Happily Imperfect

Last night I deleted my Threads account. I have beenmostly avoiding Threads/BlueSky/Facebook for a while now but occasionally dip in to check… nothing of real importance. I only popped on last night ahead of the Scotland vs Brazil match —a match we are not gonna talk about— to share the camaraderie and whilst I was there I did a little scrolling and replied to a couple of threads. A few minutes later I got a not so nice response to my reply, then another backing it up. I’m a reasonable guy, and…

This was never the plan. In fact, if you’d asked me at almost any point in my adult life where I saw myself ending up, I’d have confidently told you it wouldn’t be here. And yet, here I am. Must Get Away Growing up in a medium sized town, near a vibrant big city (Glasgow), is nothing unique, satellite towns exist all over the world and no doubt inspire the same emotions of their teenagers: I must get away from this small place. I can’t remember exactly when that feeling began. Somewhere in my…

My first memories of World Cup football are Mexico ’86. After Jock Stein died at the end of the qualifying match against Wales the previous year, some bloke called Alex Ferguson took over as manager. Not sure what happened to him after that though. Scotland, as usual, didn’t make it out of the group stage back then, in fact the closest we’ve managed was in 1974, the year after I was born, where we lost out on goal difference by one goal. We were unbeaten in the group stage though, one win, two…

10 years ago I woke up in a tent in Glastonbury and realised that the utterly unthinkable had happened. We spent the morning, we festival goers, wandering around in a daze. It can be true?! Can’t it? It was. The magical otherworldliness of Glastonbury faded quickly that day as the real world, the horrible hateful reality, crashed over us. You can track back a lot of what is going on now in the UK to that point. The single most stupid, selfish, ill conceived idea for a referendum. There is…

I mentioned this before but I thought I’d expand on this a little. I head to Madrid for the Grand Prix in September. That’s not what this post is about but is what, by happenstance, gave me a focus. I need goals I look back at my athletic achievements (wow, that’s an odd phrase to even think about, let alone write) and they are all usually something I’ve had to plan for, something I’ve signed up for in the future knowing it will push me to exercise and give me a focus. Regardless of the reason…

I’ll leave it to Ed Davey, of all people, to sum up what I think. “The British people are sick of being let down by an endless merry-go-round of prime ministers while nothing really changes,” Davey writes on X.“This time must be different. It can’t just be about changing who’s in Number 10, it has to be about changing our broken politics so we can fix our country.” Amen. Once again the UK will be led by someone NO-ONE VOTED FOR. Yes yes, you vote for a party but let’s be honest, you vote for…

It was the Northern Solstice last night. Did you notice? There were only 4 hours of ‘night’, and yesterday was the Longest Day. Which means it’s all downhill from here until my favourite season —Autumn— before we plunge into cold wet Winter. I believe there are still some warm days ahead though and, once again, I am thankful I don’t live in the South of England because I do not envy anyone having to go about their day to day in that kind of heat. That’s HOLIDAY heat, not WORKING heat. Anyway,…

Life Notes Jack had his Nursery Graduation on Friday, cape, tasseled mortarboard and all. I still feel a bit emotional about it, a milestone and all that. He is still very much not into participation and performing though, which is a-ok because neither is his Dad! Scotland vs Morocco was excruciating to watch. At least we showed some attack intent, even if the result didn’t go our way. A draw with Brazil? I don’t see it. It’d have to be a 0-0. But then, stranger things have happened. Ditched…

A quiz! About blogging! Count me in. Apparently I’m: You are a AuthorYou love writing and have a growing backlog of posts on your website! Words are your best friend and you’re always thinking about what to write next. And… You are also a ExplorerTo you, the web feels like a library that’s open all hours and has everything you could ever imagine! You love reading others blogs, and know how important readers are to the whole of the indie web community! What type are you? Thanks for reading and…

I read a post the other day about why many men don’t want to celebrate their birthday. I am one of those men. I’ve never really given why I feel that way much thought. I’m pretty sure it’s not related to any traumatic birthday from years gone by, so it’s definitely wrapped up in a general dislike of being MADE the centre of attention and/or a dislike of enforced participation in “fun”. That makes me sound like a miserable sod, which I am not. Fathers Day holds the same kind of focus, a…

