Just saw this over on Bubbles and had to reply because I so understand how this blogger feels! Gavin writes about his Photoshop frustrations in An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop. I had also been using Photoshop for years. I admit that way back around the mid-90s, when it was totally unaffordable for skint bloggers like me, I used a pirated version. I didn’t feel bad about this as I would never have paid for it anyway. Let’s just say that while I don’t pirate software anymore, Adobe is one of…
I’ve been using Photoshop since the mid-90s. First at school, with Photoshop 3, then through work. I bought my first boxed copy of CS2 in 2005, then upgraded to CS5 in 2010. I subscribed to Photoshop Creative Cloud on day one. Today, I uninstalled it. I hope I never have to use Adobe software ever again. Photoshop used to be a joy to use. Whenever I got access to an upgraded version, I’d always have fun exploring the new features. I got really good at using it. When Adobe launched the Creative…
If you read this site regularly, then you’ll know in the past year there’s been a marked increase in “AI” spam and scams designed to try to con writers (generally, and in the emails that come here, me specifically) into sending money off to strangers for various marketing services. At this point these emails are so predictable that the vast majority of them are immediately sent to my spam folder, and those that still manage to show up in my email proper are recognizable by their subject lines,…
Link: Trump dismantled a federal climate website. These women rebuilt it., by Jenae Barnes at The 19thThis shouldn’t have been necessary, but is still wonderful to see. Climate.gov had been the go-to resource for climate data, but it went offline when the Trump Administration radically cut NOAA’s funding. At that point:“[Rebecca] Lindsey joined forces with former NOAA employees Anna Eshelman, and Mary Lindsey, her older sister, to become the core team behind the deactivated site’s successor,…
In a highly uncharacteristic move, I recently purchased a brand new device: an Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 is a minimalist e-reader that is the size of an old smartphone, but much thinner and lighter. Speaking of smartphones, a portable e-reader is great alternative to absentmindedly unlocking your smartphone and vanishing alarmingly large chunks of time. I feel much better about finishing reading a book than I do about finishing reading a list of misleading headlines. Here's what the X4 looks…
The Town Square Gazette is pleased to report that the Square has hired a team of meteorologists, together with one scientist who says they can control the weather. The meteorologists have brought charts, thermometers and a commendably serious approach to clouds. The scientist has brought several switches and declined to say where the lightning comes from. Between them, they can now arrange clear skies, rain, snow and storms. Until now, weather in the Square was managed according to the…
If you've tried installing Windows 11 recently, you'll know Microsoft really wants you to sign in with a Microsoft account. Unfortunately, the old method to bypass adding a Microsoft account stopped working. However, there's another trick to skip that and set up a local account instead. When you reach the "Let's sign in" screen (or any network/account screen during setup), press Shift + F10. This opens a Command Prompt window. Type the following and press Enter: start ms-cxh:localonly The…
What have I been up to these days?
I came across this article by Panayotis, for whom “AI-generated blog post images are not cool any more”. It’s not the first article on that topic I have read1, and I feel particularly targeted, since I use AI-generated cover images for most of my articles, this one included. I’m totally fine with that. I think it’s a usage of AI which is fun and even creative. I think it’s more original and personal than looking for and using an image I would not have created myself. For that matter, I…
Why is this an “app”? This summer, the kids’ performing arts school are singing and dancing in a show at Disneyland. We’re all very excited, but my excitement, at least, was muted a little when I was told to install the “Travelbound” app in order to get access to the itinerary, travel arrangements, and accommodation details. Fuck that noise. This should have been a webpage. Why do you want me to install a(nother) shitty app just to tell me something that could have been a (smaller, faster, more…
A return to form and function Image: Apple. In 2009, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Bertrand Serlet walked onstage and presented an audacious claim: “Zero New Features,” the slide read. Serlet, Apple’s then-senior vice president of software engineering, was introducing OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, a release Apple claimed would emphasize small “refinements” and major updates to internal technologies. But to the public, it really was “Zero New Features” — a quote forever cemented in…
They have too much data.#Contents Footnotes Every now and then I come across something that reminds me just how much data Meta has on us. A friend pointed me to this option in Meta Accounts Center called “Activity from other businesses”, which shows “activity sent from other businesses or organizations to show you relevant content.” Their main help page doesn’t even work in my region :/ I thought I’d already turned off all the data-farming settings, but apparently not. To my surprise, I found…
Two and a half years ago, I found a piece of paper in our parcel box, asking if anyone would consider becoming a governor of a local primary school. I ummed and aahed about it, and decided to express an interest. Within a few minutes I had arranged a visit to the school, and within a few days, I was a governor. I did a lot of training, and spent the first 12 or so months trying to work out what on earth was going on. Being a school governor, and in particular understanding school accounting,…
I found this diary comic from (checks notes) five years ago. In last Friday’s email, I wrote: In the “Who’s having fun?” section of Don’t Call It Art, I quote Ed Emberley saying, “I am determined to have fun doing my work… if I’m enjoying myself then that feeling is passed on to the reader.” Somebody who seems like she’s having a lot of fun right now is cookbook author Julia Turshen, who recently published a romance novel. (“I feel more relaxed about this than I’ve felt about anything in my…
I love taking notes, but one problem that I have is that that I start cherishing every notebook that I start. I can't seem to keep my notes messy. Eventually, I start structuring the notes, doing cleaner handwriting, adding a cover or some stickers ... and before I know it, the notebook is too well-organised for simply scribbling into. This, of course, raises the hurdle for taking more notes and makes me start a new notebook, where the same process repeats again. It's a vicious circle. It won't…
