Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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YouTube and Podcasts
Introduction Earlier this week, Google announced that their Google Podcasts app will be discontinued in 2024. They are instead pointing listeners to YouTube Music: “Looking forward to 2024, we’ll be increasing our investment in the podcast experience on YouTube Music — making it a better overall destination for fans and podcasters alike.” To facilitate this…
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Keychron K2
Like many people, I’ve been fascinated with the emergence/re-emergence of mechanical keyboards over the last few years. YouTube is full of videos of them, and there are endless comparisons of what different switches sound like. There’s also a whole industry of people building their own keyboards. The trouble is that it all seems so complicated.…
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Spitfire and Hurricane
On Sunday I went for a stupidly long bike ride and towards the end of my ride, just to the southeast of Bedford, while I was stopped, gulping down another gel to power me to the ride’s end, I heard old engine noises in the air. Over to the east I could see planes flying…
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Getting Your Podcast Promo Code Right
A short PSA about podcast promo codes. There’s a certain advertiser on podcasts right now who has a podcast promo code in the copy, which is absolutely fine. But they specify in the copy that the promo code listeners should use for the discount must be, “All lower case.” Really!? Is there really any kind…
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RSS Headline Display with Raspberry Pi Zero and Pimoroni Inky wHAT E-ink Display
Back in 2019 I was quite pleased when I built an e-ink display which would display the latest news headlines from a handful of news providers. My solution utilised those outlets’ Twitter feeds. But now it’s mid-2023 and Twitter in its old guise is no more. More importantly with respect to that previous project, it…
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Premier League UK TV Rights
There’s a good piece in the FT from earlier this week (£) that examines the forthcoming kick-off the next set of UK Premier League TV rights. The current set of rights agreements expire at the end of the 2024/5 season, and with the 2023/4 season just getting underway, it means that the time is right…
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Site Refresh
It has been an awfully long time since I gave this site a thorough refresh, and now it has one. This site has been around in one form or another since 2002, beginning on the Movable Type platform. Sometime around 2013, I finally migrated it over to WordPress, always wanting to maintain my full history…
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
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Prom Mom by Laura Lippman
Laura Lippman writes some deliciously noir-ish tales, and her books always have something about them. Prom Mom is the name that the tabloid press gave to Amber when she unexpectedly gave birth on the night of her school prom back in 1997. The book opens with Amber being confused as she returns to a hotel…
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The Guest/Sweet Little Lies
The Guest by Emma Cline Emma Cline’s previous novel, The Girls, was a massive hit although I never read it. But I was interested enough based on reviews to pick up The Guest which is an archetypal summer read (assuming we ever get a summer here in the UK). Alex is in a spot of…
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RIP Tweetdeck
There are books and TV series to be written about how Elon Musk has reduced a moderately successful social media network, overpaid massively, and then destroyed it in months. And I’m not going to write that here. But I have long been a Twitter user, and mostly enjoyed using the platform. Key to that usage…
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RAJAR Q2 2023
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product, contact Deryck Pritchard via…
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The Devil Stone/Case Sensitive
A pair of recent crime books featuring female detectives. The Devil Stone by Caro Ramsey When an entire family are found dead in a seemingly ritualistic fashion in a small town in the Scottish Highlands, DCI Christine Caplan is asked to help out with the investigation. It’s not helping matters that the policeman in charge…
Hadrian’s Wall
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