No quite the same murderfest from Sweetpea 1, but still enjoyably angry at the world.| remysharp.com
It's not an intuitive process and requires a few speciality commands to work, so it made sense that I write up the process so I can duck myself later on.| remy sharp's b:log
Honestly not sure what I thought of the book… I'm unsure how I got this on my to-read list. I think I was looking for funny books from the last few years. I didn't laugh once reading this book though. It was a sweet story, set in the 80s, but I'm not sure where the arc was. The story is told from the perspective of Lizzie, an 18 year old young woman who moves out of home to work as an assistant to a dentist. The dentist himself is fairly sexist and xenophobic. The mother (of the protagonist...| remy sharp's b:log
I've been immersing myself in the AI news for the last few months, trying to get understanding of the landscape, what and why there's excitement, whether the e…| remysharp.com
Funny, unwavering and dark. Rhiannon, Sweetpea, is according to BuzzFeed, a serial killer - and probably a psychopath. For the first half of the book I just read it as she's a bit crazy and has decided to act on her impulses. Except as I carried on reading, I realised that what she was doing was listing the things that piss her off all the time and just landed at the inevitable conclusion that the only way to get rid of these things is to get rid of these things. Not unlike a lot of us except...| remy sharp's b:log
An easy read, good for the holiday. I chomped this down in a matter of days (though it helped being by the pool to spend more time reading). I've read a number of Matt Haig's books and find I prefer his older material over the newer books, and this book fitted nicely into that category. Without examining the story too carefully (because I think the balance of humour and darkness, in retrospect, is a little off balance and the wheels sort of come off!) - it was a fun read. Definitely reading t...| remy sharp's b:log
A book of letters…kinda made me want to write letters… I picked this up based on "funny books" though I'm really not sure how I landed on this book. I know, sort of, Spike Milligan's work, but only from TV. I didn't know he was an author, particularly from funny war stories so I missing considerable context. Arguably I'm not sure why I read this book. The back cover quotes appeared almost immediately at the start of the book and it was pretty clear that this read like a bottom-of-the-barr...| remy sharp's b:log
300 pages but wow it felt 4 times longer...| remysharp.com
There's no denying that the web industry, as with many others, has AI and LLMs as a ubiquitous presence. There's all kinds of different uses for LLMs, and come…| remysharp.com
About [code] and all that jazz| remysharp.com
After jailbreaking my Kindle and seeing how simple it was and how all existing functionality was retained, I spotted that there was a My Clippings.txt file on the Kindle when mounted (I'm sure it's always there, I just hadn't mounted before). This prompted me to get all my clippings (or as I think of them highlights) onto my blog since I already have all my books.| remy sharp's b:log
Maybe you've read this book, and you feel a sense of despair.| remysharp.com
…by just a little. Our family bathroom has a cabinet with an IR sensor that turns on LEDs in the side of the cabinet. The IR sensor is "wave your hand under the cabinet" and the lights go on or off. The littlest uses this light (instead of the overhead which is connected to the extractor fan - i.e. loud) as a night light. Since it's usually left on at night, I wanted to give the LEDs some smarts so when I go to bed, it automatically turns off with my blanket "turn all the lights out" home a...| remy sharp's b:log
Wanted to like it more, the gimmicks frustrated me. I've read every DI Fawley book and I've always enjoyed them. I'm starting to think of these books as a bit of guilty pleasure. However, I'm limited to reading on the Kindle which means the medium which I read is rather specific. Hunter will (as in: has also done in the past books) sandwich in content from different sources to give the story a bit more reach out into the world. I remember the earlier books would have tweets (and I think reddi...| remy sharp's b:log
It certainly wasn't today. It was some time ago, but I wanted to mark this in my blog as a reminder that once, long ago, piracy was, well, stealing. That's all changed now.| remy sharp's b:log
This post is for my developers out there, web and otherwise. We have super powers. We can make something functional from practically nothing. And you know what they say about great power… So this is short and sweet: know where you draw the line and stick to your god damn guns.| remy sharp's b:log
Facinating for when it was written, but felt like it was sort of missing a story. I'm definitely reading these older classics so that I acquaint myself with what I've assumed all my peers read when they were younger, so this eventually made its way into my reading list. It's an incredible story given when it was written, late 1800s, and I can imagine it blowing minds at the time when it was read. The technicality of the book is interesting too, how there's a story inside of the story whereby ...| remy sharp's b:log
