2026-03-16 21:47:00
Back in 2024 I went through the process of losing weight, and was fairly successful. I went from ~111kg (244lbs) to ~103kg (226lbs). My target was 100kg (220lbs), so I got very close.
But then, in August 2024, I was promoted in work, ended up working way more hours, and my health suffered. I ended up burned out and ultimately I stepped down a few months ago. Which was honestly the right thing to do.
Anyway, for the year or so that I was in that role, my weight slowly crept back up and as of this morning, I'm back at 110.6kg (243lbs). So as of today I'm back on the wagon and trying hard to eradicate my chubbiness.
I found last time that writing about it really helped to motivate me, not to mention hold me to account. It's easy to eat that chocolate bar if no-one knows I'm going to gain an extra half kilo, but if I'm writing about it publicly, I'm less likely to do so. I dunno, my brain is weird. Anyway, expect monthly updates, just like before.
So we start again today and my hope is that I'll be down to my target weight by my birthday, which is in late August.
Wish me luck!
2026-03-13 18:03:00
I saw this while perusing my RSS feeds last night, and thought it was interesting. In all honesty, I've completely moved away from WordPress since all the drama a while ago.
But this is quite cool - My WordPress is basically a version of WordPress that runs entirely in your browser. You visit my.wordpress.net it downloads some files to your machine, and you have WordPress - no install, no sign up. Just a private WordPress instance in your browser that only you can visit.
Obviously if you reset your browser, or switch to another browser, you will lose your instance, but there are backup/restore options available.
I think it might be good as a private journal or something, but I'm sure other people will find some interesting use cases for it. Either way, pretty cool.
2026-03-10 19:50:00
I've just released v1.8.0 of Pure Blog, which was the final big feature I wanted to add1. At this point, Pure Blog does all the things I would want a useful CMS to do, such as:
The result is a tool that works exactly how I want it to work. It's very simple to customise through the admin GUI, but there are also lots of advanced options available to more tech-savvy folk.
Someone reached out to me recently and told me that their non-technical grandfather is running Pure Blog with no issues. Equally, I've had developers reach out to say that they're enjoying the flexibility of Pure Blog too. This is exactly why I created Pure Blog - to create a tool that can be used by anyone.
My original plan was to just make a simple blogging platform, but I've ended up creating a performant platform that can be used for all kinds of sites, not just a blog.
At this point I'm considering Pure Blog to be feature complete*. But there is an asterisk there, because you never know what the future holds. Right now it supports everything I want it to support, but my needs may change in the future. If they do, I'll develop more features.
In the meantime I'm going to enjoy what I've built by continuing to produce content in this lovely little CMS (even if I do say so myself). I know there's a few people using Pure Blog our there, so I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am.
If you want to try Pure Blog yourself, you can download the source code from here, and this post should get you up and running in just a few minutes.
2026-03-07 17:17:00
All good things must come to an end, and today is that day for one of my projects, the 512kb Club.
I started the 512kb Club back in November 2020, so it's been around 5.5 years. It's become a drain and I'm ready to move on. As of today I won't be accepting any new submissions to the project. At the time of writing this, there are 25 PRs open for new submissions, I'll work through them, then will disable the ability to submit pull requests.
Over the years there have been nearly 2,000 pull requests, and there are currently around 950 sites listed on the 512kb Club. Pretty cool, but it's a lot of work to manage - there's reviewing new submissions (which is a steady stream of pull requests), cleaning up old sites, updating sites, etc. It's more than I have time to do.
I'm also trying to focus my time on other projects, like Pure Commons.
It's sad to see this kind of project fall by the wayside, but life moves on. Having said that, if you think you want to take over 512kb Club, let's have a chat, there are some pre-requisites though:
I'm probably going to get a lot of emails with offers to help (which is fantastic), but if we've never interacted before, I won't be moving forward with your kind offer.
After reading the above, if we know each other, and you're still interested, use the email button below and we can have a chat about you potentially taking over. By taking over, I will expect you to:
512kb.club domain, so you will be financially responsible for renewals.If you're just looking to take over and use it as a means to slap ads on it, and live off the land, I'd rather it go to landfill, and will just take the site down. That's why I only want someone I know and trust to take it over.
I think I've made my point now. 🙃
If there's no-one prepared to take over, I plan to do one final export of the source from Jekyll, then upload that to my web server, where it will live until I decide to no longer renew the domain.
I'll also update the site with a message stating that the project has been sunset and there will be no more submissions.
If you don't wanna see that happen, please get in touch.
Brad Taunt reached out, who, if you don't know, is the OG in all this "skinny sites" thing as I actually got the idea for 512kb Club from his 1MB Club.
Anyway, he's agreed to take over the 512kb Club, and I can't think of a better person to take it over. The domain transfer is happening as we speak, so Brad should be at the helm shortly.
2026-03-06 17:04:00
I was recently listening to an episode of The Rest Is Science, specifically the episode The Evolution Of The Butthole. As always, Hannah and Michael put on a great show and I came away thinking about its contents.
In it, they asked how many holes does a straw have? And my default response was something like:
Why they have 2 holes, silly! One at each end.
You probably don't need it, dear reader, but here's a handy-dandy diagram of what I'm talking about...2 holes, right?
Then Michael asked "okay, how many holes does a doughnut have?"
Bah! More simple questions! A doughnut obviously has 1 hole, right? RIGHT?!
Here's another diagram (look, I know you're a clever person, and you don't need a diagram of a bloody straw, or a doughnut, but we're going with it, okay).
We're all on the same page here, right folks? A straw clearly has 2 holes, and a doughnut obviously has 1.
This is where it gets interesting. Michael now flips script, and quite frankly, blows my fucking mind. He said:
But isn't a straw just an elongated doughnut?
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
A straw is just an elongated doughnut (albeit not as tasty). So does a straw have 1 hole? Does a doughnut have 2 holes? I don't know. I'm questioning my life decisions at this point. It's all too hard.
Can any of you tell me how many holes a straw (or a doughnut) has?
2026-03-05 17:34:00
Author: Dennis E. Taylor
My rating: 👍🏻👍🏻 (okay)
Physicist Philip Moray is having a good day. He’s chipping away at his big work project. The lunch in the cafeteria is at least edible. And he’s looking forward to his end-of-the-day drink and a soak in the hot tub.
Then, a strange device turns up in his office. A piece of technology he has never seen before–and shouldn’t even exist.
Suddenly, corpses start turning up, eco-activists go on the attack, random people suffer bizarre symptoms. And every time the authorities get a lead, it traces right back to Philip and his colleague, Celia Hunt.
Then, a mysterious caller contacts Philip–and, suddenly, staying out of jail is the very least of his problems.
Apparently, that hot tub’s going to have to wait.
I'm a big fan of Taylor's work but Flybot didn't really hit the mark for me as much as other books from Taylor have. I felt like the story lost its way in the middle; it came together okay in the end, where there was a interesting (but predictable) twist.
Not the best book I've ever read.