and another thing...

The UK's Online Safety Act was designed with good intentions – to make the internet safer, especially for children, and to hold big tech companies accountable. However, as implementation begins in 2025, an alarming unintended consequence has emerged: thousands of small, community-focused websites across the UK are facing an existential threat. The legislation currently captures an incredibly broad range of online services – from personal blogs with comments sections to small gaming forums, hobb...

My paternal grandfather died in October 1957. My dad was twelve years old at the time. He was the oldest of three boys. From the pictures I have seen and the stories I've heard it seems his dad was a good man. A family man who loved his wife and kids. Last weekend I visited my parents. They'd recently got back from New Zealand. They'd gone to see my brother. He's lived there with his wife and family for the last twenty years odd years. I'd recently been reading my dad's blog posts from the tim...

Nearly finished planning a couple of weeks cycle touring in Ireland. All along the west coast is what's called the Wild Atlantic Way. A 1600 miles (2600 km) coastal route from the Inishowen Peninsula in the north down to Kinsale, County Cork, in the south. There are numerous Discovery Points. Of these fifteen are designated as Signature Discovery Points (SDP). These places are said to be especially unique and shape the image of Ireland’s west coast. The prevailing wind direction is between so...

...

The Eddington number (E) for cycling is the maximum number where a cyclist has ridden E miles on E distinct days. For example, an E-number of 100 means you have cycled at least 100 miles on 100 different days. It need not be cycling. You could use it for any activity of interest. Mr. Arthur Stanley Eddington came up with the calculation. His primary interest was in astronomy, physics, and math. He also rode a bike. His life time Eddington number was 84. I have a lot of rides logged on ...

Over the weekend I was reading Annie's blog, "Talk about the thing itself - God help me, fediverse, we have got to stop being so pedantic". In her post Annie discusses how to better introduce and promote the Fediverse (decentralised social media platforms) to new users. Annie includes a formula to explain why people resist change - where the rewards and pain relief of switching must outweigh both the costs of changing and the existing value they get from current platforms. The pain you’re esca...

Nothing that can't quickly be found out elsewhere. May save you the bother. They might not reflect best practice. Post dated --- created_at: 2007-08-20 20:29:05 --- The above must be placed at the very top of the note to work as intended. Center align image <img style="display:block;margin:auto" src="IMAGE_URL_HERE"> Center align and make the image clickable and link to a webpage <a href="PAGE_URL_HERE" target="_blank"> <img style="display:block;margin:auto" src="...

Trump. Not discounting the fact I perceive things through a filter bubble of my own making, it seems to me it's common knowledge the man is vile, mean spirited, greedy, bullying (add whatever nasty characteristic you like here) person. All that aside I found it funny to read this morning that he'd signed an executive order to reverse a ban on the use of plastic straws. I guess he must have been at a loose end and was looking for anything he could practice his signature on. My job. I really lik...

I rode a 300k yesterday. An orbit of greater London. The route roughly follows the course of the M25 motorway. It passes through each of the original home counties (Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Surrey) starting and ending in Kent. I planned it for an audax DiY. This months ride to keep my RRtY bid going. The weather was in keeping with the time of year. Grey and drizzly. It was not especially cold. There was little wind to speak of. The route I submitted on my en...

The blogopshere era. In my mind from early 2000s to the early/mid 2010s. I kept a blog back then. Blogger was the first platform I tried. Before much time passed I jumped to WordPress and stayed with it. Having my own domain name, control over where I hosted the blog, and liberation from Google's growing influence and control. This all informed my thinking at the time. Whatever I posted to Blogger has long been lost to me. Whilst my musings now are still are poorly composed, roughly thought o...

...

Reading lots this week that has been infused with anger in a corner of the internet I have recently been frequenting . The inauguration of Donald Trump was I think a trigger. I am in no doubt the anger was motivated by wanting to address injustice and to help and protect others. Sadly that seemed compromised at times. I think the line between righteous and self righteous anger became blurred. Emotional outbursts. Personal attacks. Damaged relationships. Judgemental critique. Piling on. Ridicul...

Cycling lends itself to the wandering mind. Similar to ear worms some ideas emerge that have a stickability to them. Ideas which are good for pondering on over a few miles. One of these is the question: on a route starting and ending at the same point is the elevation the same regardless of which way you might choose to ride round?   Intuition tells me that elevation and distance should be very close to equal. Every uphill section in one direction is a downhill section in the other direction. El...

Will you tell the government you want more money for cycling? The UK government is currently preparing its first multi-year spending review since 2021. This is a rare opportunity to secure long term funding commitments for cycling, as it will set department budgets for the next few years. They want to hear what you think should be prioritised in the spending review. Cycling UK The government wants more people cycling, but isn't backing it with enough money. In 2020, they set an ambitious tar...

My use of social media has been on and off over the years. It's taken a very long time and many instances of having an online presence to understand how to use social media in a joyful way. Inner work around how I experience others and their experience of me has helped get me here. Think I've got it now. Social media is a space for meaningful connections rather than a broadcasting platform or receiving station. Oh you don't say! Yeah I know. We're all different though. I'm quicker with some t...

Reflecting on Fisher’s Capitalist Realism that it is "easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism". Wondering about the wildfires in LA. Thinking that those with lived experience of it may well be imagining both with a heightened sense of acuity right now. Fisher’s observation that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” reflects how deeply entrenched capitalist realism has become, especially in wealthy countries. In Los ...

