sensors that indicate if it is open or closed.
- There should be dedicated motion sensor for each room.
A central control unit - not tied to Home Assistant, but able to communicate with it - that can support various “states”, and that can receive inputs from the wired sensors.
An audible alarm that can be set off if need be.
The ability to communicate with me even if Home Assistant goes down and the connection to the wider internet is out.
Dedicated battery backup so that it can run for a few hours, if not a day, without mains AC power.

Going back to my rough Principles, this is would be part of the “Critical” layer of home automation - i.e. if that this doesn’t work, it could allow intruders to maraud - probably naked - through my place, stealing my guinea pigs.

I consider this to be “basic” security. It’s enough to alert me if we accidentally leave windows or doors open when we’ve left home, to alert me if there’s something happening when wifey and I are not there, and to maybe attract neighbours if someone enters though forced entry or an unlocked door.

Give me MORE security

Of course, I don’t have (and won’t) to stop there - security isn’t just about doors and windows. I’ve got plans for how to integrate smoke sensors into this, how to handle front door entry without keys, more advanced presence detection, and even water leak detection. ¹

But I’ll cover those exciting additions in separate posts. For now I just want to focus on the basic setup.

Sensors

The sensors I plan to be using are basic - all they do is allow a HIGH or LOW logical voltage signal to be transmitted along the wiring. Some of them are passive, in that they don’t require any additional power to the their thing. The door and window sensors, for example, just operate by a reed switch being opened or closed via a magnet, allowing the voltage to propagate.

But others require their own power. For example the PIR motion detectors have active circuitry that is necessary for the sensor itself to operate, and open/close the logical state on the wiring.

For these I’ll have to supply power to the sensor.

Wiring

That combined power and data requirement is why I’m taking the chance to lay down four-core “bus” cables wherever I can. This stuff is popular amongst the German KNX weirdos, and is cheap and easy to obtain at hardware stores. Each of the four wires in the cable is 0.8mm2, and easily capable of handling 12/24V at low-amperage on one pair, as well as transmitting either logical voltage states or more complex Modbus-type protocols on the other pair.

I am of course suspicious that the German flag colours dominate this most jingoistic of cables.

Laying in wiring and sensors

This is a saga in itself, and is taking a good amount of time to bring to reality. Firstly, planning what cables were needed for each room was a mindfuck. Remember, I’m doing this from scratch, with no knowledge. It might look like I know what I’m doing as you read this, but I’m skipping the obsessive late nights reading of articles and suffering through Youtube videos hosted by aggressively nerdy American men.

As an example: after deciding “oh I need window sensors” I might plan for just one sensor per window.

Fine, right? Windows are open or closed? On, off. Yes, no.

Well no, because German windows aren’t just a boolean state. They’re actually ternary - they can be open, closed or fucking tilted.

Which means that I don’t just need one sensor per window, but two - one at the bottom, one at the top. If both sensors are HIGH then the window is closed. If both sensors are LOW then the window is swinging open. But if the top sensor is LOW and the bottom one is HIGH then the window is in that special third state that only Germans can make happen. ² Which means already you’re into logic gates for a bloody window.

This is just one example of planning assumptions that were rudely refuted when I came to lay cables.

In truth I’ll probably have to write a dedicated post about the woes of laying cabling in a 150 year old solid brick apartment at some point. Even if it’s just for therapy reasons.

But suffice to say my current planning spreadsheet has 91 of these green cable bastards that I have to install throughout the apartment. Okay, not all of it is for the security stuff, and I’m laying in extra where I can. But still.

The brains of the operation

Anyway, lets talk about where all these green meanies terminate - the central control board.

If this was a post written by a USA citizen I’d be harping on about the area in the garage that they have reserved for it. But no, this post is written by a mangy British woman living in Germany, and all I’ve got is a cupboard.

Part of a cupboard at that.

But I’ll make do with what space I have. The green “core” cables will (if my plans meet with success) output from the utility cupboards ceiling and go into a little industrial control panel, high up on the cupboard wall.

Inside that control panel is an ESP32 based I/O board, which makes all of this possible.

I’m a big fan of Kincony gear. They’re based in China and specialise in control boards based on ESP32 chips. I’ve got one of their A16 boards for testing concepts out and, combined with ESPhome it’s a delight to use. Loads of logical inputs, and a bunch of basic MOSFET outputs, along with wired ethernet and Modbus.

That’s just a basic unit. They have things ranging from tiny dedicated alarm boxes to giant boards with 256 relay outputs.

All of these things are mountable on DIN rails, so they’ll fit nicely in a metal automation panel, along with all the other accessories.

I’m not quite sure which board I’m going to install yet, but given the choices, and the fact this company keeps releasing new boards and upgrades, I’m going to wait until I’m moved in before doing anything.

States

But to give you a preview of what I’ll be doing, it’ll be something like this…

Any alarm system is finite state machine. Typical states are armed, alarm and sleep. Different actions move the state to other, predictable, states. e.g. When in the armed state, a motion event will move the state to alarm. But the same event won’t move the state from sleep to alarm.

Yes, terribly boring I know. But I need this to write a state machine in ESPhome. If there’s an input on one of the sensors then different things can happen as a result.

I’ll probably have a few more states than the above. For example, I might have an unoccupied state when we go out that only responds to window sensors, so that Derek, our trusty robot vacuum, won’t set motion detectors off while blundering around our apartment.

Some other examples I can think of:

occupied - someone is home.
sleep - someone is home, and it’s nighty night time.
guest - there are guests present, with or without the normal occupants.
unoccupied - there’s no one present, on a temporary basis.
vacation - there’s no one present for an extended duration.

By sharing these with HA, I could change automations based on the apartment’s state. e.g. In the sleep state I’d want to have low-level lighting respond to movement outside the bedroom, so that a visit to the kitchen for a glass of water is accompanied by a night-vision friendly red light everywhere. In the vacation state maybe a vibration sensor on the front door is incorporated so that it can sense someone messing with the lock, and the overall temperature of the apartment would be set lower. In the guest state the lights might operate in a different way from if it’s just us two.

In any case, this is for the future. For now all I can do is get the hardware in place to support the future software potential.

On-board comms

To make sure that this is a truly independent unit I’ll want a way for it to communicate. Luckily ESPhome has a component for this. By connecting a tiny 4G modem over UART ESPhome can send and receive text messages. This makes it a very useful fallback for when HA goes down, or there’s no connection to the wider internet. Of course when those things are working I can receive messages via the HA app as normal.

Battery backup

The final piece of making this an independent system is having battery backup. Now I can do this easily via an off-the-shelf AC UPS. Just plug the panel into it and it’s a good ‘un.

But I want this to run independently for hours, if not days, without power. While it could share a UPS with the rack that I plan to locate nearby, that feels off. If I use a dedicated UPS I’d have to locate that on the floor, as the lead acid batteries can weigh a tonne.

But there’s a nice line of DC-only DIN rail UPS devices that I might look into. They’re based on LiFePO or super-capacitors, and are as such extremely light. Might be nice (but let’s get the apartment built first, eh Charlie?)

That iconic alarm keypad

Finally, a word on alarm keypads: no.

This isn’t the 90s and I don’t want some kind of frantic interaction with a cheap spudgy keypad whn coming in. All of the states mentioned above will be smart and coordinated with HA. So if HA senses that one of us gets home, it will automatically shift the state from “vacation” to “occupied”.

I’m hyper paranoid about water leakage given that multiple apartments exist below me. ↩︎
I realise I’ve ragged on the Germans a lot in this post. But honestly, they deserve it. ↩︎

Planning Smart Lighting

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 17:20:00 +0100

Lighting. It’s great. It lets you use your eyes, read cereal packets, and hunt for lost pennies. But, even better, it’s totes easy to automate. Which is why a smart light bulb is the first thing any neophyte home automator reaches for.

But despite the inherent snazzy socks potential, lighting turned out to be the most aggravating aspect of renovating my apartment.

Of course, I intend to follow my my own home automation principles, building a smart apartment up via progressive enhancement. But there are so many choices out there for smart lighting that I almost chucked in the principles before I began.

If you read about smart lighting in a from-scratch-everything-new home you’ll get immediately dragged into the world of Building Management Systems and adjacent tech. You obviously need to understand the DALI lighting protocol! KNX is the only and best way of controlling lighting! Lutron is simply incredible for turning your lights on and off! (Especially so in Germany, where they have an absolute boner for huge automation cabinets done exactly right).

If you’re not a home automation nerd then it might make sense to go this route. You’ll find qualified installers who know their particular system works, and they can easily install it in exchange for cash.

These systems often eschew the “normal” lighting wiring found in homes and instead run everything from a central control panel, tied into PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). This means either that per-room lighting (AC or DC) is driven by relays in the Main Consumer Unit, controlled by touch panels on each wall, and mediated by a PLC.

This is all very cool, but you’re reliant on that system for lighting control from then on. PLCs and associated complexities broken? You’re sitting in the dark until a Qualified Expensive Trades Person comes over to fix it. Want to mess around with it yourself? Well, you’re entering a world of trade secrets, meddlingly overcomplicated solutions and, well, being a bit German. (Sorry Germans - Ich lebe gerne in Deutschland. Ja, ehrlich.)

Nah, I don’t want that. It gives off bad vibes, and screams of pouring money into someone else’s toilet (rather than my own. (No I don’t know what I mean)).

But what about this “centralised” method, only with open protocols and software? Well, I have to admit that was tempting. I could easily purchase a bunch of DIN-mountable drivers from companies such as Shelly, and use them to drive the lighting. Basic control of the lighting would have been difficult to do without tying the wall switches back to a central panel. But it could have been overcome with some wiring magic.

However at that point I’m bending over backwards to replicate a commercial system and making things much more complicated for myself. Besides, anything I build needs to be maintainable in the future. I can’t go building a custom lighting setup that no one can maintain because I’ve gone on a bespoke rampage. Imagine I’m ill or away, and something needs modifying? If I want to sell the place I would have to make it clear that this is a custom setup and good luck to the buyer figuring it out - there’s no one out there to maintain it!

Stick to your principles, gal!

No, if I’m following my principles then I need to start “normally”, and work up from there.

A typical room in my region has a main overhead light, connected to a simple mechanical switch at the entrance to the room. All that’s necessary for that to work is delicious electricity, generated only milliseconds ago in your local power plant. Flip the switch and the light illuminates. This is my starting point for each room.

Me no smart

But how to make this basic setup smart? I hear about Smart bulbs, smart switches, or smart relays. What to choose?

Well, I’ve got some experience to draw on. Given that I can’t (and have never wanted to) redo the wiring in my current rental place I’ve had a couple of years of using smart bulbs as the main lighting for each room.

I’ve got very few actual complaints about them - they work and they’re responsive.

But honestly I found myself using very little of the “smart” aspects of them. Yes, I can adjust the white temperature of them, but I never do. This is northern Europe, and warm white works in the evenings - I never need to change it. On some I can change the colour of them - but I haven’t found a use for that in the years I’ve had them. Perhaps there is a reason why I’d need green overhead lighting, but if so I haven’t yet encountered it.

So I really just use the “smart” aspects to control the brightness of overhead bulbs. Please don’t tell my partner this because those light bulbs were stupid expensive. Which is itself a data point for the negative column.

But there’s a more fundamental issue with using smart bulbs as the main lighting source.

If you install smart bulbs then you’re immediately flipped into some Home Automation Mode. You end up taping up wall switches because if you don’t awful normal people will come along and dare to use the wall switches as they expect to use them. The audacity! How are you going to turn the lights on and off from your sofa if your significant other has removed their power source?

Confession time here: I’m guilty of taping up light switches. I hate myself for it. Never again.

So with all of that I feel that I can discount smart bulbs for overhead lighting. Normal dimmable bulbs of a fixed warm white temperature will be fine for me.

Relays vs Switches

So if I’m using normal bulbs then how do I plan to make the overhead lighting smart? Well, let me introduce you to smart switches and smart relays.

A smart relay is a tiny device that is inserted in between your Consumer Unit (breaker board if you’re a USA goblin) and your light bulb. Using magical radio waves you can use the relay to turn the power on or off, or anywhere in-between (if you’re into dimmable lights). It’s basically a normal electrical relay attached to a remote control.

Tap on your phone. Lights on. Tap again. Lights off. Neat.

If it’s a fancy relay then you can wire it up to a mechanical switch to the relay and use that in addition to the radio waves.

Wow, suddenly it works like a basic light circuit, but now you have the zippidy zappidy luxury of also controlling it remotely. Wow!

I mentioned smart switches, didn’t I? Well, tbh, they’re the same as the smart relays. It’s just that the smart switch comes with a built in mechanical switch. That’s it, really.

The advantage of smart switches is that they’re generally easier to install, as there’s no intermediate wiring.

So why not go for smart switches everywhere? Ah well, this is where smart switches lose out - I want to have a consistent, nice theme for all the electrical accessories in the apartment, and smart switches just can’t supply that. They all come with their own “look” that, yes, for some of them isn’t too bad. Unfortunately the vast majority look like they were made by someone who had their sense of taste surgically excised at birth.

But even the nicer looking ones still won’t harmonise with my choice in decor, and no-one is yet selling smart switches with changeable faceplates (genuinely an omission there).

So I guess that means smart relays for me. Hurrah!

Planning for relays

The downside of using these relays is that they need some planning to install successfully. Why? Well, because they’re normally hidden away, where prying fingers can’t get to them - and that normally means behind the wall switch.