For a small home project, my son suggested adding some under lights to a plant stand we recently added to our kitchen. I figured we could do this with a cheap LED strip and it could connect to the "house" using Zigbee and Home Assistant. All was well until I realised the plug socket nearest the plants already had it's USB port in use and only the USB-C port was available. No worries, I'll just snip the USB plug and swap in a USB-C plug. Or so I thought.| remy sharp's b:log
Google's AI offering came along to paid accounts without permission or request. What made it worse is that it couldn't be turned off, which… I don't even have words. It was via Jan on Mastodon that I'd seen it wasn't possible to disable. But Jan having more persistance than me actually managed to find a (hidden) solution (short version, keep asking support). Bless his magnificence for getting this. I'm now Gemini-free, particularly in Gmail which was the place it was annoying me the most. S...| remy sharp's b:log
I remember seeing something very similar doing the rounds on that site we used to use called "Twitter", possibly back in 2007. Anyway, fast forward a full grown adult and it's making the rounds, except this time instead of looking dough eyed from afar, that lovely man Stuart tagged me (though arguably Jeremy also tagged everyone in his post too). So here's my hat in the ring.| remy sharp's b:log
There's a number of ways to get real-time electricity readings into Home Assistant. I'm currently using a Puck.js to read the blinking light on my meter but our gas meter is one of the new ultrasonic ones (in particular there's no readings or lights without physically interacting with it), so there was no obvious means to getting this data. Most UK based energy companies don't have public methods to get your data out. I know Octopus does have APIs (which isn't our supplier), and there's a spe...| remy sharp's b:log
Wreaks of "cosy crime" - and that's good. There's a reason that Richard Osman's series has been a runaway success for many people (or at least I can believe it) - the story is well written, the characters are extremely well drawn and the pages are a pleasure to digest. I keep thinking I'm further along in the series than I actually am because the characters have quickly become a staple of crime fiction in my head. Although I did find I was a little suprised at the some of the more grusome pas...| remy sharp's b:log
My son, aged 13, was given this question for his homework recently. As someone (me!) having worked on the web professionally since 1999, I felt a connection to this particular bit of homework. Obviously we clashed (homework sucks, both for kids, parents and teachers) - but I thought it would be a good exercise for me to try to answer. I will add that I don't consider myself the authority on this answer, but I have been attending design, user experience and developer conferences for over 15 ye...| remy sharp's b:log
Could not put the damn book down! Very easy book to read, and annoyingly difficult to stop reading late at night. The story is told from Evelyn's perspective, a brilliant scientist working in the field of human cloning. There's a lot that goes on in the book, both from the story moving forward and driven by plot twists but also from Evelyn's own inner monologue. The clone aspect of the story presents a, I think, believable take on the sci-fi concept (specifically the purpose clones would serv...| remy sharp's b:log
As part of the ZX Spectrum community I wrote a tool that can download content over HTTP from a ZX Spectrum Next, but one prerequisite is that the content-length header is present (so it operate properly). A friend from the community runs a server and built a (really nice) GUI tool on top the .http command where users can find and download software for their Spectrum. However, for reasons unknown, it wasn't working and content-length just seemed to be missing. This fix isn't Speccy specific, i...| remy sharp's b:log
This year zipped past for me, mostly because I had my eye on an event in November for most of the year, but here we are: the close of '24 and on the doorstep of '25. In this post I'll try to remind my future self of what I did, but unlike previous years, there's a lot less public work (side projects), a lot less blogging content…and generally, I think, a lot less. So, with that bulge of joy, let's get on with it.| remy sharp's b:log
Cats…sentient cats. A fun, good length book that doesn't take itself too seriously (which, sentient cats is probably the first clue). On reflection (and since the blurb already gives this away), the "hyperintelligent talking spy cats" are a core mechanic of the story, I do now wonder why they hadn't turned out to be the super villains? I'm pretty sure the first thing smart cats would do is ship humans off to a petting zoo as soon as they had the kind of skills the cats in this book does… ...| remy sharp's b:log
