✍️ Written by: Larry Correia 🏷 Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy 🗓 Published: 2019-02-05 📄 Pages: 385 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) Following (link: https://kevquirk.com/son-of-the-black-sword text: the first book), Ashok Vadal and the Sons of the Black Sword … | Continue reading
I recently wrote about how I was thinking about a new layout on this site. After taking some time to think it through, I've now published it. I've never been totally happy with the menu being at the top, so I wanted to use the extra horizontal space that laptop/desktop screens of … | Continue reading
A couple days ago, I wrote about how my beautiful fire eel, Eric, managed to jump out of his tank. Here's an update... I'll keep this brief, as I don't want to dwell on it too long, but I last left you saying that he was in a bad way and it wasn't looking good. But I was secretly … | Continue reading
My largest, and one of my favourite, fish (my fire eel) jumped out of his tank last night. He's managed to survive...so far. I generally work from home on a Friday, and today was no different. So I got up, got myself and the kids ready, and headed to my home office. The room was … | Continue reading
I've been thinking about making some changes to the layout of this site, but I'm on the fence. What do you think of these mockups? I like the menu that I use on this site, but it does take a lot of space up, especially on mobile. So I've been ruminating on what I can do to improv … | Continue reading
I've decided to clear some space in my collection and sell a few of my watches. There's 7 of them up for sale, if you're interested, get in touch (eBay links at the end). A collection of 50 watches is probably excessive, so I'm thinning out the heard a little. But, let's be hones … | Continue reading
Email Privacy by Niq Bernadowitsch Niq talks about segregating your email and not publishing your personal email where possible. One email address ain't gonna cut it these days. Read Post → This post really resonated with me, and it's … | Continue reading
I recently bought my first electric vehicle (EV). It has been an interesting adjustment, but am I glad I switched from diesel? I've been thinking about getting an EV for a while now, but the whole range anxiety thing, coupled with the high cost of purchasing an EV, has always put … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy Published: 2022-09-28 Pages: 0 🧐 My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 stars) The groundbreaking audio production of what Los Angeles Times Magazine called “the grea … | Continue reading
Where I'm at on the Whole CSS-Tricks Thing by Chris Coyier Chris talks about the challenges he's faced since selling CSS-Tricks to Digital Ocean, and where his head has been at since. Read Post → I read this post while I was in bed la … | Continue reading
I started the #100DaysToOffload challenge back in April 2020, but I've never been able to complete it. That has now changed. 100 posts in the space of a year doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually very difficult to do. So much so that I've never been able to complete my own … | Continue reading
I just finished my latest month-long conversation with this month's PenPal, Joel Chrono. I really enjoyed my conversation with Joel. We both have so much in common, from blogging, to Rubik's Cubes, to watch collecting. This was a really enjoyable month for me, thanks Joel! Read o … | Continue reading
Since launching my guestbook yesterday, I've been hit with a bunch of spam entries. I forgot how much "fun" it is dealing with this shit. My guestbook seems to have gone down a treat - since launching it, a lot of people have signed it (psst, go sign it yourself). This is great, … | Continue reading
After seeing Manu's guestbook, I had to get in on the action, so I've decided to create my own guestbook. I won't go into detail about my love of the old web, and the indie web. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows how I feel about all that. If you don't know, and you don't … | Continue reading
I recently wrote about how YouTube was throttling my connection. I'm sick of YouTube's shenanigans, so I've ditched them...kind of. After publishing that post a lot of people got in touch to say they were experiencing similar issues with YouTube, and many gave me tips on how they … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Larry Correia Genre: Scf-fi / Fantasy Published: 2015-10-15 Pages: 476 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) After the War of the Gods, the demons were cast out and fell to the world. Mankind was nearly er … | Continue reading
My first ever blog was hosted on Blogger, and Google loves to delete shit, so I've decided to replicate that site and host it myself. I first started blogging back in 2011, but back then I didn't know much about web design or hosting (I still don't!), so I decided to use Google's … | Continue reading
My journey to stop being a fat boy by the age of 40 continues. I'm 6 months in, so let's see how we're doing... Cast your mind back to January, dear reader. The Christmas aftermath had hit and I'd upped my weight from 102.9kg to 105.8kg. Like I said last time, I knew I was going … | Continue reading
And once again, the mower has shit the bed and I'm having to spend what little spare time I have fixing it. At least this time it isn't a belt... Winter is coming to an end and the grass will start growing again soon, which means the our plucky little ride-on mower needs to come … | Continue reading
So last night it was all over the news that there were going to be "Severe Snow Storms" across North Wales today. In true British fashion, the entire country lost its shit. Schools are closed. No one is going to the office. The economy has ground to a halt. Send help! Even Apple … | Continue reading
After nearly 6 weeks, I've decided to end my extended trial of Kagi search. It gives little value over DuckDuckGo and is a waste of money. Cast your mind back a few weeks, dear reader. I wrote about how I was trialling Kagi search. Deciding the 100 free searches wasn't enoug … | Continue reading
YouTube has felt really sluggish when navigating between pages recently, and I think it's a deliberate thing by them, because I'm using an ad-blocker. I don't have the fastest internet connection at home, but it's fast enough. I have fibre to the cab, and I average around 30Mbps … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: RR Haywood Genre: Sci-fi Published: 2023-03-01 Pages: 524 🧐 My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars) When nearly every person on the planet becomes frozen a small group of survivors must navigate the darkest si … | Continue reading
Rach Turned off Analytics by Rach Smith Rach now finds her analytics boring because her site is starting to rank on search, and they only really show her that data. Read Post → People who arrive via search are just looking to get a qu … | Continue reading