I’m in a solid brick apartment - none of this North American hollow wall nonsense. Putting relays behind a wall switch is certainly possible, but honestly, just appallingly difficult. The sockets are often no deep enough, and even if they are, the brick tends to block radio signals - 2.4GHz WiFi and Zigbee frequencies don’t travel well through brick.

But [taps head] I don’t have to put the relays behind the wall sockets themselves. No, no, no. During the apartment renovation I’ve replaced all the electrical cabling and all the ceilings. While this is a regrettable amount of work for my back, it means that I’ve opened up some opportunities for placing these relays elsewhere. After all, they just need to be on the same electrical circuit - they don’t have to be physically near the switch. In fact the PLC relays I mentioned earlier are designed to be placed at the other end of the circuit.

So, crafty little bean that I am, I’ve opted to build in a junction box above each wall switch, in the ceiling itself.

By doing this I can have the relay sitting directly between the consumer unit and the light fitting, with the existing wiring to the mechanical switch now acting as an on/off toggle for the relay itself.

I’m pretty happy with this solution. Depending on how the junction box is wired, it can be used with a smart relay, or it can be returned to acting as a normal light circuit.

The only downside is when it comes to dimmable bulbs. Now, I’ll be using smart relays that also act as dimmers - that’s not a problem. The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any solution that allows a smart relay to be dimmed by a mechanical switch. It’s either on, or it’s off.

That shouldn’t be a problem though. Most dimming is done automatically, depending on the time of day, or the Home Assistant scene. The on/off action is the main thing that I want, for visitors and guests. If we need manual dimming to be available then I can place a two-way battery operated switch next to the wall switch - I might even just lay some wiring next to it, in case I want to add a hard-wired rotary encoder…

Non-overhead lighting

Everything I’ve been talking about up until now has been the main overhead lighting for each room. That’s for good reason - because it’s the lighting that needs to be planned and hardwired in.

But that’s not the only source of light, and in fact it’s part of a wider layered set of lighting.

You see, there’s three types of lighting for a room - and apologies here my technical darlings, we’re going to discuss aesthetics here: Ambient lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting.

Ambient is the main “glow” of a room. It creates the warmth that you live in.
Task lighting is there when you need to do a job - cooking or cleaning.
Accent lighting is there to show off certain items or areas of a room.

Together they make a room look lived in, rather than looking like an office.

In my little Northern European part of the world - where most of us live in quite small, relatively dark room - the overhead lighting is used as combination of ambience and tasks. Turn it down for ambience, turn it up for tasks.

But we need more than that. That’s where we bring in lamps and wall-mounted lighting.

Unlike in the overheads, lamps are very definitely where I do want to be using smart bulbs. Lamps are flexible. They’re moved around according to taste. They’re ambient lighting at its best. But they’re generally only extensible by changing the bulb - you can’t do much else with them. So, let’s give them a bulb that can do everything.

With a smart bulb lamps can work in any of the lighting groups. They can contribute to the ambient lighting, they can be used for specific tasks, and they can be used to accent certain areas. Lamps are the ultimate triple threat.

LEDs

“Charlie,” you might be screaming “why haven’t you installed ceiling LEDs and edge lighting and other exciting things??”

Because I have taste, my darling.

LEDs everywhere make it look as if a room is inhabited by a teenage boy who uses too much Lynx body spray. This is not what I want in a home. I like warm, subdued lighting. I don’t want to feel like I’m inside a gaming PC.

But LEDs have their place. I’m going to be installing DC-powered LEDs in certain strategic locations. They’re perfect for dedicated accent lighting, such as under kitchen cupboards, or in recessed shelving areas.

Some of these accents will no doubt be handled by LED strips plugged into a socket via a AC/DC power supply and controller. Those things will be pretty adhoc and I won’t know what will exist until we move in to the apartment.

But some LEDs I can anticipate, and make dedicated arrangements for. One of those is in the bathroom, which I am working on right now. There I know I’ll have accent lighting in shower niches, and around mirrors. Most of the time they will be an appropriate white, but I can see them being used for the nighttime, when you don’t want to blind yourself with white light. They can be set to an eyeball-friendly red to guide old people like myself around.

So I’ve run dedicated 6-core cabling to those areas, all originating from the central utility cupboard. I’ll connect those up to some kind of Zigbee RGBCCT controller - no idea what exactly yet, but that’s a problem for another time.

Follow the light

All in all I think I’ve made some good choices for lighting. I’m looking forward to showing it all off in good time. Hey, maybe I’ll actually have electricity to run them off within the next month or two…

Some Principles for Home Automation

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 18:15:00 +0100

This complete apartment renovation isn’t my first foray into home automation - I’ve had my rental place automated for years, and it’s given me a lot of insights into how things work in the real world.

I’m using a mishmash of wi-fi, Zigbee and ESPhome gadgets. This is understandable - landlords hate you smashing open walls to rewire things - but these wireless technologies are kinda rubbish. I seem to be changing batteries on Zigbee devices every day, and until I complete that task, the device in question is offline. Devices in hard-to-reach areas just don’t get dealt with. Quite often the wireless spectrum in our neighbourhood gets flooded by random data ¹ and both wi-fi and Zigbee networks drop out for minutes at a time. My laptop is liable to lose wi-fi signal if I sit at the wrong part of my desk.

And then there’s relying too much on Home Assistant itself. The software itself is hella robust. But by nature of it being a software application it is liable to go down. And when HA goes down, so does the ability to control our home, because I have it too centralised. One morning this winter we woke up to the apartment at 12C, because I’d messed up an automation and the heating relied on it to operate.

So there’s the chance to plan things better in the new place by coming up with a few guiding principles.

Principles

I’ve had these principles growing in my head ever since I started embarrassing myself with home automation. They can be boiled down to:

Start Simple, End Smart
Use Independent Systems
Make the Important Things Resilient
Open Standards, Open Formats
Use Local Communication

I see them as guiding principles, and not absolute laws. Your mileage may vary of course, and you may see these as daft overcomplications. No worries if so.

Principle 1: Start Simple, End Smart

I’ve fallen fowl of going too smart, too quickly. My worst crime was installing smart light bulbs in the ceiling and then having to tape the light switches so that no one turns them off manually. To be clear, this is absolutely unacceptable. This should never happen if you’ve planned things well.

The average home should always start off in a basic mode, with no smart features. Light switches turn on lights directly. Front doors open with keys. Devices are operated manually. ²

Perhaps I’m a paranoid, but I don’t think I trust technology. Wait, no, scratch that. I KNOW I don’t trust technology - it’s not paranoia if you know you’re right.

Technology fails. Systems go offline. Freak power surges happen. Trade wars make everything so expensive that you might not be able to afford luxury home automation kit.

No, it’s only when the basics are in place should an interface be upgraded with smart abilities. Normal light switches can be replaced with Zigbee light switches that work even when the network is down. The front door lock can be replaced with a smart lock that still has a key (or the house retains an additional “normal” door that can be accessed). A lamp can have a its switch replaced with a smart relay that works as a button and via the Zigbee network. A water pipe can have an additional smart valve installed downline, while retaining the original manual valve.

Interface devices must be able to revert back to their basic operational states in the event of system problems.

Principle 2: Use Independent Systems

As few systems as possible to be directly run by Home Assistant - it should have the role of orchestrating independent systems, not running them.

Heating, for example, should be an independent system with its regulation. HA should only be in the position of listening to the data it emits, and requesting that it changes its temperature.

Your home systems should work without relying on other systems.

Principle 3: Make the Important Things Resiliant

Some aspects of home automation will always be frivilous. Changing lighting scenes easily is a lovely feature to have, but no one is going to suffer if it doesn’t work. But other aspects will be absolutely critical - if I can’t turn on the lights on at all when there’s a fire, then that’s a threat to the life of my loved ones.

This means that there is a scale, with critical automation systems being robust, while the silly ones being ephemeral.

Critical - Failure can impact health or finances.
Daily - So integrated into your life they’re noticed only when gone.
Fancy - For aesthetic purposes. Not needed, so much as wanted.

The hardiness of a system must be proportional to its importance.

Principle 4: Open Formats, Open Standards

I almost omitted this as it’s so deeply embedded in my philosophy! If your home is using closed formats, closed standards, or closed APIs, it’s at risk. Don’t rely on proprietary APIs. Don’t use systems that can’t be repaired.

Closed systems are anathema to a viable automated home.

Principle 5: Use Local Communication

At no point should you be relying on any daily or critical systems that are remotely based. It’s out of your control, and if it’s from a commercial entity then they will pull the plug at some point. Any system that you integrate into your home should be locally accessible. That doesn’t mean “don’t use commercial products”. No, it means make sure that you’re not relying on a remote endpoint that can (and will) be shut down at some point. You could be using this stuff for decades to come, but I doubt any company is interested in supporting their products for that same length of time.

In Practise

Thinking about these principles made me consider my upcoming automation work in a new light. I’m going to need several different systems, all working independently, yet together, built with the most simple implementation first.

Security
- Basic security
- Fire, smoke, and heat detection
- Door locks
- Presence detection
- Leak detection
Climate
- Heating
- Cooling
- Air Quality
Utilities
- Energy monitoring
- Solar
Covers
- Internal blinds
- External shutters
Audio Visual
- Multiroom Audio
Lighting
- Basic and Smart lighting
Cleaning
- Robot cleaning

I’ll take a look at each of these systems in turn as everything progresses.

We live next door to a professional pentester. It’s gotta be him. ↩︎
There are exceptions to the average, of course. Some homes will be built from the ground up with professionally wired PLC systems, like Lutron or DALI. But those are uncommon - edging more into Building Management Systems - and let’s face it, those kind of home owners are not going to be fucking around with Home Assistant. 😂 ↩︎

New Apartment, New Smarts

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 18:44:05 +0100

In 2023 my partner and I were lucky enough to buy an apartment in Berlin.

I say lucky. What I mean is that it was a deeply adult decision that I’m grateful we both could make. But my god, it was financially and emotionally stressful.

Nonetheless, we now have a 90m2 apartment in a neighbourhood that was, if not quite fashionable, was certainly nice.

Chekov’s Lightbulb

Post-puchase we made some modification plans. This meant the swapping of the bathroom and kitchen - the apartment having a tiny kitchen and a huge bathroom, the layouts of which really didn’t work for us.

After receiving the keys I went to our new home with the intention of performing some light prep work. Cleaning up, removing any junk left behind, fitting lights, etc.

I was there by myself fitting a wall socket onto one of the dangling electrical connections when I discovered something interesting: this apartment came with the special feature of, when live and neutral are shorted (as I accidentally caused to happen while fitting a light socket) the overload breakers don’t trip.

If you know anything of electrics, this is quite bad.

The first indication of this a loud bang, and smoke pouring out of the main electrical panel.

Kids, get an electric survey done on old Berlin apartments, I beg you.

Despite the bowel-loosening developments I had the presence of mind to flip a nearby switch and disconnect the short. That’s what caused this to become an amusing anecdote, rather than a news item.

The emergency electricians come over quite quickly in retrospect, considering it was a Sunday evening. After safing everything they tested the apartment electrics. Unsurprisingly their recommendation was replace all the wiring in the apartment if we wanted to be safe.

I mean, just look at the wiring that had been used in the consumer unit. Completely undersized and now melted. Now imagine what was hiding behind all the walls. 😭

Apparently this situation is quite common in Berlin apartments. After the Wall fell the city became a landlord paradise. They purchased apartments by the tens of thousands and set them up as rental units. Unsurprisingly these opportunistic property developers didn’t have “electrical standards”, “longevity”, or, indeed, “basic safety” as part of their core mission statement. Instead they hired the lowest-bidding Russians, dizzy on Glasnost and Perestroika, to come over to do everything on the cheap.

So, there we were. We had an apartment that needed massive work to get the electrical system up to 21st century standards. We still had our original plan to swap the bathroom and the kitchen. And, at a very shallow level, the place needed an intense makeover - both aesthetically, and becuase it had been occupied by an elderly Polish couple for 30 years and they had left a certain smell embedded deep into the very plaster of the walls.

So we decided to completly gut the place.

Swings and Roundabouts

When I say “gut it”, I don’t mean “remove the wallpaper and rip up the carpets”. No, I mean we decided to take everything back to the brick and pull down the ceilings.

Problem was that we didn’t have any, as the kids say, liquid assets at this point.

Thankfully we hadn’t yet cancelled our rental contract. So, at weekends, and the occasional weekday evening, we left our rental place to go at the new purchase with jackhammers and crowbars.

It took over a year.

It was backbreaking work, and drove us both mad with exhaustion. But we did it, shifting tonnes of rubble in the process. (FYI Ikea blue bags are simply superb for carrying rubble down stairs and into a skip).

Professionals later told us we had saved about €90,000 by doing it ourselves. This is lovely, as we barely had the dosh to pay the bills while we were doing all this.

So, it’s 2025 and we’ve finally got past the brutal demolition work and we’ve started building things. We now have suspended metal profile ceilings, and bare brick walls, and modern electrical wiring. We’re getting in pros to fit the bathroom in the next few weeks. We’re actually feeling like we might - dare I even think it - one day move in.

Smarts

So naturally this is the point where I can start obsessing over nerd shit.

This is a golden opportunity for a freak like me. Every wall is bare. The ceilings are open. I can run cables wherever I want. I can drill holes in walls. I can install sensors, and network drops, and access points, and I can do it all in a way that doesn’t require ripping things apart while I’m living in there.