It’s been a little over two months since I wrote about wanting to go a little more analogue with parts of my workflow. I bought pens. I bought a notebook. Now what? Have they been collecting dust in a drawer somewhere or have I actually been using them?My current notebook is definitely not dusty, but I also haven’t been using it as much as I would like. So far its been a bit of a on and off relationship. During the periods when I do get into the groove of using it I’m absolutely seeing the…
Another week, another heatwave. Not much activity this week as we've been too busy hiding from the Sun. Having said that, I've continued my trend of losing weight! It may have something to do with the heat suppressing my appetite, but I'll take it as a win. I'm now down to where I was about 18 months ago, and I am starting to feel the difference in clothes which is rather motivational. 🎮 GamingOn the gaming front this week, it was once again too hot for me to want to sit in my study in the…
Ever since I’ve had a website, I’ve been curious to know who is visiting it and what they do while they’re there. Am I posting into an empty space, or is somebody actually reading? I don’t need (or desire) to write about the development and ethics of the analytics industry - we all know what Google is doing with our data. Instead I want to write about collecting data with respect for our readers. Because it is possible. The biggest attraction to me is knowing what parts of my website people are…
What happens when you mention to your D&D group, who mostly have ADHD, that your tumble dryer is broken? Free labour! About six months ago, my tumble dryer started making a small grinding sound, as if something had been dislodged. Past Phill decided that this was very much a Future Phill problem. Two weeks ago Future Phill had to deal with Past Phill’s laziness when the dryer began vibrating itself off the shelf it was on. Our tumble dryer (a DV70F5E0HGW/EU) was manufactured in 2014 (in Korea),…
Markdown - 2 lines # Contact forms Is any channel worse for communication than a contact form? Maybe a postcard when you don't know the address. Minimal HTML - 10 lines <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Contact forms</title> </head> <body> <h1>Contact forms</h1> <p>Is any channel worse for communication than a contact form? Maybe a postcard when you don't know the address.</p> </body> </html> Real world HTML - 42 lines + image + CSS file <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta…
Link: White House Directed Patel to Oversee Investigation Involving Times Reporting, by Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman at the New York TimesThe White House personally directed FBI Director Kash Patel to issue subpoenas to journalists reporting on the President’s new Qatari-gifted Air Force One.“The White House’s deep involvement in the case came after officials said that President Trump was enraged about the coverage of the Qatari-donated plane, which The Times reported…
Gareth's been in a mood all week. Turns out it started with a hosting bill. Not his own, mind. He doesn't have a website. Gareth thinks websites are for people who've run out of pub to shout in. But he heard about someone switching platforms, and it set him off on one of his tangents, the kind that starts with "you know what really gets me" and ends forty minutes later with him accusing a cookie banner of moral cowardice. Apparently someone had moved from a platform that wanted to squeeze money…
Juliette wrote last week about Deadpan photography. I was intrigued because it’s a term I had seen start appearing all over the place lately and I wasn’t sure what it was. So I did a deep dive to understand for myself (unpublished on Substack as it’s not an opinion piece). But in turn it got me thinking about what Deadpan was doing and how. Andreas Gursky, 99 Cent (1999), image found on Flikr Look at Andreas Gursky’s 99 Cent. Let your eye travel along those shelves. Notice the grid, the…
From my phone, I noticed that my website was displaying footnote backlink glyphs as emoji in my RSS reader. It had not always been this way. I opened the same page from a desktop browser and saw what I expected to see: a text-like pictograph, in my article body’s font face. No emoji to be found. I checked the HTML document source: <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink"> ↩ </a> The RSS feed XML contained the same. So, that can be presented as either text or an…
We often forget how inexpensive it is (often free, in fact) it is to completely make someone’s day/week/year or, even, give them a memory they will cherish for life.
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might remember one of my posts from just over five years ago showcasing a brand called Waxing Kara that sold honey, candles, tea, and skincare products. Well, I’m happy to say their brand is doing better than ever, and has actually changed to Bee Inspired. Same great small-batch honey and quality products, just with a new name. Because of their new name and website, the owner actually emailed me to reconnect and see if I wouldn’t mind replacing…
I'm just so bored of talking about AI. It's like listening to vapers tell me how delicious their flavoured poison is. Did you ever meet someone at university who'd just tried drugs for the first time? Listening to a stoner ramble on about their mystic crystal revelations is amusing for the first five minutes, but quickly gets tiresome. Wow! You got your little computer friend to automate calling your mum? Great job, mate! Can we talk about something interesting now? Just as bad are the people…
You share your blog post on X, Facebook, Bluesky, etc and you know it will be presented so much better if it has an image. Sometimes it's easy. You blog about something that has a visual element and it's easy to use a diagram, a product photo, a landscape —you would have done it anyway. But many times, you just want to share a thought or an idea, or some code. In the past, the only way for most of us was to hunt for images under Creative Commons licenses. Writting a post about the history of…
I came across Martijn’s post on Bubbles today and would like to take this opportunity to answer his question… I can already hear you complaining that you shouldn’t use tables for layout. Why exactly? CSS is simple, stop making it hard Or: how to embrace 1997 CSS blog.brixit.nl All of us (with 40+ years under our belts) used tables in the late 90s to achieve the holy grail of layout … HEADERNAV | CONTENT | ADSFOOTER … BUT … back then, on the one hand, we had no other options, and on the other,…
I started posting Trump losses in 2025. It’s more of a job than I expected. After taking periods off, including in spring, I started again with a June 8th ruling. This time I tried to be systematic and find and post every single case. I stopped again on July 7 (though, like mail-in ballots, a few came in after the postmark). I found 31 during that 30-day span (though of course courts don’t issue decisions on weekends). 22 of the losses were in district courts, 4 were in appeals courts, and 5…