Our 16th year, 17th outing (it's complicated with doubles for 3 years and skipping the pandemic years…) completed two weeks ago, and it is high time I post my thoughts. There are two parts this post breaks into: the day itself and the amazing talks, and the lead up and its future.| remy sharp's b:log
Brief, sadly, on all aspects. I knew this was a short read, and having come out of Frank Herbert's Dune at almost 900 pages, a nice little chomp down on a Backman book was exactly what I wanted. Except, frustratingly, I ended up feeling a little cheapened by this book. I've loved Backman's other books (that I've read) and it's the dry humour whilst seeing there's caring a love under every grumpy character that makes their books so appealing to me. This short story definitely tries to include ...| remy sharp's b:log
Incredible world building, but I definitely felt the story lost me multiple times. I've watched Dune 1 and 2 before having read this book, so I had a distinct advantage that Denis Villeneuve's version was already in my head and gave me an (effective) leg up on the visualisation of the world that Herbert was building. Genunienly I found the world building and detail amazing, and even moreso the idea that this book was written in 1965 and that so many people had already fell in love with the bo...| remy sharp's b:log
I find this very cool that the Gov.uk / GDS have released their platform tooling (in particular forms) to the public sector.I can imagine it's a jump to go from project in the public sector to being able to implement all the nuts and bolts it requires, and this platform looks to cut right through the hard work. Specifically:> You can create accessible, low cost online services without needing coding skills or technical knowledge. I love this. Progressive enhancement. Core functionality (forms...| remy sharp's b:log
There's now an official definition of "open source AI", which companies like Facebook have been using (prior to this definition) to effectively attempt to convince us (Devs) that the models are in keeping with the values of Open Source.When the reality for many of these companies and their models is that the content driving the models were stolen (taken without permission, regardless of whether that content is publicly available - like training on photos of artwork in a museum, or music on th...| remy sharp's b:log
I can't stop thinking about this quote from Ted Chiang (originally snipped by Simon Willison). Art is notoriously hard to define, and so are the differences between good art and bad art. But let me offer a generalization: art is something that results from making a lot of choices. […] to oversimplify, we can imagine that a ten-thousand-word short story requires something on the order of ten thousand choices. When you give a generative-A.I. program a prompt, you are making very few choices; ...| remy sharp's b:log
I don't like waking up on this particular day. I almost want to just skip the day and not face it. I don't like it because I know there's a version of me that's waking up to this particular morning in 2010 still innocent and full of hope and excitement that our first child is on their way. That version of me doesn't know that this would be the last day. That in the hours that lead into the night, that Tia, our first, would die during those long hours of labour. This day, the 30th, is the mome...| remy sharp's b:log
A long but excellent article or even essay on AI, it's appeal to the blindness community, prompt injection, hacking and a wealth of links and well thought out discussion. Like Robert I only really learnt the real meaning of "luddite" this year, specifically because of AI, and he goes on to discuss this more, but: Luddites understand tech better than you and or I do because you have to know something on an intimate level to stage a coordinated push back against the particular tech. I feel like...| remy sharp's b:log
And no, I didn't just pop a bow tie on my doorbell! I recently installed Home Assistant on a spare Raspberry Pi I had laying around, and though our house isn't very smart-enabled, I thought it wouldn't be too hard to improve our cheap doorbell to notify through our Google home speakers (or even phone).| remy sharp's b:log
Really interesting ideas sandwiched in a bit of a weird trip. I'm sure there's an English studies thesis for this book, but I'm utterly unqualified. This book was, kind of all over the shop. I'm very familiar with Blade Runner (both director's cut and OG) and I'd known ahead of time that the book it was based on was not the same. There's actually a fairly coherent string of plot that's similar to the ideas of the movie: identity and self awareness. The middle section of the book is actually p...| remy sharp's b:log
The SENDUNE email designer focuses on simplicity and ease of use. It is light-weight. It does pure HTML - no intermediate code wranglers like mjml. There is no lock-in of any kind. Save HTML output as a template and use with ANY email service provider.I can't get over how any simple design is still so stupidly hard in 2024. Hoping this is a simpler tool (without having to fork over the farm!) Source: designer.sendune.com| remy sharp's b:log