This spring I started installing low-voltage cabling - alarms, networking, and audio/visual. I’ve got a location for the network rack planned. It’s all coming together.

I’m hoping to write about it as I go. Keep an eye on the #homeautomation tag to follow along.

An ode to replacing a disk in a ZFS pool

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:55:20 +0100

A disk in my ZFS pool has just started to die - and, quite annoyingly, not in a consistent way.

This sombre news means that I need to replace a drive in my zpool. gulp, etc

First things first - what drive is dying? If things are bad enough zpool status will be complaining about which drive is experiencing errors. But hopefully it won’t have got to that stage, and your smartmontools will have picked up an increase in drive errors early on. (hahaha it turned out that my smartmontools setup wasn’t working and that’s why it took ZFS freaking out for me to be alerted - learn from my lesson kids!)

Thankfully I have my ZFS pool set to use /dev/disk/by-id identifiers, rather than the rather arbitary (and subject to change) /dev/sda approach. Present me is thankful to past me for doing this, as I don’t have to try and map those /dev/sda style identifiers to a drive model and serial number. Tough luck if you have to do this step.

I’m even more thankful to past me as I’ve written the drive size, manufacturer and serial number on a label and stuck it on the hot-swap drive bay of my server. So all I have to do is go and find the drive and yank it out. And yes, I’ve not had to do anything so far in ZFS. I like ZFS.

After a bit of fumbling with screws, and a moment of terror as I think I’ve dropped one into the vent of a power supply, I have the new drive sitting in a caddy ready to be installed in the server. Time to take a photo of the new drive so I have a record of the serial and model number.

Once physically installed zpool status tells me that something is wrong with the pool. Which is to be expected as I just removed one of the drives.

  pool: slowpool
 state: DEGRADED
status: One or more devices could not be used because the label is missing or invalid. Sufficient replicas exist for the pool to continue functioning in a degraded state.
action: Replace the device using 'zpool replace'.
   see: https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/msg/ZFS-8000-4J
  scan: resilvered 5.86M in 00:00:10 with 0 errors on Mon Feb 10 19:48:00 2025
config:

	NAME                                            STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	slowpool                                        DEGRADED     0     0     0
	  mirror-0                                      DEGRADED     0     0     0
	    9764235106334271955                         UNAVAIL      0     0     0  was /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST4000VN008-2DR1_ZDHAMGT1-part1
	    scsi-SATA_WDC_WD40EFZX-68A_WD-WX12DA08KR45  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-1                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_WDC_WD40EFZX-68A_WD-WX12DA0R1V78  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_WDC_WD40EFZX-68A_WD-WX82DA1RHH08  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-2                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_ST4000VN008-2DR1_ZDHB6E35         ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_ST4000VN008-2DR1_ZDHB880S         ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-3                                      ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_<redacted>                        ONLINE       0     0     0
	    scsi-SATA_<redacted>                        ONLINE       0     0     0

(<redacted> as those drives are still under warranty).

Before replacing the drive I need to know the ID of the new drive. A quick ls -alh /dev/disk/by-id/ and looking for that serial number tells me that it’s called /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST16000NT001-3LV_REDACTED.

Now I can take the disk that has been removed (see the zpool status output above) and replace it with the new disk.

sudo zpool replace slowpool /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST4000VN008-2DR1_ZDHAMGT1-part1 /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST16000NT001-3LV_REDACTED

After a few seconds the disk is replaced and has begun resilvering as it heals the vdev.

As I write this the resilvering is projected to take over a day to complete. This is slightly unnerving, as there’s no redundancy on that mirror while I wait for it. But even so, the pool is still usable, even if degraded.

EDIT: yes, yes, yes, I know that those drive sizes don’t match. The original mirror was made of two 4TB drives, and I replaced one with a 16TB drive. Yes, I also know that this means I have many terabytes wasted. It was a choice between buying a drive of the same size, or, knowing that I was going to upgrade one of the mirrors soon anyway, buying one of larger size and spening money now, but saving some money in the future. Such is being a grown-up.

Blog Questions Challenge, aka chain letters for nerds

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 20:12:39 +0100

There’s a wee trend going around called “Blog Questions Challenge”. You answer a bunch of pre-defined questions on your blog, and then tag some more people to do the same.

This is near enough to the concept of a chain letter to make me flip the proverbial bird and storm out. However, after a refreshing cup of tea, and a therapeutic smashing of small tchotchkes, I came to see the value in it. Therefore thank you to Remy for tagging me on Mastodon and in his own post on this very theme.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I’m not sure if what I do can be called “blogging”, as that implies some kind of commitment and regular cadence. But random writing on the WWW began for me back in the 90s on Geocities. As a young queer trapped in Northern England this new “web” thing allowed me to express the new and quite exciting feelings that I had, and to experiment with showing that off to the world. Or at least that part of the world that did not contain my family. (If you’re guessing then yes, it certainly was in the West Hollywood district of Geocities).

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it? Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I’m using Hugo to write this blog. It’s a static site generator, a way of generating a full site from a bunch of Markdown files. Thankfully these SSGs took over from the database and code behemoths that we used to use.

I host it all myself, because my latest incarnation is as a self-hosting nerd. I write the markdown, commit it to a Gitea instance that runs on my private home server, itself located on my own little network. This does some checks, strips privacy-destroying location info from any images, builds the site to HTML, and then rsyncs it up to a Digital Ocean droplet out on the wild internet which hosts the actual site. You might see it as overly complex, but it’s what’s happening behind the scenes on every other provider - and I learnt a lot by building it myself.

I’ve followed a lot of Indieweb concepts in building this site. That means using content types for everything - notes, posts, bookmarks, quotes, likes, etc. It also means incorporating microformats into the HTML to allow other Indieweb sites to interact with it (somewhat more) easily.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

I write everything in VScode on my laptop, as it’s just a Markdown file that I’m editing. I’ve got some shonky bash scripts that create shortform items such as notes and bookmarks for me, but they’re not often used, because I forget about them.

I like sitting on the sofa and writing on the laptop. It’s a moment of focussed peace that I rarely attain (which of course begs the question of why I’m not doing this more often…).

Having said that, I’d like to get IndieKit up and running so that I can post things on the go. I really like the idea of writing notes on the go and posting them there and then. It’s what I use my Mastodon account for more than anything - venting the thoughts out of my head into the vacuum of the void (aka your feed). But for longer form words it’s good to have a nice comfy spot, with a cup of tea to hand, to write out my latest brain thoughts.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Sadly, when I’m angry. I cannot abide stupidity (which might look to the outside observer like anyone who doesn’t think like I do (perish the thought)) and when I come across it I’m compelled to rant about it. This does tend to lend anything I write a certain… ascerbic nature. But apparently people find that entertaining.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I publish these words as soon as I’ve written them. This is the nature of being Charlie - everything is immediate or it simply doesn’t exist. This is the curse of severe ADHD.

After words are written I will look at them obsessively for the next day, looking for errors of grammar, spelling and thought. These errors will be ruthlessly expunged as soon as they are discovered, all history of them erased. Except in the git repo that contains these words. Which you can’t access because I don’t publish it. Yah boo sucks.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

Undoudetly the one about React. It was pure vitriol and free writing. It also came across a little like those timelines that you get in Pater F Hamilton books - which I imagine that he uses to bump the word count to even more excessive levels.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

As Remy noted in his tag, this is about the zillionth domain and blog that I’ve maintained. However, despite going through several domain names, I have in fact kept the content that I wrote since ~2013, which isn’t bad.

Unlike the cool kids that can maintain domain names over decades, I have been cursed with several life events that have forced me to change the domains that I used. All but one of those I still own, so I really should get around to putting up redirects from those old domains and URLs to here.

I have absolutely no doubt that I will change the platofmr that I used at some point. Change is the only constant in life. But I do know that anything I use will always have a simple text file at the heart of it.

What do I do now? [peers at previous blogs]

Oh, it looks like I have to tag others. Okay. Er, how about Aegir, who posts lovely photo blogs, Felipe, a friend who writes about his adventures in Berlin, and Patrick, who is a miserable cunt and who this act of tagging will annoy. 🖕

Adding schema.org to a Hugo site

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 20:33:50 +0100

I’ve added schema.org data to each page of this site. Just to annoy the Indieweb folks.

    <script type="application/ld+json">
        {
        "@context":"https://schema.org",
        "@type": "BlogPosting",
        {{ with $featured -}}
        "image": {{ $featured.Permalink }}},
        {{ end }}
        "url": {{ .Permalink }},
        "dateCreated": "{{ .PublishDate.Format "2006-01-02" }}",
        "datePublished": "{{ .PublishDate.Format "2006-01-02" }}",
        "dateModified": "{{ .Page.Lastmod.Format "2006-01-02" }}",
        "copyrightYear": "{{ .PublishDate.Format "2006" }}",
        "copyrightHolder": "Charlie O'Hara",
        "wordCount": "{{ .WordCount }}",
        "inLanguage": "en-US",
        "isFamilyFriendly": "false",
        "headline": "{{ .Title }}",
        {{ with .Params.subtitle }}
        "alternativeHeadline": "{{ . }}",
        {{ end }}
        "articleBody": {{ .Content | htmlUnescape | plainify }},
        "author": {
            "@type": "Person",
            "name": "Charlie O'Hara",
            "url": "https://awfulwoman.com"
        },
        "mainEntityOfPage": "true"
        }
    </script>

Internet-Week Clock | Hackaday.io

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 10:59:12 +0100

This project to remind you what day of the week you exist in is ridiculous and I love it.

1UP - GRAFFITI OLYMPICS - DRONE VIDEO ATHENS - YouTube

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:32:25 +0100

❤️ the 1UP and Berlin Kidz crews.

This vid shows a tag bombing between the two groups. Drone footage catches everything in realtime.

Piloerection

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Death Metal

Dark Mode

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 20:31:51 +0100

I’ve been putting off enabling dark mode on my site for weeks. Then I actually went to do it and remembered that it’s actually really easy.

Doh, etc.

  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    --text-color: #ffffff;
    --canvas-color: #161616;
    --text-color-subtle: #cdcdcd;
  }

Making Ollama on MacOS accessible to Home Assistant

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:06:11 +0100

It’s easy to setup the Home Assistant Ollama integration. But before you do that you need to make your Ollama installation accessible to external devices.

To do this you need to ensure the Ollama service is bound to 0.0.0.0.

launchctl setenv OLLAMA_HOST "0.0.0.0"

and then restart Ollama with

brew services restart ollama

Source

Ollama FAQ

pre-commit

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 21:44:20 +0100

A very useful utility that allows you to define pre-commit git hooks via a simple Yaml file.

I now use it on this site to clean up the Mardown files and remove Exif data from images.

Site building

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 21:40:53 +0100

Spent the last Saturday of my vacation fixing the build time on my site.

It was originally taking over 19 minutes due to it building all of the Opengraph images from scratch each time, and doing some extensive Exif scrubbing.

Now it’s down to 1m10s via the judicious use of caching and by moving the exif scrubbing to the original files as part of a pre-commit hook.

All this running on my own Gitea infra on my apartment’s little server.

Dummy title

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 22:22:17 +0100

This is just a dummy to test grouping by month and day.

Why Computer Programmers Should Stop Calling Themselves Engineers - The Atlantic

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 16:03:18 +0100

Engineers bear a burden to the public, and their specific expertise emanates from that responsibility.

❤️ - and goes rather nicely with what I said about software engineering.

Engineering job titles

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 14:47:17 +0100

Someone should only dare to use the term “Engineer” in their job title if they can analyse, design, test and build systems within an understood set of constraints, including, but not limited to, accessibility, safety, and cost.

The common definition of engineering as “doing something technical” can fuck right off.

rmcrackan/libation: Liberate your Audible Library

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 11:28:52 +0100

My goodness this is a very interesting thing for people to look at as a purely academic exercise. 👀

Github

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 11:06:17 +0100

Just to note that my self-hosting and home automation infra can be found on Github. I keep everything there, nothing hidden. (Secrets obviously encrypted…)

An LLM at home...

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:28:46 +0100

It fills me with ick, but I just connected OpenAI to my Home Assistant. It’s not doing anything like controlling my home or doing anything “intelligent” (as LLMs are, after all, merely Stochastic Parrots).

No, all it’s there for is to answer questions that we throw at it. My wife really likes asking Siri random stuff, and she’d miss it when it goes, and so she was happy to see the same replicated in the HA Voice.

Home Assistant Voice

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The Home Assistant Voice hardware has been hinted at for months, but now it’s finally here.

What is it?

The Home Assistant Voice (they need a better name) is a tiny piece of hardware that does two core things: listen for a wake word, and act as a voice satellite.

A wake word is a common way of starting a conversation with a voice assistant. You’ve undoubtedly heard “okay Alexa” or “hey Siri” on the Big Corporate devices. What makes the HAV wake word special is that it’s built in such a way that ultra-low power devices, such as ESP32s, can use it (using the amazing microWakeWord project). This means that the poor device doesn’t have to be constantly listening and processing your conversation (which it just can’t do), or streaming it back to your Home Assistant install (which is hell on connections and latency). Instead when the wake word is detected it can wake up the rest of the device, and then let it do the heavy stuff.

Once woken up the device can then act as a voice satellite. This means that it can transmit your voice to another system for processing, and send back voice data in response to that. The magical thing about this in HA is that the processing can be done however you like. You can run your own conversation agents on your home hardware, meaning the data never leaves your local network.

