Ross's Micro Blog

If, like me, you’re interested in UK plug-in solar/battery, this is an EXCELLENT resource showing the current status of regulations and products – updated as things change:

https://4billionyearson.org/plug-in-solar-uk

I’m so glad I stopped using WordPress for side projects so long ago. Most of my little tools I build are… well… they’re like this:

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/02/a-manifesto-for-small-static-web-apps/

And they don’t need updating! Like, ever. Probably. Yay!

(The minimal build tools need updates, but nothing user-facing is dangerous)

I’ve had this little text-based game in my open tabs for ages. Finally got to playing some of it yesterday. It’s SO clever and well done…

What Happened to the Crew?

https://bushmonkey.itch.io/what-happened-to-the-crew

I’m on holiday. Well, I’m on unpaid parental leave this week.

I don’t think I’ve done any coding since July 31st.

What is happening to me?!

(And no, I’ve not been getting LLMs to code for me either)

So are we recommending that people with Meta’s perv glasses all use them to record the eclipse?

Not while wearing them. That would be bad. But they are the perfect cameras for this, right? You don’t even need a filter or anything. Just point them at the sun and record.

I know this is a really dumb question but I’m a simple guy and I just don’t know this thing.

To make a social “thread”, do all the replies have to be to the original post? Or do you chain all the replies onto the previous one?

I’ve used apps that do it. But I’ve never understood the mechanism.

Rhys has put a lot of effort into this little game. Give it a try! It’s a really good little arcade shooter thing.

https://toot.wales/@rhyswynne/117073164695743521

My kid excels in her Taekwondo class that she has been doing for 2 years.

This month there’s free training for family members!

So today I caved and did my first class!

2 of my suspicions were confirmed:
1. I get embarrassingly sweaty when training
2. I’m good at learning, but hard to teach!

Hell yeah…

“knowledge and imagination are together the first site of resistance.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/i-hate-what-ai-is-doing-to-the-minds-and-happiness-of-the-young-katherine-rundell-on-the-view-from-the-classroom

Looking at https://inithabits.com – which I’m sure is vibe coded, but I also love this aesthetic (terminal website was my idea YEARS ago!)

And I wonder… is all habit tracker data the same? Should there be some interchangeable format?

I wish I could link yesterday’s Neurodivergent Insights email. This hit me:

"Ever since I was young, my fear was growing old and looking back thinking, "I never fully lived." … I’m slowly learning to de-shame it, to trust that when I'm immersed in writing and creating, *this too is living*.”

Back from a little vacation where we had very limited internet. Was really good. Even the kids survived!!

But OH MY GOODNESS the behaviour of some other kids (and adults, tbh) was atrocious. I try not to be judgy, but there were police on site one night and some kids were taunting them. So bad.

Dear Hyundai,

When the 12v battery on my EV is low, could you give me a helpful message about it rather than triggering the collision avoidance alarm, making the brake pedal make weird noises, and refusing to recognise that my key is in the car?

Thanks SO much.

x

Does anyone I know use a cheap (<£100) graphics tablet? Any recommendations?

Wacom is the brand I know. But the generic Chinese things seem to be good value too.

I think that this was this Computerphile video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-0HRzXk8vlk

https://crikey.social/@ross/117034108905770798

I’m so stuck. I read an article this last… week? Fortnight? About LLM coding agents and how they created so much context. It had lots of numbers about how a 50-token short question adds up all the files and inputs as tokens of input.

Do you know where this is? It’s not in ANY of my digital brain!

I sometimes have a worry: What if I’m wrong about LLMs? What if it’s actually good and I’m missing something and get left out?

And then I see something like this and I feel very justified:
– Generative AI just bad and wrong a lot of the time
– We still have to do The Work. Making this map WAS The Work. If the person made the map by hand they would have learned where the countries are as they did so. The Work – however mundane – is still important.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries

We should probably do something about this. 🤔

https://mastodon.energy/@CLEW/117013236245639511

The book doesn’t seem to have much reference to AI, but Cat’s (@grimalkina) “Brains in jars” model of software teams seems to describe exactly what LLMs might be (are?) good at replacing.

“Interactions, social learning, and shared problem solving are invisible in this model” – and seem to disappear when agentic coding takes over.