In this AMA post, Nigel asks me about the about the federated web and whether I think there's a future for it. It's an interesting question as I'm heavily involved in the federated web by running this blog, as well as [Fosstodon](https://fosstodon.org and [500.Social](https://500 … | Continue reading
I watched this video last night and I was utterly enthralled throughout the entire thing. In this video, a nun answers random questions all about her life, religion and a all kinds of other stuff. I'm a proud atheist, but I'm not a bigot - I'm happy to talk about things like reli … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Brian Lee Durfee 🏷 Genre: Fantasy 🗓 Published: 29 Novemeber 2022 📄 Pages: 1088 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) In the age of belief, magic is a myth. But when an apocalyptic crusade comes to the remote border of Gul Kana, that belief is … | Continue reading
A couple days ago I wrote about how my Sony WH-1000XM4 ear buds were dead and how I was on the hunt for a replacement pair. I ended up replacing the batteries instead, but did it work? After my original post I received a shit load of recommendations from you guys. They ranged fro … | Continue reading
Two and a half years ago, almost to the day, I bought my Sony WF-1000XM4 ear buds, but now they won't hold a charge, so I'm on the hunt for new ones. I started off with standard AirPods, but couldn't get a long with them, so I replaced them with the Sony buds which have served my … | Continue reading
This is the second AMA post I've written. I'm currently sat on a flight to Florida, so I'm wading through these to help quell the boredom. Anyway, Marco on Fosstodon asked this one; hopefully it will be a bit more positive than the last one. He asked: How do you cope with wife, k … | Continue reading
I recently mentioned on Mastodon that I decided to take part in the AMA challenge that's doing the rounds, this first question comes from Brandon. Brandon didn't actually ask this to me directly, he just put it out there into the ether. I thought it was a good one, so decided I'd … | Continue reading
We recently passed 2 years at our 2.5 acre smallholding. It's been another busy year where we got loads done; here's what we've been up to. I can't believe we're 2 years into this amazing adventure already. So far things are going great - we feel like we're fully embedded in the … | Continue reading
There are many things in the world that are difficult, but what is the hardest thing in the world? I hear it all the time "that's impossible!" or "there's absolutely no way anyone would EVER be able to do that!" I mean, to be fair, comments like that usually come from my kids, bu … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: RR Haywood 🏷 Genre: Thriller 🗓 Published: 16 August 2024 📄 Pages: 292 🧐 My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars) A new job awaits. Huntington House needs a live-in security guard to prevent access during an inheritance dispute. This is exactly wha … | Continue reading
500 Social has been around for a few months now and things are going well. Here’s what’s been happening… I announced 500 Social back in July and since then things have been going really well. The instance now sports around 40 members and the local timeline has a steady stream of … | Continue reading
I love my sons, but my goodness there are times I want to strangle them. Then, sometimes, they show us why it's worth it. Our youngest son is the perfect age to start pushing our buttons by constantly challenging us and generally being a little shit. We went through it with our o … | Continue reading
Do you ever go back and read your old posts? I do it now and again and I always discover something I forgot I wrote. I've always said that the content I write here, first and foremost, is for me. A very close second are all the fine people, like you, that read my drivel. With tha … | Continue reading
A few people I follow have multiple blogs that they use for various topics, but I don't really understand why. I see it a lot on the various blogs I follow; it generally goes something like... Subscribe to my RSS feed for posts about [topic A] and subscribe to my newsletter for p … | Continue reading
My wife and I recently bought an Emma Mattress, but it's since gone back because, frankly, it's shite. If you've never heard of Emma Mattresses, they're a UK based company that supplies fancy pants memory foam mattresses. They're very expensive, but they offer a 200 day money bac … | Continue reading
I've recently been down a YouTube rabbit hole about Police who abuse their position. If you were stopped by an officer, would you exercise your right to remain silent? Ok, so I'm browsing YouTube, as one often does, and I end up down this rabbit hole of videos about "corrupt cops … | Continue reading