First Impressions

It comes in a compact and recyclable packaging that really stands out from the over packaged Big Corporate items.

Inside are some simple instructions that really make it easy to get set up.

Taking the device out of the box it’s notable how small and light it is. I was expecting something much larger and heavier. But it’s a blessing if you intend to mount this anywhere, as even simple double-sided tape will hold it in place.

There’s a cute sticker in there. More cute stickers in boxes please. We like cute stickers.

The inner circle is a button, while the outer ring is near identical to an iPod ring interface, and is very nice to the touch.

It runs off of a USB-C cable. There’s no cable or charger in the box, and I wasn’t annoyed by this. It keeps the packaging to a minimum and prevents waste. The preview buyers will be the type to have boxes of cables anyway.

Usage

Getting it paired to Home Assistant was quite easy, though you need bluetooth on your HA device to get it set up - be warned! (I had to spend about 30 minutes finding a 1cm square bluetooth dongle in my electronics bins and getting it working with HA Docker.)

Once paired it gives you a nice little mini-demo to make sure you can use it, and then you’re ready to go.

The onboard mics are absolutely top notch, and you don’t have to speak in any stilted way to make yourself understood. I can stand in another room and address it, and all works well. Quite astonishing tbh - I really thought this would be its weak point.

There’s an LEDs that surrounds the ring interface are lovely, and can be customised easily via HA (mine are a pleasing purple).

In fact all of the configurable attributes are available via HA, which means they can all be automated. I can see some nice possibilities for, I dunno, flashing the top of the hour via LEDs, or changing the colour based on time.

Some of the most common and useful aspects of the voice assistant trend are present in HVA and are simple to use. First of all you can ask it the time. Sounds silly, but I did not realise how often I asked Siri the time as I got ready in the morning until I moved a Homepod out of my bedroom.

Secondly, you can set timers. “Okay Nabu, set a 5 minute timer” will start a timer and, absolutely delightfully, start a ring countdown on the LED display. An incredibly useful visual aid.

Voice usage for interacting with Home Assistant is just as good. The first thing I tried was “Okay Nabu, down on the lights” and it did just that, in the room that I was standing in. That shows how important it will be to assign each of these devices to a zone - otherwise it has no idea what to interact with.

Most of the interaction will come down to what you have in your home, and how well you’ve set up the aliases for each device and group. There will be no way it can understand “turn down the side lights” if you don’t have a group named that, for example.

Downsides

Remember that this is still a preview device, so it’s not totally fair to rag on any downsides. Thankfully there aren’t that many of them to discuss.

The most glaring issue for me is the audio quality. Compared to a HomePod Mini it sounds quite tinny and cheap. The “response” sound in particular sounds like a cheap toy and can get a bit irritating after a while. Thankfully you can disable it. However you can’t (as yet) change it, which is quite annoying. I look forward to being able to add in a TNG communicator effect (yah I’m a big nerd).

That the wake word cannot be customised is entirely understandable from an engineering perspective, but it’s still a bit of a downer. Maybe we can see more community efforts to train popular wake phrases and incorporate them as downloadable options?

Less of a downside, and more of an observation: As lovely as it is I cannot see the ring interface being used that often. If they wanted to make a cheaper version of the device without the ring I’d certainly buy it.

And finally some of the language you have to use can still be a bit formal. I tried “Okay Nabu, set the lights to maximum” but this didn’t work. I had to phrase it as “Okay Nabu, set the lights to maximum brightness”. Understandable, but I hope these little defaults will be looked at in the future.

Conclusion

If you’re into voice control of the home, and you’re an open source weirdo, then this device is a slam dunk. It’s relatively cheap, it’s incredibly effective, and you know it will be sustainable in the long run.

Watch the livestream yourself if you’ve got time.

TTL255 J2Live - Live Jinja2 Parser

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 21:08:41 +0100

A nice little tool for testing your YAML files.

Yes yes, YAML is awful, I know. But so is everything else.

GitHub - ericchiang/pup - Parsing HTML at the command line

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:18:10 +0100

Gah, I wish this little CLI tool was maintained, because it’s amazingly useful. It allows you to take any HTML and extract the data from a given CSS selector.

I just used it to write this bookmark, as part of a new janky bash script.

#! /bin/bash
CURRENT_YEAR=$(date +%Y)
CURRENT_MONTH=$(date +%m)
CURRENT_DAY=$(date +%d)
CURRENT_TIME=$(date +%H%M)
CURRENT_ISO8601=$(date +"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")
BOOKMARK_DIR="./content/bookmarks/$CURRENT_YEAR/$CURRENT_MONTH/$CURRENT_DAY"
BOOKMARK_FILENAME="$CURRENT_TIME.md"
BOOKMARK_FILEPATH="$BOOKMARK_DIR/$BOOKMARK_FILENAME"
DESCRIPTION=""
TITLE="No Bookmark Title"
URL=""
BASEDOMAIN=""

# CHECK PARAMS
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Bookmark URL is needed"
fi

URL=$1

# MARKDOWN
echo "Creating $BOOKMARK_FILEPATH"
mkdir -p $BOOKMARK_DIR
touch $BOOKMARK_FILEPATH

TITLE=`curl -s $URL | pup 'title:first-of-type text{}'`
BASEDOMAIN=`echo $URL | awk -F[/:] '{print $4}'`

# CREATE FILE
cat << EOF > $BOOKMARK_FILEPATH
---
title: $TITLE
date: "$CURRENT_ISO8601"
bookmark_of: $URL
basedomain: $BASEDOMAIN
---

$DESCRIPTION

EOF

Tomorrow's World

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 18:18:10 +0100

God I loved this show.

Complimentary Pain

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Wife Biscuits

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Homeprod, not homelab

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 17:46:08 +0100

If your homelab is being used by others it isn’t a homelab - it’s home production.

Squeaky Leather Shoes

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Presentation Domain Data Layering

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 10:05:22 +0000

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 11:50:07 +0000

When the “threats” are tweets that come from anonymous single-figure troll accounts and - despite knowing this - you publicly link these trolls with the tiny trans community… well, I think we can all safely say that your faux concerns are clearly rooted in deep transphobia.

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 08:32:46 +0000

Jaysus, how did I miss that we’ve passed the 4 million dead mark for COVID-19? 😔

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 05:16:17 +0000

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 10:40:25 +0000

It’s exactly 6 years today that I moved to Berlin with my partner. Time flies when you’re a) having fun b) in a pandemic.

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:32:19 +0000

Hands up all the women who talk about the tech industry in therapy.

Explaining Variables

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 09:38:46 +0000

Yes to self-explaining variables pls.

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 10:20:08 +0000

DevOps is irritatingly interesting, and very, very hard to combine with a passion for accessibility and slow-tech.

#a11y #devops #slowtech

Making password managers play ball with your login form

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 09:55:47 +0000

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 16:45:52 +0000

I… think I love you @MhairiBlack? 💜

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 14:14:53 +0000

Are you the developer who never talks, or are you the developer that never stops talking oh god please stop talking

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 06:32:52 +0000

LinkedIn breach reportedly exposes data of 92% of users - 9to5Mac

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 21:26:33 +0000

Hoooooo boy.

Why I chose to leave my successful UX career

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 15:56:41 +0000

I was about to mock this but it’s actually hella relatable.

UTC is Enough for Everyone, Right?

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 10:37:02 +0000

Amazing article on time by @holman. 😍

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 13:07:45 +0000

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 10:25:25 +0000

Hey, so, I Think I Fucking Hate the Internet — No Octothorpe

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 10:05:15 +0000

Mood.

Tell YouTube ads to fuck off

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 09:17:30 +0000

If you can’t block them then at least you can swear at them. 😍

Tell YouTube ads to fuck off

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 09:17:20 +0000

If you can’t block them then at least you can swear at them. 😍

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 22:23:39 +0000

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 05:45:18 +0000

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 13:05:35 +0000

I might recommend using Safari over Chrome for privacy reasons, but Apple the company is a capitalist dick just as much as Google.

Basically, no company is good. But you already knew that, didn’t you, my little anarchists?

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 08:46:24 +0000

Write better error messages, nerds!

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 13:53:54 +0000

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 14:47:25 +0000

Baby woodpeckers are extremely noisy. I know this because there’s a nest of them 5 metres from where my desk is.

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 15:36:52 +0000

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 13:36:04 +0000

Well holy crap.

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 09:37:21 +0000

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 09:17:58 +0000

I hate to make the pandemic a UX/comms issue, but this is a perfect example of how to make communication with the public better. All it took was using a name and not a code string.

Mon, 31 May 2021 11:17:28 +0000

This, sadly.

Caitlyn Jenner wants a “commission” to determine which trans girls are “truly trans” / LGBTQ Nation

Fri, 28 May 2021 18:53:04 +0000

This is why all trans people despise Caitlyn Jenner. 😡

X-Clacks-Overhead

Thu, 27 May 2021 20:50:20 +0000

I added X-Clacks-Overhead GNU Terry Pratchett today after being reminded of it by a friend.

Mon, 24 May 2021 16:18:11 +0000

Why Germany gets it wrong about antisemitism and Palestine | openDemocracy

Sun, 23 May 2021 14:24:35 +0000

💯

How hard is it to hire a female senior software engineer in Europe? - AmazingHiring

Sun, 23 May 2021 14:15:36 +0000

These numbers are fascinating! No wonder I feel so alienated in Berlin.

Sat, 22 May 2021 18:57:38 +0000

I have to admit that I probably would watch Eurovision.

But I am partnered to someone who despises it with a passion and if it’s a choice between me and the wifey then the spangly eurotrash don’t have a chance.

Fri, 21 May 2021 16:09:12 +0000

Fri, 21 May 2021 14:12:18 +0000

I would like to buy all your records pls, The Linda Lindas. 😍

Fri, 21 May 2021 12:34:23 +0000

looks out at the forests and marshes and wonders what it would be like to run free

When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked | JSTOR Daily

Thu, 20 May 2021 15:32:46 +0000

Poor in Tech | Meg Elison

Thu, 20 May 2021 06:57:08 +0000

This is a bit too close to home.

Wed, 19 May 2021 08:26:35 +0000

“Well what proof do you have that engineers are unable to read the emotional context of a room?”

Rosie Duffield MP hilariously undermined UK Labour’s #IDAHOBIT post | by Gemma Stone | May, 2021 | Medium

Tue, 18 May 2021 13:40:11 +0000

Mon, 17 May 2021 13:34:26 +0000

I know I bang on about React and cult behaviour, but I’ll bet you 20 quid that in 5 years everyone will have jumped ship after Facebook goes under.

Mon, 17 May 2021 07:24:55 +0000

Sat, 15 May 2021 08:10:13 +0000

Office politics: A working letter • Buttondown

Fri, 14 May 2021 11:57:28 +0000

Wed, 12 May 2021 09:57:34 +0000

Wed, 12 May 2021 09:20:54 +0000

Wed, 12 May 2021 06:48:13 +0000

Wed, 12 May 2021 06:36:57 +0000

Tue, 11 May 2021 13:43:54 +0000

Tue, 11 May 2021 13:41:46 +0000

HYPER-REALITY - YouTube

Mon, 10 May 2021 07:14:41 +0000

I’ve often wondered what the world would look like with augmented reality pasted over it. (incidentally, it’s always seemed like the explanation for fancy holograms that are prevalent in sci-fi. Nothing like pixels in the air, but simply images in the mind).

Sun, 09 May 2021 21:53:14 +0000

Sun, 09 May 2021 21:43:04 +0000

‘It’s like the embers in a barbecue pit.’ Nuclear reactions are smoldering again at Chernobyl | Science | AAAS

Fri, 07 May 2021 09:34:30 +0000

Ooooof.

GIDS questions and survey

Thu, 06 May 2021 20:34:08 +0000

Someone uploaded all the docs that GIDS forced upon them when they attended.

All of this just to start maybe being allowed to be yourself.

How “Woke” Became a Slur

Thu, 06 May 2021 06:34:41 +0000

Wed, 05 May 2021 17:18:27 +0000

As non-binary people, do we really want legal recognition?

Wed, 05 May 2021 15:38:14 +0000

I am honestly as confused as fuck by most non-binary stuff but I can 100% get behind removing all sex markers from government systems.

Just as we don’t need a legal concept of race, we don’t need a legal concept of sex. It adds nothing while causing damage to so many.

Two classes of trans kids are emerging – those who have access to puberty blockers, and those who don't

Wed, 05 May 2021 13:03:06 +0000

Wed, 05 May 2021 05:43:18 +0000

Mon, 03 May 2021 10:54:53 +0000

Marxian Alienation And Web Development: HeydonWorks

Sun, 02 May 2021 14:09:48 +0000

Well fuck me this is on point.

Sun, 02 May 2021 14:03:10 +0000

Caitlyn Jenner Turned Her Back On Trans Kids To Get Republican Votes

Sun, 02 May 2021 12:38:40 +0000

Late transitioning millionaire tranny pensioner @caitlyn_jenner declares that trans kids should be actively discriminated against.

Incidentally, goodness me doesn’t she look different when she’s not heavily photoshopped?

MP's Deleted Tweet Gave Life to Anti-Trans Conspiracy Theory

Sun, 02 May 2021 11:50:26 +0000

Sat, 01 May 2021 20:08:16 +0000

Sat, 01 May 2021 14:17:11 +0000

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 15:57:02 +0000

Dutch couple move into Europe’s first fully 3D-printed house | 3D printing | The Guardian

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 09:18:48 +0000

Ehhhhhhhhh I like the idea but honestly houses anywhere but the countryside are NOT the way forward. Build space-efficient communal housing. Honestly, Berlin has got it right on this one.

