Archives: Notes

In reply to: this post

But there’s something else I need to test to make sure I am really 🙂

For some reason posting emoji from my site to mastodon was broken (which made me colon sad face colon) but I think I’ve fixed it (which makes me 🙂).

This article on ABC News goes in to the history of haemophiliacs contracting Hep C and HIV via blood products. Clotting products come from hundreds of donors so sufferers were disproportionately affected by infected blood donations. 

While I’m glad to be able to donate blood at long last, I never really objected to not being able to because of the history of contaminated blood products. 

The current questionnaire focuses on whether someone has multiple sexual partners, regardless of gender or sexual preference, which I think is a significant improvement. But I understand why it took a long time. 

I’ve finally got my hands on a copy of the Artisanal Sudoku book by James Sinclair. I subscribe to his newsletter so buying the book was always going to happen.

I tried getting it from an Australian retailer but after a couple of orders got cancelled, gave up and bought it from Amazon. I guess that’s the way with niche books these days.

New Bobby Fingers. This is not a drill.

New profile pic as my last one reaches it’s tenth anniversary.

📸 Claudio Schwarz at WCEU 2026.

MyGov email me to let me know I’ll need to change my password next time I log in.

That’s not how security works but sure.

Your password can not exceed 64 characters

You’re storing passwords in plain text, aren’t you?

Your password can only contain a subset of special characters

You’re not confident you are escaping SQL queries correctly, are you?

Someone on Mastodon posted an aging joke that included the phrase “in your thirties”.

Point one: Fuck Off.

Point two: See point one but in all caps.

Tonight on Masterchef Australia. 

We’re contractually obliged to deliver the same number of episodes whether or not we need a second chance episode.

This year, we do not. 

At this point, I am half expecting Hughesy‘s own manager to start shit-talking him on social media.

In reply to: this post

I finally got around to unplugging the smart TV and replacing the smarts with an Apple TV box. Y’all were right, it’s so much better.

Accepting some risk of confirmation bias, my perception is that the TV remote is becoming responsive much quicker with the TV in dumb mode.

Samsung have dialed back on the really offensive ads they were injecting in to the menu. However, I reckon that’s because introductory pricing has passed.

It appears that people with hidden phones will need to ensure they are shut down for a some time around the AusAlert test on Monday.

They need to be shut down from 1pm Monday until at least 2pm Tuesday:

Ms McBain said people with concealed phones, who may be at risk of domestic violence, can turn them off or put them on aeroplane mode at least an hour ahead of Monday’s test, and for at least 24 hours after.

via ABC News.

It’s only ten weeks since Dave Hughes went the full Dave Hughes.

Who would have predicted that Dave Hughes Pissing would become a legitimate, safe-for-work, google search?!

If you’re running a version of WordPress affected by wp2shell (6.9 or 7.0) and are waiting until Monday to update, please don’t. Scripts are doing the rounds to exploit the issue.

If you have auto-updates enabled and are waiting until Monday to make sure they have successfully updated, please check now. 

This is one of those issues in which you need to act NOW or you’re leaving it too late. 

See the WordPress 7.0.2 announcement post for more details. 

“AI generated event”

Look, there’s an ics file attached to the email. AI does not and should not be involved.

A lot of companies need to get over their AI everything obsession and remember that if statements exist.

There’s an Argentinian Bar I pass each morning as I walk to the supermarket. Unsurprisingly, it was going off past at around 7:30 this-morning.

I’ve just booked in my first ever blood donation. They announced the change to eligibility rules just after returned from India so I needed to wait. Travel delayed my first plasma donation so, at the very least, I am consistent.

The person at the blood bank told me I have a very good blood type. I’m putting it on my LinkedIn.

Stan subscribers, if you want a 30% discount for three months go to account settings > cancel account > 30% off for three months.

I’m trying to figure out how to prefer local sources with variable fonts. Do you need to do multiple @font-face rules, each pointing to the webfont file? Eg:

font-weight 400, src: local('Font'), url(./variable-font.woff)...

font-weight 700, src: local('Font Bold'), url(./variable-font.woff)...

The Pam the Bird Wikipedia article has received a spike in edits over the last day. Who’d have thought it‽

I hit a 300 day streak on the LinkedIn six-by-six Sudokus today. I got a really good time too. 🤓

To make PayID more secure, you should prevent the pasting of phone numbers in to the PayID field so people need to enter the number manually because people don’t make typos.

According to one of my banks, anyway…

In reply to: this post

No, this is not a sub-post of the team that fixed this bug on GitHub Actions without, apparently, including tests to ensure it doesn’t return at a later date. Either that, or failed to check the tests failed without to fix.

As I say, this is not a sub-post of that team. I want to make that very clear.

Swears in Australian.

Actually…

SWEARS IN AUSTRALIAN.