If you don't know, I work in the InfoSec / cyber / whatever you want to call it industry. So why don't I write about InfoSec here on this blog? If you take a look through my blogroll, there's lots of cool people, writing cool stuff, often about what they're passion about, and wha … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy Published: 2022-08-22 Pages: 0 🧐 My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 stars) Enter the Dreaming again as the blockbuster audio adaptation of “the greatest epic in t … | Continue reading
I've been trying Kagi Search for the last couple of weeks; my trial has now ended and I've decided to subscribe. Here's why... There was a lot of chatter about Kagi over on the fediverse recently. Some good, some bad. I'd heard of Kagi before and I know a few people who use it; o … | Continue reading
I've added a feature where you can click a button and visit a random post. I wasn't able to find this documented with Kirby, so thought I'd share how I did it in case is helps others. I thought I'd add a random post button to my search page. It's more for fun than anything else; … | Continue reading
After renovating the Garage, it's still very cold in there, thanks to Welsh winters. I have a small electric heater, but it wasn't good enough, so I upgraded. Back in early January, while off work for the Christmas break, I decided it was a good time to service one of my motorbik … | Continue reading
I love RSS. My RSS feed reader is the page I visit most on web, I think. So it's very frustrating when folks update their site, but don't redirect their RSS feed - please remember to do it, people. My RSS feed reader of choice is Miniflux, which has a great progressive web app (P … | Continue reading
So Christmas has come and gone in a flash. There was much eating, drinking and merriment, but what impact did that have on my *Fat Boy at 40* challenge? Just before Christmas, I let you know that I was making great progress and had managed to drop my weight from 110.9kg to 102.9k … | Continue reading
Let's Make the IndieWeb Easier by Giles Turnbull Giles thinks we need more options for independent online publishing than WordPress, and they should be *extremely* simple to use. Read Post → I completely agree with Giles on this. Here … | Continue reading
I saw a post on Mastodon recently asking about folk's opinions on Marriage. I replied, but thought I'd write my thoughts out here in a longer form. Here's the post as it appeared on Mastodon (thanks to Mastopoet for creating the screenshot): Personally, I think marriage is overra … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Elspeth Beard Genre: Non-fiction Published: 2017-07-06 Pages: 407 🧐 My rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars) In 1982, at the age of just twenty-three and halfway through her architecture studies, Elspeth Beard … | Continue reading
When Will I Stop Blogging? by Matt Birchler Matt asks “Here’s an uncomfortable question: when do I stop blogging?” Read Post → This is something I was thinking about a few days ago actually, and something I’ve kinda noodled in the pas … | Continue reading
Last night I read Manu's post, "Yet another year of living without" where he talks about giving stuff up for an entire year. I've decided to do something similar. In his post, Manu mentions a previous challenge where he gave up different things for a month at a time. That's what … | Continue reading
I've been a biker for a long time...20 years this year, actually. While having one of my many email conversations recently, a reader asked me to write about the motorbikes I've owned over the years. I thought that was a great idea, so here they are... Having sat down and worked i … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy Published: 2020-07-15 Pages: 0 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) Hailed by the Los Angeles Times Magazine as “the greatest epic in the history of comic … | Continue reading
I love motorbikes, but back in October 2016 I had a head-on collision with a van, which I caught on video. Here's the story... It's Wednesday the 26th October 2016, I have the day off work, it's a nice day (for Autumn) so I decide to go out on my bike for the day. My wife was goi … | Continue reading
So I've been at this whole FatBoy thing since August. As a quick recap, I don't want to be fat when I hit 40, in August 2024, so I'm trying to fix it. When last I updated you, I was at 106.4kg (234lbs), felling good and making progress. So here's where I'm at as of this last Mond … | Continue reading
Lots of people on Mastodon have been losing their shit over Threads joining the fediverse, so I wanted to give my opinion on this whole shit show. The fediverse is awash with calls to block Threads at an instance level. As co-admin of Fosstodon, I've been asked on many occasions … | Continue reading
In a moment of madness I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I decided to sign up for Threads. Problem is, I don’t have an Instagram account (I didn't realise one was required). …and so, still wanting to sign up and test it out, I signed up for Instagram. I entered a d … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Ian M. Banks Genre: Sci-Fi Published: 2008-09-08 Pages: 545 🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars) The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very sta … | Continue reading
The next step in the reonvations at home, is the garage (my workshop). Difference being this time, is that I did it myself. Since spending all our savings on the first stage of the renovations during our first year at the smallholding, the next step was to renovate the garage. Ho … | Continue reading
PenPals by Brandon Brandon talks about a number of connections he’s made over the years from having PenPals. Read Post → I read this post and thought it was chock full of lovely stories from Brandons past (and present) with his PenPal … | Continue reading
✍️ Written by: Kaleb Cooper Genre: Non-fiction / comedy Published: 2022-10-13 Pages: 224 🧐 My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 stars) Chipping Norton's celebrity farmer Kaleb Cooper has strong views on lots of things: sheep ('s … | Continue reading
I'm ashamed to say that I contributed to badger cruelty, and I feel horrendous because of it. This post contains details that some people my find upsettings (I know I did). A few weeks ago I started wet shaving again, and when buying my little shaving kit, I purchased a "badger b … | Continue reading
Since deciding to start the whole PenPal thing, I wanted a way of managing those posts from within my CMS. This is how I did it... When I first started emailing Jarrod Blundy, I threw together a custom post type for these PenPal posts, but it was clunky and awkward. Since I inten … | Continue reading