‘Historic’ German ruling says climate goals not tough enough

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 18:15:37 +0000

More suing of governments for their lack of climate action please.

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 13:01:00 +0000

Statements on Passing of Michael Collins | NASA

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 10:01:31 +0000

Ah fuck.

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:59:36 +0000

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:55:41 +0000

CSS Hell - To Hell with bad CSS!

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:55:06 +0000

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 06:56:38 +0000

Just had to do a firmware update on a lightbulb.

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 15:07:23 +0000

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 14:36:19 +0000

[reporter] Why ARE trans people always so miserable?

[the UK trans community, waiting to hear the outcome of a court case on whether transphobic beliefs are protected at work] sigh

#MayaAppeal

marcelkordek/homebridge-tesvor

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 20:18:52 +0000

Dear god there’s a way to automate my vacuum cleaner.

This is truly an age of wonder.

Vaccination Centres Berlin

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:34:08 +0000

Currently there’s 1 (one) appointment slot available through to July.

Changes at Basecamp: A Fan Translation

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 12:50:55 +0000

Originally posted by @theccoder.

All Your Macs Are Belong To Us : Objective-See

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 12:18:18 +0000

UPGRADE YOUR COPY OF MACOS RIGHT NOW!

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 12:05:11 +0000

“[Full-Stack Developer] was first used when front-end engineers started doing javascript on the server, with the introduction of node.”

Hmm, funny that, because I remember it being when a load of Silicon Valley cunts invented the concept in order to economise on hiring, but what they really did was economise on frontend quality by hiring backend devs and forcing them to do frontend and that’s what led to the state of the web today but why don’t you go ahead and invent whatever fucking history makes you feel comfortable, fuckmouth.

I do love the true-hearted people of tech. ❤️

Changes at Basecamp

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 06:37:50 +0000

People are surprised that bosses don’t want to hear anything that distracts workers from their short-term pursuit of money and limp power.

My imaginary children aren’t using your streaming service

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 20:18:48 +0000

The world doesn’t revolve around children. It’s OK to let people who don’t have kids use your services without frustration.

#govbins

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 12:07:47 +0000

#govbins is a project to photograph wheelie bins in every UK local council.

Pointless and therefore beautiful. ❤️

Crypto miners are killing free CI

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 10:41:36 +0000

More importantly, CryptoCurrencies are killing the planet.

Did Jack Black's Mom Help Create Abort System That Rescued Apollo 13 Astronauts? | Snopes.com

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 08:02:55 +0000

Well, shit. I didn’t think that would be true.

The Endless Acid Banger

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 21:08:44 +0000

Does what it says on the tin.

Pixar is looking for trans actors to voice a trans teenage girl

Fri, 23 Apr 2021 17:13:27 +0000

Know a young trans woman who’d want to star in a Pixar film?

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 12:24:16 +0000

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:46:44 +0000

Which bitch just got awarded Permanent Residence in Germany? (clue: it’s me)

Fast Good Cheap

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:41:51 +0000

Choose two.

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 11:18:16 +0000

The world needs a patent waiver on Covid vaccines. Why is the UK blocking it?

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 05:43:04 +0000

This is why the modern world is going to end: Men with big Rolexes protecting their piles of money.

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 17:35:02 +0000

gitlet.js

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 07:34:46 +0000

Anything that can be written in JavaScript WILL be written in JavaScript.

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 15:56:08 +0000

People in the UK are posting pictures of themselves at the pub. Might go scream for a while.

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 10:21:28 +0000

Having tried to use the Instagram API this weekend I can only conclude that Facebook hates everyone, including its own developers.

There is definitely an abusive relationship going on there.

Slaughterbots

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 12:04:49 +0000

AI-controlled smart killing bots.

Far, far too likely and realistic.

Open letter to Nuffield Council on Bioethics – Dr Ruth Pearce

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 08:53:18 +0000

To be fully human, we must also be fully embodied animal | Aeon Essays

Sat, 10 Apr 2021 11:58:09 +0000

I’ve noticed so many of my tech friends and colleagues who seem to have lost the notion that they are animal.

I see this especially in response to COVID-19. Those who spend the most time online seem to be the ones who fear infection the most.

A fear of the mortality of the body.

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:36:55 +0000

I’m on a committee for deciding on how our 10000+ company moves forward with internal messaging apps.

I have suggested that we use IRC.

I will happily entertain reasons for why IRC is NOT suitable in a large corporate environment.

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 10:36:23 +0000

I can say with absolute certainty that if I didn’t need a twitter account for my career, I’d delete it forever. It’s mind numbingly addictive and awful.

The problem I have with it is that I can’t use it only a bit, or for a short time. It’s all or nothing. And I’m starting to get the addicts clarity that maybe I need to go cold turkey.

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 19:11:22 +0000

Ive had to deactivate my Twitter account for a bit. It’s hurting my mental health and, frankly, it’s addictive.

Trans people are being bullied out of the workplace – Metro

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:35:50 +0000

A night at Berghain | VIRGINIE KYPRIOTIS

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:26:21 +0000

I want this poster so badly that you can’t imagine.

An accessible toggle | Kitty Giraudel

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:53:19 +0000

@KittyGiraudel gives an extremely comprehensive overview of the work needed to make toggles work accessibly. Sorry, you can’t just magic it so, nor npm install accessible-toggles.

Pulling the Thread of Decertification: What Challenges are Raised by the Proposal to Reform Legal Gender Status? | feminists@law

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:40:31 +0000

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 09:49:22 +0000

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 08:21:10 +0000

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 08:20:07 +0000

How we all not freaking out that there’s a tiny helicopter on Mars?

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 08:18:03 +0000

Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? – Baldur Bjarnason

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 08:10:40 +0000

My ancient WWW heart loves this post by @fakebaldur.

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 16:27:26 +0000

“There’s nothing sexier than an older woman’s bedside medicine collection”, she thought, as she refilled her pill box.

Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? – Baldur Bjarnason

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 15:53:33 +0000

This post by @fakebaldur fills my ancient dead heart with something akin to joy.

Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? – Baldur Bjarnason

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 15:49:05 +0000

I love this post by @fakebaldur. It fills my ancient grandma heart with joy.

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 15:00:23 +0000

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 12:06:12 +0000

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 11:58:14 +0000

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 09:12:39 +0000

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 08:34:07 +0000

Mon, 05 Apr 2021 21:25:04 +0000

Exciting times as my partner and I play the ancient game of “try to sneak past the guinea pig cage without them noticing”. Partner won after managing to crawl all the way across the living room floor without them squealing at her.

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 21:39:46 +0000

I’m not sure I can actually hit like on this tweet hard enough.

Rewritten in Rust: Modern Alternatives of Command-Line Tools

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 14:09:33 +0000

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 12:00:33 +0000

Okay, so I started smoking again a few months ago. Fucking awful habit, and this time it made me actually feel ill. But I couldn’t stop. Each lungful felt amazing, but afterwards I felt sick as a dog. Like my body was giving me side eye.

So the other night I smocked a lot during a Friday night pre-curfew bender. The resulting hangover was absolutely awful. Proper 24 hour stuff. But it all felt like the aftermath of the fags.

So my ciggies have been cut up and put in the bin. No more.

“Weren’t you vaping, charlie?” some of the more observant of you might ask. Yeah, I was. But I gave that up in anger after my autoimmune disease kicked in. I have a high chance of having something called Scleroderma, which is something some folk have a tendency for and is activated by… inhaling the products that are often found in vaping kits.

It possibly correlation, but also possibly causation that my autoimmune symptoms started a few days after I started vaping…

But I have the disease now and maybe I can go back on the vapes? Gonna have to try and see.

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 07:16:23 +0000

I am getting anti-menopause products pushed at me and I’d like to know what online surveillance capitalism knows that I don’t

Evidence for puberty blockers use very low, says NICE - BBC News

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 06:40:54 +0000

The BBC are out to produce as much anti-trans content as possible. 😡

Trans Visibility, Modelling Possibility – Dr Ruth Pearce

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 14:41:31 +0000

Excellent stuff from Ruth.

“Possibility models” are far more important than “role models”.

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 07:50:09 +0000

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:04:45 +0000

Ooof this is some good HTML shit.

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 19:00:35 +0000

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 15:15:44 +0000

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:41:34 +0000

Okay dipshits, I’ve channeled the anger into my website and started actually doing stuff on the frontend instead of fucking around with node.

https://whalecoiner.com/

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 10:24:14 +0000

Here we go. The anti-trans backlash gathers pace.

I’ve no doubt this will end up before the Supreme Court, but god the hell this is creating for young trans people.

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 10:04:58 +0000

Laura Kalbag – Write-only Twitter

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 19:08:01 +0000

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 14:40:58 +0000

jesus fucking christ what do some people think is in chocolate?

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 10:26:12 +0000

I cannot agree with this statement hard enough. Why the fuck is the flag that represents me in PASTELS?

Why Self-Organizing Teams Don’t Work

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 08:19:43 +0000

242 Favorite JavaScript Utilities in single line of code! No more!

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 06:42:17 +0000

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 06:37:23 +0000

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 11:58:39 +0000

Berlin has just - JUST - decided that mandatory working from home for office workers during a pandemic MIGHT be a good idea. 🇩🇪➡️🌊

I Like That The Boat Is Stuck

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 09:46:47 +0000

Me too.

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:02:16 +0000

The 12” of Rhythm of the Night is giving me fucking LIFE.

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 16:56:33 +0000

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 14:07:01 +0000

This time last year you couldn’t have paid me enough to post a photo from this angle. The wonders of modern medicine, eh?

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 09:04:56 +0000

Study: Why Fake Sweeteners Taste Disgusting to Some People But Not Others

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:14:47 +0000

I hate soapy coriander AND I love sweet Pepsi Max. Genetic freak, so I am.

I am the fold

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:09:55 +0000

Au revoir, mon AMPmour?

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 23:44:15 +0000

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 22:11:09 +0000

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 16:35:17 +0000

Just spent 45 minutes looking at cases for a NAS build and I feel like I’ve had my soul sucked out via my fanny.

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:02:25 +0000

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 15:31:22 +0000

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 15:29:34 +0000

Today’s two major work discussions were:

a) about apportioning responsibilities between frontend and backend people, with regard to #a11y, performance, and robustness.

b) which kind of crisp is the best?

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 09:42:21 +0000

Just catching up on the Slack shite and this is my feeling also.

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 09:37:26 +0000

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 22:18:05 +0000

About once a day I find myself missing Twitter, so I comfort take a look and nope nope nope it’s just absolute misery and psychodrama.

I feel 10000000x better for not being on there.

Remind me of this next time I succumb to it.

The End of AMP

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:20:23 +0000

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:15:50 +0000

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 21:15:44 +0000

Today we found out that Germany is going into another month of lockdown. I’m gonna be honest pals: even introverted me is starting to lose it a bit.

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 20:01:52 +0000

An excellent series of truths.

Future Scenarios Generator

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 13:26:32 +0000

A decade + a year of heading backwards

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 09:51:32 +0000

The question is still 10 years + 1:

Why is it OK to have a substantial set of authoritative semantic HTML definitions misdirect developers for so long?

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 09:52:50 +0000

A huge flare up of the autoimmune nonsense that is plaguing my mortal body. Feel both drunk and like I have the flu at the same time.

Preparing for the Collapse of Digital Civilization

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 09:51:03 +0000

Excellent advice.

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:03:44 +0000

Fixed up the code for this website somewhat. Take a look!

It’s now not embarrassing me as much as it was.

Delinquent Telephone Activity. Let’s make a scene and rebel against… | by Rachel Coldicutt | Mar, 2021 | Medium

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:50:55 +0000

Can we occupy technology with love?

Overenhancement

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 09:41:30 +0000

Why Elliot Page’s transmasculine identity is infantilized.

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 23:39:15 +0000

GitHub, f*ck your name change.. Tech industry be whilin. | by MooseyAnon

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 13:16:32 +0000

So what would our tech bro saviors have found out if they had actually bothered to talk to anyone black? Well, at least this black person would have told them that calling the branch master is not offensive. Furthermore, black people as a collective are not triggered by words like master wherever they appear in the wild. Context people, context. Banning a word because you think it’s offensive is basically telling us what we should and should not be offended by. There are bigger problems around inclusivity that deserve our time, let us put this drive for change into those.

I Beat My Assaulter, And It Was Fucking Glorious - FEMINIST GIANT

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:03:32 +0000

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 09:58:39 +0000

“I found my groper… and tugged at the back of his shirt so hard that he fell. And I sat on top of him and I punched, and I punched, and I punched his face.”

💜

Cotton Ceiling: Uncovering the trans conspiracy to rape lesbians – TransAdvocate

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 09:47:47 +0000

Excellent post debunking the whole conspiracy surround “The Cotton Ceiling” (a phrase originally used to mean how “allies” of trans people will normally draw the line at considering us as people that they would date).

HEAD - A free guide to elements

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 08:39:12 +0000

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 06:55:04 +0000

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 06:50:43 +0000

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 06:47:32 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 19:39:36 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 17:03:57 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 14:08:34 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:06:55 +0000

Well I was hoping to get a formal diagnosis of what I have today but my specialist still can’t figure it it’s Polymyalgia Rheumatica, Scleroderma, or, Lupus. 😭

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 11:23:39 +0000

It’s Elton John vs the Pope. Elton has big glasses and a fair cult following, but the Pope has a sharpened crucifix and 1 billion followers who will avenge his death.