It’s been a year since I migrated this site to Kirby CMS, let’s talk about how that’s gone… So when I wrote about migrating to Kirby CMS, I closed the post by saying: You know me, dear reader, a year from now I could well be running something completely different to power this bl … | Continue reading
I wrote about Matt's post the other day, but things have escalated significantly since then. Like, SIGNIFICANTLY. Here's my thoughts... Ok, if you're not up to date with all the WordPress drama, here's a very quick catch up with what's been going on, along with some links for fur … | Continue reading
I wanted to share some thoughts on removing content from a public blog. A couple of days ago I published a link to a post by Matt Mullenweg about the whole WordPress vs WP Engine drama. In that post, I ended with the following comment: You should probably take this post down, Mat … | Continue reading
WP Engine is not WordPress by Matt Mullenweg Matt, the co-founder of WordPress, writes about how WP Engine is a “cancer to WordPress” because they disable revisions. Read Post → Wow, Matt, salty much? This post is terrible and just screams ”I’m jealous of their success! Come use … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Dan Brown 🏷 Genre: Thriller 🗓 Published: 31 May 2011 📄 Pages: 396 🧐 My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 stars) When the National Security Agency's invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls in its … | Continue reading
Why do kids think they can get away with the most ridiculous of lies? Sometimes it's funny, but other times I want to strangle them! So the a couple evenings ago my wife and I were sitting in the kitchen having a chat after dinner, as we often do. We had sent the kids upstairs to … | Continue reading
I was recently speaking to someone in work that I mentor, and she asked me what my measure of success is. This is what I told her... So we're chatting over a coffee and talking about all manner of things (which I often do in my 1:1's with people - they're not just about work, fol … | Continue reading
Osa the Dog and the Last Goodbye by Lou Plummer Lou talks about the recent loss of his son's much loved dog, Osa. Be warned, you'll need tissues at the ready! Read Post → I know this is the second post of the day, but it's another great post that resonated me. Sorry (not sorry). … | Continue reading
The One Feature I Really Wish Mastodon Had by R Scott Jones While still in its infancy, there's one feature that Scott would *love* to see on Mastodon - the ability to post locally only. Read Post → I read this post on my RSS reader this morning and it resonated with me (and many … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Brian Lee Durfee 🏷 Genre: Fantasy 🗓 Published: 01 September 2007 📄 Pages: 911 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) Returning to the kingdom of Gul Kana, Princess Jondralyn has suffered a devastating loss, discovering that not all fortunes ar … | Continue reading
I recently had the pleasure of being upgraded to Windows 11 in work, and it's utterly shite. I've been on Windows 11 on my work laptop for a few weeks now, and I'm hating it more and more with every day of use. It ultimately boils down to the 3 issues: Inconsistent UI / UX Horren … | Continue reading
"Whenever I, or someone else, posts a link to this blog on Mastodon, it DDoS's me and brings the site down for a couple minutes." | Continue reading
I saw a post from Will recently about the CLI journalling tool, jrnl. It looked cool, but had some limitations for my needs, so I decided to build my own. Will and I had a quick chat about jrnl, and my knee-jerk reaction was to give it a try, but when I took a breath and thought … | Continue reading
I've decided to end my PenPals experiment. It's been 9 months, and it's been a lot of fun, but it's time for it to end. I've met lots of great people during this process, but unfortunately personal circumstances mean that I need to start limiting how much I take on in terms of pe … | Continue reading
Back in June I wrote about whether I've saved money by switching to an EV. But I charge my car at work quite a lot, so how much does it actually cost to charge my EV For a month? I ended the previous post by saying: Next month (July) I'm going to charge the MG only at home to giv … | Continue reading
I've had my M1 MacBook Air for 3 years now. It's the most expensive laptop I've ever owned, but was it worth it? Monday 29th July 2024 marks 3 years of M1 Air ownership, which is also the first Mac device I've ever owned. We all know they're very expensive pieces of kit, and I'm … | Continue reading
