Software Developer for the University of Hull specialising in critical systems for the emergency services. Cyclist, runner, blogger and motorsport enthusiast.
October 21, 2019 6:43 pm
I’ve run into a few people recently who’ve told me that the Y2K problem, aka The Millennium Bug was a hoax. In some ways the issue was, but let’s get one thing straight, the bug was very real and if we hadn’t done a hell of a lot of work to fix it, things would Read more →
September 20, 2019 11:20 am
I hate writing boilerplate. Recently I was writing a test tool where I needed to be able to build messages from a WCF interface. That’s a lot of ViewModels and a lot of views and a lot of tedious typing. That is, of course, unless it’s Friday lunchtime and you happen to have spent the Read more →
August 6, 2019 8:14 pm
It hit me like a train when I realised that one of my toughest battles against racism would be with myself, simply because of the environment I grew up in.My parents were against racism, my schools were against racism. 1/6 — Tom Fosdick 🏴🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@sinibar) August 1, 2019 In fact all the institutions I dealt Read more →
March 19, 2019 8:03 pm
I have to admit I’m struggling with this one. Usually I can find some kind of spin, some kind of humour, some way of making a very boring subject a little easier to read. I think with this one I’m just going to have to put on my anorak and face facts: there’s nothing really Read more →
February 13, 2019 8:46 pm
The question of how much data allowance Primordial Radio uses has been asked a few times. The simple answer is about 30 megabytes per hour, which means 1Gb of data will last you about 33 hours. If you’re interested, the not so simple answer goes as follows. Primordial are cunning, they use a 63KBit AAC Read more →
February 4, 2019 6:57 pm
Tonight’s bed is in a characterless chain hotel just off the M1. Like every business hotel, the bar is stuffed full of regretful corporate peons in cheap suits. It’s a club that’s far too easy to join. At first you’re only away for the odd night, so it doesn’t matter if you have a burger Read more →
January 25, 2019 11:40 am
You may well have seen this meme going around Facebook and other places. As a general rule, unless you can trace information like this back to an actual emergency service or other reputable outlet, you should assume that it’s fake. In this case it’s inaccurate, but it does contain some information that’s true. When you Read more →
November 13, 2018 4:34 pm
In the words of a certain radio station, “Social media can be a force for good, but it can also be a giant pain in the arse.” When I wrote that First Class Post was the most rapid form of communication of which I approved I was only half joking. I recently spent two weeks Read more →
October 1, 2018 10:30 am
Some time about 1995 I noticed that I was writing a lot more concurrent code than the other programmers. It was almost as if someone was deliberately pushing it in my direction… That theme never really changed. I was rather surprised then when a developer made a comment on something I’d written a few years Read more →
September 1, 2018 1:23 pm
Cultural erosion is often cited as an argument against European Integration. A fortnight ago I was in a Belgian roadside café. They had three different types of mayonnaise in pump dispensers and a man sat eating moules marinière with a tiny bottle of rosé. Britain has always been a bit special – and that’s not Read more →