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 09:49:57 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 08:40:15 +0000

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 08:38:21 +0000

browse sticker archive - Stickers for the win

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:53:20 +0000

AMAZING

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:39:06 +0000

A father talks openly and honestly about his trans daughter and their relationship.

Please watch this.

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 16:31:33 +0000

Today, the Trident Era Ends

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 11:43:33 +0000

An older post, but one I’ve only just seen.

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 08:54:49 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 15:32:04 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 15:15:05 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 14:46:31 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 12:33:16 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:55:22 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:26:49 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:25:45 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 08:25:20 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 07:23:47 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 07:20:00 +0000

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 06:55:12 +0000

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 19:34:35 +0000

Detransition as Conversion Therapy: A Survivor Speaks Out | by Ky Schevers | An Injustice!

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 18:52:18 +0000

Ideologically motivated detransition is conversion therapy

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 14:08:25 +0000

Sat, 13 Mar 2021 11:10:35 +0000

This is the lesbian beekeeper dream. 🐝

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 17:26:32 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 17:25:45 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 16:00:08 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:58:45 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 15:08:58 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 10:22:37 +0000

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 06:57:41 +0000

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 21:16:26 +0000

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 17:23:53 +0000

Laura Kalbag – Safety at conferences

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 12:24:37 +0000

Excellent points made by Laura. Conferences are not automatically safe for those of us who are not white cis men.

Making the slowest 'fast' page | Tune The Web

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 11:07:16 +0000

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 10:11:41 +0000

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 09:43:17 +0000

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 06:47:07 +0000

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 21:33:01 +0000

I sometimes cannot believe how sexually violent men were in the UK. I used to carry an anti-rape/anti-roofie kit. We had to text each other when we got home. Masturbators were rife. Catcalls standard.

In Berlin I walk home in the dark as I would never have done in London.

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 19:23:33 +0000

Investigation into the influence of gender ideology on medical institutions – la scapigliata

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:26:56 +0000

A good example of the anti-trans Gender Conspiracy madness.

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 17:00:23 +0000

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:58:40 +0000

Well well well.

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:58:38 +0000

Well well well.

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:36:33 +0000

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:34:48 +0000

Oh. But same difference. Bugger all teams teat their amazing “native” apps (React Native) on older devices. Try using things likes Twitter app on a Moto G4. 😂

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 16:12:11 +0000

Facebook have now decided that server-side logic is The Next Big Thing. 😂

Expect boot camps and CV-Driven Developers to be talking about it real soon.

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 14:04:35 +0000

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 12:27:15 +0000

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:58:55 +0000

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:27:31 +0000

My hometown showing its finest wares off again.

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:24:24 +0000

Your reminder that the creator of Father Ted thinks that the tech industry is controlled by a (((secretive powerful clique of trans women))).

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 21:18:38 +0000

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:42:51 +0000

On trans rights, journalists must stand with the facts

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:10:51 +0000

Hiding Content Responsibly | Kitty Giraudel

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:10:25 +0000

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 18:18:11 +0000

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:25:50 +0000

Microsoft Edge just got a killer upgrade Chrome can’t match | Tom's Guide

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:25:16 +0000

Integrated AND WORKING (looking at you Firefox) vertical tabs is actually something that would make me switch to Edge.

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:23:39 +0000

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 21:27:18 +0000

Stanford study into “Zoom Fatigue” explains why video chats are so tiring

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 15:21:30 +0000

This explains a lot about why video calls are so awful.

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 12:48:07 +0000

Dude corner | Reductress

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 12:46:03 +0000

No, Mr. Potato Head isn’t going “gender neutral” | by Katelyn Burns | Feb, 2021 | Medium

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 12:07:21 +0000

At some point, we as a society must grapple with our impulse to kneejerk panic over every little invented trans-related outrage

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 08:57:04 +0000

Material Design Text Fields Are Badly Designed — Smashing Magazine

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 07:18:38 +0000

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:42:16 +0000

Medical startup struggles to hire full-stack doctors with 75+ years of experience

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 12:33:23 +0000

Automating the accessibility tests of your source code with GitHub Actions

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 14:32:31 +0000

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 12:26:17 +0000

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 12:23:48 +0000

Excellent points here about lockdown, isolation, and social media amplifying conspiracy theories and radicalising the formerly undecided.

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 07:08:25 +0000

Why The IndieWeb? (Webbed Briefs)

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 20:19:55 +0000

I Miss My Bar

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 20:18:07 +0000

The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML – Terence Eden’s Blog

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 20:05:19 +0000

Bookfeed.io - An RSS Feed with New Releases from Your Favorite Authors

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 13:24:24 +0000

A simple way to create an RSS feed of your favourite author’s book releases. Lovely.

How NASA Designed a Helicopter That Could Fly Autonomously on Mars - IEEE Spectrum

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:50:58 +0000

Internet inventor: Make tech accessibility better already - CNET

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:39:09 +0000

Vint Cerf says “it’s almost criminal” that programmers aren’t held accountable to design with disabilities in mind.

It might not be criminal (yet), but it’s definitely 100% immoral.

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:47:22 +0000

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:26:27 +0000

Urgh. Feeling mildly better this morning.

Really did not expect this to start progressing so quickly. :(

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:25:22 +0000

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:14:03 +0000

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 10:12:09 +0000

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 06:59:20 +0000

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 13:28:26 +0000

I would absolutely LOVE not to be in massive pain today.

This specialist autoimmune doctors visit can’t come soon enough. 😭

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 10:03:58 +0000

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 09:14:49 +0000

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 08:20:57 +0000

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 08:20:45 +0000

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 21:29:36 +0000

Fuck me, this is amazing.

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 18:59:41 +0000

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 18:25:15 +0000

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 18:05:37 +0000

Both beautiful partner and a guinea pig have fallen asleep on me.

GP has yawned 13 times and done a quadruple leg stretch.

BP has yawned once and muttered twice.

Stay tuned.

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 12:51:55 +0000

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 11:47:50 +0000

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 10:56:37 +0000

Little is known about anything related to trans health because no fucker will fund research into it.

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 10:51:39 +0000

Remember the guy who wrote Father Ted? After getting banned from Twitter for hate speech he spends his days doing this.

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 10:27:39 +0000

Evergreen tweet.

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 22:00:06 +0000

The Mothers Leading the Battle Against Trans Student Athletes | The New Republic

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 12:31:45 +0000

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 09:44:44 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 14:59:15 +0000

Building Your Own Personal Learning Curriculum — Smashing Magazine

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 13:56:01 +0000

My mate @keinegurke_ did a thing for @smashingmag and OBVIOUSLY it’s an absolute corker!

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 13:49:56 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 13:49:14 +0000

Okay #indieweb and web folk. How can I share from a native app (like Firefox or Twitter) to a PWA on iOS Safari?

On Android I’d use the Web Share Target API. What options are there for iOS?

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:41:54 +0000

Oh my god love, get over yourself.

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:27:57 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:19:23 +0000

So my diagnosis of plymyalgiawhydomylimbshurtallthetimehgod has been knocked back to a 50% possibility and now I’ve gotta go see rheumatology specialists, pronto, as my antibody count is all wonky.

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 09:09:33 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 09:00:23 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 08:26:25 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 08:10:29 +0000

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 07:07:06 +0000

I have never been able to figure that out.

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 21:17:58 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 20:15:55 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:31:24 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:30:36 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 19:28:32 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 17:13:58 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 16:47:24 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 15:42:59 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 15:19:07 +0000

Sitting here with the iPhone 12 Pro Max kaufen page open and pointer over “buy now”.

I just want a good camera, you know?

🥰 my travel cam but I look 57 using it. Amazing quality but no eye viewfinder: just me holding it at arms length with both hands, squinting at the screen.

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:50:01 +0000

No one wants to hear “yeah, the interfaces you build for internal customers have to be accessible too”.

What, you think our 15,000 person company doesn’t employ any people with disabilities? 😂

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:03:37 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:01:05 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 11:56:44 +0000

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 11:45:01 +0000

The weeks of snow and ice have ended!

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 08:34:10 +0000

If you’ve got mad polymyalgia pain then get yourself a partner who will pull you into her daily yoga practise.

It is helping so, so much. 💜

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 22:10:18 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 21:28:21 +0000

A thread that you must read if you are to understand how absolutely morally conservative the UK is.

We banned Star Trek: the Next Generation ffs.

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:48:08 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:46:47 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:46:16 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:45:09 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:44:46 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:35:55 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 16:00:50 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:45:34 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:43:46 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 15:23:38 +0000

Well bugger me, I’ve been classed as a member of a vulnerable group by the German government. They’ve sent me vouchers for face masks! 😷

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 13:31:07 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:44:51 +0000

Maybe we could tone down the JavaScript / fuzzy notepad

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:25:19 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 07:11:04 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 07:00:53 +0000

This just made my little #ADHD ass cry.

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 06:55:12 +0000

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 06:51:59 +0000

This thread is beautiful.

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:38:57 +0000

Today I am officially “can’t read the writing on the food packet as it’s too small” years old.

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 15:20:10 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:15:28 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:10:40 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:07:03 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 14:01:40 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 12:39:19 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 12:35:22 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 12:23:03 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 11:32:43 +0000

Why don’t the shit people ever seem to get burnout?

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:33:33 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:07:55 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:57:32 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:54:35 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:31:02 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:30:10 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:28:57 +0000

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:25:39 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 21:24:24 +0000

Never a stable domain name, but:

Geocities Artisanal HTML Dreamweaver HTML (MM_rollover) Moveable Type (why) WordPress Artisan HTML again Drupal (why) Jekyll Drupal (why) Custom static site generator from Drupal API (god why) Express + markdown (now)

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 20:43:01 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 20:42:01 +0000

nektos/act: Run your GitHub Actions locally 🚀

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 17:25:17 +0000

Extremely useful if you find yourself debugging GitHub Actions workflow issues!

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 15:48:18 +0000

I have said it before, and I will say it again: the Gender Critical conspiracy is deeply tied to the Cult of Fertility.

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 14:34:17 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 11:08:34 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:53:47 +0000

The most hardcore of the Gender Critical Conspiracy adherents actually believe that trans people are being bank-rolled by big tech companies and are preparing to bring about Transhumanism.

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:39:39 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:35:24 +0000

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 09:41:24 +0000

Speaker Rider for Meaningfully Inclusive Events

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 09:34:58 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 21:32:11 +0000

Digital Scarcity is a Con – Terence Eden’s Blog

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 20:20:26 +0000

The pill could be sold in pharmacies without prescription - BBC News

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 20:12:28 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 18:43:50 +0000

Laverne Cox: ‘I can be so hard on myself’ | Film | The Guardian

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 18:22:34 +0000

“We have to be able to ask ourselves, ‘Am I feeling uncomfortable or am I feeling unsafe? And is my uncomfortability going to impede on the rights of other people?’”

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 15:48:38 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 14:46:40 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 14:43:18 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 14:41:23 +0000

I can’t say THIS enough. This is what “gender critical” cow women are about. They gladly use their position to leverage violence against others.#whitefeminism

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:58:03 +0000

Absolutely FANTASTIC dream last night where I was dressed as a shotgun-wielding Marie Antoinette and having to defuse bombs in a Crystal Maze type game.

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 12:55:31 +0000

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 09:59:50 +0000

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:46:06 +0000

There’s a crowd of people outside my apartment telling me how AMAZING this Shepard’s Pie smells, and NONE of them are socially distanced!

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:42:09 +0000

Oh, yes, if you didn’t know: families will often bury us with the names that we left behind. The ultimate insult in death. 🖕

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:31:46 +0000

Ouch. Bit too close to the bone there.

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:26:36 +0000

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 14:45:40 +0000

It’s not possible to be famous and trans on Twitter without it becoming a transohobic hell pit. 😠

To every #terf and every #gendercritical: get bent. 🖕

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:40:27 +0000

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:39:18 +0000

Fucking FIRE thread.

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 15:32:17 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 15:21:19 +0000

I always love how capitalist tech nerds claim that a post-capitalist economy would never work.

“nobody will perform labour unless they are forced to do so!!” they shriek, while npm installing completely free code written by a volunteer.

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 14:08:52 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 13:58:18 +0000

Well, it’s looking likely that I have an immune disorder called Polymyalgia Rheumatica. Got a few more tests to get done to rule out anything else, but it’s looking 90% certain.

At least I pretty much know what’s causing the pain now.

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 13:09:16 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:59:46 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:36:04 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:32:48 +0000

Cis people will never understand what it’s like to have this with every doctor.

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:30:30 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:28:52 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 08:04:50 +0000

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 07:27:23 +0000

I’m glad to see that I can carry on ticking “female” in the UK census just as I have done for the last however many I’ve done.

Alice, love, did you honestly think I was suddenly gonna start ticking “male” just to satisfy your deep-seated dislike of trans women?

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 22:32:03 +0000

Actually a good day today. And weirdly I’m not feeling down about the lockdown extension here in Germany.

I think I’ve forgotten how to socialise, so it’s probably for the best.

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 18:43:32 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 17:40:56 +0000

Irish trans youth have had their UK referrals cancelled after @KLBfax’s court case shafted them. Now they are being referred to an Irish trans youth treatment centre that… doesn’t actually exist.