After launching 500 Social to little fanfare yesterday, Jack Baty and Dave Rogers have been having an interesting conversation about politics in communities, and I wanted to chime in, since it's focussed on 500 Social. Before we go any further, I love that the back and forth betw … | Continue reading
I've decided to go for it and start that deliberately small online community I was talking about. It's called 500 Social. I wasn't going to announce it yet, but I imported my follows into the new account and people are starting to notice, so I figured it's probably a good idea fo … | Continue reading
I've been thinking about online communities a lot lately, and had an idea about a new Masto instance, but maybe it wasn't such a good idea? I've been ruminating on what the perfect online community looks like for months. Does the perfect online community actually exist? What are … | Continue reading
Everybody's Free (To Write Websites) by Sara Joy A parody of the "Wear Sunscreen" thing from the late 90s. This is just fabulous. Read Post → I’m gonna keep this brief as you need to click that link above. This post is absolutely brilliant - Sara’s parody is fantastic in its own … | Continue reading
I have a love hate relationship with social media. In some respects it's great, but in others it's a nightmare. I'm wondering if I could give up social media entirely... I've made no secret of the fact that I've struggled with social media in the past and I've taken some steps to … | Continue reading
Back in May I wrote about an evening stroll in the field and leaving the grass to grow. Since then, things have escalated...A LOT. Ok, quick recap; we last left it with me saying that we were enjoying the paths that I had mowed into our second (and much larger) field. So we were … | Continue reading
Keenan’s “Alarmingly Concise” Summary of How They Built Their Site by Keenan In true Keenan fashion this is a long read, but it's *fantastic*. They go into great detail on the trials and tribulations of building a new Eleventy site while possessing very little development experie … | Continue reading
I was posting my usual waffle over on Fosstodon yesterday, and someone asked a question about having a personal site vs just using social media. So I naturally decided to write a post on my personal site about it. 🙃 The Fosstodon post was about the new homepage on this si … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Brian Lee Durfee 🏷 Genre: Scfi-Fi / Fantasy 🗓 Published: 22 January 2018 📄 Pages: 752 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) War has come to the Five Isles. A merciless host driven by the Angel Prince, Aeros, has its sights on the unconquered … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Brian Lee Durfee 🏷 Genre: Scfi-Fi / Fantasy 🗓 Published: 22 January 2018 📄 Pages: 752 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) War has come to the Five Isles. A merciless host driven by the Angel Prince, Aeros, has its sights on the unconquered … | Continue reading
Fighting Bots by Manu Moreale Manu talks about the ongoing issues with AI scraping the web and what are options are, as site owners, to prevent it. Read Post → I read this post during my lunch break and found myself nodding along with what Manu had wrote. Like Manu, I had read Ni … | Continue reading
Fighting Bots by Manu Moreale Manu talks about the ongoing issues with AI scraping the web and what are options are, as site owners, to prevent it. Read Post → I read this post during my lunch break and found myself nodding along with what Manu had wrote. Like Manu, I had read Ni … | Continue reading
Back in February, I switched from a dinosaur drinking Land Rover, to an EV. But has switching actually saved me money? So my Land Rover was an old 2007 jobby that I bought to handle the country roads where we live. But it transpired that short of a few days of really bad weather … | Continue reading
Back in February, I switched from a dinosaur drinking Land Rover, to an EV. But has switching actually saved me money? So my Land Rover was an old 2007 jobby that I bought to handle the country roads where we live. But it transpired that short of a few days of really bad weather … | Continue reading
Less Blogging About Blogging by Brandon's Journal Brandon talks about how he's been writing too much about blogging, and not enough about things he actually enjoys. He thinks this might bore his readers, so he’s planning to write more about personal experiences, reviews, and ever … | Continue reading
Less Blogging About Blogging by Brandon's Journal Brandon talks about how he's been writing too much about blogging, and not enough about things he actually enjoys. He thinks this might bore his readers, so he’s planning to write more about personal experiences, reviews, and ever … | Continue reading