I started FolkTuneFinder as a student project back in 2008. I’d done websites for a few years before, but this was the first serious one with any kind of heavy lifting or interesting behaviour. Over the years I added features that allowed people to interact, such as the commenting and FolkTuneFinder blogs, which has been surprisingly popular.

I have always had a very small problem with spam: I received perhaps a small handful of blog posts a month, which was fine to deal with. It wasn’t a problem, and the most time-effective way of dealing with it was to delete the posts when they arose. There has always been a battle with spare time, and various interesting things have happened to me since 2008 meaning that I haven’t quite had as much time as I’d like.

I don’t drive, but being a passenger and a cyclist, I imagine dazzling lights can be something of a problem to drivers.

To combat this, a camera could be mounted in the head-rest of the driver’s seat of a car, so that it was able to see what the driver saw from the same perspective. It could identify where egregious bright lights were coming from.

A liquid crystal matrix could be embedded into the windscreen. An on-board computer could calibrate the camera and the ‘screen’ built into the windscreen. It could then darken in the spots where bright light, to provide a very specialised shield and prevent dazzling.

I strike a match to light my oven or stove, and blow it out within a few seconds. Most of the match is un-burned. Why not dip the match at both ends so that it can be used twice? And you wouldn’t have to get your fingers mucky: it’s not hard to avoid holding it by the end.

I’ve been looking into Redis. I wondered about storing integers as keys and values rather than plain old strings. After asking on Stackoverflow, I did my own experiments.

It looks like it is possible to use any byte string as a key.

For my application’s case it actually didn’t make that much difference storing the strings or the integers. I imagine that the structure in Redis undergoes some kind of alignment anyway, so there may be some pre-wasted bytes anyway. The value is hashed in any case.

There are few events more sought after and exclusive than the annual Balancing of the Squash. This happens in a secret location, late at night, early in November. This ritual has roots in the ancient culture of a secret society known as ’the Box of the Torch'.

Tonight the participants excelled both themselves and in some cases, each other.

It’s a legume.

Today is Day of the Dead. The Hurly-Burly-Bright-And-Early Band was out in force this evening celebrating. Or rather, mourning the passing of the Summer. Exactly six months to the day (give or take) since May Day.

My pipe is at a worrying angle.

After success with a pizza, I’ve decided to try cooking in my wood burning stove. Little steps. Today I tried melting some cheese over some gnocchi.

A good start. If I’m honest, this wasn’t anything more than melting some cheese. Next time I might actually cook something. And that’s pepper not ash in the last photo.

It’s that time of year again. This winter I am working for a company with offices in the middle of a country estate. To get home you have to walk through a copse and over a sheep field.

I enjoy walking in the dark immensely. I have always enjoyed it. I like to the extent that I find flashlights genuinely offensive in the dark (until you’ve dropped something). When I’m out in the dark and quiet I feel like the space that I inhabit expands a little. My own little personal bubble grows and weakens and I feel a bit more connected with everything. I am more aware of noises and movement around me in the half-light of the gloaming.

I’ve seen a number of special computer keyboards. These include, for example, five-finger units that require learning special ‘chords’. The idea of a one-handed keyboard is enticing but I don’t like the sound of having to learn specific combinations. What about re-using existing knowledge?

Anyone who touch-types knows that each letter belongs to a given finger. I wondered what would happen if you restricted the keyboard to just one row (i.e. one button for each finger) whether this would make a functioning concept.

There’s no hiding musicianship. Lock it up, put it in a box, or — crucially — ply it with significant quantities of drink … still it will shine through. There’s something immutable about musicianship that means that a bottle of Pimms and and half a bottle of whiskey later, it still keeps on playing.

It was in circumstances such as these that The Gribbin came together for the first — and last — time. In the heady days of 2006, The Pimms Sessions were recorded in a murky studio in scenic Oxford and (and subsequently presented to the unsuspecting, and arguably undeserving world).