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:35:00 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:34:24 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 16:33:20 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:13:01 +0000

Having to remember how to write callbacks in JS and dear god promises/async/await have ruined my little brain.

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 09:45:30 +0000

The art for #TheExpanse gives me life. 😍

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 09:42:35 +0000

White tears, white rage: Victimhood and (as) violence in mainstream feminism - Alison Phipps, 2021

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 08:47:45 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 08:46:10 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 07:03:47 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 06:57:23 +0000

God I love this lady. 😍

Dependency Confusion: How I Hacked Into Apple, Microsoft and Dozens of Other Companies | by Alex Birsan | Feb, 2021 | Medium

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 06:54:44 +0000

Goatse as industrial sabotage

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 06:52:35 +0000

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 06:48:22 +0000

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 22:42:12 +0000

Rest in Peace, Rose Wong. The family structures that transgender… | by Eilís Ní Fhlannagáin | Feb, 2021 | Medium

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 22:39:03 +0000

An evening of anger and sorrow. Please read @dirtycitybird talking about Rose, the beautiful and talented young trans woman who died far far far too early.

This is why we speak out. No more.

https://medium.com/@dirtycitybird/rest-in-peace-rose-wong-6acffa42c44d

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 18:48:28 +0000

How the fuck do you lot think trans people actually transition? Do you think we’re dressing up like drag queens or something? “Real tits???”

Most of “you”, the bits you value and take pride in, is down to sex hormones for god’s sake.

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:45:59 +0000

Twitching every time I hear biological sex in a drawling middle class accent.

https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/fb12feef-6d41-457a-a102-ea59813bb583

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 14:14:22 +0000

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 12:57:00 +0000

Right now every German street contains one or more adults pulling a wooden sledge on top which sits a child only slightly smaller than themselves.

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 12:50:45 +0000

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 12:47:01 +0000

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:59:38 +0000

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:37:59 +0000

Additional key facts: people who complain against trans women being in prison with other women NEVER EVER talk about the volent sexual assaults and rapes that male prison guards routinely commit.

I WONDER WHY?

(the answer is transphobia).

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 22:57:32 +0000

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 21:56:23 +0000

The boring front-end developer – Adam Silver – Designer, London, UK.

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 19:32:59 +0000

Can’t remember if I’ve bookmarked this before (and my current site code doesn’t check for dupes - must fix that) but even if I have, it’s worth sharing again.

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 16:23:20 +0000

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 16:13:39 +0000

Probably because you can’t just hack together something that is actually all three of a) Accessible b) Performant and C) Robust.

“You need to enable JavaScript to run this app”.

“Axe: 114 accessibility issues found”.

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 14:31:23 +0000

Just in case you think medical support for young trans people is something new: we’ve actually been doing it for decades.

Step up and aggressively question those who spread lies about trans youth medical support being “experimental”.

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 13:07:49 +0000

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 11:24:14 +0000

Oh Hello Ana - Unsolicited rejection

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 10:57:10 +0000

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 07:44:49 +0000

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 12:11:01 +0000

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 10:50:57 +0000

Lads, it’s cold out here.

How do wombats poop cubes? Scientists get to the bottom of the mystery | Science | AAAS

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 09:11:14 +0000

Very important info.

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 07:39:47 +0000

Having been brought up on a rainy island in the North Atlantic where the temperature is 10C year round, it is disconcerting to realise that in just a few months it will be 40C warmer than it is now.

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 20:12:26 +0000

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 19:54:39 +0000

“Feels like -21C” and “Warnings for snow drifts” are not words I’d expected to see on my weather app in Berlin.

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 18:44:27 +0000

This is pure on the nose. #ADHD

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 17:53:28 +0000

The wait time for trans people to get their initial appointment on the NHS is currently three years.

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 17:07:28 +0000

This isn’t feminism.

Leonardo: an open source contrast-based color generator | by Nate Baldwin | Medium

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 12:48:32 +0000

Why won’t Nike use the word disabled to promote the Go FlyEase shoe?

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 12:41:19 +0000

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 11:29:12 +0000

I don’t know what happened yesterday, but I woke up to a blizzard, some really shit watercolours, and two tickets to see the Sleaford Mods in October.

There is no such thing as 'sex-based rights' (in the UK) - Medium

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 12:10:04 +0000

Excellent summing up here of “sex based rights” (as used by transphobes).

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:55:21 +0000

Trans in the UK: What the Hell Are We Going To Do? | by Harry Josephine Giles | Feb, 2021 | Medium

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:28:39 +0000

A note from 2021-02-05

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:19:45 +0000

*hibernates*

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 10:34:57 +0000

Snapshot of Hanley in 60 minutes - 24 eye-opening photos of rough sleepers, beggars and abandoned tents - Stoke-on-Trent Live

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 09:30:23 +0000

My place of birth is beautiful.

Pika • Super High Fives

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 13:41:58 +0000

A nice little open-source colour picker app for MacOS.

What It’s Like to Be a Woman Who’s 6’2”

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 12:56:48 +0000

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 21:24:33 +0000

S’up, motherflippers?

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 17:53:06 +0000

AdNauseam - Clicking Ads So You Don't Have To

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 17:09:54 +0000

Investigation: how transphobia became rife in the gender-based violence sector - gal-dem

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 19:28:12 +0000

You have to be explicit that you’re inclusive, you cannot assume that people know.

A truly excellent piece in how endemic transphobia is within survivor support services.

A Modern CSS Reset - Post - Piccalilli

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 19:09:37 +0000

As the father of a trans man, I fear for the consequences of this cruel judgment | Rowan Moore | Opinion | The Guardian

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 16:56:09 +0000

Why Generation X will save the web - Hi, I'm Heather Burns.

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 16:50:07 +0000

Well shit, this is both awful and hopeful at the same time!

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 15:25:52 +0000

Oh god, just had to do a home haircut on Beautiful Partner.

She’s not seen the back yet. When she does I’m done for. She looks like a reverse Dalmatian.

Watch "Coming Out As Trans - A Little Public Statement" on YouTube

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 20:25:01 +0000

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 16:51:18 +0000

Feeling VERY guilty for putting George the smallest guinea pig outside in the snow and then running inside to see what he’d do.

He just went and hid under a chair and looked sad. 😭

When he came in his tiny feet were frozen with cold. 😭

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 09:02:07 +0000

Nouns - All contributions - Deutschland #NoFilter - Contemporary information from and about Germany - Goethe-Institut

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 09:01:18 +0000

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 08:58:23 +0000

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 08:57:25 +0000

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 19:37:15 +0000

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 12:34:30 +0000

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 12:33:16 +0000

hrt.cafe

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 07:25:19 +0000

Resources for you DIY trans folks to find the HRT that your doctors should really be giving you.

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 16:35:54 +0000

The Scottish government wants to exempt “criticism of transgender identity” from upcoming hate crime law.

We’re the only group exempted, because you’re allowed to piss on trans people in the UK.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/scottish-government-wants-exempt-criticism-141259406.html

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 11:55:44 +0000

“Probable post-surgical fibromyalgia” is a great phrase to start the day with.

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 11:29:53 +0000

The UX of LEGO Interface Panels – George Cave

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:51:14 +0000

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 10:53:31 +0000

Three jays are noisily fighting in the tree outside my window, all vying for an old crow’s nest.

Meanwhile a woodpecker is inspecting the nest that they made in the trunk of the same tree last year.

I hope this means spring is coming!

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 09:53:29 +0000

Exactly how to remove DRM · apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools Wiki

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 07:55:49 +0000

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 07:48:44 +0000

Is it possible not to wake up and feel like absolute mental and physical shit? Each morning I groggily open my eyes and feel like I’ve run a marathon in my sleep. Aching muscles and cramps. 😭

How to Flatten the History of a Git Repository Safely

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 15:08:36 +0000

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 16:32:19 +0000

Have you been cancelled from liberal society for your antisemitism? Do you feel cruelty restricted from airing your homophobia publicly?

Then why not try TRANSPHOBIA ™️?

It’s allowed in mainstream newspapers! 📰

No repercussions! 🍾

Apply now! 👍

Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 12:36:00 +0000

Dad designs bikini line for transgender teens

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 12:20:07 +0000

Awww this is lovely.

Adactio: Articles—Design Principles For The Web

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 12:08:15 +0000

STAR TREK: ACID PARTY

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 22:02:30 +0000

https://youtu.be/BZlRt05RY9Y

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 16:54:25 +0000

I think that I just accidentally wrote most of a node-based endpoint discovery, parser, and sender for webmentions.

I think a version already exists in npm, but would it be useful for other #indieweb folk to have this as a package? S’all async and promises.

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 16:16:22 +0000

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:56:56 +0000

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:51:09 +0000

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:50:13 +0000

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 11:11:55 +0000

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:53:05 +0000

Slow Conferences - Web Directions

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 07:40:32 +0000

Revival of Trans Europe Express 'key to EU's carbon neutrality' | World news | The Guardian

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 07:08:35 +0000

Oh my gosh please please PLEASE. I need this if lockdown ever ends.

Berlin to Paris by high-speed train? Yes please!

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 06:52:41 +0000

I can’t believe so many frontend devs skip this step. 😱

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 19:38:47 +0000

Can someone please stop me from eating chocolate? I’d kicked the habit in the summer but miserable winter lockdown has broken me. 😭

Elon Musk said it was ‘Not a Flamethrower’ | TechCrunch

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 14:19:16 +0000

Idiot men around the world are surprised to find that it’s not legal to own a flamethrower.

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 13:31:58 +0000

Off you fuck, you tangerine tosspot.

How to avoid layout shifts caused by web fonts – Simon Hearne

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 17:25:29 +0000

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 14:49:26 +0000

I’ve just realised that subconsciously I’ve spent the last 4 years waiting for Trump to launch some kind of preemptive nuclear attack.

Its been eating my braincells and chill at a horrible rate. Felt like growing up in 80s UK again. 😩

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 09:20:34 +0000

Can everyone who needs to contact me please NOT use email / twitter / DMs / Signal / Slack [select as appropriate] because whatever method you choose I’m apparently amazing at missing messages and looking like I hate people. 😭 #ADHD

A Modern CSS Reset - Post - Piccalilli

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:22:53 +0000

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 10:54:38 +0000

Uncovered: Our Duty Group | Trans Safety Network

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 14:31:28 +0000

Women’s rights aren’t at odds with trans rights | Metro News

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 09:09:23 +0000

How do you figure? | scottohara.me

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 09:06:31 +0000

Greener air travel will depend on these emerging technologies

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:26:07 +0000

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:03:12 +0000

Thank fuck Merz lost in the German CDU leadership race. Proper little fascist, that one.

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 10:22:08 +0000

I cannot tell you how much I despise the phrase “gender identity”. 😠

macOS Big Sur 11.2 Beta 2 Removes Feature Letting Apple Apps Bypass Third-Party Firewalls and VPNs - MacRumors

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 18:07:57 +0000

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 16:54:11 +0000

The fact I’m pondering if this is a coded neo-nazi reference is probably a sign I’ve spent too much of my life online. 😩

A note from 2021-01-15

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 12:23:56 +0000

It has got to the point in my life where I cannot deny being the nerd that I truly am. I am therefore building a media NAS for our apartment.

https://blog.briancmoses.com/2020/12/diy-nas-econonas-2020.html

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 11:07:16 +0000

The CIA have a new logo and will be playing Berghain when it reopens.

https://www.papermag.com/cia-logo-2649738830.html

A note from 2021-01-15

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 10:39:28 +0000

Madrid has had more snow than Berlin.

pinches anthropogenic climate change on the left bollock

GitHub is facing employee backlash after the firing of a Jewish employee who suggested 'Nazis are about' on the day of the US Capitol siege

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 14:48:47 +0000

Bringing Spacer GIFs Back, to handle spacing elements in React and CSS

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:20:40 +0000

The Cheap £10 Elgato Cam Link Alternative

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 11:28:54 +0000

A note from 2021-01-12

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 09:50:53 +0000

A young white guy just cornered me in the supermarket and demanded I explain to him how to make a Tiramisu.

His Tiramisu is therefore going to be made with Quark and Tuc biscuits.

Twat.

Kathleen Stock, OBE

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 12:18:50 +0000

Absolutely breathtaking takedown of Kathleen Stock, the Jordan Peterson of the “gender critical” anti-trans movement.

BTW, she was just awarded an OBE by the UK state for her anti-trans activities.

Sci-hub checker

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:47:01 +0000

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 21:49:03 +0000

Day 17654 of lockdown. An evening with a poorly bumgravy guinea pig.

Neurotypicals: Listen to Our Words, Not Our Tone – Autistic Science Person

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 16:46:33 +0000

Hmm, interesting. As someone who is hyper-sensitive to emotions and vocal tone, I find the notion of someone not communicating via side-channels of intonation and body-language to be equally hard to understand. But understand we must!

A note from 2021-01-09

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 15:33:47 +0000

What if we just used singular they pronouns for everyone?

Robin Rendle ･ Don’t draw the UI, draw the priority

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 12:50:03 +0000

An Analysis of Privacy on the App Store

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 14:10:09 +0000

The UK's absurdity on transgender issues and how it got so transphobic

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 11:21:57 +0000

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 10:41:50 +0000

After several medical appointments where I’ve had to reveal my trans status and been othered as a result, it was… well, not lovely, but certainly familiar to be back on the “are you pregnant?” and “is it worse when you menstruate?” train.

Is Progressive Enhancement Dead Yet? (Webbed Briefs)

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 09:47:51 +0000

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 14:54:40 +0000

I just want to vomit with anxiety this week.