In a recent (personal) audit of accessibility and continued struggle to get my head around Voice Over (for macos), I remembered that the spoken sound of "ffconf" (as I'll usually display it) is "ef-conf" all sounded out in two syllables (it's hard to explain). So I wanted to revisit if it was possible to have a screen reader pronounce it the way I wanted and keep the visual style (as it's a brand as lowercase).| remy sharp's b:log
Over the last year+ I've seen AI quickly increase its dominance in the social feeds I follow. I know I'm in an echo chamber, but it feels like working on the web, you/we must understand how AI works and have some kind of integration in our products. It feels like it's being bulldozed by private companies clambering over each other to gain control of user intimacy, whilst we live in a world that still hasn't properly integrated or understood the social and mental effects of social media (TL;DR...| remy sharp's b:log
A romance story, some clever writing, slightly predictable, not entirely my bag. I think, because I only started reading in the last decade, that I've not read a "proper" romance novel before. I can't say that I'm won over by the genre through, but that's my failing and not the book's. The story does a decent job of not following usual tropes and traps of stereotype literature, and somehow this is the third fiction book this year I've read that's based in the publishing world (unrelated tidbit).| remy sharp's b:log
In January this year I was upgraded from guy who has tinnitus and bad hearing, to upgraded ears (via hearing aids) and, for a brief time, no tinnitus.| remy sharp's b:log
Aside from the cringe inducing stack I've got layered, with client projects you (actually, me) work with the hand you've been dealt. I needed to add tests to this particular project (which will eventually be open source) and the typical route would have been Jest, but that failed hard. So here's what I did to get tests working.| remy sharp's b:log
Favourite book of my year: wonderful. I loved the characters. I've loved the story telling. I loved the passion around work. I loved the love between the characters. Crossing multiple decades but the crux takes place during the height of 1990s PC gaming. i.e. shortly after Doom - and our characters are games makers. Though the weaving part is their company that makes games, I wouldn't call this a "gamer's book". I'm certainly not a gamer by their measure, but the story put into their game des...| remy sharp's b:log
I do love my Pebble mostly because it still uses tactile buttons and it's a slim watch. Though recently I saw that Casio offered a design in a bright orange colour (and then found a multitude of colours available) and really wanted to brighten up my style. Obviously, quickly it got out of hand!| remy sharp's b:log
Lovely old time detective story. I do love an old book. Written in 1958, post war in Japan, mostly a story about...sort of...trains. I knew Japan was big on trains (similarly to the UK, it's our mode of transport), but reading about how they would plan their journey often sleeping overnight, upright, on the train to get from one place to another. The crime is linked to trains and journeys and planning. It's a nice, short enough, straightforward detective story that cross from one generation o...| remy sharp's b:log
Ana Tudor, as always, shows excellent methods to create (what I'd call) retro print effects to images using CSS.This is something I've typically turned to PhotoShop to (struggle) with, but Ana shows how this can be done with CSS.In Ana's CodePens, SCSS is used, but even the compiled CSS is relatively easy to follow. Source: front-end.social| remy sharp's b:log
The heart break of time travel. I enjoyed this book. The time travel core mechanic is…okay. It's not perfect/bullet proof, but it works to create the impossible problem. The main character is, a little all over the place. It's not enough to be distracting, but often I found myself thinking "this guy isn't helping himself" as he'd continuously make the same mistakes. Maybe this could have been edited out. Without giving too much away, the main character gets stuck out of time for several dec...| remy sharp's b:log
Absolutely essential reading and viewing on how to produce captions with valuable real world examples of how to completely mess it up (and a lot of social posted videos do the bad mess version). As someone who's hard of hearing and uses captions on all viewing media that I can, I already feel this. Excellent post by Meryl Evans. Source: meryl.net| remy sharp's b:log
A little predictable.| remysharp.com
For me: a must read.| remysharp.com
Brilliantly written, almost car-crash like reading.| remysharp.com
A heartwarming story where not everything needs to be okay.| remysharp.com
This question has been asked before and discussed before and I've always looked on from the sidelines, even though, as a conference organiser, I do in fact hav…| remysharp.com