Breaking news: Australia’s tax system favours boomers.

Stunned. Stunned, I tell you.

I am sorely tempted to disconnect my Samsung smart TV from the internet and use an Apple TV box instead. Is the latter full of ads too?

I missed this at the time but apparently the Melbourne White Elephant is to reopen. Once again people will be able to spend half-an-hour locked in a bubble taking in the extraordinary views of apartment blocks, the Costco roof and shipping containers at the docks.

This is a long shot but I am looking for the post content and post meta for a Facebook oEmbed in WordPress before they closed their oEmbed endpoint behind a API token.

This would be a FB post embeded in mid-2020 or earlier.

About to get on a bird to fly home. Between the conference and visiting friends it’s been a great but exhausting couple of weeks. I’m going to need a holiday to recover from my trip. That’s the sign of a good trip, I guess.

The London Underground’s Northern Line needs a cuddle to get its shit together. A line does not fork, let alone multiple times.

My niece has been house sitting for us this week and, apparently, was a little put out that she didn’t get instant love from the cat. Overnight reports are that the cat tried to sleep on her face last night.

It’s love.

In reply to: this post

We ended up ordering the Sweet & Sour Pig Head for our main dish. Our waiter, Lockie, helped explain how to carve the pig so we could get to the best meat after starting it off with a Liverpool kiss.

Two of the people had allergies at the table and they waiter that sat us, Jordan, spent a good deal of time going through the menu with each of them to make sure we all had a great experience.

When I got into cooking YouTube, one of the channels I started watching regularly was the Fellow Restaurant’s.

One of the first things we did for our London trip was book a meal there. Jack Croft happened to be in on Monday so we got a snap toward the end of our meal. He was lovely and spent a good few minutes with us.

He and I discussed cooking eggs, of all things.

In London people pay for seats in parks as a tribute to a loved one. This is Bob. Someone really loved Bob. Yes, Bob is a cat. Bob must have been a very good kitty. 

A bill? From Greater Western Water?! Not with their new billing system, it must be a scam.

In reply to: this post

Based on a few keywords, the English speaking staff member is now explaining to their colleague why the middle aged guy is hanging around.

I didn’t get to spend as much time at the WordCamp Europe after party as I’d have liked because I needed to catch a 6:45am train to Wawsaw.

It’s my own fault for not booking a train ticket in time. I even asked someone for advice and then forgot to take it. Why are men, etc, etc?!

I’m now overstaying my welcome at a random cafe to avoid getting to the airport hours and hours in advance. (I asked and the cafe staff are actually quite welcoming but I feel like I’m taking the piss.)

Krakow has put on a glorious fog for this morning. It was so lovely to walk along the river.

Why do people?! Men who insist on standing up to pee while on an airplane edition.

I’m always surprised how few people realise most of the jokes in the Book of Mormon (musical, not the religious text) punch down. As a huge musical theatre queen, I hated it.

New suitcase means new stickers to easily identify suitcase when it’s on the baggage carousel.

I’m not really in to stickers so this is the only place I use them. Because I work in tech, I am spoilt for choice.

Dear brands, just because I am attending the same conference as your staff does not mean I have expressed an interest in your goods and/or services. I will mark your unsolicited email as spam.

I’m confused. I saw someone cleaning an escalator at Footscray station today but neither the Werribee or Sunbury lines were running replacement buses. You’ve changed, PTV, you’ve changed.

Apparently the mother Maribyrnong River swan was put down by the Zoo yesterday after getting badly injured by some discarded fishing gear.

People are the absolute worst.

Two of the three cygnets have disappeared in recent weeks, I’d assumed it was because they’d matured and moved on as adults. Now I’m trying to find out for sure.

In reply to: this post

With regard to weed, the NYPD have taken turning a blind eye to truly remarkable levels.

Peacefully walking while black on the other hand…

Olivia Rodrigo is incorrect. Weed, particularly really fucking strong weed, smells like the greatest city in the world (New York).

In reply to: this post

Also… I’m not sure you have the moral high-ground complaining about a copyright strike for a video you’ve entirely ripped off from another channel.

YouTube does an awful job when it comes to fair use, sure, but the complaints I’m seeing aren’t about a fair use clip.

So I actually think Paramount deciding not to issue copyright take down notices for bootleg copies Colbert’s Only In Monroe appearance is a dumb decision.

The official video is a collaboration between Colbert (the Individual), the Late Show and Monroe Community Media. I reckon the latter could do with as many people seeing their channel as possible.

Ugh, Google Slides is leaving a widow because it can’t handle non-breaking spaces
properly

🤯

I’m trying to work out if any AI bots have been crawling my site. I find it remarkable that thirty years of responsible crawling has been discarded by AI companies.

As Dries Buytaert found, not even following their recommendations help, it doubles the number of pages they crawl.