Should The Web Expose Hardware Capabilities?

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 12:14:48 +0000

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 13:30:34 +0000

This is what at least 5 years of dust and grime behind a washing machine look like. (Hey, it came with our apartment and we’ve never had to move it before).

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 15:38:40 +0000

Poor Bungle is at the vets with a gammy eye. (not the one you can see). Very brave boi on his first vets visit. 😭😭😭

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 21:18:06 +0000

Beautiful wifey has fallen asleep on me again and I am trapped. The Terry’s Chocolate Oranges that I bought while high sit 1.5 arm lengths away, taunting me.

My stack will outlive yours

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 16:39:11 +0000

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 15:26:56 +0000

I know this doesn’t look remarkable, but Zippy is normally off his tits on whizz and coke and almost never lies down.

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 09:56:23 +0000

George’s first snow! Look at that chonky thigh!

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 14:02:46 +0000

The pigeons have started strutting and fucking, which means spring is only ${PIGEON_EGG_GESTATION_AND_BROODING_TIME} weeks away!

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 12:48:25 +0000

It’s Saturday? Shit, I’ve lost all track of time.

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 23:34:58 +0000

More things to ignore.

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 23:18:12 +0000

Something else for @polerin to ignore.

A note from 2021-01-01

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 23:12:39 +0000

So sorry. More test things to ignore. Unless you’re @polerin.

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 23:03:42 +0000

Sorry, this is test content coming from my website. Ignore it, I guess?

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 22:58:21 +0000

Good lord that New Year #DoctorWho was bad.

Jodie Whittaker is such a better actor than any of the previous doctors, but she’s wasted on pure awful writing.

Jodie paired with Russell T Davis as a writer - now THAT would be campy amazeballs!

Highlighting Accessible Twitter Content – Eric’s Archived Thoughts

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 21:12:31 +0000

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 16:52:20 +0000

An exciting start to 2021 as the washing machine drum detaches at 1200rpm with a loud and bowel-loosening shriek.

If anyone has any recommendations for front-loading washing machines, now’s a great time. 😂

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 11:41:17 +0000

u ok hon? x

Web Histories

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 11:34:07 +0000

A note from 2020-12-31

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 19:13:09 +0000

If you’re seeing this then Brid.gy is auto-syndicating from my site to Twitter.

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 13:51:39 +0000

I just realised that it’s the last day of 2020. Huh. No New Years Eve parties this year.

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 22:09:21 +0000

Merry Magdalene on Twitter: "if you had a messenger bag in middle school let me congratulate you on your transition" / Twitter

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 20:29:53 +0000

Pi Webcam

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 15:04:08 +0000

Uncovered: LGB Alliance

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 09:33:15 +0000

Excellent rundown on the confusingly-named LGB Alliance anti-trans hate group.

Are you ready to be anti-ableist in 2021? - Sheri Byrne-Haber's Blog

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 21:40:28 +0000

Lesbians facing 'extinction' as transgenderism becomes pervasive, campaigners warn

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 10:45:17 +0000

The UK is actually going mad.

This is conspiracy theory shit.

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 19:47:41 +0000

Merry Christmas, fucknuts. 💜

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 11:34:30 +0000

Merry Christmas all you beautiful people! 💜💜💜

I am on my 3rd breakfast mimosa. 🍾

UK and EU agree Brexit trade deal | The Guardian

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:58:01 +0000

This Christmas Eve 2020, I want it noted that I hate every member of the Conservative party and every single person that voted for Brexit.

A pox on the lot of them. 🇪🇺

UK and EU agree Brexit trade deal | Brexit | The Guardian

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:51:58 +0000

I want it noted that I hate every member of the Conservative party and every person that voted for Brexit. A pox on the lot of them. 🇪🇺

A note from 2020-12-24

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 15:43:07 +0000

I’ve been relying on Twitter as an authentication source for my website. Well, I’ve finally got GitHub authentication working and now I’m free to no longer have Twitter logged in on my phone. Thank god - it has been too much temptation.

3 in 5 people will deliberately misgender a trans person to show disrespect / LGBTQ Nation

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 10:39:28 +0000

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 08:45:10 +0000

Guinea pigs genetically enhanced so that they can do forward rolls.

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 21:33:53 +0000

Finally got image uploads working via the web interface of this site. This wee guy helped.

30 years ago today: History of the Web – World Wide Web Foundation

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 16:51:08 +0000

30 years ago today the first ever website came online. 💜

Britain's Court Decision on Children Has Cruel Consequences

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 15:58:48 +0000

Absolutely spot on price of writing by Grace Lavery.

I have resigned from the Google AMP Advisory Committee – Terence Eden’s Blog

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 12:06:03 +0000

No cookie for you - The GitHub Blog

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 08:52:44 +0000

GitHub got around GDPR rules for showing cookie banners by simply not setting any non-functional cookies. 🎉

Music-Map - The Tourist Map of Music

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 08:50:19 +0000

Omg this is genuinely useful. Type in an artist and get similar artists. Free yourself from Spotify.

HTML Memory Test - paulfosterdesign.co.uk

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 07:51:04 +0000

All my reports will now have to take this test every 6 months. Any score below 50 is an automatic firing.

Webbish

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 11:40:16 +0000

Stress First Aid Self Care / Organizational Support Model

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 20:38:55 +0000

The Women’s and Equality Committee ft some transphobes

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 14:39:58 +0000

If you’ve wondered why UK trans people are angry about GRA reform then you need to make time and read this monster essay by @notCursedE. 💜

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 07:52:30 +0000

You know when you think you’ve just badly bruised a finger, but a couple of months later when it’s still healing you realise you actually fractured it?

Me, every year.

A note from 2020-12-11

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 07:41:56 +0000

Lugging 45 kilogrammes of food up 5 flights of stairs is punishment for a crime I have not yet committed.

*dies, dramatically*

From the Vault: Sylvia Rivera & Marsha P. Johnson, 1970 | Making Gay History

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 17:58:23 +0000

An absolutely incredible interview with Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera about being trans in 1979s New York.

Show this to any transphobes who try and claim that these two wonderful women were actually gay men appropriated by the trans movement. Marsha talks about her hormone treatment and seeking surgery FFS!

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 12:49:52 +0000

Hard lockdown in Germany is coming. :(

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 12:29:10 +0000

Off work until January 2021. What bliss. ☺️

Endangered Firefox: The state of Mozilla | ZDNet

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 16:09:57 +0000

Syndication Feeds!

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 08:10:37 +0000

I’ve got syndication feeds available for this site!

Check out global firehose feed in RSS, Atom, and JSON formats. Each section has its own feed (in those 3 formats) as well, so you can just, for example, subscribe to notes via the Notes RSS feed.

CSS { In Real Life } | A Utility Class for Covering Elements

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 08:09:24 +0000

Transgender Brits Struggle Against a Toxic Tide: ‘I Don’t Feel Safe Anywhere’

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 20:45:11 +0000

This. Except that - take it from me - moving abroad doesn’t help. 😔

Alt vs Figcaption

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 19:51:30 +0000

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 16:08:37 +0000

Watching the Women and Equalities Committee on the Reform of the Gender Recognition Act. Gotta ❤️ Alex, Ruth, and Stephen.

parliamentlive.tv

Table of Contents | Web Almanac 2020

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 12:34:04 +0000

Grow the IndieWeb with Webmentions | Amber Wilson

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 10:16:19 +0000

How the 2010 student protests radicalised me

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 10:12:29 +0000

npm ruin dev | CSS-Tricks

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 08:31:01 +0000

If anyone can, our man Jeremy can.

Europe to revive international night train links

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 08:00:18 +0000

Dreams can come true.

Parliamentlive.tv - Women and Equalities Committee

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 14:56:38 +0000

Clean advertising | Adactio

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 13:41:33 +0000

adventures in adhd

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 07:34:01 +0000

The mildest criticism feels like the end of the world to me. This is a shame because I am criticised regularly for a variety of reasons, all stemming from my brain chemistry being a bit light on the dopamine.

Good Services Shop

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 19:36:59 +0000

BUY ME EVERYTHING ON THIS SITE PLS

Bell v Tavistock NHS Trust – a quick reaction post – Sandra Duffy

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 10:22:03 +0000

Creating websites with prefers-reduced-data | Polypane Browser for Developers

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 15:37:36 +0000

Aerosol transmission of Covid-19: A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air | Society | EL PAÍS in English

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 17:07:03 +0000

Please disable JavaScript to view this site

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 15:03:20 +0000

Under-Engineered Responsive Tables | Adrian Roselli

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 17:38:47 +0000

Climate ‘apocalypse’ fears stopping people having children – study | Climate change | The Guardian

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 17:17:40 +0000

I honestly can’t imagine why anyone would want to have children in this world. 😔

Undoing the toxic dogmatism of digital design

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 13:11:13 +0000

DIY Hue Emulator : Build smart DIY Lights - diyHue

Sat, 28 Nov 2020 19:14:03 +0000

Oh I didn’t realise that I need this. 😭

Why The Web Is Such A Mess | Tom Scott | YouTube

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 14:31:35 +0000

Gay men: step up and become a trans ally | OutLife

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 08:38:58 +0000

CSS Background Patterns by MagicPattern

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 20:22:19 +0000

The Grand Unification Proposal · Issue #5743 · w3c/csswg-drafts

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 20:14:39 +0000

Olivia Colman, Jameela Jamil and Paloma Faith condemn ‘violence and hostility’ against trans women in open letter | The Independent

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 20:13:39 +0000

Google’s new logos are bad | TechCrunch

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 18:13:46 +0000

The (extremely) loud minority - Andy Bell

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 18:05:34 +0000

Thank you Andy for this! ♥️

WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 18:04:32 +0000

This web thing might catch on.

Zulu and UTC: the story behind aviation's time zone | Flightradar24 Blog

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 18:03:14 +0000

What would happen if computers never got any faster? – Terence Eden’s Blog

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 16:05:45 +0000

Amazon Is Killing My Sex Life | Dame Magazine

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 08:54:10 +0000

Why it's good for users that HTML, CSS and JS are separate languages

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 07:33:14 +0000

BBC iPlayer - His Dark Materials

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 21:54:55 +0000

YAAAAAASSSSSS

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 21:14:34 +0000

♥️

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 20:54:49 +0000

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:26:19 +0000

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 14:28:18 +0000

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 09:22:27 +0000

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 20:05:01 +0000

People can continue to meet people outside their Christmas bubble outdoors according to the rules in the tier where they live.

What the fuck did I just read?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55064962

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 11:54:54 +0000

Seeing someone remove his mask to cough and sneeze sums up a lot about this pandemic.

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 09:00:25 +0000

So this is my first time writing a note on the go from my mobile phone. How exciting!

Delaware Has Elected The First-Ever Openly Trans State Senator In The US

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 10:45:00 +0000

Excuse me while I go cry a little bit. We would never have once been this visible.

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

One of our gestalt of landlords has moved their daughter into our Haus, just as lockdown has started again.

The stasi spirit is alive and well in Berlin.

On all that fuckery

Fri, 28 Aug 2020 09:37:00 +0000

On all that fuckery

Fri, 28 Aug 2020 08:37:00 +0000

A clean start for the web

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 12:24:00 +0000

The problem is that the “document web” is often plagued by application characteristics - it’s the JavaScript and animations and complexity that makes your average newspaper website an unmitigated disaster. Where document websites adopt application patterns they often accidentally sacrifice accessibility, performance, and machine readability.

I like this article a lot. I don’t agree with it all, but I like it.

2020.05.29, 13:25

Fri, 29 May 2020 11:25:23 +0000

For those just tuning in: a bunch of white cops arresting a black journalist as he’s reporting on live TV.

2020.05.29, 13:13

Fri, 29 May 2020 11:13:01 +0000

2020.05.27, 17:35

Wed, 27 May 2020 15:35:12 +0000

2020.05.26, 12:19

Tue, 26 May 2020 10:19:09 +0000

2020.05.26, 09:36

Tue, 26 May 2020 07:36:11 +0000

2020.05.25, 11:08

Mon, 25 May 2020 09:08:19 +0000

telnet pine mutt usenet winsock majordomo

VOIP Flashcards (by @tom_armitage)

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 13:27:17 +0000

2019.12.20, 16:40

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:40:15 +0000

Damn I should be looking at Twitter occasionally. Thank you @LauraKalbag for this mention earlier this month!

2019.12.20, 16:06

Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:06:36 +0000

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 10:10:17 +0000

Friends at @OtherNatureShop, Berlin’s most fantastic feminist, trans friendly, queer friendly, BPoC friendly sex store, are looking for someone to freelance help with their ecommerce site. Interested?

2019.11.27, 07:04

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 06:04:21 +0000

Animal Hands

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:52:52 +0000

90s Indiepop

2019.11.26, 09:05

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 08:05:16 +0000

It’s hard to believe that the @wearewebclerks conference was the first one ever by the organisers. It was slick, welcoming, friendly, and interesting. Thanks for asking me to speak! ♥️ #webclerks

Cheese Toothpaste

Sat, 26 Oct 2019 23:23:44 +0000

2019.10.13, 11:08

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 09:08:15 +0000

2019.10.13, 10:59

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 08:59:34 +0000

2019.10.12, 21:48

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 19:48:56 +0000

Lost my voice. Amazing.

2019.10.12, 21:42

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 19:42:52 +0000

Delicate Crackers

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 18:56:06 +0000

Northern England punk.