Category: fuckwittery

  • Adjusting the magnetic resistance on an Echelon EX-3

    I recently acquired a (very second hand) EX-3 to use with Peloton. It’s a solid, sturdy spin bike – but the resistance felt off; it was far too soft compared to what I expected based on the Watts / Peloton conversion charts available. One solution is to adjust the resistance magnets – but I couldn’t…

  • So long, and thanks for all the kittens

    So long, and thanks for all the kittens

    UPDATE FEB 2024 – given a certain ex-President’s regrettable failure to Just Fuck Off, MAKA is back in the Chrome Store again.

  • Make America Kittens Again

    It’s been a weird week. Back in February, someone* asked if I could do a Trump version of my UKIP blocking plugin. About five small code changes later, I had one in the Chrome store: By request: MAKE AMERICA KITTENS AGAIN: https://t.co/Gg7mg3KGKL pic.twitter.com/wf5swmbtzT — Tom Royal (@tomroyal) February 27, 2016 Since then it’s been ticking…

  • Relationship of applicant to intended passport holder – what if it’s me?

    Relationship of applicant to intended passport holder – what if it’s me?

    The new online service for renewing a UK passport is pretty simple – until you get to the form above. If you’re filling in the form for yourself, there’s no guidance on what to do with the “Relationship of applicant to intended passport holder” section – should you leave it blank, or write in “self”, or…

  • What the Robot Reporter learned from 10,000 news tweets

    In January 2015 I put together a simple twitterbot called Robot Reporter. The idea was to see if I could keep track of breaking news by monitoring Twitter for the journalists who use it as a way to find images of newsworthy events. It works a little like this. Something happens, and a user photographs it: Fire…

  • The NewZealand Arcade Machine Story

    The NewZealand Arcade Machine Story

    When I was a kid, I used to go for swimming lessons in the local leisure centre. In the lobby there were three machines: one that vended miscellaneous swimming items (cheap goggles, earplugs, etc), one that sold various less-than-healthy snacks, and one arcade game machine playing a game called The NewZealand Story. I never played…

  • The best iOS game you’re not playing: 太鼓の達人

    If you’ve ever been in a Japanese video game arcade, there’s one machine you can’t miss: Taiko no Tatsujin (太鼓の達人), AKA the one with the two huge drums (photo above by Amy Jane Gustafson). It’s a hugely fun game, not least because it’s so simple: there are only really four things you need to learn:…

  • The Robot Reporter

    Hello. If you’re visiting this post, you’ve probably spotted @theroboreporter on Twitter. Or maybe it retweeted you, and you’ve asked why, or asked it to delete a tweet. In any case, here’s what you need to know: @theroboreporter isn’t a person, it’s software. Here’s what it does: 1) Journalists all around the world scour Twitter…

  • The Tour de France Peloton hits London

    The Tour de France Peloton, in a GIF (might take a while to load). Snapped it in one burst on my iPhone as they passed Poplar.