The sunlight stole softly around the edges of the blinds and drew me, gently into the morning. My son had risen before the day itself seemed properly awake, appearing at six o’clock with the certainty only children possess. It was far too early, and with little persuasion he surrendered once more to sleep. Two and a half hours later he descended the stairs, still heavy with dreams, and declared that Cheerios would be required. Obedient to his lordship’s wishes, I filled a bowl with said cereal,…

Bubbles —a site I am increasingly fond of as it’s turning up some wonderful posts and sites and people— was recently mentioned on Hackernews. I’ve followed Hackernews for a long time as a way to keep some form of view on the tech world (to which I am adjacent) but only check it every week or so. So I missed the moment when it happened, but there were signs… Can you spot when Bubbles got popular and then direct a fair chunk of traffic to my blog?? According to Benjamin Behnke, the Bubbles…

He’s almost done, big day today then only 6 weeks left then it’s time for school! Wild. Time flies and all that, and I think we’ve done a good job so far. Our boy is smart, thoughtful/sensitive, strong and healthy. He prefers outdoors to indoors, tablet time is self-regulated without us having to peel him away from it, he sleeps through the nights (mostly), he eats well, and from what we’ve heard he’s a sponge at nursery, learning more than we even realised. He is so ready for school. But first…

For those who subscribed to my RSS feeds you should, at some point, see a new title. It’s taken me far more tweaking and PHP hacking than I would’ve liked but it’s been irking me and now, I hope, it’s fixed. I’ve also removed some plugins around Webfingers, Webmentions, ActivityPub and the like, largely while I process my learnings that prompted me to write this post. Please note that I changed the title from “On the indiefediactivitymastoweb” as I didn’t want it to come across as snarky, yet…

I am geek adjacent. I lie probably slap bang in the middle of two extremes; the uber-geek/dev coder who knows internet coding and all the web server dark arts like the back of their hand, and the ‘Facebook is the internet’ person who uses the flash on their phone when taking a picture of a landscape in the dark. I have nothing against either person. Well, that’s a lie, I have criticisms of both but they are of no importance here. Who is it for? I’ve been blogging for a long time and I’ve seen…

I’ve recently been looking around for some place that isn’t Instagram, isn’t Flickr, but is a quiet place to share some of (what I consider) my better photos. I am not a photographer but I like capturing moments… So I was delighted when Peter Gombos post I wanted Bear Blog, but for my photos bubbled up into my view. I checked it out and it is both beautiful but quietly thoughtful. Here’s my photo journal and it’s safe to say I think this is a winner. It may even prompt me to upload photos more…

When I started my current job, the first couple of weeks were similar to most other places. HR induction, reams of information, sources, names, services, all thrown at me in the first few days, you know the drill. They also had set up some introductory meetings with people around the business. Not necessarily anyone I’d be working with directly, just a few people who took 30 mins out of their day to give me an overview of what they did and how they viewed the company. It was an excellent way to…

At last, I am rich!! The Coffee Saga has paid off. Thanks Manuel for the donation who, in his own words, “Donated because your post about donation was nice and also to force you to go edit it since you do have a donation now ” I have edit my post appropriately, of course, I’m all about full disclosure. Now, what to spend my riches on!! Unless someone else wants to buy me a coffee too?? Nah, that won’t happen. P.S. Manuel started the wonderful People and Blogs set of interviews (now hosted by…

Life Notes As expected, a more routine week, although I was home alone from Sunday afternoon through to Tuesday evening which meant I got to watch the WWDC Keynote on Monday evening (I skipped Tai Chi as my foot was oddly sore). An intriguing set of new stuff coming, if Siri AI works as well as it did in the ‘live’ demo’s it could finally deliver what was promised? And all the little improvements across all the other OSes will be good to see. Will I run the Public Beta on my iPhone? Probably.…

Scotland win a game at the World Cup (and top the group!!). Knicks win the NBA Finals! Sir Lewis Hamilton wins his first GP for Ferrari! Yay all round! Thanks for reading and keeping RSS alive. Visit my site for more.