I do like this time of year. I also like Mondays, change and novelty. I like being able to start again. Over and over again. Yesterday I got rid of my Mastodon account. This was for the third time. I'd been giving it a go this time round since October 23rd last year. Working my way through the settings. Putting up a profile. Finding people and accounts to follow. Creating lists. Scanning through timelines. Responding to the odd post. Good feelings from posts being marked a favourite or boosted...

Not sure why but this morning I am thinking about being distracted. Not as a distraction. That would not be odd though. Noticing the frequency of distractions. I deleted my Mastodon instance. I stopped scrolling through the news. I wrote a reminder to my self asking, "Are you distracted, what are you avoiding". distract (v.) late 14c., distracten, "to turn or draw (a person, the mind) aside or away from any object; divert (the attention) from any point toward another point," from Latin distr...

With a bit of a push through December I passed 10,000 miles for the year. Well pleased. At the start of 2024 I'd set out to cover 10,000 km. I reached that in August so stretched the goal to miles. It was far from certain pretty much from then until the end of the year. No riding during the first two weeks of September due to symptoms associated with Covid. Got back out though and continued to ride regular 40 - 50 km loops with one or more rides a month of a least 200km. On my second year of R...

Getting closer everyday. Todays ride took me over the 15,000km mark. When I was at school we used to run the 1,500m. Back then I'm sure we were told that equaled a mile. It doesn't. It's close but it's not quite a mile. I wish it was. It would make converting kilometers to miles a lot tidier. Not to old and grumpy to not still be buzzed when I come across a fallen tree on the road. It takes all sorts. I wanna' be in the dog shit gang. Looks worse that it was. ...

November done. Made good progress towards getting 10,000 miles in for the year. With just December left I'm going to have to put in some regular miles to make it. Luckily I'm in a phase of getting out for a ride on my bike every evening. Been a week or so now without missing a day. It's the way it is with habits. Ask James Clear he'll tell you. Once a routine is established it happens without much thought at all. Got my bike clothes sorted out so don't have to think about what I will wear...

I say I've phoned someone when I make a Teams call. I buy digital music and save it to my laptop. I sometimes listen to music with an mp3 player. I still use a digital camera. I guess that might seem old fashioned. Maybe using that term is old fashioned. I have no idea. To get to the point... Maybe you are one of what I imagine is only a few people who have wondered how you can update the GPS assist data on your Panasonic FT5 digital camera since Panasonic stopped supporting the download of thi...

A heavy rain of copper coins falling from the sky. Mentioned this to my son (4 of 4) yesterday. He pondered how great it would be if we could have multiplayer dreams. A dream server. Being able to invite other people into our dreams. I was giving him a lift to football training. His team won their match today. He scored. Out on the bike yesterday and today. The weather was grey, misty and damp on both days. It was not especially cold. I enjoy it all the same whatever the weather. Every rid...

Nowadays I work from home other than 1 or 2 days a month. My work rate is somewhat greater than what seems the norm. This is mostly down to using LLMs to get things done. I have been open about this. The use of LLMs has not yet widely been adopted within my workplace despite co-pilot being made available. I use that sometimes but find Claud via Perplexity much better for many of the tasks I'm given to do. This means I am often way ahead of where it's assumed I will be by my line managers. Slow...

Sometimes all I can do is to simply tweak things when not inspired to think of something new. That was the case with tonight's ride. I couldn't think of another route I wanted to ride whilst still fancying something different. Decided to go with it anyway but in the opposite direction than to what I usually go and with slightly different first few miles. It worked out well. It felt different whilst not losing any of the qualities I like about the route. ...

The route to work in my last job in mental health nursing. Rode it pretty much every working day between May 2020 - June 2024. The artwork in the underpass has been there for around 9 months. Surprisingly it's been left largely untouched by tags. Snodland. The home town of Judge Dread where a road was named in his honor (Alex Hughs Close). 1970s reggae singer infamous for his risque lyrics and ribald humour. 40 Big Ones ...

Decided to stick with the theme of the days bike ride for the rest of this week Here's the ride I did today. I used to follow this route or variation thereof on workdays between November 2009 - November 2013. Back then I managed a children's home on the route. It was a tough job. Not so tough as what the children and young people went through prior to and most likely after leaving there. We did our best to make it as good as we could. For many it was no more than an unwanted stop g...

Bit of a throwback. The route I followed this evening was one I followed many many times in 2015. In 2015 I rode every day of the year and some. I reached 407 days before breaking the streak. I had a vasectomy. I was advised to give riding a miss for a week or so. It seemed like good advice. In 2015 I cycled 18,188km. Not beaten that distance since. This years been pretty good though. 14,416km to date. My target was 10,000km. I hit that in August so stretched things a bit and have been goi...

Storm Bert. It was pretty windy on Sunday. I'd resolved to get out on my bike. Thought perhaps a route with hedgerows and hills may have helped avoid some of the wind. It did a bit. It was still very windy though. ...

On a couple of rides I have been struck by the sight of these letter boxes from Victoria's reign. This one was very near Low Dinsdale, about 10km SE from Darlington Wall boxes like these were introduced in 1857. Pillar boxes were expensive to produce. A cheaper way of providing remote collection facilities was needed. The answer lay in providing a cast iron box that could be installed into an existing wall where such a location conveniently existed. Just across the road from the reservoi...