more of the same
To mark this blog's fourth anniversary, I gave it a bit of a refresh, both visual and technical.…
•stocktaking•
the map of Whorlton
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a work in progress, and always will be. All maps that try to keep up with the world as it changes are.…
patriotism and habitus
After a decade of living in the midlands, I realised that I didn't like it there and missed living in the North, the part of England that I come from. After a second decade, I was starting to feel desperate…
LGBT+ for beginners
The language around sexual orientation has changed quite a lot over my lifetime. I regularly hear people around me, and in the media, use terms around gender and sexuality carelessly or wrongly…
making of
Encouraged by Tess (and inspired by the Second Life machinima she's been making) I was spurred to start learning a new skill I've been meaning to get into for ages…
fireman
When I think of this poetic line of dialogue from the Buffy episode *restless* I'm reminded of this fireman…
puppy
I got a puppy this month; last time I got an 8 week old labrador pup was in 1998. It's all pretty familiar though…
creative self-portraits
I've used flickr for nearly a decade as a convenient way of sharing my photos. But as well as using it to share my own work, I also participate in flickr groups…
bucket lists
I keep stumbling across “bucket lists” (things to do before you kick it) on the internet. Evidently it's a big, popular thing. I suspect most of them are made by young people, just setting out on their adult life. Travel…
cycling on TV
As I settle in to watch some of this year's Giro d'Italia on satellite TV, I feel lucky to have enough time to spare to watch road races unfold live, rather than relying on "highlights" (inevitably focussing on the end…
virtual worlds
Virtual worlds have come a long way since I first got access to computer networks in the second half of the 1980s. MUDs were like the text adventure games I enjoyed (and had written a couple of on my BBC…
why blog?
I made my first personal “homepage” in 1994 when I set up my then employer's first web server. I developed that into a website in the 1990s, as a way of learning web design, then in the 2000s I used…