h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

The good @drfootleg has been busy, creating a "hardware abstraction framework" to run MicroPython games on any hardware! His first task? Porting Asteroids to the Tufty 2350! https://blog.pimoroni.com/dr-footleg-saves-the-galaxy-creates-tufty-2350-asteroids-game/

I've been making a linguistics puzzle game where you decipher a language (which happens to be German) using shared etymology, shared cultural knowledge and pattern matching.

It's called German Is A̶w̶f̶u̶l̶ Easy and the first five levels are up! No German knowledge necessary, and feedback is very welcome.

https://michellefullwood.com/languages/german/is-easy/

#etymology #linguistics #puzzles #LearnGerman

On the way home I introduced two women on the overground to birdnet - "is that like shazam for birds?!?!" so overall a good night out

I ❤️ Debian: https://nerds.xyz/2026/05/debian-13-5-linux-security-update/

#debian #linux

🆕 blog! “GDS weighs in on the NHS's decision to retreat from Open Source”

Within the UK's Civil Service you occasionally hear the expression "being invited to a meeting without biscuits". It implies a rather frosty discussion without any of the polite niceties of a normal meeting. In general though, even when people have severe …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/gds-weighs-in-on-the-nhss-decision-to-retreat-from-open-source/
⸻
#AI #gds #government #nhs #nhsx #OpenSource

My Suica has been vandalised!

It transpires this has a leuco rewritable coating, so special products (like this 1 day season) are literally lasered onto the front (including a map!) and overwritten/removed once used.

Extremely extra but very cool. I've never seen one of these in the wild before.

https://www.ricoh.com/technology/tech/062_laserrewritable

TODAY — Tickets to attend the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony are now on sale at https://eventfrog.ch/ignobel2026 —— The 36th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will take place in Zurich, Switzerland, in early September

Apple and Google are gradually expanding their use of hardware-based attestation. They're convincing a growing number of services to adopt it. Google's Play Integrity API and Apple's App Attest API are very similar. Apple brought it to the web via Privacy Pass, which Google intends on doing too.

“You opened this page. It already knows the following.”

https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken

Had a nose around the 50kW community hydro plant in Reading

They have some good data on the website https://readinghydro.org/data/

The official map was useful, but a bit squashed; I wanted to see the 2-councillor results directly, and I wanted an actual map underneath I could look around, and so I have knocked up https://dracos.co.uk/wrote/2026-birmingham-elections/

Just published on FOSS Force: Can ‘Smart Window’ Revive Interest in Firefox? https://fossforce.com/2026/05/can-smart-window-revive-interest-in-firefox/

Extremely happy to see that those irritating gaps in Hansard have finally been filled. They have plagued my research for an awful long time.

https://commonshansard.blog.parliament.uk/2026/05/01/historical-hansard-bridging-the-gaps/

🆕 blog! “NHS Goes To War Against Open Source”

The NHS is preparing to close nearly all of its Open Source repositories.

Throughout my time working for the UK Government - in GDS, NHSX, i.AI, and others - I championed Open Source. I spoke to dozens of departments about it, wrote guidance still in use today, and briefed Ministers on why it was so…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/
⸻
#government #nhs #OpenSource #politics

This AI chatbot is not aware of anything that occurred after 1931. Fascinating to ask it questions about future history.
https://talkie-lm.com/chat

"The World’s Longest-Running Experiment Is Still Teaching Us Physics" https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/resources/science-experiments/the-worlds-longest-running-experiment-is-still-teaching-us-physics/

It's live! New single on Bandcamp
https://frontalot.bandcamp.com/track/common-loot-feat-mcgwire

With playable music video RPG:
https://frontalot.com/loot

Really? Really? Really? The word “really”, expressed forcefully, was the crux of a long-running comedy routine more than a decade ago, on the American TV program Saturday Night Live. A recent study takes a really good look at the equivalent word in the mandarin Chinese language. https://improbable.com/2026/04/28/really-really-really/

Here are the names of some English parish councils with scheduled elections this May.

Gunthwaite and Ingbirchworth
Peakirk
Whittle-le-Woods
Horton-cum-Studley
Duns Tew
Cliviger
Shenington with Alkerton
Shipton-on-Cherwell and Thrupp
Fingringhoe
Great & Little Wigborough
Messing-cum-Inworth
Ducklington
Folksworth and Washingley
The Stukeleys
Stow Longa
Shudy Camps
Pidley-cum-Fenton
Billinge Chapel End
Shipton under Wychwood
Yelling
Loggerheads
Thriplow