I consider myself a fairly run of the mill music kinda guy. I have heard of most bands, even if it’s only a track or two. I did hospital radio for a few years, covered 60s show, 70s show, and mostly requests which were always wonderfully varied —from Jimmy Shand, to Ce Ce Peniston, via The Rolling Stones— not to mention my childhood which was dominated by the music my parents loved, Scottish folk, singer/songwriters (Sedaka et al), Status Quo and Queen. Every now and then I get a notion to go a…

We only went and won a game at the World Cup! Tense, not the greatest watch but it disnae matter! Had half an eye on the Knicks game too, been a while since they were Champions! My wife is from New York so I guess they are my second team by marriage? (Lakers for life!). Very little sleep though, up at 2am and after the Scotland win some lads across the way took their celebrations and music outside until gone 5am, so been dozing on the sofa since then. But the day, and brunch with a friend,…

It’s been a long long time. I grew up watching us playing in World Cups, every 4 years we’d snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, like clockwork! I am tempering my hopes, but this squad does feel different, feels like a team, not just the “best 11”. So, yes, I will be getting up at 2am to watch the game. Thanks for reading and keeping RSS alive. Visit my site for more.

This musing was prompted by Robb’s post about pens. I have pondered all of this before but that was a while ago so I wonder where my passion now lies. Passion is wonderful I love people who are passionate about something —as long as it’s a positive passion for a good thing, if you are passionate about being a hateful douchebag, please jog the fuck on— and it honestly doesn’t really matter what that passion is focussed on. I’ve been lucky enough to chat to people about all sorts of hobbies and…

Do note that this is a slightly sarcastic post, there is alot of sarcasm on the internet at the moment. Take a moment to reflect if you want to expose yourself to more sarcasm. There are plenty of staid and somewhat boring posts out there as well… Isn’t it odd how people see things a certain way —a way that maybe says something about their own view of the world (?)— whilst you see them an entirely different way? Yeah, I know, it’s not odd at all, it’s just the way the world is yet, knowing that…

As mentioned before, I’ve been heading to Bubbles more and more to get my little blog fix every day. Hey, I’m an addict, I’ll happily admit that! Bubbles is great, and is definitely having a moment given how often it drives traffic to this silly little blog, but it does have some limitations. I don’t know if there is a way to even adjust for these but I do occasionally find myself wondering if there was a way it could flag more about the content of the post lying behind the title. This is…

Great, now I have THAT Frozen song in my head.. Do you wanna buy a GooProooo, record all the things arrouuunnddd.. Anyway, GoPro Hero 10 Black, with loads of accessories. I bought it with grand plans of recording my cycling adventures and then, how dare he, my son was born and everything changed (in the very best ways). Rarely used. Listing here (yes on a META platform, ugh): https://www.facebook.com/share/1CwmCj27mK/ Make me an offer I can’t refuse! Wait, that’s a whole other franchise… Thanks…

As I peruse the thought pieces already spewing forth after the latest round of Apple’s announcements, one thought is blooming in my mind. What cost (mostly) on-device AI? A while ago I read something about the energy usage of an AI query, I can’t find that article now but some searches suggest the following: Google search: roughly 0.3 Wh Typical ChatGPT/Gemini text prompt: roughly 0.2–0.4 Wh Heavy reasoning or coding task: several Wh to tens of Wh To put that into perspective: Boiling a full…

In reply to my Sort your sites out note Case Duckworth takes each of my points and gives them a good grilling. There are many good points in his reply so I thought it worth unpicking them a little, alongside my original glib comments, and see where I land. As mentioned before, I write to think and understand, so this is absolutely more an exercise for me than anything else, so please bear with me. The Origins My note was based on the last few weeks clicking around a lot of new blogs and…

I’ve not watched a ‘live’ WWDC for a while now. As any parent of a 4 year old whirlwind will recognise I just don’t have the time. But said whirlwind and his mother are away for a couple of nights so I sat back on the sofa and watched the entire thing. It’s all very slick, all very nicely produced —shot on an iPhone of course— and there was the usual gamut of interesting ideas. I think overall it was a good set of updates and whilst the Siri AI stuff will play out in the coming months once it…